Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

Two gold coins were taken out, and the situation on the table was immediately changed.

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Sitting opposite Andrea, the young man's brain was rapidly turning over.

The onlookers were equally noisy, making a loud clamor. After all, whether the first challenger won or lost, the chips he had bet were doomed to not take away all the prizes, not even close to one-tenth.

Thus, they also wanted to take this opportunity to ponder the solution to the game, hoping to seize this chance to get rich quick, or to show off their abilities in front of everyone.

However, unfortunately, although everyone was deep in thought, mathematics is not something you can understand just by thinking, especially for those who barely have any basics. Under extreme tension or anger, one might be able to do a lot, but definitely not solve a math problem.

"I... I will take one from the first row!"

The voice was trembling, and just at the beginning, the young man had already started to sweat.

The spectators were just watching the excitement, but only he himself knew the kind of pressure that came with gambling all his net worth.

He wanted to move a gold coin with his hand, but his trembling arms couldn't accomplish anything. He had no choice but to speak out his intention.

"Hmm, understood."

Nodding her head, Andrea reached out and took a gold coin from the first row, then calculated in her heart.

'-4-1+2=-3'

"My turn."

Speaking again, when it was her turn, Andrea took three gold coins from the third row, and thus the situation on the table changed again.

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In just two or three moves, the number of gold coins on the table had already significantly diminished, but the increasingly tense young man still couldn't see the outcome, and most of the surrounding spectators couldn't figure it out either, only a few of the obviously well-dressed onlookers, although silent, sighed inwardly.

About this game, they didn't yet understand its intricacies, but as professionals of not a low level, even by using the most basic brute force method, they could see that when the situation was at 3-2-1, the person who went first was already doomed to lose.

Indeed, when the young man once again took two gold coins from the first row, Andrea immediately took away the remaining two from the third row.

At this point, with only one gold coin left in each of the two rows, everyone understood the outcome of the bet.

"No, impossible, you cheated, you schemed against me!"

Trembling, the young man stood up from his chair, took a step back, and then lunged forward. He wanted to snatch back the chips he had placed on the table, but Andrea did not reach out to stop him.

But the next moment, a sharp spear was at the young man's neck—clearly, to pull off such an event in the city, it was impossible not to notify the city guards, as the Acropolis of Athens had recently seen an influx of newcomers, and they had to prevent casualties at places where crowds gathered.

Normally, the guards only maintained order; they didn't care what people did in the city. But the young man's attempt to openly break the covenant made before the Sacred Badge of the Goddess was obviously not acceptable to these order-maintaining guards.

"This was a fair and just game, I had already stated all the rules in advance."

Having successfully completed the first round, Andrea's tense heart also relaxed a lot.
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A surge of confidence welled up inside her, and as she watched the desperate young man put down his money bag and Covenant, staggering backwards under the menacing gaze of the guards' sharp weapons, Andrea's heart didn't rise with any feelings of mercy.

As the Goddess witnessed, she only demanded one-tenth of the wealth, which would not bring too painful a loss to a person. Since it was the other party who tried to deceive the Deity first, it was not surprising that he ended up in such a plight.

Setting aside the wealth left by the young man, Andrea gestured that these would also be included in the bet of the game. As she won more and more rounds, this 'stake' was likely to grow as well.

"Next, who wants to try?"

With a smile, Andrea looked forward to the crowd, having already found fun in it.

And from the crowd, two more people stepped out quickly, both wanting to start the next round.

However, both of these people's bets weren't too large; even if they won, they wouldn't be able to win all the box of Gold Coins, completely leaving a chance for the second person, so they very politely decided the order of play.

To this, Andrea just felt you guys are probably overthinking it. In this game, there's no way you could win.

...

Round after round, soon, Andrea had won several times in succession.

However, later on, each round took longer and longer.

This wasn't intentional procrastination, nor was it because she couldn't calculate fast enough, but simply because the later players all chose enormous amounts of gold coins to pile on the table, even later on, there were quite a few rows with hundreds of coins.

In this situation, the duration of the rounds naturally extended, yet the result was no different.

Andrea triumphed in every encounter, and the more she played, the more exhilarated she became. By her side, the pile of won bets grew higher and higher.

Consequently, this game she proclaimed 'only the truly wise could decipher' spread to more people's ears, attracting even more onlookers.

During this time, it wasn't that no one ever questioned the fairness of the game, but Andrea simply and openly declared that if someone could solve the secret of her victory, that would also be considered winning the bet.