"Don't panic."
Caleb's hand rested on Ekko's shoulder, his lips moving slightly.
"Yeah."
Ekko gave a small nod.
The game they were playing was called Deduction Chess, a game popular in Demacia.
In this game, both sides had to arrange seven different pieces.
They were the sword, the shield, the steed, the crown, the warhammer, the scales, and the banner.
During each player's turn, they could choose from four different actions.
Flip: as the name suggested, this meant flipping a piece over and hiding its face.
Swap: choose two pieces and swap their positions.
Challenge: choose one hidden piece and require the opponent to name its face. If the opponent guessed correctly, they gained one point. If they guessed wrong, you gained one point.
Bluff: this could only be used when there were three or more face-down pieces on the board.
The opponent then had three ways to respond.
First, concede the bluff, allowing the bluffer to gain one point.
Second, the opponent had to correctly guess the patterns on all face-down pieces. If they guessed correctly, they gained three points. If they guessed wrong, the bluffer gained three points.
Third, counter-bluff. At that point, the bluffer could only choose to concede or refuse. If they conceded, the counter-bluffer gained one point.
If they refused to concede, they had to correctly guess all the face-down pieces belonging to the player being bluffed. If they guessed correctly, the bluffer gained three points. If they guessed wrong, the player being bluffed gained three points.
The first player to reach three points won.
Just now, Ekko had been unsure of the exact positions of three pieces.
When he chose to bluff, his opponent counter-bluffed, and Ekko, hoping to gamble on his luck, had lost on the very first piece.
The tall, thin man smiled so widely his mouth could barely close as he took Ekko's iron sword.
The man's satisfied reaction only made Ekko even angrier, and he wanted to finish this round as quickly as possible.
"However, for this round, I have another proposal."
"Spit it out," Ekko said irritably.
"If you want to play, then after we confirm each other's pieces, we turn them over and compete that way."
"And this time, both of us must keep our eyes fixed on each other."
The old man finished speaking at an unhurried pace, and the surrounding crowd immediately erupted.
"What? They can't even look down?"
"Can you even play like that? Do Demacians enjoy torturing themselves that much?"
Although the Undercity had plenty of forms of entertainment, games that required this much memory and strategy were actually extremely rare.
Wouldn't it be better for people to have fun playing dice or cards?
Playing this was basically a workout for the brain.
Ekko also drew in a sharp breath, but his gaze remained firm. "Fine. I'll bet the Hextech Gemstone on me."
"A Hextech Gemstone?"
"Boss is actually willing to take that out? That iron sword really must be something special."
Ekko had played a little trick. The iron sword, the Gemstone, and that stopwatch were the three indispensable elements of the Z-Drive.
Among them, the stopwatch was more of a source of inspiration. The truly most important component was the iron sword, which had higher precision.
That was the crystallization of Ekko's painstaking work, day and night.
Not to mention, with Caleb standing behind him now, Ekko was not afraid of this mysterious guy in front of him.
A satisfied look appeared on the tall, thin man's face as he looked at the indignant Ekko.
However, after learning that he could not look at the board, Ekko still broke into a cold sweat.
This was a test of memory right from the start.
And in the strategic contest that followed, he would need both courage and caution.
Ekko's eyes kept trembling. The iron sword had already been lost. If he lost the Hextech Gemstone too…
The Hextech Gemstone was the truly important object, the crystallization of the twin cities' wisdom.
If the method for making Hextech Gemstones became known to others, perhaps they might also be able to research a way to manufacture them.
Ekko absolutely could not lose.
Although in this round he could only use the corners of his eyes to catch glimpses of the opponent's movements, the opponent naturally could not see his clearly either.
More and more sweat gathered on Ekko's cheeks, but he could no longer afford to wipe it away.
He shut out all the noise around him and began seriously calculating the positions of the pieces on the other side.
Even though the opponent liked swapping positions, with Ekko's mind working at full capacity, the positions of all the pieces were not a problem for him.
What he had to consider next was how to score points.
Should he wait for the opponent to bluff him, or should he bluff first and wait for a counter-bluff?
If the opponent guessed correctly, Ekko would instead be forced into an awkward situation.
In the end, Ekko decided to strike first.
"Challenge."
Ekko's hand rested on the piece at the far right, and his opponent also looked somewhat troubled.
"…"
Silence. A long silence.
The crowd nervously held its breath.
"Crown."
The old man forced his voice out of his mouth with difficulty.
"Wrong!" Ekko said coldly.
"He got it wrong! He got it wrong!"
The surrounding crowd burst into cheers.
It looked like this guy had ended up suffering from his own rules instead.
"I heard this way of playing only shows up in the Dauntless Vanguard."
"That's one of the strongest armies on the entire continent!"
"For our boss, this is just normal."
"As expected of the boss. He actually picked it up the first time playing this way!"
A well-traveled merchant offered his own insight.
The people around him grew excited as well. Ekko's move had undoubtedly tested out the opponent's uncertainty.
"All hat and no cattle."
Toward this old man who had come to Zaun to cause trouble for the leader of the Firelights, the surrounding crowd did not hold back their mockery at all.
However, when it was the old man's turn, he did something that left everyone dumbfounded.
He opened that enormous mouth of his, his long tongue stretching downward, while both his hands moved out to the sides.
"That's cheating! That's definitely cheating!"
The surrounding people grew furious.
Because this time, the swap had actually been done with two hands and a tongue.
Ekko's breathing also became heavier.
The pieces themselves were large enough that an ordinary person could barely pick up two at once.
But if someone grabbed two pieces with one hand, when the other hand made the swap, it could only grab one.
Even if the swap was fast, it was still possible to judge whether the piece had been switched to the left or right based on distance.
But if he did it like this, taking pieces from both sides and the middle at the same time before swapping them…
The chance of guessing correctly instantly became one in three.
Ekko's breathing grew heavier and heavier. He could not help taking deep breaths over and over, constantly forcing himself to calm down.
"Quiet."
Behind Ekko, Caleb spoke in a low voice.
This guy was definitely not Demacian.
Demacia banned magic, but that tongue? Did that look like something a normal human had?
Caleb had basically figured out the other party's identity.
He just did not know whether Ekko could bet correctly on this one-in-three chance.
The three pieces landed on the soft pad on the table without making any unnecessary sound.
From this, one could also see that the other party was already extremely skilled at this game.
Ekko's expression was terribly grim. Even though he knew the other party's memory of his pieces was not clear either, he was the one in a passive position right now.
When it was his turn to act, he could only choose Challenge or Bluff to gain points.
But if he chose Challenge, he could gain at most one point, and with only two points, he would not be able to win the game.
On top of that, the opponent had just confirmed that the piece was not the crown's position, so there was a high chance even a Challenge would fail.
But if Ekko bluffed and the opponent counter-bluffed, then he would only have a one-in-three chance of winning.
If he did nothing, then the next time the opponent used his tongue again, Ekko's chances of winning would only grow slimmer and slimmer.
"I choose to Bluff!"
Ekko would rather make a mistake than do nothing at all.
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