Outworld Liberators-Chapter 198: Use Brains to Gain an Umbrella of Three Brawn

Chapter 198: Use Brains to Gain an Umbrella of Three Brawn

On the tournament participant’s stage, Tabulae had listened to every word the businessmen above had spoken, and it made her thirteen years feel like waste, like she had been stumbling through life with her eyes shut until someone finally slapped her awake.

In a single day, her view of business had been overturned. The moguls were not rivals clawing at each other in the dark.

They were a net, working together, and they had dared to speak harmful secrets aloud.

Indoctrination. That was what it was. Training the crowd to fear ink and worship balance.

Despite that, to Tabulae it sounded like sense.

In her young mind, she placed herself on Eldric’s level already.

If she needed manpower, she would not hesitate to bend mortals with hypnotizing martial techniques.

What confused her was the need for balance. At her age, this was understandable.

She was still young, and she still could not see the bigger picture.

Then another truth pressed in behind it. Her knowledge was still shallow.

The other truth was simpler. Her veins did not carry enough power yet.

Whatever she wanted to become, she was not there. Not even close.

Tabulae complained to herself the whole way through, yet a silly grin kept pushing through anyway.

Her hand clutched a bamboo document tube so hard her fingers ached.

Inside it sat was an orange bordered Life Bane Contracts.

Heaven was not blind, not today. She had been handed a chance, and she meant to bite it before it vanished.

She stepped up to Sackmace, Lonequiver, and Reelfisher, clutching her bamboo tube tight against her ribs.

"I would like to exchange one True Flag with you all for a chance to read the Workman’s Body Strength Codex."

All three men looked from her face to the tube in her arms, then back again.

"You plan to just read it, then use that paper as sincerity for a contract later?" Lonequiver asked.

Tabulae nodded, plain as daylight. That was exactly her intention.

"There is no need to waste the contract?" Reelfisher said.

Sackmace scratched his jaw.

"We’ll have you read it three times, then you pay the flag afterward. I bet you are simply curious."

They had reason to be careful. The three of them had nearly hauled in every Ten Arm Radeon Flag they could squeeze out of the contestants.

It was not common currency. There were only a seven thousand in circulation, and they had been lucky enough to trade five thousand of them for five True Flags.

With those True Flags they had bought the five volumes of the codex and had been chewing on them ever since.

Chewing was the right word. The manuals were thin, four pages a volume, but packed with numbers, letters, and terms that did not behave like normal writing.

Even men who could read and count found themselves staring, then staring harder, as if the page might blink first.

"I agree," Tabulae said. Then she slid in her second want.

"Is it possible for you to help me get an exchange for Injury Healing Pills?"

That part was easy. No Arm Radeon Flags were everywhere, and the exchange rate reflected it.

Lonequiver shook a bottle with a dozen pellets rattling inside.

"I’ll give you ten Injury Healing Pills for a True Flag," he said, then pinched out two pellets between his fingers.

"Treat these two as a processing fee."

Tabulae did not nod. She did not shake her head either. She raised her palm in a polite stop.

"I only need five Injury Healing Pills. I’ll take five Stamina Tonics instead."

Lonequiver considered it. He had noticed the young lady watching them for a while now, eyes sharp, waiting for a gap.

Still, it was not a loss. A True Flag could be turned around for a pile of Eight Arm Radeon Flags if they needed liquidity, and the difference would swallow the cost.

"Alright," Lonequiver said. "We’ll do as you say."

The moment Tabulae was handed the first volume, she uncorked a Stamina Tonic and brought it to her nose.

A pleasant roasted note hit first, then vanilla, layered and warm. It smelled expensive.

"This smells good," she murmured.

She did not hesitate. She tipped the bottle back and gulped it down. Her eyes widened a little as it went.

"Wow. It tastes so good," she said, and she even took her time with the last swallow, savoring the slight bitterness and the clean sweetness that followed like an afterthought.

Tabulae shook the bottle to chase the last drop, but nothing else came out.

"That was too little."

She wiped her lip, hugged the thin book closer, and began to read.

Sackmace, Lonequiver, and Reelfisher stared like they had just seen a chicken recite scripture.

"Does this tonic make people smart?" Sackmace asked.

"All we’ve been doing is looking at each other’s faces until I’m sick of it," Reelfisher muttered. "How would I know."

"Alright," Lonequiver said. "Maybe we can ask."

He walked over and crouched near Tabulae. She had sprawled on the cold arena floor as if it were her own bed, legs swinging in lazy rhythm while her eyes ran over the page.

"Young missy," Lonequiver said, keeping his voice kind, "Does this Stamina Tonic make people understand the cultivation scripture easier to understand?"

Tabulae did not even look up.

"Pay me one tonic, I’ll answer yes or no," she said. "Pay me two, and I’ll elaborate its effect."

Lonequiver sat there stunned. One tonics for a yes or no, and two for explanation. That was a steep price for words, even for him.

He looked Tabulae up and down, and the numbers changed in his head.

Thin. Face a little gaunt. Heavy bags under her eyes despite being young.

Fingers calloused from writing and turning pages, not from swinging a blade.

She was not playing merchant games. She lived on ink.

He nodded once.

"Alright. You win." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

He handed over the two Stamina Tonics.

"Do you have knowledge of the human body for medical purposes?"

The one armed man answered as if it were obvious.

"I know you need to burn wounds to close them. Use spirit stone ash for emergency purposes. How about that. Pretty smart, right?"

Tabulae did not look at him with mockery or disdain. Only pity.

That expression confused Lonequiver.

"Young missy, why are you looking at me weirdly? I’m your type, aren’t I?"

"Those aren’t medical knowledge," Tabulae said. "Those are just common sense."

She lifted her palm a little, like a merchant demanding pay.

"You win. Make my time worth it," Lonequiver said, begrudgingly handing over the two bottles of Stamina Tonic.

"I will explain it to you. Listen carefully."

She tilted her chin toward the white robed attendants standing nearby.

"You see those attendants. You can ask them the same question for free. They will say yes."

Lonequiver already knew that. He had asked an attendant for half a day about this and that, until shame scratched at him and drove him off from the patient attendant.

The problem was never their willingness. The problem was their answers.

They spoke in words that did not land, in terms that slid off the mind.

He would glance at Reelfisher and Sackmace then, and both men would nod along like they understood, like headless chickens nodding because they still needed to show respect.

It was not laziness. It was scarcity. These kinds of teachings were as rare as cultivation manuals unless you joined a scholarly school or a sect that prized ink as much as steel.

And what man chose that first?

Women did more often. Men went where fists were valued. Besides, the combat sects already had healing pills and hired doctors.

Most people never bothered to learn the body unless they loved the subject.

Lonequiver understood that. So did Tabulae.

"So, missy," Lonequiver said, more careful now. "I know you aren’t a venerable like those gentlemen over there."

"Explain it to me in a way I can understand. What is the full effect?"

Tabulae took a breath.

"First of all, it both does make you smart and does not make you smart."

"Girl, don’t play with me. How is that possible?"

Tabulae raised her hand. She shook her head once.

"Are you going to keep interrupting, or should you just listen?"

"My bad. My bad." Lonequiver waved it off and beckoned Reelfisher and Sackmace closer with his good hand.

"Go on. I’ll listen."

"This Stamina Tonic..."

"Shush, girl. Lower your voice," Reelfisher hissed.

"We paid here. We don’t want others gaining benefits from this."

Tabulae nodded and lowered her voice until it turned into a secret meant for three men and one stubborn mind.

"I will use an example," she said. "Let us say Senior Sackmace and Senior Lonequiver used the fishing rod of Senior Reelfisher and fought him with it."

"No chance," Sackmace said at once.

"Yeah," Lonequiver added. "That’s like a child fighting an adult."

"Exactly," Tabulae said. "It is the same with the Stamina Tonic. It only makes you faster and sharper at what you already know how to do."

"Reelfisher becomes a better fisherman. Lonequiver fights more creatively with his bolts. Sackmace smacks faster and better with his sack."

Understanding dawned on their faces, slow and embarrassing.

"So basically," Sackmace said, tasting the words, "You get stronger at what you already have and you get more stamina to do it."

Tabulae nodded. Sackmace grinned then, a rough little joke.

"So what you are saying is you are good at reading. Aren’t we operating at a loss here?"

"I pay fair and you paid fair," Tabulae said, and her smile turned wry at the edges.

"I’m taking a huge gamble. What if I also understand nothing in the end?"

That stumped them. It was too honest.

Who did not want to become a cultivator before the second round of the tournament.

They all kept an eye on Irongrit sitting cross legged nearby, deliberately cultivating close to the white robed attendants.

Irongrit was not naive enough to go inside the arena rooms.

He would rather show he could do it out in the open and stay close to the cultivators, where mortals kept their voices down and their hands still.

Nobody was flamboyant enough to shout around powerhouses like that.

He had traded two True Flags for a thousand Ten Arm Radeon Flags, and everyone saw what that meant.

If this kept going, the winner of the competition was already being carved in stone.