Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 1227 Palz Game

Aiwas and his party did not stay in other oasis city-states, but went directly to Holy Spring City.

Although they lacked food that could fill the shark, Aiwas, who was now balanced on the path, could use the pastoral method. The energy contained in his flesh and blood was much stronger than meat such as beef and mutton.

It took them nearly two days to travel - if it was Leviathan himself, it would take less than a day to fly back and forth.

The main thing is that you have to drag the carriage with several people, which is a lot of trouble... After all, Leviathan's talent is high-speed mobility and amphibious, and its advantage lies in burst. Its load-bearing and endurance are really not enough. If you throw the carriage away in an instant, there will be no problem at all, but it is really a bit strenuous to pull the carriage and carry so many people for such a long distance.

The straight-line distance from Paradise City to Holy Spring City is about two thousand kilometers.

This distance is about four to five times the east-west distance of Avalon and more than twice the east-west distance of Iris.

Leviathan was able to carry a two-ton load and reach its destination in just forty hours through a strong desert storm, which was a great effort.

Another person who tried his best was Aiwass - he used pastoral care to replenish Leviathan's mana three times.

In fact, it was enough for one time, but the Leviathan's "fuel tank" was too small, so it had to stop several times to resupply.

At seven o'clock in the morning on July 3, they finally arrived at the surrounding area of ​​Holy Spring City.

"——We can see an oasis ahead."

Haina looked out of the carriage window and exclaimed, "It's really nice... It really deserves to be the largest city-state in Parthia."

It was a city that could be described as "magnificent".

The city-state had extremely high walls that were a hundred feet high, almost reaching the clouds. The amber walls looked like a cake covered in syrup, or a huge brass signet ring lying in the desert.

And that was not bronze or brass - if you looked closely, you would find that it was lead that had been preserved by the amber power of dusk. From a distance, you could see the intricate patterns etched on the city wall.

With Haina's eyesight, she could easily see the contents of the scroll on the city wall.

On the west side of the city gate, there are many winged creatures. Some are like Ligeia, with white fluffy wings, and even small wings behind the ears and feet; some are like harpies, huge griffins with human heads and holding staffs; some have a whole head of a bird, but with human hands and feet.

Everyone's wings are different, and everyone's appearance varies greatly, but the common point is that everyone has wings.

On the other side of the city gate, there were scaled people. Snake people, lizard people, and fish people all gathered there. The fish people alone had two different types: "human head and fish body" and "fish head and human body", and their appearances were also very different...

The only difference from the west side is that on the scaly side there are giant dragons and some marine creatures that are quite similar to Leviathan - let's call it dragon shark - they have wings and scales, but they choose to stand on the side of the scaly ones.

The central gate was only opened a crack, about 150 degrees inward, so the huge relief on the outside of the gate could be clearly seen.

It was like a structure like the one you see hanging a lion's head or a ring in front of a door - except that it was two heads.

The ancient painting techniques were obviously not very good, so it was hard to make out the facial features, or even tell whether the man or woman was male or female. But one could roughly tell that one of the two heads had wings and the other had scales.

Outside the city, there is a clear and sweet river - this is also the origin of the name of the Holy Spring City. It is considered the moat of the Holy Spring City, but for the people of Anxi, this sweet river is like heaven on earth. When entering the oasis area, the crazy sandstorm stopped in an instant. It was like suddenly entering a quiet and soundproof house from the noisy outside world. The raging storm became like a well-behaved puppy, and even the shaking carriage became silent in an instant.

This is a vision that is completely unseen in other city-states.

Although in other city-states, storms rarely approach urban areas... but that is only "rarely". It is absolutely not like crossing an invisible barrier, and taking a step is immediately like entering two different worlds.

"What is this...? Is this some kind of barrier?"

Haena became alert and stood up like a hound that heard the footsteps of a stranger.

"This is normal."

Without even looking up, Aiwass waved his hand and motioned for Haina to sit down: "After all, this was the capital of Parthia... It's normal for it to have some ancient heritage."

He was playing chess with Zhu Tang. Although Zhu Tang couldn't open his eyes, he could identify the chess pieces by touch alone. This was probably why he didn't play Go with Aiwass.

On the other side, Ibn was playing cards with Haina.

The Parthians loved playing cards, so there were many kinds of card games, including some that were similar to modern poker, which Aiwass was familiar with.

Now he and Haina were playing a simple game similar to a board game. It was also the most popular card game in Anxi, which was probably equivalent to the "Dou Dizhu" in Aiwas's previous life.

It is called Palz, and if translated into Avalonian, it means "calculation" in the simplest and most straightforward way.

A set of Paltz cards has eight colors of cards, with pomegranates, books, slaves, spices, carpets, silk, gold coins, and water painted on them. They are numbered from 1 to 8 in terms of value, and the number of each item is also from one to eight. There are four identical cards of each of the eight types, totaling thirty-two cards.

The way to play this game is to take turns to be the dealer and act as the leader of the caravan. By announcing an arbitrary number, everyone, starting with the dealer, takes turns to draw cards and deal with the cards in their hands through four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The person who reaches this number the fastest wins and gets one point. If the dealer reaches it himself, he gets three points.

If all the cards have been drawn, or if everyone has drawn the ninth card and still cannot make up the number, then everyone will be deducted one point and the dealer will be deducted three points.

This is a game about wisdom and transcendence. The rules are simple, free and easy to understand. No matter how many people play, no matter how many rounds you play, it's fine. There is also a version of gambling that collects chips instead of points... There is even a version that gambles on family members - a real gamble on family members.

Children in freemen's families, as long as their family members have a decent level of education, will play this game from an early age to teach them numbers, exercise their mental arithmetic skills, and allow them to have a general understanding of the value ranking of various commodities commonly seen in caravans.

If you play this game well, it's easy to find a good job - the Parthians value wisdom very much, and smart people can do well almost anywhere.

Even if they become slaves, if they can count and write, they will often be sold to richer freemen to help them with more demanding jobs. Sometimes, they are even sold for more than some low-level extraordinary people.

From the perspective of Haina, a native of Avalon, this game has another malicious purpose.

——It makes all the Parthians take it for granted that "slaves are commodities" since childhood!
And the value is not that high, only higher than pomegranates and books!
Not even as good as spices and carpets!

(End of this chapter)