(Geoffrey POV - Heaven's Key, House in the suburbs)

[https://i.imgur.com/Iw4RzFG.png]

"So Geoff, you've played with the kid. What is he like?" Walter asks me.

"He is very talented, probably a genius." I remark. "But a genius without experience is still just an ordinary person here. For example..."

To make my point, I manifest a deck of cards and place them on the table. I pick one of the cards and place it next to the deck. Then with one of my fingers pointed, drag it along the surface of the card making a red mark across its back.

"Introspects can't do anything, but once they figure out how flexible their being is, they start to think up ways to cheat. Of course, the very first thing they do is mark cards in various ways." I say to Walter. "I remember when I came here, I couldn't really manifest the pigment directly so I took to manifesting cans directly on my person because it was easier. And I had these UV shades..."

I manifest a pair of slick shades and put them on, grinning.

"Heh heh heh, I did that as well." Walter remarked.

"The next day I'd get called out as it was quite obvious. I'd be reaching into my pocket every once in a while when the UV paint dried on my fingertips, and everyone could see it."

"It is better to just manifest the pigment on your hands directly."

"Yeah, the low level Aleators quickly figure out how to do that. This kind of cheating is a lot more reliable. You can go a bit far in private games that way until the rest wise up."

"In the Heaven's Key tournament it doesn't matter if the others know if you are cheating or not. Even just being a low level Aleator is enough to survive on your own without the loss of chips. To get into the money you just need to survive the first round, and these kinds of methods are more than good enough. The trouble for Introspects is that even if they know how to cheat, they have no way of bringing it into the dueling space. They can only train their skills the regular way."

I nod to him.

[https://i.imgur.com/wh7nKVt.png]

"Yes. The next level is to start transmuting your body in order to enhance it. Instead of wearing shades, you change your eyeballs so they can see UV. That is much less obvious."

"And Euclid is at that level?" Walter asked.

"Yes, but he is not as good as Louis."

"You said in your report he is a newcomer. Are you sure? Because being able to do this in your first week is unheard of. Maybe I should have sent somebody better, but it was time for Louis to take on some actual work rather than just training."

"Yeah, definitely. And because he is a newcomer, Louis will be able to win because of that." I reassured him. "It is not just because of the eyes. Euclid is relying on marks to cheat, and such marks.."

I point at the card. Whereas before I dragged my finger across it to paint a mark, this time I just do it across the air without coming close to the card. Like casting a spell, the red mark I made on the card disappears.

"...can be erased. Mid ranked Aleators also do not need to rely on their body directly to cheat." I do a swish in the air with my finger and the mark gets painted across the card again.

I look outside the window and note the time. The sun had set, and according to the reply the enforcer is supposed to challenge Euclid at this time.

"Right now Euclid should be sweating..."

(Heaven's Key, Shadow realm, Resolution duel with Louis)

[https://i.imgur.com/Mj5nur7.png]

For the first time, my opponent makes a reaction. I see his lips curve into a slight grin.

He can see into my hand. Absolutely. I look at my cards and note the marks I put on them myself. It might be because of this. I could get rid of them, but then I wouldn't be able to know what cards my opponent has himself. While I was thinking along that direction, out of the corner of my eye I spy some movement. My opponent twirls one of his fingers, and my two cards become covered in a layer of UV paint. The marks I have put on are completely overpainted and rubbing my fingers against it, I realize that the paint is fully dried. I can't clean it off.

I look at my opponent and I see that on his side, he did the same thing as well. The marks on his cards are unreadable.

I realize what this means. He is not going to let me use the UV painting method anymore. In future hands, I will be flying blind.

The feeling that doom is nearing comes to me. Right now, I feel a tangible sense of threat from my opponent. He is on a completely different level than Lily and Dale's group.

(Geoffrey POV - Heaven's Key, House in the suburbs)

[https://i.imgur.com/MRPoV5T.png]

"So the kid will definitely lose..." Walter remarked. "Well, it is too bad for him." He immerses himself in tea.

Something in his comment stirs something in me, and I start thinking about it.

"Well, it is not absolute. Since he isn’t a citizen we haven’t had the chance to watch him for a long time. There is a very small chance that I've misjudged Euclid, and he has the latent abilities of an Episteme. Unlike the Introspects who have known talents, he is a newcomer. I only played with him for a few days and didn't have enough time to judge him fully."

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"Hmmm..." Walter raises his eyebrows at me, doubting me.

"I am just speculating how Euclid could win. Don't tell Louis about it afterwards." I urged him.

"I won't. So how could it go?"

"Have you ever played against an Episteme?"

"I've been placed at their table plenty of times in the Heaven's Tournament. It ends up as a slaughter. At that level you can't call the game poker anymore. It is more like fighting a wizard casting spells at you."

"I once went up against Gray one-on-one." I admitted. I didn't need to explain who Gray was. All the Epistemes were famous throughout the city.

"Really? What happened?"

"Gray loves using the trick of pulling out a gun and firing it at his opponent." I pause as I recall how it went.

"Did he shoot you?" Walter asked.

"He shot at me for about half an hour straight."

"That's nasty." Walter grimace. I recall the match.

"There I was at the table, trying to disbelieve the bullets so they don't hit me otherwise they will knock me out. Sweat is pouring down my face and I can't even look at my hand due to intense concentration required. I haven't played a single hand the entire time, instead the system folded me automatically every 5 minutes. Gray himself had no trouble making raises."

"So he shot you in the end." I nod.

"Eventually I got tired and one of the bullets came through. At that point I blanked out and when I woke up it was in a hospital room. Thankfully it was not a resolution match, but a regular duel otherwise I would have gotten killed."

"I see."

"That is how Euclid could win even if he was outclassed if he really is an Episteme." I pointed a finger gun at Walter. "Just manifest some kind of weapon and blast away until the other side crumbles. The way Gray did. It doesn't require too much skill or grace assuming he knows how to make a working gun and has the sheer ability needed to manifest it."

"..." Walter looks at me in silence.

"The most horrifying thing for an Aleator is to go into a resolution match against what he thinks is a lower rank, only to have it turn out he is facing an Episteme."

(Heaven's Key, Shadow realm, Resolution duel with Louis)

[https://i.imgur.com/0mOwycO.png]

I won't give up with just this. Let me bring out all my aces in the hole. We'll go all out!

> Let's try the gun. Just like the white hair guy did.

I message the controller, and feel my senses start to change.

I raise my hand and per my will, a polished, gray revolver manifests in it. I open the magazine, and with a mental trigger manifest a clip of 6 yellow bullets before inserting them into the slots. I point the gun at my opponent and on his face, I see a sign of visible alarm.

Bang!

I blast the bullet directly down the middle of his forehead. My mind is fast, so I can see the bullet in strong slow motion as it travels its path to where I intended it. But as soon as it came close to touching his skin, rather than piercing, the bullet instead disappeared. If I were a human, at this point I might have simply concluded that I missed, but I could see every single inch the bullet traversed, so I am sure there is no chance of that.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Not having anything better to do, I empty the rest of the magazine into the guy, but the results are the same. I am not sure whether to stop or to continue with this, but as I look at the terror on the face of my opponent, it induces me to do more of it. I open the magazine, let the spent casing fall out, manifest another clip in my hand and reload the gun.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Nothing happens, but my enemy is afraid so I continue doing it.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Reload.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Reload. Like so the silence at the table is punctuated by a constant barrage of gunshots.

I continue repeating that for a few minutes, but nothing is happening. And while I gave him a great scare at the start, he catches his bearings and calms down.

The look on his face is pretty cool now.

I could do this for as long as necessary, but it doesn't seem shooting my opponent is doing me any good here. I guess it is how in RPGs the bosses are immune to sleep and paralysis effects, anything that would kill them outright on a failed roll. I am guessing he has some technique that renders him immune to this cheap method of winning.

Plus, going further with this method will do me no good in real life. The same goes for saveloading.

I toss away the revolver into the abyss below, not taking my eyes away from my target. I carefully note my opponent's reaction and if he is feeling relieved to see me do that, he is good at hiding it. I won't work after all.

> It won't work. The guy is as cool as in a freezer now. He got used to it.

I message the controller.

> We'll go to the next stage of enhancing our senses. We made this during the night, and we'll put it to use now. Here is the Enhanced Biological Eye.

I feel my vision start to warp and take off my glasses. Since I won't be needing them I treat the same as the revolver and dump them into the abyss. I blink a bit as I become disoriented due to the barrage of information coming from my eyes, but I quickly adjust and the world comes into focus. When I look at my opponent's face now, I see every little pore on his face. It really magnifies his ugliness. But instead of focusing on that I focus on his beady, pig eyes and see my own reflection in them.

"Check." Since it is my turn, I take a look at my hand before checking and wait for my opponent's response. He min raises, and I fold my trash hand.

The next round starts and we both get dealt new hands.

For a few moments it feels like we are in a standoff, each waiting for the other to check his hand first. Making no movement, I wait for him to start and he yields, seeing no reason to delay further. Each of us can only check their own cards or the opponent's so it does not matter which one of us does it first. Only in the case that we both do it at the same time, we won't get any information.

He does so, and reflected in his eyes, I see his hand.

Ah Kh. A premium hand.

He raises off the button to 24. I take a look at my hand and then chuck it without needing to think about it much.

Last night, me and the controller worked on a new eye model. We took the eagle as reference, and then had an evolutionary algorithm optimize the cross between it and the human eye. With my newly improved eye, I'd have no trouble spotting a mouse far in the distance from the top of a mountain. Or a slight reflection of the cards in my opponent's eye.

But at this point at best, I've closed the gap with him.

In order to win, I need to deny him the advantage of looking at my own hand, assuming that is what he is doing.

Last night after we'd finished designing the eye, we thought that we might run into an opponent trying to take advantage of lens reflectivity, so we did an anti-reflective version as well.

> It works. Make the pupil anti-reflective next.

I don't detect any changes to my vision, but I get a message saying it has been done.

The NEET assassin looks at his hand, I see it as trash Js 5c in his eye's reflection. He finishes his peek and turns to observe my reaction. It is a request to which I oblige. 2c 3c. The hand itself is worthless in this HU situation, but the look on his face after I finish is priceless. Whereas he was merely scared when I started to shoot at him, right now he is slack jawed open.

Now it is my turn to grin. This is quite satisfying, more than just moving chips around after winning a hand, this moment is when I truly experience victory.

Are you wondering what my hand is? Well, keep wondering!

I haven't tried out all of my trump cards, so I am looking forward to it. I appreciate this guy as an adversary. Though the white guy is tougher, I wouldn't have gained as much fighting him.

As I start to wonder what he is going to do next, my bet is on him manifesting some anti-reflecting shades to equalize the field. I had a response planned for that and was looking forward to trying it out, as that particular method is the one I intend to use in the real world.

Somehow what he did next should have been entirely obvious, but it came completely as a surprise to me anyway.