Hearing the crowd cheering, Milo could see a man sitting at what appeared to be a wooden crate. On the crate there were three cups, the man showed the newest contestant a silver ball before placing one of the cups over the top of it. At this point, everything seemed normal. That was until the man started shuffling the cups. The man's hands moved so fast, it was creating after images, almost making it appear as if the cups weren't even moving. The shuffling continued for around one minute before the cups came to an abrupt stop.
Watching the man stop moving the cups Milo could've sword he saw steam rising off the man's hands after he stopped. The person meant to guess which cup the ball was in was sweating, it was obvious he had underestimated the difficulty of the game and bit his lip trying to think of which cup the silver ball was located in. He took a guess and was way off.
After watching the first contestant fail, Milo got a bit closer to see if he could follow the man's movements, with the next person who was attempting to guess. Just like the last time, the man at the crate began his shuffling, this time the new contestant was able to follow the movements a bit more, most likely due to him being a higher rank than the previous person. As a person's rank increased, so did the magic power increasing their body's capabilities. After the first round of shuffling the man guessed successfully the location of the ball and received a round of applause and cheering from the audience.
Milo was also able to keep track of the ball, even to the point that he thought that the game was too easy. If others were to hear this they'd call him crazy. After a successful guess the man shuffling the cups brought out two more cups, making the total amount of cups 5. He then went through his shuffling again, the man guessing was able to guess correctly again but Milo could tell that he was second guessing himself. The man went through the shuffling again, this time going even faster than before. He was shuffling so fast, he was giving off enough wind pressure to rustle the hair of the audience. The man guessing conceded when the man started his shuffling. Milo could still see the location of the ball plain as day, even noticing a few times that the man picked the cup up allowing the ball to move between the different cups while shuffling them.
After the man failed level 3 the other people who wanted to attempt the game seemed to back down realizing they stood no chance. At that point Milo decided to take a turn. This was received with multiple reactions from the crowd. Most of them yelled for Milo to save his money, that it wasn't worth the risk. Others called Milo a young fool, saying he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Milo ignored the yelling and took a seat across from the man.
The man gave Milo the courtesy of asking if he was sure he wanted to go through with the game, saying that there would be no refunds no matter how young Milo was. Milo nodded in affirmation, before the man said, "suit yourself," he then got into position with the three cups. He would be starting at the first level since Milo was playing for the first time.
After a minute of shuffling, the man looked at Milo signaling for him to make his guess. "Left," Milo said aloud without changing facial expressions. The man grinned and lifted up the leftmost cup revealing the silver ball. This kid may prove to be interesting, he thought to himself.
The man then went on to level two using 5 cups. "Second from the right," Milo said. Just like the first round, the man revealed the ball hidden under the cup that was second from the right.
"Okay, time to take it up a notch," the man said. For the third round he once again used 5 cups but used a much higher speed. While the man was shuffling he swapped the ball to a different cup a total of 5 times. He thought this would be enough to fool Milo. Once the shuffling was over, the man thought he had finally fooled the teenager.
"Middle cup," after Milo said these words the man lifted the center cup and sure enough the ball was seen sitting under it. When Milo focused extremely closely on something, due to his agility stat, it seemed to move in slow motion, this was the same case for the cups, however as they were moving very quickly due to the man's ability, they moved at what someone would consider to be a normal speed.
After getting guessed on the third level for the first time, the man brought out his final trump card. There were now 7 cups on the table. He had planned 5 levels for this, but never expected someone to get this far. Milo was the first person the man had ever met that could keep up with his speed. He wasn't the fastest awakened by any means but he was a close up magician before awakening so he was extremely skilled at games like this and up close sleight of hand.
The man went for the slower of the two speeds for the fourth level, attempting to throw off Milo's guess. He did everything he could think of, swapping the ball between cups, using one cup to mask the ball's movement in another cup. Anything he could think of to get Milo off the ball's trail he tried. Soon the shuffling came to a stop and Milo paused for a second. Seeing Milo pause, the man thought he was finally victorious. The man originally made this game to try and cheat some money out of people. He wasn't using it for a bad cause, such as drugs or alcohol, but this was his way of making money, no matter how dirty it was, it was his income.
Milo then said his answer and the man was stupefied. Lifting the cup the ball was under, Milo was successful at guessing the ball's location at level four. At this point, the cheering from the crowd had turned into whispers, they were wondering just who in the world the kid guessing all these correctly really was. Conner and Cameron had gone to finish their shopping around the Underground and were stunned to see Milo sitting in the chair where the cup game was being played. They thought he was about to lose some money in the gamble, but then they saw that the man had seven cups on the crate. This was the most they had ever seen and they commonly came to the Underground just to watch the man toy with people. Just who really was Milo the two thought.
After guessing correctly, the man knew he had to do something to make Milo lose, if he didn't he'd lose the beast egg he spent a fortune on to put up as a prize, he figured the egg would draw in a ton of customers and he was right, but he still hadn't made enough profit to say that it was a worthwhile investment. He eventually planned to resell the egg at a higher price after no one could clear the game, but Milo had come along and was going to ruin his fortune making plan.
The man this time when shuffling went as fast as he possibly could. The crate under the cups was visibly shaking from the wind pressure given off by the man's hands. Eventually the cups began to glow as the air pressurized around them, causing them to glow red with heat. Through all this, Milo was still keeping track of the ball. The man looked at Milo's eyes and saw them dart side to side in tandem with where the ball moved. The man then made a move he used when performing magic, the ball slid out from under one of the cups and slid down his sleeve while he continued shuffling the cups around.
Milo was still aware of his surroundings at all times while all this was happening. He noticed the man look at his eyes, he noted the man's breathing pattern, even his heartbeat. Milo's senses were dialed to 11 and he didn't fail to see the ball disappear into the man's left sleeve. He continued tracking the cups as if he lost the ball however. He didn't want the man to know he had caught onto his little trick.
Eventually after around 2 minutes of shuffling the man's hands came to a stop. Steam was rising off of the cups that were now glowing red hot. The man was grinning waiting for Milo to make his guess. Milo paused looking at each of the cups, he then smiled and looked the man in the eyes. "You really thought I wouldn't notice would you?" he said to the man. Hearing these words, the man began to sweat a bit and the crowd was beginning to murmur.
"What's he mean?"
"I couldn't even tell what was going on."
"It's in your left sleeve," Milo said aloud. The man first lifted all the cups revealing the ball was in fact not under any of them, he then reached into his sleeve and pulled out the silver ball. Revealing it to the crowd.
Seeing that Milo had caught the man's trick, the crowd went into an uproar. The man then stood and grabbed the beast egg from the cart behind him and handed it to Milo. The next thing he did caught Milo by surprise.
"I've never had anyone keep track of the ball that long, you've got damn good eyes, I respect that. Take this, it'll help once that egg hatches," he said, handing Milo a silver ring with a bright red stone placed in it. After receiving his prizes and thanking the man for the fun, Milo returned to the twins' side and the three of them returned to the Underground's exit.
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