Naturally, all four members of the squad had rushed to buy tickets, with Yin Tiang being the last to the party. The Rising Phoenix sect had many divisions - and this chance might only come once every seven or eight years.
The 'prize' for winning was six hours that one could spend with the grimoire. Although it may not seem like much, given how valuable a resource it was, many people greatly longed to get a chance with it, spending all of their merit points to buy as many tickets as was allowed without a second thought. The knowledge that one could obtain from it could potentially propel one's cultivation forward for several years or even decades to come in the future.
Given this, there was a huge line to buy tickets. Even though the number of tickets one could buy was limited, people still jostled in the queue.
Yin Tiang found Zhang Long and Chen Yu standing slightly away from the crowd with morose expressions on their faces.
"What happened?" Yin Tiang asked, though he could already guess what had happened from the looks they gave him.
"No dice," Zhang Long said, shaking his head.
"Maybe you'll have better luck," Chen Yu said.
However, by the time that it came to be Yin Tiang's turn to buy a raffle, he was told that the winning tickets had already been sold, so he may as well save his sect merit points for now.
"Ah, well, looks like none of us got in," Yin Tiang said. If there hadn't been enough winners, everyone who had bought a ticket would have been able to take another one for free until all the winning ones were sold out, but it looked like unfortunately, all the winners had already been picked.
While disappointing, this was not unexpected. For even one of them to be able to get a winning ticket would be an incredible stroke of luck given how many were competing for so few spots. However, Yin Tiang realized that there was someone missing from their group. "Where is Tang Ze?"
"I don't know," Zhang Long said. "Is he still sleeping in?" It was nearly noon, but it was not unheard of for Tang Ze, during his days off, to daze off till this time if the others let him. Which, given how much he complained when they tried to rouse him early, they had learned was more trouble than it was worth; and as such, they no longer really tried to do so unless there was something urgent that needed to be done early.
"No," Yin Tiang said. "I didn't see him in his room, and the smell of what I was making is something not even he could sleep through." He frowned. "At least, I'd be quite impressed if he managed to sleep through that."
"Maybe he left to go see this girlfriend of his," Chen Yu said and they all laughed.
Tang Ze had told them that he had found the spirit of an Eternal Soul cultivator by the name of Xian Yue who needed his help to ascend to the Hinayana realm in a cavern far away - naturally none of them were willing to believe something so far-fetched and they each had their own theories on what he actually did when he vanished for some periods of time after dressing up like a wizard.
'Most likely off playing with his wand'- is what they assumed was the most likely possibility.
However, it turned out that Tang Ze was not only awake, he was not too far from where they were standing.
"How's it going?" Tang Ze asked. The others turned to stare at him in bewilderment at what he was wearing.
He had dark green shorts on, a similar blazer, and a four-leaf clover emblazoned onto his coat as well as a green top hat atop his head.
Needless to say, compared to the other members of the sect, he stood out like a sore thumb.
Tang Ze was wearing this outfit for a good reason - it was based off a character on Earth by the name of Leonald the Lucky Leprechaun. He appeared in a series of very short cartoons - most of which revolved around him showing off his amazing luck. And not only was he lucky, he was absurdly lucky to the point it would have you pulling your hair out while watching some of the episodes.
The general episode format was that either he needed something or one of his friends was in trouble, and then they would end up fighting an evil wizard or whatnot who would cast a powerful spell on them that had a one in ten million chance of backfiring, and it would just happen to backfire that instant. Either that, or the writers would come up with some other truly ludicrous ways that he would somehow stumble his way to victory.
It was not a serious show, but Tang Ze had wished to borrow the character's obscene luck for this little contest.
So what if he looked completely out of place dressed as a leprechaun given this country's fashion was based off of that of China in the Middle Ages? What mattered was the abilities that this costume gave him! If any of the other cultivators out there had his talent and could guarantee a shot at being able to use the Grimoire of Heaven, they too would've dressed up like him without a second thought.
As such, given the benefits, why shouldn't he take this chance?
"We're fine, well, we all lost the chance to get a look at the Grimoire of Heaven, I guess," Zhang Long said with a gloomy look. He did not voice his thought that Tang Ze somehow looked even more ridiculous than usual - it was safe to say that this was his most outlandish costume as of yet. Still, Zhang Long wouldn't say that to Tang Ze's face, and as it was, his attention suddenly shifted to the black ticket that Tang Ze was waving around. "Wait - you actually won?"
The raffle tickets were specifically made to be nearly impossible to forge given their importance. The way they worked was that a few winning tickets were mixed in with a large number of identical blank ones - if you pulled a winning ticket out and injected your Qi into it, if it was a winning ticket it would turn black. Else the words 'Bad luck!' would appear on the white paper.
Additionally, the winning tickets were all numbered. Tang Ze's winning ticket had the number '3' on it, meaning he would be third in line to get a chance to use the Grimoire of Heaven.
As such, if you tried to forge a ticket, you would also have to forge a number which hadn't been picked yet before. It was also highly likely that the elder in charge of the Grimoire of Heaven had a way to tell the actual tickets apart from the fakes through some process only he knew.
"Well, that's great," Chen Yu said.
"Yeah," Yin Tiang said.
All of them tried to look happy for Tang Ze, but they still had a tiny bit of regret within their hearts.
"Does this costume give you amazing luck or something?" Zhang Long asked, piecing together why Tang Ze would be dressed up like this.
"Yes," Tang Ze said.
"Amazing," Zhang Long said. Even if someone accused Tang Ze of cheating, no one else seemed to fully understand how his ability worked - as such, there was no one who could prove that Tang Ze was definitely cheating. Basically, it was the perfect power to have in this circumstance. 'Oh, you're saying that Tang Ze has a lucky costume? I also have a lucky pair of socks I wear sometimes, but that didn't help me win a ticket,'- would be the usual response if someone tried to accuse Tang Ze of underhanded behavior.
"In that case though - couldn't you have tried a few more tickets?" Zhang Long said those words jokingly - he guessed that Tang Ze had likely bought multiple tickets just like he had, but only one had been a winning one. He wasn't truly insinuating that Tang Ze should've bought more in case he could possibly win another winning ticket.
Those words might've been said as a joke, but Tang Ze replied, "Why, there are only four of us, right? Did you want to invite someone else along?"
"You do realize that each ticket can only be used by one person rig-"
Those words died the moment that Tang Ze reached into a pocket and pulled out three other black tickets - marked with '5', '7', and '9' respectively. "I did buy four - I figured if I was lucky enough that I'd manage to win with all four of them," Tang Ze said.
Four had been the maximum that he could buy anyway as it was with the number of sect merit points that he had - he had gained a fair number from when he had helped the Komainu as a reward, but being someone who had recently joined, four tickets was still his limit. This meant though that in terms of sect merit points, he was basically nearly bankrupt now. But in the face of the benefits he could gain, this was still an excellent deal for him.
"Wait - you won all four?" Yin Tiang asked. Chen Yu and Zhang Long had both bought the maximum of twelve tickets and Yin Tiang had bought eight (he was a bit short on sect merit points compared to the other two as he usually spent them on reagents for his alchemical projects) - yet, none of them had won with even a single ticket, but Tang Ze had won with all four of his?
This went beyond just being lucky, this was truly heaven-defying fortune!
And though others might think that this was ridiculous, if Tang Ze remembered correctly, this was still less fortunate than some of the things that happened to Leonald the Lucky Leprechaun in his stories.
A prefect walked over who did not have a pleasant expression, mainly because he was talking to Tang Ze - but also because naturally he was envious of Tang Ze's luck. "Junior Tang Ze - the rules state that you cannot use more than one ticket."
Although highly unlikely, there were scenarios in which some people had gotten multiple winning tickets before - though no one could boast as ever having matched Tang Ze's one hundred percent win record. Each person could only use one, so anyone who won more than one had to either cash it in for sect merit points or trade it with someone. They could not, unfortunately, be stored or saved away for later use.
This was another way to make sure things were more equitable when it came to the Grimoire of Heaven.
Alternatively, you could just give them away. "Yeah, I'm giving these other three to my other squad members," Tang Ze said.
The prefect sighed, he had wanted another chance at getting a ticket and was considering buying an extra one from Tang Ze, but not only was there nothing he could do because what Tang Ze did was perfectly within sect rules - there would be many people who would commend Tang Ze for such an action.
After all, the purpose of the squad system in the first place was to get people to work together with their squad members, and learn to put the collective good their own personal gains.
As such, there was nothing the prefect could do regarding Tang Ze's choice to give his spare tickets to his friends. The prefect simply grumbled and reminded Tang Ze that Tang Ze should be wearing his sect uniform during this time before walking off.
"Alright! Thank you Tang Ze - don't worry about being single, we'll all help you find a girl so you don't have to make-believe anymore!"
"I am not worried about being single," Tang Ze said, and then frowned. "Wait - what do you mean by playing make-believe? Are you talking about Xian Yue? Because she's real. She's just somewhere far away from here."
"You don't have to do the 'I have a girlfriend, she just goes to another sect' routine with us, Tang Ze. We understand."