Back at the shop, Ron planted another dozen or so Nether Orchids before lunch.
He was getting increasingly skilled at using the breeding space, especially since he'd only been growing one type of plant. It had practically trained him into a production line worker.
Now, it took him only about ten minutes to grow a single Nether Orchid. He would use the system's time acceleration function to skip any waiting periods, efficiently saving tons of time.
After lunch, he reopened the shop for the afternoon.
Ron relaxed in his reclining chair behind the counter and picked up a book titled 'Epic Tales of the Elves'.
This time, there were no hidden picture books tucked inside.
Ron was genuinely reading.
Come to think of it, even though Chaos City was at the crossroads of four major races, Ron hadn't actually seen many elves or gnomes.
The most common races here were humans, dwarves, and goblins.
The human empire was located north of Chaos City, occupying the mid-northern and northwestern parts of the continent.
The dwarven kingdom was in the southwest and slightly smaller in territory than the human empire.
Dwarves lived in the Bondless Mountains to the southeast. They preferred life in caves, dedicating themselves to metallurgy, astronomy, and similar fields. They rarely ventured out.
Elves resided in the Forest of Forester to the northeast, gathered around the Tree of Life.
Elves were known for being prideful and somewhat xenophobic, so they rarely left their forests.
Outside of those four major races, goblins were a unique nomadic race without a homeland.
Legend said they originally came from volcanic islands in the far southern seas, but migrated to the continent. Since all land was already claimed by other races, the goblins split into three merchant alliances and became traveling traders across the lands.
They were natural-born merchants. Most trade between elves and dwarves and the outside world was made possible by goblins.
There was also the orc race.
Orcs(Beastmen) lived in the far north, with the largest territory, but their lands were barren, so their population was relatively low.
Since the orcs had to cross the entire human empire to reach Chaos City, Ron had never seen a pure-blooded orc here.
However, half-orcs were quite common.
Every winter, the human empire and orcs clashed in war, resulting in orc prisoners, including many females. These women were often taken by noble families and eventually gave birth to half-orcs.
Due to their mixed blood, half-orcs were heavily discriminated against within the empire—even commoners were considered nobler.
Technically, Ron himself had orc blood.
His mother had been a half-orc fox woman.
That made Ron one-quarter orc.
Perhaps due to the dominant Andre bloodline, his appearance bore no orc traits—except for his faintly reddish pupils.
Pure orcs had bright red pupils, while half-orcs had paler red eyes—a common way to distinguish between them.
This might've also been why Emperor Andre III had sent Ron away from the palace.
"Yo! Ron!"
As Ron was thinking about all this, Lyle's voice came from the entrance.
"Good afternoon!" Lyle greeted enthusiastically.
"Afternoon, Lyle." Ron set down his book and stood up, grabbing a stool for Lyle.
"Hehe." Lyle sat down with a grin, rubbing his hands excitedly. "Ron, you know what? Yesterday I tried selling meat skewers for the first time, and the customers were really intrigued."
"After they tried it, they all said the seasoning was amazing, and that the meat tasted ten times better than before!"
"Our revenue yesterday was several times higher than usual, even though we used the same amount of meat!"
"Ron, I don't even know what to say. You're practically my… my…"
Ron laughed and cut him off, "No need for flattery, Lyle. We just made a simple deal. Don't forget—your BBQ shop is supposed to be free for me for life."
"Of course, of course!" Lyle rubbed his thinning hair and laughed heartily.
"By the way, are you free right now? Shop's all taken care of?" Ron asked.
Lyle nodded. "Yep, the two boys are handling the skewering. I've got time."
"Perfect. I've got something to show you," Ron's eyes lit up as he stood and headed upstairs.
When he came back down, he was holding a stack of cards about two fingers thick.
"What's this?" Lyle asked curiously, flipping through the stack.
"I made these myself," Ron said with a smile. "I call them Element Cards. We can use them to play some games."
"Games?" Lyle looked puzzled. "What's fun about that?"
He glanced down at the cards and saw they were all somewhat similar.
In the top left and bottom right corners, there were symbols like flames, water droplets, soil, and tornadoes, each marked with a number.
The center of each card had beautiful artwork, resembling various magic spells.
Lyle also spotted two cards that looked different from the others—they had characters drawn on them, but he wasn't sure what they represented.
Ron explained the basic rules of the Element Cards.
Most games required 3–4 players, but there were also simple two-player games, perfect for beginners like Lyle.
For example, there was a game called "Cat Fishing". Each player took turns placing a card on the table. If someone played a card that matched a number already played, they won all the cards on the table.
Play continued until one player collected all the cards and won.
The rules were simple, no-brainer fun, and super addictive.
Lyle was instantly hooked after just one round—completely captivated.
Ron, who hadn't had any entertainment in over half a month, was also enjoying himself.
It was like reliving the joy of his old world.
Time flew by quickly.
By 5 PM, they had already played several games.
Texas Hold'em, 24-Point, Catch the Dragon at 14, and others—Lyle was having the time of his life and couldn't stop.
Only when Ron checked the time and realized it was closing time did they finally stop.
"I don't know how your brain works," Lyle said as he got up, amazed. "How did you come up with something so fun?"
"Heh, as long as it's fun." Ron chuckled.
You haven't seen anything yet.
Big Two, Red Ten, and Landlord are all still waiting their turn.
Two-player games were just the beginning.
With that, Ron got up and went with Lyle to his BBQ shop for dinner.