God's Imitator

Without Chen Guangming needing to specifically instruct him, Qi Fan could roughly guess what he needed to do:

If currency inflation occurred in ‘Auction Tycoon’ before the last dividend distribution, then he could disrupt the trading in this room and drive some players back to ‘Equipment Forging’ to continue making money using the previous method.

If no currency inflation occurred, then Qi Fan could also earn enough profits in ‘Auction Tycoon.’

However, just as these players had positioned themselves at the game stations and were preparing to bid on items to sell, Lin Sizhi came before Qi Fan.

Qi Fan felt his body stiffen somewhat. He had already encountered Lin Sizhi in ‘Conglomerate Nation’ before, but meeting him up close again still made him instinctively afraid.

He watched as Lin Sizhi’s hand reached past him and simply tapped on the game station in front of him.

[This game station has been set to ”Exclusive Use.”]

[Players may choose to spend more points to bid for ‘Exclusive Usage Rights,’ otherwise, please leave voluntarily.]

Seeing this scene, Qi Fan couldn’t help but be startled. He hurriedly looked at the other game stations, only to discover that the next empty game station had also already been set to ”Exclusive Use.”

The player who had bid for this game station’s ‘Exclusive Usage Rights’ rushed back after exchanging chips and continued playing.Not only that, Lin Sizhi also came before Xu Zhao, spent some points to change his game station to ”Exclusive Use” status, and took down all the items Xu Zhao had listed.

The expressions of Xu Zhao, Qi Fan, and the others all changed, but they had no recourse.

Clearly, the design of ‘Auction Tycoon’ was different from ‘Equipment Forging.’ It had preset rules related to ‘Exclusive Usage Rights.’

According to the rules, after players sold items, they could convert a certain proportion of chips into ”Points,” and these points would be recorded.

Afterward, players could choose to consume points to bid. The player who bid the most points could obtain exclusive usage rights to a certain game station.

Those players who had entered this room relatively early had consciously saved up some points to prevent their game stations from being taken.

Some people might have set very low point conversion ratios and didn’t have many points, but they still had more than Qi Fan and his group.

In this room, the player with the highest points was naturally Lin Sizhi.

If he wanted, he could completely seize usage rights to a certain game station and then give it to other players.

Of course, other players could also obtain more points by increasing the ratio of chips converted to points, similarly achieving a similar purpose.

Players who couldn’t secure a game station from the very beginning couldn’t possibly obtain any points afterward, and naturally would be completely cut off from this room.

Xu Zhao and Qi Fan suddenly realized something.

”This is bad!”

They hurriedly looked toward the direction of ‘Equipment Forging,’ only to discover that after they left, the vacant game stations had already been occupied by other players.

Only Chen Guangming himself occupied one game station and was still continuously obtaining stable profits.

Xu Zhao’s heart gradually sank.

Sure enough, in the end they were still sold out.

Although he had been on guard, in the end he was still one step behind.

The faces of Qi Fan, Ma Chengye, and the others instantly changed dramatically. They hurriedly ran back to the ‘Equipment Forging’ room.

But clearly, no players would give up their game stations anymore.

The players occupying the other five game stations were basically the original unemployed wanderers. Although they hadn’t practiced and couldn’t obtain much profit from the ‘Equipment Forging’ game stations, at this point, they truly had nowhere else to go.

They could only concentrate on playing each game as well as possible to earn as many chips as they could.

As for Chen Guangming, he continued playing indifferently. His attitude was already very clear.

He obviously already knew about the ‘Exclusive Usage Rights’ rules in ‘Auction Tycoon’ and also knew that Qi Fan and the others would definitely be driven out after going there.

But Chen Guangming still tricked them into going.

The reason was also simple: doing this was the choice that maximized profits for Chen Guangming.

If Qi Fan and the others continued playing at game stations, they could also stably produce chips. Then for this room’s final dividend distribution, the exchange ratio still wouldn’t be very high.

Chen Guangming wouldn’t be able to gain extra profits.

But after Qi Fan and the others left, they were replaced by ordinary random players.

These random players hadn’t practiced and would produce much fewer chips, so the exchange ratio during dividend distribution would increase.

Chen Guangming’s chips in hand would be more valuable.

Besides this, Chen Guangming’s actions would also produce some other effects.

Originally, Qi Fan and the others’ profits were relatively high, in the upper-middle range in this hall.

Because in the original cooperation process, Chen Guangming’s profits hadn’t opened up too large a gap with them.

To ensure these players were willing to cooperate with his plan, Chen Guangming would still distribute some profits when selling game station usage rights.

If he let Qi Fan and the others continue playing in the ‘Equipment Forging’ room, Chen Guangming still had the risk of being overtaken. After all, everyone’s technique when playing games was different. He couldn’t ensure an S rating every time; occasionally things would go wrong.

But now, Qi Fan and the others had lost their method of continuing to stably obtain profits. Instead, it was the players who had originally been at the bottom who occupied the game stations.

Chen Guangming’s position was now secure—currently, none of these people in the room could pose any threat to him anymore.

In this final half hour, Qi Fan and these people only had two choices.

Either go to ‘Chess Endgame’ and earn the remaining small amount of dividends, but the problem was that this room was negative-sum. If they won, fine, but if they lost, they might very well be doomed.

Or they could do nothing and just wait for the game to end.

In any case, they had all gathered their Death Immunity Cards. As long as their final profits weren’t in the bottom 30%, they wouldn’t die.

...

At the same time, in the ‘Auction Tycoon’ room.

After realizing they could use points to exchange for ‘Exclusive Usage Rights,’ the players’ competition began entering a white-hot state.

They began continuously raising the proportion of points deducted from chips to attack or defend.

Clearly, up to this point, ‘Auction Tycoon’ was their last chance to earn large amounts of visa time.

As long as they paid some points, they could change a game station to ”Exclusive Use” status and eliminate a competitor for themselves.

Although they weren’t sure what the final rankings would look like, in the early stage, since the points needed to obtain ‘Exclusive Usage Rights’ weren’t many, why not casually try it?

Because players could only convert points by setting a fixed ratio, obtaining points couldn’t be adjusted at will.

Those players who had raised their point ratio from the beginning could gain a greater advantage.

Players who didn’t want to lose their game stations could only be forced to raise the ratio of chips converted to points to defend.

In this process, the ratio at which players converted points began continuously rising. Even after reaching 30%, it was still continuing to rise.

They knew this wasn’t cost-effective, but once the rat race began, there was no other way.