God's Imitator

Clearly, Yang Yuting had always been a relatively optimistic and positive person. Sometimes she didn’t mind being a bit showy, so such choices were in line with expectations.

Yang Yuting explained, ”Actually, I did hesitate a bit when choosing, because symbolic references like ’Queen’ and ’Empress’ are definitely very common.

”Strong female players in the Gallery would very likely choose these, right?

”Like Han Mengying and Lu Xinyi, they’d also very likely choose these. In that case, if we ended up in the same game, there might be difficulty distinguishing between us.

”So for the tarot card, I originally considered whether I should choose ’Moon.’

”But then I thought again, the meaning of ’Moon’ isn’t actually very good. And why should I fear choosing the same card as others? I absolutely can’t lose confidence before the battle!

”So in the end, I still chose this way.”

Cai Zhiyuan nodded, ”Mm, just choose according to your first instinct.

”Because there are only so many chess pieces and cards. There are so many players in the Gallery, including many strong ones. Worrying about clashing is meaningless. Even if you choose the most obscure chess pieces or cards, clashes are still possible.

”Moreover, other players won’t necessarily choose cards like ’Empress.’ At least I think Lu Xinyi most likely wouldn’t choose it.”Speaking of which, I’ve had an idea for a while and have been considering whether to discuss it with everyone.”

Li Renshu nodded, ”What idea?”

Cai Zhiyuan explained, ”About the problem of our chosen ’symbolic references’ possibly being duplicated.

”In the future, there will definitely still be possibilities of anonymous participation games like the ’Fool’s Game.’ If players are all in disguised states, they’ll need a symbolic reference for identification. This is also the main reason we fill out information for game cores.

”According to the ’Fool’s Game’ design, many different animals were assigned to different players, ensuring each player’s mask was different.

”But what if a situation of ’disguise masks can be duplicated’ actually occurs?

”Of course, they most likely won’t be exactly the same—there will be distinctions in details but it will still be very difficult to distinguish.

”For example, international chess pieces have only 6 types total: King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, and Pawn. If a certain God’s Imitator uses international chess pieces as masks and costume gowns, as long as more than 6 players participate in the game, duplication will definitely occur.

”At that time, if we encounter 3 Kings and 4 Rooks in the game, how do we distinguish which one is Brother Wang and which one is Lawyer Lin?

”If we rashly approach to exchange secret signals, we might instead expose information and be counter-trapped by the opponent, causing trouble.

”But if we continue observing, then the act of determining symbolic references from the beginning loses its meaning.”

Qin Yao thought about it, ”But this is also unavoidable, right?”

Cai Zhiyuan nodded, ”Mm, but if we consider this situation in advance and agree on response methods, we might gain the initiative in games.”

Li Renshu considered for a moment, ”This is indeed a topic worth discussing. Does anyone have any thoughts?”

This discussion wasn’t mandatory. Some players had already left, but some people sat back down.

Wei Yinzhang spoke first, ”I actually don’t think we need to worry too much about this problem.

”Because for God’s Imitators’ games to pass the Gallery’s review, there’s still some difficulty. The design can’t have particularly major flaws.

”Suppose disguise masks are designed with international chess pieces. If the number of players exceeds 6 and duplication occurs, such a design would definitely be a rather poor design.

”Unless such a design has deeper meaning, otherwise God’s Imitators should use some methods to distinguish and avoid this.

”For example, adding some other ’secondary elements’ besides the chess pieces for identification, like colors, numbers, letters, symbols, etc.

”The information we prepared also includes these. With combinations of two, the possibility of duplication is very low.

”By the way, when I was designing the ’Fool’s Game’ before, I also considered another design:

”If multiple players chose the same animal mask, they would be distinguished by numbers according to the order they chose.

”For example, if there are two ’Lions,’ one is ’Lion 1’ and one is ’Lion 2.’

”I just felt later that such a design was a bit crude and ultimately didn’t adopt it.

”However, designing this way also has other benefits.”

Qin Yao was somewhat puzzled, ”What benefits?”

Wei Yinzhang explained, ”For communities that have agreed on representative elements in advance, they’ll definitely get earlier numbers.

”To give an extreme example, suppose disguise masks are designed using international chess pieces in a game. If our community’s players see ’King 1’ through ’King 6,’ we can roughly determine that Brother Wang should be ’King 1’ or ’King 2.’

”Because we agreed in advance, Brother Wang can make choices without hesitation, but communities that haven’t agreed will hesitate somewhat.

”Similarly, if everyone sees a player with an early number but it’s not Brother Wang, they might also be a relatively strong core figure from other communities.

”Of course, the prerequisite is that there are enough duplicate masks or costume gowns. The more numbers there are, the more accurate this pattern should be.”

Everyone nodded.

Cai Zhiyuan thought about it, ”Mm, this is indeed a good approach.

”However, I thought of another strategy. Perhaps the conditions for using it are rather strict, but as long as conditions are met, it should also have some effect.”

Li Renshu was somewhat curious, ”Hm? There can be another strategy? What is it?”

Cai Zhiyuan said, ”If a certain type of referential mask has quantity limits and this quantity is relatively small, ordinary players in our community could instead actively clash with game cores and choose the same masks.”

This statement surprised many people.

Wei Yinzhang, as a God’s Imitator, was the first to react. After considering for a moment, she said, ”Mm, indeed also a good approach.”

Qin Yao was still very confused, ”I don’t quite understand. Can you explain in detail?”

Wei Yinzhang explained, ”Let’s still use the ’King’ mask as an example: Suppose in a certain game, there are 6 different international chess pieces total. The entire game has 18 players participating, and each chess piece mask can appear at most 3 times duplicated.

”Once this number is exceeded, remaining players must choose other masks.

”Under these rules, ordinary players in our community have two different choices:

”The first choice is to choose chess pieces according to their own preferences and habits, like choosing ’Pawn,’ ’Knight,’ ’Bishop,’ etc.

”Only Brother Wang would immediately choose ’King.’

”However, players from other communities don’t have such agreements. They might leisurely choose ’King.’

”In this way, even if we know ’King 1’ has a higher probability of being Brother Wang, finding Brother Wang among these three ’Kings’ is still quite difficult, because we can be certain the other two ’Kings’ are definitely players from other communities.

”But players in our community also have a second choice:

”Also compete for ’King.’

”Civilian players in our community can wait two or three seconds and also compete for ’King.’ This way they won’t clash with Brother Wang while also blocking players from other communities who want to choose ’King.’

”In this way, it’s equivalent to our community’s players occupying the spots together. When identifying through the ’King’ element, it will be safer.”