God's Imitator

From the rules, as long as each of the four Peripheral Communities had one player exit through an ’Exit Area,’ the remaining players could safely return to their respective communities.

In other words, in the best-case scenario, this game would result in 7 player deaths, that is, all 6 players from the 4th-ranked ’Core Community’ wiped out, and 1 death from the 3rd-ranked ’Core Community,’ a mortality rate of about 16%.

However, in the worst-case scenario, there could be a situation where ’two Peripheral Communities are completely wiped out’ (if the other two Peripheral Communities occupied all the slots in the Exit Areas), in which case the death toll would reach 17 people, a mortality rate of nearly 40%.

Under this set of rules, one more point was worth noting: when multiple players gathered in the same Exit Area, they would return to the community ranked according to their wealth value from highest to lowest.

For example, if Community 17 had 6 players enter the game and the community had 2 vacant spots, then the ’Exit Area’ corresponding to it could only allow 8 players to exit.

If a player from Community 17 happened to be ranked 9th in wealth value, they wouldn’t be able to get on board.

They would remain in the game and could choose to go to other ’Exit Areas,’ but in that case would go to other corresponding ’Core Communities.’

The only good news was that even if they couldn’t be taken by any ’Exit Area,’ they wouldn’t immediately suffer instant death punishment, but would be randomly assigned to one of the four Peripheral Communities in this game.

But if the Peripheral Community they went to didn’t have a single player successfully exit through an ’Exit Area’ and thus suffered full instant death... then there would be no saving them.

Therefore, after confirming each other’s identities in the game, individual wealth values also needed to be properly allocated as much as possible, otherwise the final result of this game could very likely lead to a major reshuffling of personnel between communities....

At the same time, players in other rest rooms were also seizing the time to think about the game rules.

The 10 minutes passed quickly.

A new broadcast came through the rest room.

[The first round of the game begins. Players who have obtained the ’Sage’ identity, please go to the vending machine to withdraw ’Wealth Vouchers,’ and complete the arrangement of the game room according to the game rules within 5 minutes, otherwise you will be directly judged as losing.]

At the same time, among the three doors in different players’ rest rooms, different doors opened.

Whichever door opened meant automatically obtaining that identity.

He Xiaojun from Community 14 was still racking his brains thinking about the game rules. So far, there was still too much content he hadn’t figured out.

But the ’Sage’s Door’ in his rest room had already opened.

”Ah! This is a bit unlucky.”

He Xiaojun was somewhat dejected.

According to the game rules, players would experience a total of 9 rounds in the first 3 hours, with ’Sage,’ ’Thief,’ and ’Spectator’ each occurring three times.

The specific order was random.

For He Xiaojun, the identity he most hoped to get in the first round was ’Spectator,’ followed by ’Thief,’ and the worst was ’Sage.’

Because he simply hadn’t figured out how this game should be played.

Although the rules seemed simple, just taking some Wealth Vouchers and putting them in boxes, as a ’Sage’ he couldn’t just place them randomly, he had to think of a rule.

If he couldn’t complete the arrangement according to the rules within 5 minutes, he would have to compensate 1 million to the Thief player, which would be too costly.

As a ’Spectator,’ he could first watch how other players played and learn strategies.

Although a ’Thief’ also had to play right away, they could mindlessly execute the first strategy, which was to randomly select 10 boxes out of the 22 boxes to steal from.

The game rules also said that these boxes couldn’t be empty, so randomly selecting 10 boxes would still yield some guaranteed minimum Wealth Voucher income.

Compared to the 12 boxes the ’Sage’ retained, it would definitely be at a loss, but not by too much.

But now that he was confirmed to be a ’Sage,’ he had no choice.

”It’s okay, preparation time is limited. If I can’t think of a good strategy, other players probably aren’t much better off either. As long as I don’t unluckily encounter a particularly strong player, it should be fine.

”Most Thieves without much confidence should choose the first strategy, which is to randomly pick 10 boxes and take the Wealth Vouchers inside.

”As the Sage, I can retain 12 boxes, which means higher expected income.

”So, the urgent task is to make an arrangement that conforms to the game rules and avoid being fined.”

While comforting himself to stabilize his nerves, He Xiaojun came to the vending machine to check.

Perhaps because the game duration was relatively long, the vending machine also sold food and water.

However, besides that, its main function was to withdraw Wealth Vouchers.

The interface was very simple, with an input box and a small keyboard, along with a prominent reminder: ’Please withdraw no less than 100,000 Wealth Vouchers.’

At the bottom right was a huge ’Confirm Withdrawal’ button, while at the bottom left were two different denomination options: ’One Hundred (100)’ and ’One Thousand (1000),’ with only one selectable.

On another page, there was also a function to query other players’ game records, but it required consuming Wealth Vouchers and wasn’t needed for now.

Besides that, next to the vending machine, there was also a small calculator and paper and pen, presumably to facilitate players in keeping records and calculating the specific values in each box.

These things were all in the rest room, so there was no need to worry about being seen by other players.

The 5 minutes wasn’t long. Considering the actual time needed to place the Wealth Vouchers, it could even be said to be quite urgent.

He Xiaojun quickly thought about the rules.

”This is only the first round. To be safe, it’s better to take as little as possible, right?

”In the game rules, ’number of wins’ is used to determine camp victory. No matter how many Wealth Vouchers I take, as long as I as the ’Sage’ ultimately retain more Wealth Vouchers than the ’Thief,’ it counts as obtaining one win.

”The two denominations probably don’t make much difference, but since when placing Wealth Vouchers they must follow ’a certain rule,’ then naturally the smaller the denomination the easier to distribute.

”If the denomination is too large, in order to make these numbers conform to a specific rule, the required quantity would correspondingly inflate tenfold.

”So I’ll take the denomination of ’100,’ which will be more flexible.

”Wait, that’s not right either. Although both result in 1 win, individual and community wealth values will also have an impact.

”The higher the individual wealth value the better, so as the ’Sage,’ I definitely need to carry as many Wealth Vouchers as possible. The more I carry, the more I’ll naturally retain.

”But if the ’Thief’ side is very strong and uses the second strategy, theoretically they could even steal the Wealth Vouchers from 20 of my boxes!

”In that case, I’d lose big time.

”Moreover, the opponent I’m matched with is most likely a player from another community. If I have so many large-value Wealth Vouchers stolen, it’s equivalent to aiding the enemy. In the community rankings, our community would fall into a disadvantage.

”Damn, it’s a bit hard to decide!

”I should first determine the rule, then decide how much to carry specifically.

”Hmm... placing ’Wealth Vouchers related to prime numbers,’ this should conform to the rules, right?”