God's Imitator

He Xiaojun carefully examined the new rules. ”As expected, The Emperor is definitely not an ordinary player. He’s a strong player disguised as a novice. Now he’s simply creating his own rules directly. Is he no longer pretending?

”That’s right, the ’Number Bomb’ rules have basically been completely dismantled. The strategic component is becoming less and less, and the luck component is becoming more and more significant, so those relatively strong players can no longer obtain high returns from it and will tend to change strategies.

”Hm? Wait, something’s not right.

”This is the ’Reversed’ Emperor.”

Since the players participating in the game were themselves quite sensitive to camp information, for example, He Xiaojun himself was a Reversed player, he would naturally confirm that Reversed players were all teammates, while Upright players were all enemies.

The Emperor he had previously lost to was the Upright Emperor.

And in this match, the one serving as ’Sage’ creating original rules was the Reversed Emperor.

These were two completely different players.

He Xiaojun sighed with emotion. ”As expected, ’The Emperor’ is a very popular tarot card. The strong would definitely scramble to choose it.

”I just wonder what kind of scene it would be if the two Emperors, Upright and Reversed, were matched together.”On the screen, the match in the room was about to begin. He Xiaojun stopped overthinking and instead held his breath and focused intently on observing the match situation.

If this new set of rules could prove effective, then it would also very likely replace the previous ’Number Bomb’ and become the mainstream rules of the next phase.

...

In the room, ’↑The Devil’ had also finished reading the original rules for this time.

[Rule of ’Number Prisoners’:]

[All 22 wooden boxes are filled with 500 Wealth Vouchers.]

[However, in each wooden box, there are respectively 1 to 22 vouchers of 100 denomination, with the rest being vouchers of 1000 denomination.]

[The box numbers have no clear correspondence with the ’number of 100 denomination Wealth Vouchers,’ and are in a scrambled state.]

[It can be viewed as prisons numbered 1 to 22 holding prisoners numbered 1 to 22 in random order.]

[The ’Thief’ player’s goal is to rescue prisoners from the prisons.]

[The Thief has a total of two action opportunities. Before the first action, they may freely choose a number a, representing ’the number of 100 denomination Wealth Vouchers in a certain wooden box,’ then open any 7 of the boxes.]

[If number a is among them, the first action is considered ’successful.’]

[For the second action, the already opened wooden boxes will be closed again, but the Wealth Voucher situation inside them remains unchanged.]

[At this time, the Sage designates a number b, which also represents ’the number of 100 denomination Wealth Vouchers in a certain wooden box.’]

[The Thief player can likewise open any 7 wooden boxes again.]

[If number b is among them, the second action is considered ’successful.’]

[If both actions are completely successful, all Wealth Vouchers can be stolen.]

[If one action is successful, 7 wooden boxes can be freely chosen to steal Wealth Vouchers.]

[If both actions completely fail, 5 wooden boxes can still be freely chosen to steal Wealth Vouchers.]

Very obviously, when relatively strong players played ’Sage,’ they often wouldn’t be content to follow those defensive strategies, but would try as much as possible to expand their own returns through original rules.

’↑The Devil’ fell into contemplation.

Actually, at this time he had a simpler method, which was to directly choose the first strategy and casually take the Wealth Vouchers from 10 wooden boxes.

According to this Wealth Voucher placement method, taking casually wouldn’t result in too much loss.

But ’↑The Devil’ still decided to seriously think about this round’s rules and possible strategies.

On one hand, this was because ’↑The Devil’ considered himself a player with decent strength and could vaguely see the principles contained behind this gameplay. He wanted to try to crack it.

And on the other hand, it was because even if this attempt to crack it failed, the experience this time might also play a role in subsequent games.

Because judging from the ’Number Bomb’ situation, after one ’Sage’ player proposed new rules, many subsequent ’Sage’ players would also spontaneously imitate them.

For ’Sages,’ imitating this kind of new rule could often bring them additional returns. For example, the Sages who were earliest to imitate the ’Number Bomb’ rules all tasted the benefits.

And for ’Thief’ players, it didn’t matter if they couldn’t crack the original creator’s game. As long as they could crack the subsequent ’imitators’’ games, they could also obtain excess returns.

So, it was better to seize the opportunity to battle the original creator and carefully think about the rules to prepare for later.

’↑The Devil’ rapidly did calculations in his mind.

”This looks like a variant of the ’100 Prisoners’ problem. However, since the quantity has changed, I should first consider what the expected return would be if I adopted a purely random strategy.

”If the expected return of a purely random strategy is acceptable, then it means using a special strategy’s expected return would significantly increase, making it worth attempting.

”If the expected return of a purely random strategy is very low, then the expected return of a special strategy probably won’t have an increase on the order of ’several times,’ after all, there are only two chances, not a hundred...

”First, calculate the probabilities of the four possibilities respectively, then multiply each by their returns, and finally calculate the total expected return.

”If both times are successful, the probability of the first time is 7/22. There’s no question about that.

”The key is the second time. What kind of number will the Sage give?

”He definitely won’t give me a number I already saw when opening boxes the first time. He wouldn’t bet that I didn’t remember when opening boxes before, right?

”So, he’ll definitely give a number from boxes that haven’t been opened yet.

”In that case, the probability of guessing correctly with 7 chances is 7/(22-7)=7/15.

”There’s no time for precise calculation, but it can roughly be noted as 1/3 and 1/2.

”Then the probability of guessing correctly both times is 1/6. The probability of guessing correctly once is 1/3×1/2+2/3×1/2. The probability of guessing wrong both times is 2/3×1/2.

”The returns for these three situations are 22 boxes, 7 boxes, and 5 boxes respectively.

”Then the final expected return should be...

”3.6+3.5+1.7=8.8 or so.

”Guessing completely randomly, the expected return is Wealth Vouchers from about 8.8 boxes.”

Time was very limited. ’↑The Devil’s’ calculations were also rather rough, with several calculation steps using approximate values.

But it was generally correct.

’↑The Devil’ continued thinking. ”In the case of using random guessing, the expected return is slightly lower than the first strategy of ’casually taking 10 boxes,’ but if I use the ’100 Prisoners’ strategy, the probability should increase significantly.

”But I must also consider that as the designer of this set of rules, ’↓The Emperor’ definitely also knows about the existence of the ’100 Prisoners’ strategy. If he specifically designed a trap targeting this strategy, then my adopting this strategy might instead result in gaining nothing.

”I should use the first chance to probe using a random method, then consider whether to adjust the strategy for the second chance.”

After considering, he said, ”I’ll go by your rules.”

’↓The Emperor’ nodded. ”Then please determine the first number, then open seven boxes.

”However, as the ’Sage,’ I can give you a kind reminder:

”In this game, there are subtle connections between the tarot cards and numbers. Fate has already been decided in the unseen realm. Conform to these connections, and fate will give you the rewards you deserve.”

’↑The Devil’ considered for a moment and said, ”The number I choose is 15.”

After that, he began successively opening different wooden boxes, but among them was not box number 15, ’The Devil.’