God's Imitator

At night, Lin Sizhi returned to his room and habitually opened his laptop to check.

What slightly surprised him was that this time the information appeared earlier than last time, after all, it was the first night after the game’s end.

However, what popped up was not an invitation to a new game, but more like some kind of preview.

[Hello, Lin Sizhi.]

[The next game invitation will appear in three days, open to all Imitators, with the game’s theme being ’Filtering’.]

[Before that, you have ample time to think.]

[The following information is the ’Awakening Rules’, which will be open only to a ’very few Imitators’, including you.]

[A few ’high-value players’ actually have a ’second chance’ in the Walkway, and after dying the first time, they merely fall into an ’eternal sleep’.]

[By fulfilling the following conditions, you can become an ’Awakener’, bringing them back to the New World:]

[1. The ’Awakener’ must be an Imitator, and must have designed 1 S-Class or 2 A-Class games.]

[2. The ’Awakener’ must currently be in the goodwill faction, and must remain in the goodwill faction during the entire awakening process.]

[3. The ’Awakener’ must design a game that kills 10 players (including 1 high-value player), and uncover the true identity of an Imitator.]

[4. The ’Awakener’ must additionally spend 1 million minutes of visa time, and set a high-difficulty goal for the ’Awakened’, which the ’Awakened’ must complete independently by the ’end of the next game phase’, otherwise they will die permanently.]

[——The ’Awakening Rules’ are a reward for ’steadfast belief’.]

Crucial information always appears at unexpected times.

Lin Sizhi was not surprised for long. He read the content on the screen repeatedly and quickly identified the crucial details in these rules.

Actually, this is the answer to the question Lin Sizhi had at the end of the first phase.

There is indeed a method of ’reviving a certain player’ in the Walkway.

And from the current situation, the conditions are indeed very harsh.

Firstly, the object of revival is limited to ’high-value players’ as recognized by the Walkway.

If it’s a general player, whose value is not deemed high by the Walkway, then death in the game is true death.

The Walkway has no mercy, only cold value calculations.

Secondly, this revival is not limitless; even for the highest value players, they can only be revived once.

Moreover, from a purely rules-based perspective, the resources required for revival far exceed the value of the ’Awakened’ themselves.

Reviving a ’high-value player’ not only requires killing another ’high-value player’, it also additionally requires: 1 million minutes of visa time, killing another 9 ’general players’, and uncovering the true identity of an Imitator.

Finally, and most critically, the conditions to become an ’Awakener’ are actually very harsh.

One must design 1 S-Class or 2 A-Class games.

One must currently be in the goodwill faction and maintain the goodwill faction status throughout the entire awakening process to meet the above conditions.

Lin Sizhi could roughly guess that in many previous rounds of games, many Imitators had probably abandoned their ’goodwill’ stance.

Because from the first phase, ’Elimination Games’ were exclusive to ’malicious Imitators’.

This type of game has no death rate limit, and they can kill freely, not only calculating against enemies but also earning large amounts of visa time.

And entering the second phase, with the setting of ’bidding for game design qualifications’, the importance of visa time was further heightened for Imitators.

Those malicious Imitators can gain large amounts of visa time by designing exclusive elimination games, then use this visa time to bid for filtering games, judgment games, or save up 1 million to design point-kill Special Games.

Thus, malicious Imitators seem to have entered a virtuous cycle of accruing more and more visa time, while goodwill Imitators have entered a ’no games, no visa time’ vicious cycle.

The Walkway subtly pressures the goodwill Imitators, enticing them to change their stance.

Before the ’Trust Marketplace’, likely many goodwill Imitators already shifted their stance.

But the truth is, there was only one eliminations game that could actually be selected, bringing them no substantial benefits, and as a result, they lost access to this crucial information about the ’Awakening Mechanism’.

This became a privilege for the very few outstanding ’goodwill Imitators’.

So at the end of this message, the Walkway deliberately added a note:

’——This is a reward for steadfast belief.’

Of course, there’s another point worth noting: the ’Awakener’ must set a high-difficulty goal for the ’Awakened’, and if the ’Awakened’ fails to complete it, they will still die.

The deadline is ’by the end of the next phase of the game’.

That is to say, assuming Lin Sizhi manages to successfully awaken a player at any time during the second phase, this player must achieve the ’high-difficulty goal’ set by Lin Sizhi before the end of the third phase.

As for the specific criteria for determining high difficulty, the rules do not clearly specify.

However, from the existing information, designing an S-Class game, killing a large number of players, killing multiple high-value players... these should all count.

Of course, whether it can be accomplished or not is up to the ’Awakened’ themselves.

As the rules state, it must be ’completed independently’.

Lin Sizhi tapped the table lightly, lost in thought.

"In terms of the mechanism, goodwill Imitators and malicious Imitators are finally somewhat balanced.

"Luckily, this condition is a bit more lenient than I imagined.

"Now I can barely acknowledge that the Walkway’s balancing mechanism is not entirely biased.

"However, if one wants to save someone, it still involves a lot of killing.

"Could this also be a trap?"

Apart from other conditions, the most core condition is designing a game that kills 10 players, including 1 high-value player.

This requirement clearly cannot be compromised in any way.

And as Imitators in the goodwill faction, they inherently have a resistance to killing players.

For example, Wei Yinzhang in the first phase was a typical representative, even if forced to design a filtering game, the death rate would tend to be designed to stick to the lower limits.

If given a choice, they would certainly prefer to design Allocation Games.

Elimination Games are unacceptable, and Judgment Games are also relatively undesirable, so overall, goodwill Imitators inherently cannot match the kill counts of malicious Imitators.

And during the process of ’awakening’ key figures, goodwill Imitators may be forced to create many more brutal death designs to meet the criteria within a limited time.

This could easily lead to a ’broken window effect’, or even specific extreme cases:

A goodwill Imitator, to save someone, accidentally commits a wrongful kill, develops a mental block, and in despair transforms into a malicious Imitator instead.

Also known in common terms as ’corruption’.

Under this mechanism, it’s not entirely impossible.

In any case, this is a special rule only open to a very few Imitators, requiring careful planning.

Lin Sizhi leaned back in his chair, lost in deep thought.