God's Imitator

Zhao Xiuying (the stall owner) has already inserted the coin. Here, the mechanism features a special metal mesh basket, somewhat resembling the frying baskets used in fast food joints to fry French fries, but with a more elongated design and denser mesh.

Zhao Xiuying places the tablets into this metal mesh basket as much as possible, then grips the handle with her right hand to feed the medication into the pharmacy apparatus in front of her.

This device somewhat resembles a coal-burning boiler, with a narrow opening. Once opened, it emits a glaring flame.

Zhao Xiuying must place the metal mesh basket into it, also for a duration of 30 seconds.

This step affects the yield rate of the medication, meaning if the time is insufficient, some tablets might become ineffective.

If the duration is incredibly short, the worst-case scenario could lead to the entire batch of medication being completely wasted.

The flames illuminate Zhao Xiuying’s face to a crimson hue; she keeps wiping her forehead despite her right hand steadily holding the metal mesh basket.

Because once she lets go, the basket will fall into the fire, burning all the tablets to ashes.

Of course, the specific situation of the fourth Pharmacy Room’s ’processing’ depends on the previous Pharmacy Room’s ’temperature control.’ Because He Qing chose ’frigid,’ this room is ’scorching’; if reversed, and He Qing chose ’scorching,’ this room would be ’frigid.’

But in either case, the ordeal Zhao Xiuying suffers in the fourth Pharmacy Room is significantly milder than that in the third Pharmacy Room.

She only faces the flames being directly at her or the risk of frostbite, which is much better than being trapped in an all-round extreme environment like He Qing.

Soon, Zhao Xiuying successfully processes all the medications on the conveyor belt.

Possibly due to loss in previous stages, time seemed more ample here instead.

These medications are then transported via the conveyor belt to the fifth Pharmacy Room where Wen Wan is located.

Unlike the previous Pharmacy Rooms, the fifth does not allow Wen Wan any time to leisurely process the medications.

After inserting a coin and activating the Pharmacy Room function, a 20-second countdown appears from above.

During the countdown, the tablets are poured with a clatter into white jars and arranged in a certain pattern.

Once the countdown ends, the tablets proceed on different conveyor belts towards the ’destruction area’ at the other end of the room.

The ’destruction area’ is a dark entrance where once the medications enter, they are completely destroyed.

What Wen Wan has to do is rescue them from the conveyor belts before they enter the destruction area.

Wen Wan is already prepared. As the medication appears, she rushes over, grabbing two different jars with each hand.

But at the moment of contact with the medicine, her body jolts, and her hands are pushed away.

The notice at the Pharmacy Room entrance explicitly states that in this room, touching the medicine will result in electrocution. How many medications are ultimately removed will determine the medicine’s price.

Huang Shengjie and Ye Lin couldn’t help but break into a sweat for Wen Wan.

In just a brief moment, the medication moved a considerable distance on the conveyor belt, drawing closer to the destruction area.

Luckily, Wen Wan quickly regained her composure. She lunged forward again, grabbing a jar with each hand, and turned to throw them into a nearby medicine basket.

Initially struggling to adapt to the sensation of electrocution, causing the overall pace to slow, Wen Wan became increasingly nimble as time went on.

Even though she shuddered with each contact with the medication, she successfully rescued most of the medications.

With the last jar tossed into the medicine basket, Wen Wan finally collapsed onto the ground, exhausted, gasping for air.

She didn’t have the time to count how many jars she had rescued, but only a few seemed to be destroyed, probably around 5 jars.

While the rescued medicines accounted for at least thirty to forty jars.

After a brief rest, Wen Wan stood up and placed the jars from the medicine basket onto the final conveyor belt.

The broadcast also resounded in the field.

[This round of the game, the Pharmacy Room cumulatively produced 36 jars of medication, each containing 50 tablets.]

[They will be repackaged and sold according to Community specifications as ’5 tablets per bottle.’]

[The default selling price is: ’600 minutes of visa time per bottle.’]

[These medications will be first handed over to the 8 ’Audience Representatives’ for ’inspection.’]

[After the inspection, the audience can choose freely whether to purchase the on-site produced medications.]

[If opting to purchase: you can take the purchased medications back to the Community, or sell them in other Communities through vending machines there. However, you will no longer participate in profit-sharing from the medication.]

[If opting not to purchase: at the end of the game, you’ll partake in profit-sharing from the medication. The total profit generated from selling all medications, 50% of which will be evenly distributed among the ’surviving Sinners players’; the other 50% will be evenly distributed among the ’Audience players who didn’t purchase the medication.’]

...

In the lounge, Huang Shengjie widened his eyes, quickly performing calculations.

"600 per bottle? Isn’t that a bit expensive?

"That’s a whole lot pricier than the medications in the Community!

"Even communities addicted to medication wouldn’t be foolish enough to buy medications here.

"Moreover, players who don’t purchase medications can profit-share, which severely weakens the players’ purchasing intent.

"Unless... these are the rare Class M medications."

Ye Lin nodded, "Yes, if these medications are Class O or Class F, not many would sell.

"Probably only a few players would buy: those who lack additional medication purchase quotas within the Community and need to supplement through this channel.

"Class M medications are a different story."

Huang Shengjie quickly crunching the numbers: "If they’re truly Class M medications, it’s likely they’ll sell out.

"Altogether 360 bottles, which is about... 200,000 minutes of visa time!

"These medications can produce 10 batches in total. If all sell, that’s 2 million minutes of visa time.

"By then, Sinners players share half, each getting... 20,000!

"But if they’re Class O or Class F, selling only a tenth, each Sinner would get only 2,000, which falls below the average income.

"Of course, some Sinners players may not survive to the end.

Ye Lin nodded again, "Let’s see the inspection results from the Audience Representatives first."

The main screen displayed the ’Audience Representative’ in a picture-in-picture.

Huang Shengjie immediately spotted Lu Qi among the 8 Audience Representatives, appearing first on all screens.

This isn’t ranked by Community number, but entirely random, after all, players from Community 1 are also present.

Lu Qi was in a separate Audience lounge. As the inspection began, a machine akin to a lottery draw mixer tossed numerous medicine bottles together and stirred, then a prompt appeared.

[Please randomly select a bottle of medication for examination. You may keep this bottle.]