God's Imitator

"Wasn’t it said that the two most frequently used items would be added to the Community’s vending machine list?"

Huang Shengjie sounded a bit dejected.

Qin Cheng had been sitting by the long table the whole time, never getting up.

He said quietly, "There has never been any rule that said that; you’ve mixed up the rules.

"In the rules you see after entering the Pain Game, it’s written very clearly: some rules of this round may have an impact on the Community.

"After that, the description of the two new special drugs appearing in the Community also says: the two special drugs with the highest cumulative usage by players in the Pain Game will be added to the Community’s vending machine list.

"And the drug prices will be set according to the average trading price of those two drugs among players in the game.

"After that, in the next two games, nothing similar was ever mentioned again.

"Of course, I understand what you’re thinking. I even feel that the Imitator who designed the Prison Factory intentionally only put M-type drugs into the game to see whether they could also be brought into the Community.

"But... judging from how things look now, that’s probably not possible.

"Before I left, I also tried putting M-type drugs in my pocket and taking them back to the Community, but clearly, that didn’t work."

Only then did Huang Shengjie subconsciously pat his own pocket. "Ah, right, the pill bottle is gone."

Lu Bingjun thought it over carefully for a moment. "For players, this really is bad news.

"We have to be mentally prepared for this: the harmful consequences caused by the Pain Game are permanent. They may last all the way until the end of Phase 2, with no room for regret or remedy.

"In fact, from Walkway’s perspective, not providing M-type drugs actually makes more sense.

"Because once M-type drugs appear in the Community, unless their price is so high that the vast majority of players can’t afford them, they will definitely, because of their safety, completely replace O-type and F-type drugs.

"At that point, whether players control drug use or not, the Community environment will converge.

"And that’s probably not a situation Walkway wants to see."

Huang Shengjie let out a silent sigh. "Makes sense.

"’Pain’ is the theme of the entire second phase. If the problem could be solved just because some soft-hearted Imitator provided a relatively safe M-type drug in a game, that would be way too easy.

"But... I still can’t swallow this!

"Why does a game made by Xu Yiheng end up having such a huge impact? If a slightly kinder Imitator had designed the Pain Game back then, would things be completely different now?

"This Xu Yiheng is really screwing others without benefiting himself! He played himself to death, and the fallout just keeps on poisoning every Community..."

Yao Yuan lowered his head and pondered for a moment. "From what we know so far, the final say on game rules still lies with Walkway.

"Rather than saying Xu Yiheng beat the other Imitators and created such rules, it’s more accurate to say Walkway intentionally chose this design from among many.

"Looking back now, the Pain Game is, after all, only rated B. The next two games were both rated higher, and from a player’s standpoint, their gameplay and rules were more complete and also fairer.

"That alone is enough to show that, when the Pain Game was being designed, all the Imitators were not competing on a level playing field.

"These are rules laid down by Walkway. As players, we can only accept them."

Shen Bowen thought for a bit. "I don’t think we need to be completely pessimistic.

"The Imitator who designed this Prison Factory isn’t an ordinary person either.

"Although this game is rated A, same as One Word Breaks the Prison, I’d say that, among all the A-rated games, this one counts as being in the relatively better batch.

"An Imitator like this is definitely one of the top-tier players in Walkway. Do you think he wouldn’t know Walkway’s rules? That he wouldn’t know that having the drugs from the Pain Game appear in the Community was a special case?

"He definitely knows.

"But I think he’s still trying to see if he can influence or change those rules to some extent.

"If it’s just this one game, it might not be enough, but what if more Imitators start including M-type drugs when they design their games in the future?

"There might be a turning point.

"After all, Walkway’s rules are dynamically changing. Imitators can slowly alter Walkway to a certain extent. That’s something we already confirmed in Phase 1."

Lu Bingjun nodded. "Mm, maybe."

The situation with drugs in the Community might become better, or it might get worse. Different players had different predictions, but no one dared to claim their guess was definitely right. It still depended on the combined intentions of Walkway and all the Imitators.

So at this moment, what Shen Bowen said was more of a consolation. Many people disagreed with him, but they didn’t want to openly object and pour cold water on everyone just as a bit of hope had started to appear.

Ye Lin was thoughtful. "This time the game is an Allocation Game, so the Imitator probably didn’t deliberately target any specific player. He gave a relatively fair set of rules, and the details of the game design can to some extent reflect his personal attitude.

"He seems to be a relatively benevolent Imitator.

"What do you all think?"

Qin Cheng nodded. "Yeah, I think so too.

"The previous two games were full of malice from the players’ perspective. There’s no need to even mention One Word Breaks the Prison; Judgment-type games have no kindness in them to begin with, and its final death rate was as high as 66%. The Pain Game went further by using a terrible game mechanism to force most players into a corner, and its drug design has left a long-lasting toxic legacy in the Community.

"Compared to those two, Prison Factory is practically friendly.

"It encourages cooperation and gives the defending side an advantage; even if you lose, you can still reliably earn a profit.

"Even for Communities that performed worse, each person could still get at least sixty to seventy thousand minutes of visa time in the end.

"Not only that, the Imitator’s cut in this game should also be relatively small.

"Even though the visa time in Allocation Games is paid by Walkway rather than from the Imitator’s own pocket, I’m guessing there are plenty of Imitators who deliberately set harsh rake rules when designing their games; that is, they pretend to generously distribute the visa time that Walkway allows, then cleverly take it back from the players’ hands.

"But this Imitator doesn’t seem to have done that.

"He can still earn visa time from the game, but he’s already shown a lot of restraint."

Huang Shengjie suddenly understood. "Oh, right. So where exactly did the Imitator build in the rake? I didn’t even notice."

Qin Cheng thought it over carefully. "Mm... I’d guess that any part involving ’spending gold pounds’ could potentially turn into a cut.

"For example, when a Prisoner player wants to become a Worker and has to pay 10,000 gold pounds to buy back his own freedom.

"Or, when ’special punishments’ are triggered, the fines of at least 20,000 gold pounds paid to save other players should also be included.

"It’s probably impossible for him to take all of it directly. After all, in almost every game there are two players who buy back their freedom, which is already 40,000 minutes of visa time. With so many Communities and so many games being run, if every single one reliably brought in 40,000 minutes, that kind of profit would be a bit too outrageous.

"But skimming just a portion should be fine.

"There are also some minor, incidental expenses where he might be able to squeeze out some more gold pounds and convert them into visa time.

"For an Allocation Game that stands out among A-rated ones, Walkway probably wouldn’t be stingy about rewarding him with dozens or hundreds of thousands of minutes of visa time."