As a member of the Kings Guild, Wang Shun’s skill was related to collecting information. Therefore, he was mainly responsible for two tasks. One was to collect instance clearance data for various games and the other was to find players with great potential for the guild. Wang Shun had wanted to report Bai Liu’s data and snatch him. Then he saw the announcement from the Kings Guild that they were recruiting puppet players and Wang Shun hesitated.
If he reported Bai Liu now, Bai Liu’s superior intelligence data and mental value data would probably be noted and it would be easy for him to be selected as a puppet player. For ordinary players, being selected as a puppet player was a pretty good position. However, it would be a pity for a newcomer like Bai Liu with an S-grade potential to be a puppet.
Another point was that when Wang Shun did a statistical analysis of the data, he found that the panel attributes of a player who became a puppet didn’t rise any higher or the rise was very slow.
On the contrary, String Puppet Master’s intelligence rose from 71 to 93 points and the other panel attributes also soared.
This data was only clear to Wang Shun who did internal data collection and analysis in the Kings Guild. It was speculated a long time ago that the skill of String Puppet Master wasn’t just ‘player manipulation’ but also ‘potential absorption’. Currently, players only knew that String Puppet Master’s skill was player manipulation.
Many players judged as having high potential by Wang Shun ended up in the arms of String Puppet Master and became puppets. They gradually became mediocre and were abandoned by String Puppet Master or died in the game. They changed from a piece of jade that could emit luster after a single polishing into crushed up mud.
Wang Shun felt sorry but at the same time, he had to accept this helpless reality.
The game was a place ruled by the law of the jungle. After the bottom players were squeezed and their remaining value used up, they would be thrown away by the guild or the strong players. Here, the least valuable thing wasn’t the unsaleable discount products that could be bought with one point but human lives.
Therefore, joining a guild wasn’t necessarily the best choice for an eye-catching player like Bai Liu. It was too easy to be restrained by the rules of the guild and then used by higher level players. Mu Sicheng also saw through this so he didn’t join the Kings Guild.
Coincidentally, it was String Puppet Master who saw Mu Sicheng and wanted him to join the Kings Guild. Mu Sicheng said that he wouldn’t be a puppet under anyone’s control and refused the invitation of the String Puppet Master.
Later, Mu Sicheng suffered a lot from the hands of String Puppet Master but he became more powerful. His ranking gradually climbed to the top 300 of the overall rankings and String Puppet Master had to let him go.
However, Bai Liu was currently ranked in the top 3,000. He was a newcomer with great potential and String Puppet Master wouldn’t easily let him go. Although Wang Shun didn’t submit Bai Liu’s personal data to the Kings Guild out of selfishness, Bai Liu’s eye-catching performance and panel data still attracted the attention of String Puppet Master.
String Puppet Master had been stuck with an intelligence value of 93 for a long time. He needed high intelligence players as ‘nourishment’ to develop his intelligence. Was there a better breeding ground than Bai Liu, a newcomer who only played one single player game?
Wang Shun somewhat wanted to remind Bai Liu to pay attention to this String Puppet Master and the people of String Puppet Master who were also looking for Bai Liu. However, Bai Liu had colorful messy hair and black lipstick. Even if Bai Liu stood in front of Lu Yizhan who knew him for over 10 years then he might not be recognized as Bai Liu.
Unexpectedly, someone recognized Bai Liu despite his strange appearance. Mu Sicheng crossed his arms and stared at Bai Liu who was standing at the entrance of the game area. “…Bai Liu, what did the real world do to you? In just a few days, you have turned into this appearance that doesn’t discriminate between a human or an animal?”
“You can recognize me?” Bai Liu was a bit surprised. He used this face to wander through the game hall several times and no one recognized him. However, Mu Sicheng recognized him with certainty.
Mu Sicheng smiled proudly, revealing his tiger teeth. “Bai Liu, I can recognize you no matter the disguise! I said that I want to take back everything you stole from me so you can’t escape! I can find you!”
“Since you don’t recognize people by appearance…” Bai Liu’s eyes swept over the weird hip-hop monkey hat on this person’s head. “You recognized me by smell, right? Your personal skill is related to this monkey? Strengthening the five senses?”
Mu Sicheng’s smile grew wider. “You guessed wrong. My personal skill isn’t to strengthen my five senses but I did recognize you by smell. You have a very strong smell of copper, or money.”
“Then it should smell good.” Bai Liu was noncommittal as he looked at Mu Sicheng calmly. “What can I do for you?”
“One player is looking for another player—” Mu Sicheng looked at the large game entrance behind Bai Liu. There was a dark and unclear smile on his face and a red light flickered in his eyes. “It is naturally to play a game. I won’t allow you to shrink back and hide in single player games. It is too boring and the death rate is too low.”
Bai Liu nodded in agreement. “I’ve discovered that the rewards for multiplayer games are 10 times the rewards for single player games. I have given up on that poor division.”
“……” Mu Sicheng had wanted to scare Bai Liu but now his words were blocked. He looked at Bai Liu who was serious about carefully screening the multiplayer games and asked dejectedly, “No Bai Liu, it is easy to die in multiplayer games. Aren’t you afraid?”
Next to the entrance behind Bai Liu was a huge projection screen that showed the cover and names of various games randomly.
Bai Liu touched his chin while selecting the game to enter. He glanced over the games and didn’t give Mu Sicheng a superfluous look as he replied lightly, “Objectively, I have a fear of death but this fear is nothing compared to the fear that poverty brings me.”
Mu Sicheng couldn’t understand Bai Liu’s mind at all but the choked-up feeling Bai Liu caused in him was extremely real. “No, you aren’t panicked when entering the game? Aren’t you a bit too calm?”
Bai Liu observed the games on the screen while talking with Mu Sicheng. “I am calm and not afraid because I enter the game with the mentality of coming to work.”
“Coming to work?” Mu Sicheng was completely speechless. “You are coming to work in a horror game?”
“Yes, I work once a week and can take five days off. I can earn at least 200,000 yuan if I do a good job. There is no boss to deduct my bonus and salary and no need to deal with other human beings by trying to understand them, lie to them or reluctantly communicate with them. I just need to do what I’m good at—play horror games.”
Bai Liu finally turned around to look into Mu Sicheng’s eyes and shrugged. “The death rate is slightly higher but I often stay up late when working in the real world. There is no guarantee that I won’t suddenly die so this death rate can also be considered negligible. In summary, this is an ideal job with a high income. I can never find this type of job in the real world so it is hard for me to be afraid of the game.”
Mu Sicheng, “……”
Mu Sicheng felt like he was fucking persuaded by Bai Liu.
“Can I ask something?” Bai Liu asked while pointing to the various games on the huge wall. “Are there only 100 horror games in here? Judging from the number of TVs and players in the game, 100 types are too few. I would like to ask if there are any other games.”
The forum generally discussed a player or a specific game. There were no relevant discussions about the basic mechanisms of the game. Bai Liu had searched for a while and didn’t find any game-related posts. Now Mu Sicheng came to the door and Bai Liu treated him as an object of inquiry.
“There are many kinds of horror games in this game and we don’t know how many types there are.” Mu Sicheng spread open his hands. “It is just that this wall only projects 100 games at a time. Once all 100 games are full, the screen will refresh and new games will appear. Sometimes, games that appeared last time will be repeated.”
Bai Liu touched his chin. “In other words, this game has a total ‘question bank’. It isn’t clear how many games are in this question bank for us players.”
“Every time, the system will randomly or not randomly select 100 game questions from the question bank and put them on the screen. Then us players who are candidates will choose a game question and answer them. Sometimes, if lucky, there will be repetitive questions and sometimes it might be all new questions. Is this correct?”
“That’s right.”’
“If this is the case, it is no wonder that there will be guilds in the game.”
Bai Liu was thoughtful. “The big guilds should summarize some of the repetitive questions that appear. In other words, information on how to quickly and safely clear the instance is internally shared. Through this, they can recruit powerful newcomers.”
“Meanwhile, players with strength or potential will play new games to accumulate ‘answers’ and will receive more resources from the guild. However, there is the live broadcast and the answers to the game are open at a certain level. This means this system can’t last a long time. Current guilds shouldn’t rely on game answers to develop. They should be at the stage of relying on the growth of advanced players in the guild.”
“If I want to develop a guild then I would let senior players bring low level players but the lower level players would need to pay a certain amount of points to the seniors. To the senior players, this is equivalent to remuneration. They will pay a certain amount of points to the guild which is equivalent to paying taxes.”
“At the same time, the items that the low level players get are fully distributed to the guild and most of them will flow into the pockets of high level players to ensure they stay in the guild.” Bai Liu sighed. “However, this will inevitably lead to the exploitation of low level players by high level players and curb the development of low level players. Many low level players won’t have items or personal skills, so they can only survive by relying on the high level players in the guild.”
“Still, there is a steady stream of newcomers joining the guild so the exploited low level players can exploit the newcomers. It is only when a guild is formed layer by layer that it can stabilize its existence. It is no wonder why so many low level players are malicious to strong newcomers.”
Bai Liu had seen all those criticizing him in the forum but didn’t care much. Now he could understand it a bit.
Mu Sicheng, “……”
Bai Liu’s words were all correct. It was almost the same as the current situation of the guilds that Mu Sicheng had learned.
Proofreader: Purichan
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