‘Owl’ paused slightly and continued speaking, "Among you people, there should be some who opened that wooden box in the first stage.
"Or perhaps none of you did.
"But regardless, your oxygen consumption is very low. This indicates that you didn’t engage in much thinking during the first stage and simply played this game as one purely dependent on luck.
"This also means you both lack the motive to deceive people and lack the ability to deceive people. Therefore, this is a true ’safety statement.’
"I’ve carefully studied the specific oxygen consumption. If you empty your mind and stop thinking, it takes about 1 hour to consume one canister of oxygen.
"But if you think continuously, constantly pay attention to your opponent’s plays, and seriously consider strategies, then it takes about 30 minutes or even less to consume one canister of oxygen.
"This is different from reality. Obviously, the God’s Imitator who designed this game did this intentionally.
"This huge difference is sufficient to be clearly displayed on this screen.
"Of course, nothing is absolute, but under this mechanism, the probability of accidents is very low. That’s why I dare to provide insurance for you all."
"Ah? So that’s how it is!"
‘Gray Wolf’ He Xiaojun also completely understood, "This means the suggestion the God’s Imitator left in that wooden box actually has two layers of meaning?
"The first layer of meaning is to teach us to play randomly, eliminate psychological interference, use this defensive-type strategy to reduce losses, and obtain the expected positive returns as much as possible.
"The second layer of meaning is to have us reduce thinking, reduce oxygen consumption, thereby establishing some kind of ’safety statement,’ making it easier to find people with whom we can establish mutual trust in the second stage of the game?
"I felt a bit regretful earlier for smashing it open prematurely!
"Now it seems ‘Fool Players’ should smash it open at the first opportunity.
"The reason this suggestion mainly takes effect in the first stage is because the low oxygen consumption in the first stage is the ’safety statement.’
"Using this strategy in the second stage cannot establish a ’safety statement,’ so it doesn’t have much significance."
‘Owl’ nodded, "That’s right."
Very obviously, this wooden box was a targeted screening mechanism.
Its reward mechanism was based on the player’s total visa time.
The more total visa time, the more chips obtained when it automatically opened after 1 hour.
Therefore, the wealthier and smarter the player, the more they cared about these chips, the less interested they were in the strategy in the box, and the more they tended to wait.
But for those players whose remaining visa time was already limited, even if they waited for it to open automatically, they wouldn’t get many chips. It was better to open it immediately and see what the suggestion inside was.
‘Gray Wolf’ He Xiaojun was exactly .
If he hadn’t smashed the wooden box open and adopted the suggestion, but instead chosen to puzzle it out blindly himself, his oxygen consumption would inevitably have increased substantially, and ‘Owl’ wouldn’t have pulled him into the team.
In the view of the God’s Imitator who designed this game, if a ‘Fool Player’ clearly couldn’t think of a strategy yet was greedy for a handful of chips, didn’t even have the courage to smash the wooden box open early, and kept puzzling it out blindly themselves, then they couldn’t be called a ’wise fool’ and deserved to be screened out by this game.
After confirming this point, the way everyone looked at each other suddenly became much warmer. The low oxygen consumption data looked so pleasing to the eye.
"Great, shall we start then?"
They each went to the ‘Battle Platforms,’ preparing to start paired battles.
‘Owl’ reminded them, "Remember, only use paper and scissors. Don’t use the ’Fool Card (Rock).’ If anyone doesn’t play according to my requirements, I will immediately kick them out of this group and won’t share any subsequent strategies."
Although they weren’t clear why, everyone still chose to comply.
Everyone took turns using scissors to win against their opponent’s paper. Each person could obtain an additional net gain of 1,000 chips.
Seeing that everyone had completed their battles, ‘Owl’ continued, "For this round’s number guessing, enter ’65.’" ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ Nov3lFɪre.ɴet
‘Gray Wolf’ He Xiaojun was startled, "Huh, that high? Didn’t the game rules say that player behavior might cause this number to decrease? Most players, to be safe, should guess numbers around 50, right?"
‘Owl’ didn’t answer. He simply tapped the display screen on his oxygen mask again.
The meaning was quite clear: you’d better give up thinking and not create meaningless oxygen consumption for yourselves.
‘Gray Wolf’ immediately understood. He nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.
He and the others simply returned to their respective lounge doorways, entered the number on the device, and confirmed.
At the same time, on the other side of the hall.
Han Mengying didn’t spend too much time finding the other 6 ‘Sage Players.’
There were only 10 ‘Sage Players’ in total in the entire venue. The number wasn’t many. Logically, they shouldn’t be easy to find, but they obviously had significant differences from ordinary "‘Fool Players’."
They neither rushed hurriedly to the battle platforms to start the game, nor did they sit dejectedly at the edge positions feeling sorry for themselves.
Most displayed a composed and confident attitude.
Moreover, Han Mengying had already figured out why so many players kept a respectful distance from her.
Because of "oxygen consumption."
Up to now, she had already replenished oxygen twice, and the current canister of oxygen was also being rapidly consumed due to continuous thinking.
Whether the number or the remaining oxygen amount, both were quite conspicuous.
As long as a player realized that "the more oxygen consumption, the more dangerous," they absolutely wouldn’t choose to play cards with her, unless she offered an especially exaggerated payout ratio.
After thinking this through clearly, Han Mengying simply gave up playing cards, because forcibly playing with high payout ratios was no longer worthwhile.
The main goal of the game had already changed.
She turned instead to trying to find players from the same community, form a team, and shift the focus of her thinking to "guessing the number."
After guessing the opponent’s ‘Sage Player’ identity through various factors, Han Mengying only needed to approach and briefly probe. After mutually viewing each other’s two ‘‘Sage Cards’,’ that was sufficient to confirm identities.
‘Rabbit’ Han Mengying looked at the 8-person team she had formed.
Including herself, there were a total of 7 ‘Sage Players’ and 1 ‘Fool Player’, ‘Turtle.’
The reason for bringing this ‘Fool Player’ ‘Turtle’ along was because Han Mengying confirmed he was also a member of Community 4.
And aside from Han Mengying and this ‘Fool Player’, among the other 6 ‘Sage Players’, 2 more came from Community 4.
In the process of forming the team, Han Mengying only needed to mutually exchange with the other person a code phrase known only to players from their community, and that was sufficient to confirm both sides’ identities.
This time, Community 4 had a total of 4 players enter. It was still the same configuration as the previous ‘Conglomerate Nation,’ using the method of 3 carrying 1.
The 3 relatively intelligent players were ‘Rabbit’ Han Mengying, as well as ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Mole,’ all successfully obtaining ‘Sage’ identities.
Among them, ‘Hummingbird’ was Luo Wei, who had just joined Community 4 not long ago.