God's Imitator

The opposing ’Emperor’ player wore a jeweled crown, with a long white beard on the mask and magnificent clothing.

However, He Xiaojun noticed that the other party’s movements seemed somewhat stiff. Although they were trying hard to remain motionless, it gave off a feeling of showing weakness and lacking confidence.

”Could it be that when ’The Magician’ looked at me last round, this was how it felt?”

He Xiaojun sat down at the long table and greeted, ”Hello.”

The other party didn’t respond.

He Xiaojun looked at the notice board beside the long table, which clearly read ’The number of Wealth Vouchers in the wooden boxes forms an arithmetic sequence.’

Seeing this, He Xiaojun breathed a slight sigh of relief. The other party should be like him, most likely a relatively weak novice player.

This was mainly judged through cross-verification from three aspects:

First, the other party chose the rather domineering ’Emperor’ costume. From previous experience in the ’Fool’s Game,’ the more novice a player was, the more likely they were to choose such attire.

Second, the other party deliberately reduced their movements, which instead made them appear somewhat stiff and rigid. If they were a strong player, they should be more at ease like ’The Magician.’Finally, the other party’s rule was ’arithmetic sequence,’ which was quite basic and simple. Like He Xiaojun, they had probably used all their energy just to ensure the Wealth Vouchers were placed in the wooden boxes in accordance with the rules, with no time at all to think about more complex strategies.

Because arithmetic sequences were the simplest and had the lowest calculation difficulty, it was less likely to make mistakes when placing Wealth Vouchers and wouldn’t trigger penalties.

Moreover, under an arithmetic sequence, the difference between the box with the most Wealth Vouchers and the box with the least wouldn’t be too large (compared to geometric sequences or other sequences).

So even if unlucky and the wooden boxes storing more Wealth Vouchers were stolen, it would be relatively acceptable and the loss wouldn’t be too great.

Of course, these needed to be further confirmed by checking the specific amounts of Wealth Vouchers in the wooden boxes.

”I need to first sense the spirituality on these tarot cards and establish the necessary connection with them.”

He Xiaojun was basically learning and applying on the spot. He had virtually no understanding of tarot cards, but in such a mystically-themed setting, pretending to mutter a few phrases could at least create some psychological pressure on his opponent.

To play the part fully, if he opened the wooden boxes very decisively, the mystifying effect would be lost, so he also acted like ’The Magician,’ pretending to caress the wooden boxes as if sensing what was inside them.

After pretending to touch them for a while, He Xiaojun felt completely confused.

”Strange, these boxes feel exactly the same when touched, there’s no difference at all. How exactly did ’The Magician’ distinguish them?

”The urgent task now is which specific strategy to adopt.

”If I could guess the size correctly like ’The Magician,’ then the second strategy would definitely be better, but if I guess wrong, it would result in being unable to take the Wealth Vouchers from both boxes.

”No matter what, in the first two or three actions, it’s best to first adopt the second strategy. This way I can see more information about the Wealth Vouchers in the boxes, and perhaps this information will be useful.”

Time was limited. He Xiaojun felt he needed to make a decision quickly, otherwise if he couldn’t use all 10 action opportunities in the end, it would be very disadvantageous for the ’Thief.’

”I’ll first adopt the second strategy.

”’The Fool’ is the beginning and end of everything, while ’The World’ symbolizes the endpoint of the universe and a new starting point.”

As He Xiaojun spoke, he first opened ’The Fool’s’ wooden box.

Inside ’The Fool’s’ wooden box were 17,000 Wealth Vouchers, but they weren’t a whole bundle plus a few 100 denomination vouchers, but rather 17 vouchers of 1000 denomination.

”’↑The Emperor’ exchanged them according to the ’One Thousand’ denomination?”

After seeing this denomination, He Xiaojun roughly made a judgment. From his previous experience, even for a novice, this amount of Wealth Vouchers wasn’t much.

”I guess ’The World’ has more wealth.”

Opening the wooden box again, this time there was a bundle plus several more Wealth Vouchers inside.

He Xiaojun’s spirits immediately lifted, feeling he should have guessed correctly!

However, after carefully looking at these Wealth Vouchers, he discovered they weren’t 1000 denomination. They were all 100 denomination.

And this also meant that the total value of these Wealth Vouchers was only 10,900.

Less than ’The Fool’s’ wooden box.

According to the rules, both boxes would be retained by ’The Emperor.’

The other party still didn’t make any movement, sitting very stiffly.

He Xiaojun felt somewhat embarrassed.

He had chosen wrong with a 50% probability, which made all those pretentious things he said earlier fall flat. Now the other party knew completely that he didn’t understand divination at all, and everything he said was just mystification.

But this kind of opening instead made He Xiaojun’s brain start racing rapidly, suddenly thinking of a blind spot he had previously overlooked.

”As the defending Sage player, you can withdraw two denominations of Wealth Vouchers!

”Right, I overlooked this before. Although when withdrawing each time, you can only choose either ’One Hundred’ or ’One Thousand’ denomination, the game didn’t limit withdrawing only once. You could completely withdraw 100 and 1000 denomination Wealth Vouchers in two separate withdrawals.

”At that time, my mind was full of calculations, and subconsciously for convenience, I withdrew all the Wealth Vouchers at once using the 100 denomination.

”But this raises a new question.

”Why would the other party withdraw the two denominations separately?

”These two denominations of Wealth Vouchers only differ in color and pattern, but the size and weight are exactly the same. When placed in the wooden boxes, there shouldn’t be any essential difference...

”Weight! The only difference is weight!

”Because a 1000 denomination Wealth Voucher equals ten 100 denomination Wealth Vouchers, there will be a difference in weight.

”When I was moving those Wealth Vouchers earlier, I also felt it. They’re a bit like metal material with a certain thickness, so they’re much heavier than paper currency. Especially bundled Wealth Vouchers are actually quite heavy...

”Could it be...”

He Xiaojun suddenly thought of something. He hurriedly continued feeling these wooden boxes nonchalantly.

He first gently shook them, but there was no response, because there were grooves on the table surface, and all the wooden boxes fit quite snugly in the grooves, so they didn’t produce any shaking.

But having already found a line of thinking, He Xiaojun didn’t give up. He continued trying to pinch both sides of the wooden box and gently lift upward.

The first attempt still didn’t succeed, but the second time, when he pressed both hands on the sides of the wooden box and lifted it vertically upward, the situation suddenly changed.

He was surprised to discover that the wooden box could actually be lifted up a small distance!

This distance was very, very short, because there were four thin chains around the wooden box fixing it to the table. These chains weren’t in a completely taut state initially, but the room left was very small.

As soon as he lifted it up a bit, it would become taut and pull back.

But it was precisely this tiny bit of distance that allowed He Xiaojun to actually suspend the wooden box and feel its weight.