God's Imitator

Everyone fell into silence.

If Cai Zhiyuan had successfully shattered Lin Sizhi’s conviction, they would have ultimately converged into the same type of people. The two of them could then cooperate perfectly and seamlessly, just as they did in ’Conglomerate Nation.’

There would be no issue of interest distribution, because as previously analyzed, for players like these, beliefs are above life and death, and naturally above interests as well.

They would have already proven their beliefs were aligned. Other players couldn’t pose a threat in terms of victory or defeat, much less endanger their lives.

How interests were distributed would simply be irrelevant. Moreover, in the Gallery, continuously winning would allow one to occupy the greatest interests.

But for Community 17 and even the entire New World, this would most likely be extremely bad news.

Finally, Lin Sizhi looked toward the large screen, ”It’s about time we see what exactly the Gallery’s reward is.”

[Due to the emergence of special circumstances, the New World and the Gallery will update their rules. Community 17 will receive a special reward.]

This notification had already existed from the very beginning. Anyone in the community could view it.

But no one had looked at it. Instead, they all defaulted to waiting for Lin Sizhi to make this decision.Now, new information appeared on the large screen.

[In one week, the New World will enter the ’Next Stage.’]

[During this period, the Gallery will no longer issue any game invitations.]

[Communities 1-20 will be connected to ’Other Areas’ in the New World. The Gallery’s boundaries will expand, allowing matches with new players.]

[The numbering of Communities 1-20 may change. At the same time, the personnel structure of communities may also change.]

[Based on the ’Overall Performance’ of communities in this stage (including ’Game Earnings’ and ’Community Construction Achievements’), communities with better performance can retain their ’Core Group’ and preserve certain ’Community Construction Achievements.’ Communities with poorer performance may be completely dissolved.]

Seeing this ’Rule Update,’ everyone’s faces showed varying degrees of surprise.

Clearly, this ’Rule Update’ was directly related to Cai Zhiyuan’s death, because this information appeared after the two Special Games ’Simple Roulette’ and ’Hermit’s Judgment’ ended.

It could also be said that the death of any S-rank God’s Imitator would trigger a major upheaval throughout the Gallery and even the entire New World.

Wei Yinzhang said thoughtfully, ”As expected, the New World doesn’t only have Communities 1 through 20.

”We can only match with these communities because the area we’re in is considered a ’beginner zone,’ isolated from other areas of the Gallery.

”But as time passes, the ecosystem solidifies, and players grow. The area we’re in will also enter the next stage and match with new players.

”Perhaps another area they’re in also has Communities 1 through 20, also has over two hundred players, and they’ve also competed to determine their strongest, just like us?”

Lin Sizhi added, ”There’s also another possibility:

”We’ll match with some ’veteran players’ who have lived in the New World for several years or even longer.

”We’re not necessarily the first batch of players in the New World.”

Li Renshu’s expression became somewhat relieved, ”At least our community should be able to retain its core group. The community construction achievements we’ve made so far should also be maintained.”

According to the rules, the community number would very likely change, since there wouldn’t only be Communities 1 through 20 anymore. However, the community’s personnel composition wouldn’t necessarily change.

This depended on ’Overall Performance,’ meaning whether the community earned a lot of visa time in previous games and how the community construction was.

In a situation like Community 17’s, they could definitely retain their ’Core Group.’

Although it didn’t explicitly state what specifically constituted the ’Core Group,’ based on reasonable inference, it should mean that when being dissolved and reorganized, a portion of members would remain unchanged.

In other words, those weaker communities were already like loose sand to begin with. The communities had been short-staffed for long periods without receiving replacements. After entering the next stage, these communities would be directly dissolved and cease to exist.

Stronger communities, based on their overall performance, would retain a certain number of players.

It might be retaining 5 people, retaining 8 people, or even retaining all 12 people?

The specific rules and numbers weren’t detailed, but judging from the standards, Community 17 would definitely be the community that retained the most original members.

This was good news.

After all, everyone had been in the community for so long. Although there had been some friction, they had also established a good emotional foundation.

Being suddenly completely dissolved, rematched with strangers, and having to go through the adjustment period again was something rather unacceptable.

But immediately after, new information appeared on the large screen again.

[Community 17 will receive a special reward.]

[This information is only visible to the current community and must be claimed by ’the player who contributed most to advancing the New World to the next stage.’]

[Reward 1: You may ask 1 ’special question beyond authority.’]

[Reward 2: For other players in the same community, choose any one of three different reward options and display it on the large screen.]

Although this information appeared on the large screen, what specifically the ’three different reward options’ were was not displayed.

The corresponding information could only be heard by Lin Sizhi, and he didn’t necessarily have to tell the other players the truth.

The reward he chose would be directly displayed on the large screen, but the two he didn’t choose didn’t need to be disclosed to others, or he could also provide false information.

Lin Sizhi didn’t consider for too long. He quickly made his decision.

”I choose the third reward option.”

[All surviving players may decide within 7 days whether to return to the real world.]

[However, if any player leaves, they must forfeit all current community construction achievements, and the community will be dissolved and reorganized.]

...

Everyone erupted in uproar.

It was called a reward, but it completely disrupted everyone’s previous expectations.

”Return to the real world? Everyone? Can everyone choose?”

Everyone looked at the rules on the large screen, confirming them word by word.

Some even instinctively stood up and moved closer to the large screen.

After reading it several times repeatedly, they confirmed it: it truly was ’all surviving players,’ and there indeed was no corresponding time limit.

In other words, it wasn’t returning to the real world for a week or a month for a brief vacation before being pulled back again, but permanently leaving this place and returning to reality.

Just like Fu Chen’s situation in the ’Lifting Game.’

But before this, leaving the New World only had the one extremely harsh condition of ’the Super Authority Player committing suicide.’ So in almost all players’ understanding, the possibility of returning to the real world was extremely low, almost equivalent to zero.

And a group of people all returning to the real world was even more impossible.

Although this option was chosen by Lin Sizhi himself, the prerequisite was that the Gallery had to provide this option.

How could the Gallery be so kind-hearted? Would the lab rats they’d captured be released so easily?

But now it seemed that everyone had some misunderstanding about the Gallery.

When obtaining the desired results, the Gallery didn’t care about the death or departure of certain players and wouldn’t be stingy with rewards.

Lin Sizhi chose to tell the truth, ”The first option was to obtain a total of 2 million minutes of visa time, which I could distribute freely.

”The second option was for the community to obtain 5 immunity tokens.

”The third option was for all surviving players to decide for themselves whether to return to the real world.”