God's Imitator

The countdown on the large screen came to an end.

[The New World will now enter the ”Next Stage.”]

[All communities have been ”fully updated.”]

[Because Community 17 selected the third option in the special reward and a player has returned to the real world, the community’s current construction achievements will be forfeited, and the community will be dissolved and restructured.]

[The freely withdrawable portion of the community fund has been returned to each player’s private visa at the original amount.]

[Please have all remaining players take your personal belongings, leave the current community within one hour, and join any other community of your choosing.]

In reality, less than an hour had passed since everyone had left, but to Lin Sizhi, it felt as though a much longer time had gone by.

Lin Sizhi returned to the second floor, intending to go into his room and briefly gather his personal belongings.

Before he pushed open the door to his room, however, he paused for a moment and glanced toward the doors of the other rooms.

He realized that after entering the ”Second Stage,” the community seemed to have undergone some changes: the number of rooms on the second floor had increased from 12 to 14.The layout of the rooms on the entire second floor was rather unusual, somewhat like a maze. The doors of rooms with different numbers were not arranged in sequential order, and there were no instances of doors facing each other or sharing a hallway.

Because of this, however, with the addition of two new rooms, the overall layout of the second floor had shifted, and Lin Sizhi noticed this immediately.

Regardless, after entering the Second Stage, Community 17 would presumably welcome a new batch of players.

After doing a quick sweep of his room, Lin Sizhi realized he did not actually have much he could take with him. The only thing of real value was the sheet of white paper on which everyone had written their contact information.

The notice board in the room briefly outlined the key points to keep in mind:

All daily necessities, clothing, and so on could be purchased upon moving into the new community. All information previously updated on the computer would be cleared and transferred to a new computer after checking into the new community.

Players could, of course, choose to bring a small number of personal items, including clothing and miscellaneous belongings, or valuable and cherished items purchased within the community.

Lin Sizhi bought a small suitcase from the vending machine and packed his things simply.

He made his way to the entrance of the community, took one last look back at Community 17’s small building, then scanned his visa and left.

Outside the community, the scene was still reminiscent of a modern, bustling city, with neatly trimmed green belts, paved surfaces free of any dirt or cracks, and small communities lined up along the roadside.

Compared to before, however, these communities appeared to be slightly larger in scale, and their general-purpose buildings seemed to have become somewhat more spacious as well, likely because the standard number of players had changed from 12 to 14.

At this point, Lin Sizhi could have simply turned around, returned to Community 17, and become Player No. 1, but after thinking it over, he decided to leave the choice to fate.

He walked aimlessly along the road, intending to join a community at random.

These communities had no numbers posted on the outside, and only by entering one could you determine its specific number.

One thing did catch Lin Sizhi’s attention, though: along the way, he spotted a few players, but not a single familiar face among them.

Moreover, these players did not seem to know one another either, and they all kept their distance.

Some, like Lin Sizhi, carried small suitcases, while others walked with empty hands.

Lin Sizhi’s gaze swept across the faces of the passersby, and he formed a rough hypothesis.

”Based on what the Gallery has said, the boundaries of the Gallery in the Second Stage will expand and be able to match with new players. The numbers of Communities 1 through 20 may change, and the composition of players within each community may change as well.

”In other words, what was originally Community 1 may no longer be Community 1.

”The original ’Communities 1 through 20’ can be thought of as one large region. By the time the First Stage ended, stronger communities may have maintained full capacity, but the weaker, more peripheral communities likely had player counts that barely exceeded half, leaving a large number of vacancies.

”So the New World has, in all likelihood, merged two or three large regions together.

”The passersby I’m seeing now are very possibly players who originally belonged to other regions.

”As for the ’familiar faces’ from my original region, it may be that their communities didn’t undergo major structural changes so they never left, or it may be that the Gallery has deliberately placed them in different locations within the same region.”

Lin Sizhi made these deductions and connections almost instinctively. Of course, he did not particularly care about the specifics of the matching mechanism, since it was entirely up to the Gallery to decide, and players had no say in the matter.

After walking for a while, Lin Sizhi turned a corner and casually entered a community by the roadside that had not yet been closed.

The notice board at the entrance still displayed a prominent message: ”Submit your visa to check in.”

Lin Sizhi was already very familiar with the entire process. He extended his left hand to scan at the window, and a prompt quickly appeared on the screen.

[Visa verification complete.]

[Lin Sizhi, welcome to Community 2.]

[You are Player No. 12 in Community 2. Please proceed to your corresponding room number to check in, and conduct your activities in accordance with community rules.]

[Compared to the initial community rules you are familiar with, the new community rules have minor changes. Please review them at your own discretion.]

Lin Sizhi stepped toward the entrance of the lobby, and no prompt appeared indicating that ”the community is full and has been automatically closed.”

Someone was already waiting inside to greet him.

”Welcome, welcome!”

A middle-aged man who appeared to be in his early forties walked up with a hearty laugh and extended his hand to shake Lin Sizhi’s.

His hand was dry and firm, giving off a sense of reliability.

”Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lu Bingjun, and welcome to Community 2!

”Since you’re carrying a suitcase, that means you’re probably a veteran player, right?”

Lin Sizhi nodded and said, ”Yes.”

Lu Bingjun looked quite pleased and said, ”Great, we welcome both new and veteran players.

”Honestly, we don’t have much of a grasp on this Second Stage yet, but there’s no need to worry. Our Community 2 was also a winner in the previous stage.

”Go ahead and take a seat in the lobby, or get yourself settled in your room first. I’ll wait here a bit longer for the other new members.

”We’ll go over everything in more detail shortly.”

Lin Sizhi nodded and made his way into the lobby under Lu Bingjun’s direction.

There were already around eight or nine players in the lobby, men and women of varying ages.

After exchanging simple nods of greeting with them, Lin Sizhi went upstairs to the second floor, entered Room 12, and got himself settled.

The state of the room was not all that different from before. Lin Sizhi briefly confirmed a few things.

On the laptop, all of the special functions available to him as the God’s Imitator were working normally.

The visa time displayed on the vending machine also retained the previous settings, and the portion of visa time earned in his capacity as the God’s Imitator remained hidden.

While the specific layout of the room had changed slightly and it was a bit more spacious, there was no fundamental difference from what it had been before overall.

After settling in briefly, Lin Sizhi returned to the lobby.

A prompt had just appeared on the large screen.

[The visa verification for the last player in Community 2 is complete. The community is now full and has been automatically closed, and will no longer accept new players.]