As a member of the King's Guild, Wang Shun has two main responsibilities because his personal skills are related to information collection. One is to collect the clearance data of various games, and the other is to find promising newcomers for the guild and recruit them. Wang Shun originally wanted to report Bai Liu's data, but when he saw the announcement in the King's Guild that the [Puppet Master] was recruiting [Puppet Players], Wang Shun hesitated again.

If Bai Liu were reported now, his superior intelligence and spirit values ​​would most likely be noticed by the [Puppet Master], and he would easily be forced to be selected as a [Puppet Player].

For ordinary players, being selected as a [Puppet Player] seems to be a very good job, but for a newcomer like Bai Liu who has S-level development potential, it is a pity to be a puppet.

Another point is that when Wang Shun was doing statistical analysis on the data, he found that the panels of the players who had been puppet players for this puppeteer never increased after they became puppets, or increased very slowly.

On the other hand, the intelligence points of [Puppeteer] increased from 71 points to 93 points, and the other panel attributes also soared.

Only Wang Shun, who is responsible for data collection and analysis in the King's Guild, knows these data. He guessed a long time ago that the personal skills of the [Puppet Master] are not only [Manipulate Players], but also [Absorb Potential], but now many players know that the skill of the [Puppet Master] is only [Manipulate Players].

Many players who Wang Shun assessed as having high potential eventually fell into the arms of the [Puppet Master], became puppets, gradually became mediocre, and were then abandoned by the [Puppet Master] or simply died in the game, transforming from a piece of jade that glowed with a little polish into a piece of mud that was sucked dry and crushed by people.

While Wang Shun felt it was a pity, he had no choice but to accept this helpless reality.

The game is a jungle where the strong prey on the weak. After the bottom players have been exploited to their last bit of value, they will be thrown away by the guild or the strong. Here, the least valuable thing is not the unsaleable discounted goods that cost one point each, but human life.

Therefore, joining a guild is not necessarily the best choice for a very eye-catching player like Bai Liu. It is too easy to be constrained by the rules and regulations of the guild and then be exploited by senior players. Mu Sicheng also saw through this back then, so he refused to join the King's Guild.

Coincidentally, it was this [Puppeteer] who took a fancy to Mu Sicheng and wanted him to join the King's Guild. Mu Sicheng directly said that he would not be a puppet under anyone and be controlled by anyone, and rejected the puppeteer's invitation.

Later, Mu Sicheng suffered a lot at the hands of this puppeteer. In the later period, he became very powerful and his ranking gradually climbed to around 300th on the comprehensive points list before he was let go by the [String Puppet Master].

However, Bai Liu, a promising new player currently ranked over 3,000, will not be let off so easily by the [Puppeteer].

Although Wang Shun did not submit Bai Liu's personal information to the King's Guild out of selfish motives, Bai Liu's eye-catching performance and panel data still attracted the attention of the [Puppet Master].

[Puppeteer] has been stuck at [Intelligence 93 points] for a long time. He needs a player with high intelligence as [nutrients] to develop his intelligence.

Is there any better fodder for a new player like Bai Liu who has only played one single-player game? Nothing.

Wang Shun wanted to remind Bai Liu to pay attention to this [String Puppet Master], and the people from the [String Puppet Master] were also looking for Bai Liu, but Bai Liu had a colorful chicken nest head and wore black lipstick. Even if Bai Liu was standing in front of Lu Yizhang, who had been playing with Bai Liu for more than ten years, Lu Yizhang might not recognize that the person in front of him was Bai Liu.

Unexpectedly, someone recognized Bai Liu by his strange appearance.

Mu Sicheng crossed his arms and looked at Bai Liu standing at the game entrance, speechless: "...Bai Liu, what did the real world do to you to turn you into something indistinguishable from a human or an animal in just a few days?"

"Can you recognize me?" Bai Liu was a little surprised.

He had paraded around the hall with this look for several times, and no one recognized him. Mu Sicheng recognized him without a doubt at the first sight.

Mu Sicheng smiled with a little pride, revealing one of his canine teeth: "You never thought, Bai Liu, I can recognize you no matter how you disguise yourself. I told you that I will make you return all the things you stole from me last time. You can't escape! I can find you!"

"If you don't recognize people by appearance..." Bai Liu glanced at the weird hip-hop monkey on Mu Sicheng's hat, "You recognized me by smell, right? Your skills are related to this monkey, right? Strengthen the five senses?"

Mu Sicheng's smile grew wider and wider: "You guessed wrong~ My personal skill is not to strengthen the five senses, but I did recognize you by smell. You smell very strongly of copper, or money."

"It should smell good." Bai Liu didn't comment. He looked at Mu Sicheng calmly, "What do you want to talk to me about?"

"One player looking for another player—" Mu Sicheng looked up at the huge game login behind Bai Liu, with a dark smile on his face and a flash of red in his eyes, "—of course it's to play games. I won't allow you to hide in a single-player game. That's so boring and the mortality rate is too low."

Bai Liu nodded in agreement. "After I discovered that the multiplayer game's point rewards were ten times the single-player game's rewards, I gave up on this poor division."

"..." Mu Sicheng's words to scare Bai Liu were all stuck. He looked at Bai Liu, who was seriously selecting the multiplayer game he wanted to enter, with a little confusion, and asked depressedly, "No, Bai Liu, it's easy to die in a multiplayer game. Aren't you afraid?"

Next to the entrance behind Bai Liu was a huge projection screen with various game covers and names randomly displayed on it.

Bai Liu used his fingers to support his chin as he selected the game he wanted to enter. He quickly scanned these games without giving Mu Sicheng any extra glances. He said calmly, "Objectively speaking, I have a fear of death, but this fear is nothing compared to the fear that poverty brings to me."

Mu Sicheng couldn't understand Bai Liu's train of thought at all, but the depression Bai Liu brought to him was extremely real: "No, you weren't panicking when you entered this game? Aren't you too calm?"

Bai Liu watched the game on the screen at a glance, talking to Mu Sicheng at the same time, "The reason why I am calm and not afraid may be that I come to this game with the mentality of coming to work."

"Come to work?" Mu Sicheng was completely speechless. "You come to work in a horror game?"

"Yes, I can work once a week and have five days off. If I do a good job, I can earn at least 200,000 yuan. There is no boss to deduct my bonus and salary. And I don't need to deal with people who can't understand me. I don't need to be hypocritical or communicate with them reluctantly. I only need to do what I am good at - playing horror games."

Bai Liu finally turned around and looked at Mu Sicheng. He shrugged, "Except for the slightly higher mortality rate, I often stay up late when working in the real world, and I don't know when I might die suddenly, so the high mortality rate can be ignored. Overall, this is an ideal job with a high income for me. I absolutely cannot find such a job in the real world, so it's hard for me to be afraid of games."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

Mu Sicheng felt that he was fucking convinced by Bai Liu.

"Can I ask you something?" Bai Liu asked Mu Sicheng, pointing at the various games on the huge wall. "Are the horror games in this game only the 100 on this screen? Judging from the number of mini-TVs and players in the game, 100 is a bit too few. I want to ask if there are other games?"

In the forum, people usually discuss more about a certain player and a specific game, but there is not much discussion about the basic mechanism of this game. Bai Liu browsed for a while but didn't find any popular science posts related to the game. Now Mu Sicheng came to the door and was just the right person for Bai Liu to ask questions.

"There are far more types of horror games in this game, and we don't know exactly how many there are." Mu Sicheng spread his hands, "It's just that this wall will only project 100 games at a time, and then when all 100 games have players logged in, this screen will refresh and a new screen of games will appear, but sometimes there will be games that are repeated from the last time."

Bai Liu stroked his chin and said, "In other words, this game has a general game "question bank". We players don't know exactly how many games there are in this question bank."

"Each time, the system will randomly or non-randomly select 100 game questions from the question bank and put them on the screen, allowing us players as candidates to choose one of the game questions to answer. Sometimes we are lucky enough to encounter a repeated question, and sometimes all the questions may be new. Is that what you mean?"

"That's right." Mu Sicheng said.

"Well, if that's the case, no wonder there are guilds in this game."

Bai Liu thought thoughtfully, "In the early days of the game, the big guilds should have summarized the answers to some of the game's important problems, that is, how to quickly and safely clear the game, and shared them internally, and used this to recruit talented newcomers."

"Players with strength or potential can open up new games to accumulate answers, which will give them more resources from the guild. However, with the existence of live broadcasts, the answers to games are public to a certain extent. This system cannot exist in the long run. Guilds should no longer rely on the answers to games to develop. It is time to rely on the high-level players who have grown strong in the guild."

"If I want to develop a guild, I should let high-level players guide low-level players through levels, but low-level players need to pay a certain amount of points to high-level players as rewards, and a certain amount of points to the guild, which is equivalent to paying taxes."

"At the same time, the items obtained by low-level players are fully distributed by the guild, and most of them will flow into the pockets of high-level players, so as to stabilize the high-level players to continue to stay in the guild." Bai Liu sighed, "But this will inevitably lead to high-level players exploiting low-level players and curbing the development of low-level players. Many low-level players can only survive in the guild as subordinates of high-level players because they have no items and personal skills."

"But there is a constant stream of newcomers joining the guild, so that the exploited low-level players can exploit the newcomers, and the guild can exist stably by forming a chain of exploitation layer by layer. Tsk, newcomers are equivalent to low-level leeks. No wonder so many low-level players in this game are so hostile to me, a newcomer."

Bai Liu had seen people tearing each other apart on forums, but he didn't take it seriously. Now he understands a little bit.

Mu Sichengmu was stunned: "..."

What Bai Liu said was completely correct, almost exactly the same as what Mu Sicheng knew about the current situation of the guild.

Bai Liu looked at Mu Sicheng strangely: "Why are you looking at me with such strange eyes?"

"I was wondering..." Mu Sicheng looked gloomy, "Is your intelligence really only 89?"

This is fucking outrageous! How did this guy come up with this?

He just answered the question about the types of games, but this guy has already sorted out the entire guild system in the game!

"Many newcomers join guilds to survive, because the high-level players in the guild will indeed protect them to pass the level. Although they need to pay one-third of the points earned by passing the level, it is indeed safer and less likely to die. However, high-potential newcomers like you should be trained directly. I was just about to ask you why you didn't join the guild." Mu Sicheng tore open a lollipop depressedly and put it in his mouth, "Now I think I don't need to ask."

"Because it's stupid to join a guild." Bai Liu said bluntly, "In a game like this where people's lives are at stake, there won't be any charity organizations. Helping you must be profitable."

"Although in the short term, the guild will help you reduce your mortality rate, but cowardly paying a large amount of points to the guild all the time is self-destruction in a game that requires personal performance to attract the audience. When the guild can no longer gain any benefits from you, it will definitely give up on you. Most of your points and props have also been paid. Without any capital to survive independently, you will inevitably die."

Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu in surprise. He looked at Bai Liu with interest: "What do you do in the real world? Why do you know so much about the operation of this...guild organization?"

Indeed, many useless low-level players are rarely brought along by high-level players in the guild in the later stages.

"This is how most companies in the world operate. They attract employees by promising big profits and so-called internal resources. Then, when employees work too hard and their productivity drops, they fire you and hire younger employees to exploit you."

Bai Liu had a blank expression on his face. "In the real world, I am just a low-level office worker who was fired and exploited. So it is absolutely impossible for me to join a guild and be exploited after entering the game."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

This guy exudes a strong resentment when talking about the life of a social slave in the real world...

"Have you decided which game to play?" Mu Sicheng glanced at the screen. "Are there any games you like on it? Or do you want to take a look?"

"The upper limit for single-player games is 100. All single-player games on this screen are fully logged in." Mu Sicheng pointed to a "FULL" symbol on the lower right corner of a game icon and introduced it to Bai Liu in a vague manner while holding a lollipop in his mouth. "No, if there is this "FULL" mark on the game icon, it means that the game is fully logged in and no new players can log in."

"As for multiplayer games, the maximum number of players per game is different. I've played games with only four players, and some with 50 players. It depends on the specific game. By the way, the multiplayer games like Haunted Mansion, City of Doom, and Ghost Connection are all games that have appeared before."

Mu Sicheng pointed at a few games at random, "Do you want to play these? I can help you find some clearance information for these games, but it's not free."

"No." Bai Liu refused without hesitation. "Even if I had the data, I would definitely be much slower in reacting to old games than those guild players who have played many times. It would be easy for them to preempt me. I need a new game to play to my advantage."

"That's true." Mu Sicheng bit his lollipop again and again, "You are quite adventurous. Most newcomers would still go back to old games for stability."

"My goal is to make money, not to survive." Bai Liu replied calmly, "I need to win, I need to be the first to get enough points."

"You're a really weird person—" Mu Sicheng thought for a while, gave up trying to understand Bai Liu's thoughts, and wrinkled his nose in confusion, "You earn so many points, but if you die in the game, you won't have anywhere to spend them."

Bai Liu answered naturally, "I earn points not to spend, but to hoard, and -" He suddenly gave a very strange smile, Bai Liu turned his head and looked at Mu Sicheng who was stunned for a moment because of his sudden smile, "Do you think I will die in the game?"

"I'm still a little confident. Playing horror games is what I'm best at. I might not die that easily." Bai Liu smiled. "I'm better at designing levels in the game to let other players die, but I've never died in a game designed by someone else."

Mu Sicheng: "..."

What do these guys do in real life? Are they really not criminals?

"Why doesn't this game have any players logged in?" Bai Liu tapped the game icon on the screen that had an image of a train burning in flames. The icon enlarged and fell into the game manager on Bai Liu's chest. Bai Liu clicked on the icon to view the specific game information. "'Last Train to Explosion'?"

The hundred games on this screen are almost full, but this one is still empty, which is a bit conspicuous and weird.

[Game copy name: "The Last Train"]

[Level: Level 2 (Games with a player mortality rate greater than 50% and less than 80% are considered Level 2 games)]

[Mode: Multiplayer (0/7)]

[General description: This is an exciting multiplayer collection game. The last train burning in the flames, the broken glass fragments and the charred corpse hanging on the ring make many players linger and stay here forever~]

Mu Sicheng frowned when he saw the icon: "You want to play this?"

"What's wrong with this game?" Bai Liu asked.

Maki Shicheng paused and said, "This is actually an old game that has appeared on the game screen several times, but there is currently no clearance data."

Bai Liu understood instantly. It had appeared several times before, and the game wall refresh system here required all players to be fully occupied before it could be refreshed, which meant that several groups of players must have entered.

But there is no record of a complete level... Bai Liu turned his head to look at Mu Sicheng: "Are all the players who entered before dead?"

"It's very strange. If no player has completed the game..." Bai Liu's eyes swept across the icon of "Last Train to Explosion" and he tapped the line of "Mortality Rate" twice. "How is the mortality rate of this game determined to be less than 80% and greater than 50%? Judging from the data of all players being wiped out, the mortality rate should be 100%."

Mu Sicheng put his hands in his pockets and refuted Bai Liu disapprovingly: "This is just a way of grading games. Almost all games have this rating system."

"If, as you said, the game's mortality rate is actually measured, then any game with a mortality rate that is not 100% should have players who have completed the game and the data on how many players have completed the game. However, I watched the VIP library videos and asked many experienced experts, and I really didn't find any player who had completed the game. I think there really is no player who has completed the game."

Bai Liu suddenly gave Mu Sicheng a meaningful look and said, "Just because you didn't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

"The mortality rate of 'Last Train to Explosion' is between 80% and 50%. If, as you said, at least 20% of the players who have completed this 'Last Train to Explosion' really exist—" Mu Sicheng retorted unconvincedly, "Such a large group of players have watched the small TV and successfully completed the game. They must have posted on the forum, or the small TV or the video has been seen by someone. It's impossible that there is no trace at all, right?"

"How many players do you think there are in this game?" Bai Liu turned his head and looked directly at Mu Sicheng.

Mu Sicheng was stunned by the question: "I don't know, but it should be a lot."

“Does our group of players, which is not a small number, have any traces of existence in real life?”

Bai Liu asked slowly, "Can everything we do with this game be seen by people in the real world? Can the comments we make about this game, in whatever form, leave traces or be remembered by anyone? For players who have not entered the game, do they have any traces of their existence? Of course not."

Mu Sicheng was completely stunned by Bai Liu's question.

Bai Liu asked the last question slowly: "Okay, now back to the first question. We game [players] have no trace of existence in the real world. Do you think we exist?"

"Of course we exist." Bai Liu answered quickly, "It's just that the traces of our existence have been erased. So is it possible that at least 20% of the players who have completed "Last Train" are also like this? The traces of their existence have been erased by the game or the system?"

Mu Sicheng suddenly realized: "Their clearance data and player data have all been deleted!"

"It's very likely that they themselves have been 'deleted'." Bai Liu looked at the icon of "Last Train to Explosion", "These players who have completed the game are very likely dead, otherwise they would not come back to play this game again."

Mu Sicheng got goosebumps all over his body after hearing what Bai Liu said, but he was still a little unhappy: "But everything you said is based on the fact that the [game mortality rate] is actually measured. But if the [player mortality rate] in the game is a virtual measurement..."

Mu Sicheng was stunned when he said this.

Bai Liu raised his eyes and glanced at Mu Sicheng: "I believe you should have discovered by now that the mortality rate is a statistic that cannot be virtually measured."

"Have you studied statistics?" Bai Liu asked Mu Sicheng, "In statistics, there are two numbers that must be measured in practice. One is the birth rate, and the other is the death rate."

As he spoke, he casually clicked twice on the "Last Train to Explosion" icon on his game panel. Under Mu Sicheng's horrified gaze and screams, Bai Liu slowly entered the game.

Mu Sicheng collapsed: "Why did you suddenly go in?!"

Bai Liu gradually faded in front of Mu Sicheng. He thought for a moment and answered Mu Sicheng: "I'm very curious about the data of the players who have completed "Last Train to Explosion" that the system has specially deleted. Experience tells me that the deeper something is hidden by the superiors, the more profitable it is..."

[One player has been gathered for the game "Last Train to Explosion", and six more players are needed to start]