Deceitful Game

Chapter 198 Increased Mortality Rate

Chapter 198 Increased Mortality Rate

When Mingpo opened his eyes again, his heart was completely at peace.

The dim yellow light that had been shining in his eyes completely disappeared, and he fell into complete silence.

That cold, indifferent, and empty feeling, like that of a god, has completely disappeared. Now, Mingpo looks like an ordinary, unremarkable person.

Mingpo smiled at herself in the mirror, but then her smile turned so aggressive that she gave a look of disgust.

"Tsk—"

He clicked his tongue, touched the corner of his mouth with his hand, and pulled it upwards, trying to make a friendly smile.

But no matter how many times I tried, it didn't work.

Mingpo couldn't quite recall how she had managed to put on that "gentle and sunny smile" when she was facing Chizuko.

"I feel like we still need someone to act with—"

Mingpo sighed, "Never mind, let's leave it at that."

He walked towards the door.

As Mingpo gently touched the coin slots, information entered Mingpo's consciousness:

[Promotion, Cost: 1 Moon Silver]

[Adventure, Cost: 1 Sun Pseudo-Gold / 1 Zhou Azure Lead / 1 Moon Silver]

[Confrontation, Cost: 1 Sun Pseudo-Gold / 1 Zhou Azure Lead / 1 Moon Silver]

Departure, cost: None

With Mingpo's advancement, the lowest level of games he can now participate in is the Pseudo-Gold level of the Sun.

Zhou Zhiqing is actually in a very awkward position.

There are five types of chips: hour, day, week, month, and year. Exchanging a smaller chip for a larger one requires 24, 7, 4, and 12 lower-level chips respectively.

Of these four ranges, "four weeks equals one month" represents the lowest exchange rate.

Theoretically speaking, Zhou Zhiqing's advancement from Lead to Moon Silver should be the easiest. It should be much simpler than the advancement from Time Red Copper to Sun Pseudo-Gold.

but it is not the truth.

The highest level within various small Deceiver organizations is basically the Moon Silver. This is already the highest-ranking Deceiver one can normally encounter.

For example, in the organization that the Red Queen belongs to, the number of Moon Silvers is definitely no more than three.

Even in a large organization like Divine Comedy, only its core members can guarantee "minimum Moon Silver".

On the contrary, Zhou Zhiqingqian—the third-level authority of the Deceiver—has a much larger number of them.

Most seasoned con artists can reach this level.

As long as one doesn't evade the promotion ceremony, isn't killed, and doesn't fail in the promotion ceremony, it takes about a year to climb up to this level as a Deceiver.

In a sense, this is when you officially leave the beginner village.

Because once you reach this point, you can no longer use the Time Copper chips to go back and challenge those "newbies" who haven't been upgraded.

It's like once you leave the starting village, you're not allowed to go back.

Because of the game's deceptive logic, once a deceiver becomes Zhou Zhiqingqian, they undergo a qualitative change from a "newcomer" —

It's unfair if they're even in the same game.

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Even if a Tier 1 Deceiver uses the higher-level "Sun's Pseudo-Gold" as a ticket, he would never run into a Tier 3 Deceiver who also uses "Sun's Pseudo-Gold" as a ticket. This is because the former's reward would not include Zhou's Azure Lead, while the latter's reward would definitely include Zhou's Azure Lead.

For the latter—even if everyone in a game uses "Sun's Pseudo-Gold" as their ticket, there's a chance that a dozen or so people will all be "Zhou's Blue Lead" who came down to fry fish.

The fishpond was full of mines; there were no fish at all.

They have effectively isolated themselves from low-level charlatans.

Only the most outstanding second-tier Deceivers have a chance to encounter them early in a game with extremely high rewards.

Gao Song's "safely fishing" mentality isn't unusual among people of Zhou Zhiqing's level. That's why so many charlatans design their own games.

Mingpo is actually quite interested in the process of "designing his own game." But he doesn't have the time right now—even if he finishes the game, he won't have time to find people to play it.

—Since that's the case.

The reason why Zhou Zhiqing had difficulty getting promoted was quite simple.

Because the game's death rate has increased.

According to Gao Fan, as long as "Zhou Zhiqingqian" chips are used to enter the game, it is not uncommon for only one or two out of a dozen or even twenty people to survive.

If fewer than four people enter the game, there will almost certainly be only one survivor; if fewer than eight people enter, then at most two will survive.

From this point on, "luck" and "the host's favor" will become crucial factors in determining life and death.

Even the most powerful deceivers might be assigned to games they're completely unsuited for. And in games of this caliber, the margin for error becomes extremely low.

Many of Zhou Zhiqing's deceitful individuals regretted their promotions afterward.

Because their abilities are simply insufficient to survive in this level of competitive game.

Even if they went back to participate in lower-level games, they would almost always be matched with Zhou Zhiqingqian.

In this situation, using the Sun's Pseudo-Gold to participate in an adventure game one level lower than oneself becomes the optimal solution.

This way, you're mostly matched with skilled and experienced players, making it less likely for anyone to drag the other down.

As long as the team is properly configured, they can generally earn chips steadily with very little risk. Therefore, those charlatans who can maintain a long-term presence in the material world are almost all at this level. "Charlatan organizations" only become truly meaningful at this stage—and are no longer just small, childish groups.

It's like the "farming period" in online games.

This is the stage after the initial "clearing" phase, when players have mastered the BOSS mechanics, upgraded some of their equipment, improved stats and increased margins for error, and then efficiently repeat the process of farming equipment and resources. In this stage, "skipping troublesome mechanics" to save time has even become a consensus.

Deceptive games are the same.

During this phase, although they have a lot of resources at their disposal and can easily scrape together a Moon Silver from the black market—it's not impossible for them to even scrape together enough to create a Pureblood Deceiver—they almost never participate in the Ascension Ceremony.

The principle is the same.

Let's set aside the issue of failed general ascensions for now—if they succeeded, it would mean they would have to participate in high-difficulty dungeons from now on.

The Silver-ranked Deceiver participates in only high-risk dungeons. Including adventure dungeons, there are no safe dungeons left.

From this perspective, Zhou Zhiqing also represents the class with the greatest difference between the upper and lower classes.

The strong are stronger than the weak Moon Silver, while the weak are likely to be weak as well as the Sun Pseudo-Gold.

Given Mingpo's abilities, if he were to invest a Sun Pseudo-Gold in his adventure to join such a "speedrun team"—even if it's only for less than a day—it would most likely be enough for Mingpo to emerge.

In this way, Mingpo can obtain "stable happiness".

However, if you were to add a Zhou Zhiqing lead to your adventure, the situation would be different.