"Beep—"

A sharp buzzing sound rang out. Lin Sizhi looked around, finding himself in a quite spacious game scene.

The other three players from Community 17, Cai Zhiyuan, Luo Wei, and Qin Yao, also appeared beside him.

Qin Yao breathed a slight sigh of relief. Although she had known before entering the game that this was a ’community confrontation’ type game, which would most likely involve team cooperation, who could be certain that the imitator wouldn’t play tricks?

Like in the ’Blind Date Game’ where all players were forcibly separated and could only communicate through coded messages via the data screening broadcast function, that was also considered a form of cooperation.

Fortunately, the imitator who designed this game had some martial virtue.

Complete freedom of internal communication meant they could execute group strategies and cling to the strong players’ coattails within the community.

This was good news.

With Lin Sizhi and Cai Zhiyuan present, plus this game not being a judgment game, the difficulty of safely exiting shouldn’t be too high.

Luo Wei was entering a Gallery game for the first time and was still looking around with some curiosity.

There were 12 players total in the venue. From the positioning of the other 8 people, it was clear that everyone should be from three different communities, 4 people from each community.

This completely matched the selection rules from the broadcast.

Lin Sizhi noticed that all players wore special electronic ID badges on their chests, slightly smaller than a tablet, very clear to see, with the same content displayed on both front and back:

[Community 17 - Lin Sizhi]

[Identity: —]

[Age: —]

[Wealth: —]

These were fixed categories, but specific information hadn’t been displayed yet.

From other players’ ID badges, he could see they came from Community 4 and Community 12.

The game venue was divided into several different areas, including ’Work Zone,’ ’Notary Office,’ ’Management Room,’ and so on.

At the edge of the venue were high glass curtain walls and guardrails, with the entire venue completely enclosed.

Only in the direction near the big screen was there a separate, protruding area sealed off by glass guardrails and special gate machines, marked as ’Offshore Area.’

Everyone instinctively looked toward the big screen.

Sure enough, after brief waiting, game instructions appeared on the big screen.

[Hello, welcome to ’Conglomerate Nation.’]

[The area you are currently in is a nation where ’Conglomerates’ and ’Civilians’ coexist.]

[Your game objective is: before the game ends, make this nation’s ’total wealth value,’ that is, the sum of all player account balances still remaining within the national area, reach 500,000 minutes of visa time.]

[This game will proceed for 20 rounds, with each round lasting 10 minutes.]

[Any violence or violations are strictly prohibited during the game, otherwise you will face instant death penalty.]

[Settlement will occur at the end of the 20th round, verifying whether this nation’s total wealth value meets the target.]

[If target is met: Each player can bring back to their community visa time equivalent to ’50%’ of the wealth they earned in the game.]

[If target is not met: Each player can only bring back to their community visa time equivalent to ’10%’ of the wealth they earned in the game.]

[Penalty rule: If the visa time a player brings back to their community from the game is less than 10,000 minutes, they will be additionally deducted 50,000 minutes of visa time, with deductions capped at leaving 48 hours remaining.]

This penalty rule made quite a few players frown.

The penalty of deducting 50,000 minutes of visa time, roughly 34 days, was quite severe.

Among everyone present, there were bound to be players with little visa time remaining.

Of course, the humane aspect of this game was that it left players 48 hours of final time, which could be used to convince their community to urgently pass motions like interest-free loans to save themselves but overall, while the loss of 50,000 minutes wouldn’t immediately kill players with little visa time, it would put them in enormous difficulty.

However, this was after all a wealth distribution type game. Just like ’Blood Poker’ only had penalties if you didn’t join multiplayer tables, this game also had ways to avoid penalties.

They just needed to ensure everyone’s total wealth value reached 500,000.

Although the difficulty of making money in this game wasn’t yet clear, judging from the data "can bring back 50%," making money should be relatively simple in this game, otherwise the imitator wouldn’t limit it to bringing back only half.

Considering an average profit of 30,000 per person, 12 people should be able to bring back 360,000, so the total wealth value should theoretically be able to reach 720,000.

Of course, this was just estimation. Whether money was easy or hard to earn would only be known after entering the game.

[Each player will initially receive an electronic ID badge with three important data points: ’Identity,’ ’Age,’ and ’Wealth.’]

[1. Identity]

[Players can assume two identities: ’Conglomerate’ or ’Civilian.’]

[During the game, 4 players from the same community will play the ’Conglomerate Family,’ while 8 players from the other 2 communities will play the ’Civilian Class.’]

[The ’Conglomerate Family’ will gain tremendous advantages within the game.] This update is available on Novᴇl_Fire(.)net

[2. Age]

[Each player will receive an initial ’Age.’ The ’Age’ attribute in the game is divided into four types: childhood, youth, ‘Adult’, ‘Old Age’.]

[The specific correspondences are: childhood (0-19 years old), youth (20-39 years old), ‘Adult’ (40-59 years old), ‘Old Age’ (60-79 years old)]

[This game proceeds one round every 10 minutes, for a total of 20 rounds. At the end of each round, all players’ ages will increase by 10 years.]

[When players reach 80 years old, they will die and ’respawn,’ returning to 0 years old and entering childhood.]

[3. Wealth]

[’Wealth’ is the player’s funding account in this game. Account balance will determine your game strategies and final profits.]

[Now, initial identity, age, and wealth will be assigned to all players.]

[Among the current 12 people, the community with the least total visa time will have priority in becoming the ’Conglomerate Family.’]

All players’ ID badges emitted a soft notification sound.

Lin Sizhi picked up his ID badge and saw that the information had been updated.

[Community 17 - Lin Sizhi]

[Identity: Civilian]

[Age: 0 years old (Childhood)]

[Wealth: 1000 minutes visa time]

He also looked at an ID badge of a Community 12 player not far away.

[Community 12 - Fan Zehui]

[Identity: Conglomerate (Management)]

[Age: 60 years old (Old age)]

[Wealth: 10000 minutes visa time]

"So Community 12 is the Conglomerate community, while Communities 17 and 4 are Civilian communities."

Lin Sizhi noticed that in the identity section, besides the identity distinction between ’Civilian’ and ’Conglomerate,’ there was also a special tag: ’Management.’

Obviously, this was also related to game mechanisms, though it wasn’t yet clear exactly how it would function.

The four players from Community 12 were clearly happy, because the game rules stated clearly that ’Conglomerate’ players would have great advantages in this game.

However, this also confirmed that Community 12 was indeed quite a weak community, after all, according to this game’s rules, the community with the least total visa time among the 12 people would have priority in obtaining ’Conglomerate’ status.

Recalling that Community 12 had lost four players in the ’Blind Date Game’ before, obtaining this Conglomerate status could be considered well-deserved.

[Now, please move to the three important facilities within the game: ’Work Zone,’ ’Notary Office,’ and ’Management Room,’ to learn more about additional rules.]