Two days later, morning.

"Morning."

"Morning."

Fu Chen was still like usual, among the earliest group to wake up.

Cai Zhiyuan seemed like he hadn't slept too well. After all, as a programmer, his body had been in a sub-healthy state for years, making him one of the more fragile players among them.

At this moment, he ordered steamed buns and soy milk, sat across from Fu Chen, and ate slowly.

He seemed to be constantly thinking about something. After eating for a while, he said to Fu Chen, "Do you think there's still a possibility of situations similar to the last 'group battle' appearing in future games?"

"Group battle?"

Fu Chen pondered for a moment, "Your way of putting it has actually enlightened me. There really is such a possibility."

In the previous game, the 12 players from Community 17 were divided into three different groups and participated in three different games respectively.

From the results, each player's gains were highly related to their group's collective decisions.

So, assuming that before entering the game, everyone was already prepared for this and reached some kind of consensus, they could better coordinate within the limited game time, or gain certain advantages when playing life-and-death games against players from other communities.

Community 3 was like this, and indeed became quite a formidable opponent.

Cai Zhiyuan nodded, "Exactly. I also thought of this point through the situation of Lawyer Lin's group.

"Those four Community 3 players had obviously reached a consensus within their community from the beginning, so even though Lu Xinyi's on-the-spot decisions seemed to severely damage the interests of the other three players, she still received support.

"This was also a key factor in her deceiving Jiang He.

"As for Wang Yongxin's group, due to lack of mutual trust beforehand, they had difficulty reaching consensus, which caused the split.

"Although from the results, Wang Yongxin was the beneficiary of the split, and Jiang He and the others' losses were compensated by Lawyer Lin, what if the next game is the type where 'lone wolves have no way out'?

"We still need to prepare in advance for such situations."

Fu Chen nodded seriously, "That makes sense."

The reason Jiang He was deceived before was certainly because she didn't think of this aspect herself, but there was also another very important reason: she subconsciously assumed that Community 3 players were the same as Community 17, having just arrived in the New World not long ago and couldn't possibly have formed particularly close mutual trust relationships yet, which is why she participated in that game.

If she had realized from the beginning that "Community 3 might be a black shop," the outcome might have been different.

"But our situation is still very different from Community 3.

"Community 3 most likely proposed harsher proposals than ours, such as complete equal distribution of all chips earned by all players after each game.

"But the players in our community wouldn't accept such proposals.

"At most, we can only make verbal appeals, asking everyone to cooperate with people from the same community as much as possible when assigned to the same group in the next game.

"But even if we don't make such appeals, everyone knows this. After all, if you can cooperate with familiar people from your community, who would go looking for outsiders?

"As for establishing one or several absolute cores like Community 3 did, where everyone else must unconditionally obey in games...

"It feels like our community currently doesn't have such soil for that."

Fu Chen raised a new question.

Cai Zhiyuan had finished breakfast and wiped his mouth with a napkin, "Mm, I understand.

"Without knowing the specific content and rules of the next game, it's indeed difficult to make any particularly detailed arrangements now.

"But I think there's at least one point we can discuss with everyone first, as a preventive measure.

"That's the situation of 'voluntary participation.'"

Fu Chen was stunned for a moment, "You mean, encouraging everyone to voluntarily participate in games? That might be somewhat difficult."

According to the rules announced by the Gallery, there were two different mechanisms for selecting game players: one was mandatory participation, and the other was voluntary participation.

Cai Zhiyuan explained, "We haven't encountered voluntary participation situations yet, but since this mechanism clearly exists in the Gallery rules, there will inevitably be problems: suppose the number of people voluntarily participating is obviously more than the number of players the game can accommodate, what then?

"I suspect the Gallery might screen according to certain rules.

"But regardless of what screening rules they use, two points probably won't change:

"First, the earlier you register, the easier it is to be selected.

"Second, the more people who register, the easier it is to be selected.

"So, suppose a group game appears in the future where some players from our community have already been selected for mandatory participation, then other players should immediately register for voluntary participation to grab the remaining spots."

Fu Chen immediately understood, "You mean, somewhat similar to 'illegal teaming' in games?"

So-called illegal teaming refers to situations in games like battle royale where the game itself doesn't allow teaming, but many players queue together to enter the same game session and spontaneously team up in the game to target other players, thereby improving their chances of winning.

"It sounds feasible.

"If we have the majority in a certain multiplayer game, we could easily gain advantages and squeeze out people from other communities.

"But would the Gallery allow such obvious rule loopholes to exist?"

Cai Zhiyuan shook his head slightly, "I think there's no need to overly mystify the Gallery. The Gallery appears to control everything, but the specific game rule designs are all made by people.

"Since they're made by people, there's a good chance loopholes exist.

"Even those game designers might try to leave backdoors in games."

Fu Chen thought seriously for a moment, "That's also true.

"Players who integrate their communities earlier and realize the importance of teamwork will inevitably have more advantages in upcoming games.

"But there's another problem:

"What if the game itself is very cruel with high elimination rates? Wouldn't players from the same community going in together get wiped out in one go?

"If that really happens, it might be better to participate separately."

Cai Zhiyuan was somewhat helpless, "But thinking like this becomes too much like a thousand-layer cake, and we can't reach a definitive conclusion.

"Suppose our community chooses to participate separately while other communities choose group participation. Then, with fixed elimination rates for each game, we would always be at a disadvantage."

Fu Chen thought seriously again for a moment, "Mm, you're right. Overall, having as many people participate as possible would still be more stable.

"I'll talk to everyone about it later, but this can only serve as some kind of initiative, it can't be mandatory."

...

Meanwhile, Wang Yongxin had also come downstairs and ordered a hamburger and a cup of coffee from the vending machine.

He had just sat down on a single-person sofa by the window and placed the hamburger and coffee on the coffee table when he saw Ding Wenqiang walking toward him.

Wang Yongxin instinctively became alert.

However, the next second, Ding Wenqiang came before him and said somewhat awkwardly, "I came to apologize to you."

Wang Yongxin was stunned, "Huh?"

Ding Wenqiang said, "I might have had some prejudices against you before, and my attitude wasn't good. Don't take it too much to heart."

Wang Yongxin quickly stood up, "No, no, no, Uncle Ding, you're being too serious. You're an elder, if anyone should apologize, it should be me apologizing to you.

"I think we just have some differences in philosophy, but our hearts for the community's good are the same.

"We're all men, we won't take such small matters to heart, right?"

Ding Wenqiang nodded, "Right, that's what I think too.

"...Alright, then you continue with your breakfast."

He seemed to want to say something more, but after racking his brains couldn't think of topics, so he somewhat awkwardly raised his hand in greeting and ended this conversation.

Wang Yongxin also sat back down to continue enjoying his breakfast.

Obviously, the change in Ding Wenqiang's attitude toward him was largely due to the community security fund.

Wang Yongxin supported the community security fund and indeed contributed 5% of his earned chips to it.

Ding Wenqiang directly benefited from this security fund, so his view of Wang Yongxin would naturally improve.

"Money can eliminate conflicts, and money can certainly buy friendship too.

"Heh, this place isn't much different from the real world."

Wang Yongxin looked out the floor-to-ceiling window and stretched leisurely.

However, just then, new information suddenly appeared on the big screen.

[Good morning, players!]

[The "Gallery" will open in 5 minutes.]

[This game is called "King's Judgment," with the game objective being "Judge the Sinners."]

[Mandatory participants from this community are: Wang Yongxin, Ding Wenqiang, Cai Zhiyuan.]

[This game has a small number of voluntary participation spots, which will be randomly selected from all registered players.]

[Please prepare yourselves, players.]