"Is there a reward for killing?" Jon asked.
Ian nodded. "It'll definitely encourage some players to hunt others, but not by much. Killing a player only gives 4 points. Even if you killed all of them, you'd only get 400 points—that's still way short of the 10,000 needed to win."
"Besides, the income from non-lethal actions is halved, which makes killing less appealing. After the early stages, it's rare for someone to kill another player directly—unless they're confident enough to have their men capture someone alive."
"Go on, AI," Ian said, waving his hand. He had a gut feeling that the real twist was still coming.
"The second rule is the alliance system," the AI continued. "Once in the game, players can form alliances face-to-face using the auxiliary system. Each alliance can have up to four members."
"If a player kills someone in their own alliance, they won't get any points for it, and it won't count toward completing any tasks."
"We'll talk about that later. I don't have any allies," Ian said with a bitter laugh, shaking his head.
"The third rule is the points system," Anne jumped in. "Points are the most important strategic resource in this game. You can earn them four ways: completing system tasks, killing other players, unlocking achievements, and executing highlight actions. Each player starts with 1 point."
"Points serve three purposes: you can spend them in the points shop, they determine your rank on the leaderboard, and they're used to declare the final winner."
"The leaderboard? What's that for?"
"This game has a reward-and-punishment system based on the player rankings," Anne explained."Starting from day one, rankings will be updated monthly."
"The top three players with the highest scores on each settlement day will get generous rewards based on their rankings. If players are tied, they'll share the rewards. For example, if two people tie for first place, they'll split the rewards for both first and second place equally."
"From the second month onward, the bottom three players will be targeted by assassins: the Faceless Men of Braavos, the Regrets of Qarth, and regular local killers."
"If there's a tie at the bottom, the assassination targets will be picked randomly from those tied. If fewer than three people are tied, the rest will be chosen from the next-lowest ranking group."
"When fewer than 20 players are left, the leaderboard will be removed."
"Damn it!" Ian swore after hearing the third rule.
He had been wondering why such an obvious lord-centered competition was called a "Battle Royale Game." Now it made sense.
This was just another kind of trap.
In fact, it was even worse than poison traps—because no matter how hard you worked to earn points, someone would always be in the bottom three.
If players wanted to avoid being hunted down, they had no choice but to keep grinding for points non-stop.
What a nightmare.
"Go on," he said.
"There are no more rules," the AI replied. "You can now close your eyes and access the auxiliary system in your mind to explore its features."
Hearing that, Ian closed his eyes and entered the system.
The interface was simple. There were eight toolbars lined up at the bottom: Tasks, Alliances, Info, Achievements, Mailbox, Inventory, Points Shop, and Leaderboard.
He clicked on the taskbar first. A small question mark hovered over it. When he clicked it, a note popped up:
[Task Function: Since the player starts with basic conditions, the system will provide tasks to help with development.Note: There is no penalty for failing a task.]
There were three sub-sections under the task menu: Main Tasks, Bounty/Public Tasks, and Optional/Trigger Tasks.
Since the game hadn't officially started yet, the entire task section was still blank. Ian just gave it a quick glance before exiting and moving on to the next feature.
In the Alliance section, only the Face-to-Face Alliance button was active; the rest were grayed out and couldn't be clicked. When he clicked the active button, the screen remained blank.
Next to the button was a small question mark. When Ian tapped it, a note appeared:
"Two players must click this function at the same time while standing within one meter of each other to exchange information."
Skipping over the unexciting sections like Information, Achievements, and Mailbox, Ian opened the Backpack.
[Backpack: A personal storage space accessible at any time.Initial capacity: 1 cubic decimeter.Spend 10 points to expand it to four times the original size.Can be upgraded up to 4 times.]
Obviously, the backpack from the auxiliary system was weak compared to what you'd get in a typical game. One cubic decimeter was barely enough to hold a large cup of milk tea.
But then again, this was the real world. A function like this—essentially space magic—could still be useful. For example: storing money.
Players might travel across the world and not have a permanent base. Carrying several kilograms of gold around at all times would be impractical. Plus, the system needed a way to distribute rewards or deliver purchases from the shop.
This tiny backpack, though limited, served that purpose well enough.
After leaving the backpack, Ian returned and tapped open the Points Shop.
**[Level 1 Shop:
• Large Money Pouch (contains 300 silver stags): 1 point• Medium Money Pouch (contains 20 gold dragons): 5 points
Current points: 1]**
300 silver stags wouldn't go far when it came to buying equipment or starting a business, but for basic food, it could last a good while—especially for players who started with no money and maxed out their character stats.
Twenty gold dragons, on the other hand, was a solid amount of money early on, but the cost of 5 points made it seem a little overpriced.
Ian thought about it for a moment, then tried to turn the page.
Instead of new items, a pop-up appeared:
[Level 2 Shop: Unlocks for preview once you reach 10 points.]
So the next tier was likely for more expensive items, Ian figured. Nothing he needed right now.
Ding!Ding!Two sharp metal knocks echoed in his mind, startling him.
"What was that?!"
"That's the mission announcement," the AI replied. "The three-hour preparation time is over. The competition has officially begun."
"So the missions are live now?" Ian nodded and quickly opened the task menu.
**[Main Mission 1: Road to Honor
Description: As a hedge knight, you've been away from honor for too long. Greed has clouded your judgment and made you forget your original oath. It's time to reclaim your honor.
Goal: Win an official jousting tournament in one of the five major cities.
Reward: 5 points, 3 attribute points, 3 skill points]**
[Accept] [Replace]
"A jousting tournament in the five major cities?" Ian scoffed. That kind of mission was basically nightmare difficulty.