"So, there's a kill reward?" Ian nodded. "That'll certainly increase players' interest in killing others, but not by much. Four points for killing a player? Even if you wipe out all 100 players, 400 points is still a huge gap from the 10,000 points needed for victory.
What's more, the halved income for non-player kills will also reduce the appeal of the killing mechanism. After all, outside of the very early game, the possibility of a player personally killing another player is extremely slim, unless they're confident enough to order their subordinates to capture the target alive."
"Go on, AI." Ian waved his hand, his intuition telling him the planner's ultimate move was still coming.
"The second is the **alliance mechanism**. After entering the game, players can form an alliance face-to-face through the auxiliary system's alliance function. Each alliance can accommodate up to four people.
Players who kill allies while in an alliance will not receive kill rewards, nor can those kills be used to complete tasks."
"Let's talk about that later. I don't have any allies," Ian said, laughing sarcastically and shaking his head helplessly.
"The third is the **points rule**," AI jumped directly to the third item. "Points are the most important strategic resource in this game. They can be obtained through four ways: completing system tasks, killing other players, achieving achievements, and completing highlight operations. Each player starts with 1 initial point.
Points have three functions: purchasing items in the points mall, serving as the basis for ranking on the points list, and declaring final victory."
"Points list? What's that for?" Ian asked.
"This game has designed a reward and punishment mechanism based on player points ranking.
Starting from the first day of the game, standings will be calculated every month thereafter.
The top three players with the highest points on each settlement day will receive generous rewards corresponding to their rankings. If there's a tie for the top three, the tied players will share all corresponding rewards equally. For example, if two people tie for first place, they will equally share the total rewards for first and second place.
Starting from the second settlement day, the bottom three players in the points ranking will face attacks from the **Faceless Men of Braavos**, the **Undying of Qarth**, and ordinary local assassins, respectively.
If there's a tie among the last three, the assassination target will be drawn first from those tied for last. If there are fewer than three tied for last, the remaining places will be drawn from those tied for second-to-last.
When the number of surviving players is less than 20, the points list will be canceled."
"F*ck!" Ian immediately cursed after hearing Annie describe this third mechanism.
Originally, Ian had still been wondering why such an obvious lord-style competition was called a "Battle Royale Game", but now he understood.
Wasn't this just a different kind of death trap?
Strictly speaking, this was much scarier than a grinding poison circle, because no matter how hard players grinded for points, there would *always* be a bottom three.
This way, if players wanted to escape the mechanism's pursuit, they had no choice but to crazily "roll" (compete intensely).
What a disaster.
"Continue."
"Beyond that, there are no other mechanics. You can now close your eyes and enter the auxiliary system in your consciousness to view and familiarize yourself with its functions."
Hearing this, Ian closed his eyes and entered the system.
The entire system interface was very simple, with only eight toolbars arranged at the bottom: **Tasks, Alliances, Information, Achievements, Mailbox, Backpack, Points Mall,** and **Scoreboards**.
He first clicked on the Taskbar. There was a small question mark on the taskbar. After clicking on it, a comment appeared.
[Task function: In view of the player's ordinary starting conditions, the system will provide tasks to help the player develop.]
**Note: There is no penalty for mission failure.**
There were three sub-toolbars under the task toolbar: Main Tasks, Bounty Tasks/Public Tasks,** and **Optional Tasks/Trigger Tasks.
Since the game hadn't officially started yet, the taskbar was completely blank at the moment. Ian just glanced at it and exited, then clicked on the next function.
In the **Alliance** function, only the [Face-to-Face Alliance] button was lit; the others were grayed out and unclickable. The [Face-to-Face Alliance] button was blank when clicked.
There was a small question mark next to the button, and after clicking it, a note appeared: **Two players need to click this function simultaneously within a distance of one meter to obtain each other's information.**
Skipping the uninteresting **[Information], [Achievements],** and **[Mailbox]**, Ian entered the **Backpack**.
**[Backpack: A storage space that can be accessed at any time.]**
**The initial space of the backpack is 1 cubic decimeter. Every 10 points spent can expand it to four times its original space. It can be purchased up to 4 times.**
Obviously, the backpack provided by the auxiliary system was extremely small compared to those in normal games. A paltry 1 cubic decimeter couldn't even hold a large cup of milk tea.
But considering this was a real world, this almost "space magic" function did have practical significance, such as storing money.
Players were likely to do business all over the world, with no fixed industry. It would definitely be impractical to carry several kilograms of gold with them at all times. Moreover, the system also needed a way to distribute rewards to players or for the mall to distribute goods to players.
Such a small backpack perfectly fulfilled this function.
Returning from his backpack, Ian clicked back and opened the mall.
[First-level Mall:]
Large Money Bag (contains 300 silver stags): 1 point
Mid-Money Bag (contains 20 gold dragons): 5 points
Current points: 1
300 Silver Stags weren't particularly helpful for starting a business or buying equipment, but for simply buying food, they would last a long time. It was very suitable for players whose background selection focused on attributes and started with no money at all.
20 gold dragons was a lot of money for the early stage, but the price of 5 points seemed a bit expensive.
Ian thought, turning to the next page.
But what appeared in his field of vision wasn't the next level of the mall, but a prompt box.
[Second-level Mall: Preview available after accumulating 10 points.]
It must be something relatively expensive, Ian concluded, a judgment that was rather obvious.
"Ding!" Two crisp, metallic knocks sounded in Ian's mind one after another, startling him.
"What the hell?"
"That was the sound of the mission announcement. The three hours of preparation time have passed, and the competition has officially begun."
"Are the missions here?" Ian nodded and quickly opened the taskbar.
[Main Mission 1: Road to Honor]
Mission description: As a hedge knight, you have been away from honor for too long. Money has clouded your judgment and made you forget your original oath. Now, go and reclaim your honor.
Mission goal: Win an official lance tournament held in one of the five major cities.
Mission reward: 5 points, 3 attribute points, 3 skill points.
[Accept] [Replace]
"A lance contest in the five major cities?" Ian's lips twitched. Such a task was simply a hellish level of difficulty.