"The three factors affecting the answer rewards are: correctness, minority vs majority, and dissonance.

"The value for correctness is 2000, for minority or majority, it's 5000, and for dissonance, it's 8500.

"Moreover, if everyone provides the same answer, although it's still considered 'majority,' each player will earn an extra 8000.

"These values will double in phase two.

"That means the correctness choice becomes 4000, minority/majority choices become 10000, dissonance choice becomes 17000, and unanimous answers become 16000."

At this point, Gao Jialiang suddenly realized: "So the penalty for dissonance is this high? No wonder when I deliberately chose A for the fourth question to be a minority answer, my visa time got reduced by 15500 minutes."

Qian Li nodded: "Yes, I intentionally chose wrong for that question too, mainly to test the specific value for dissonance.

"Now it seems this value is definitely worth testing.

"Because it's the only one with a 500 remainder in phase one; if we enter phase two, where values double, the 500 remainder disappears, and it becomes difficult to distinguish among values as they're all rounded thousands.

"In addition, there are some special situations to watch out for:

"In cases where minority or majority options have identical numbers, both will receive rewards or penalties;

"An option that no one chooses isn't considered a minority option;

"The weight on dissonance is very high, but specialized questions, whether you know the correct answer or not, don't seem to trigger dissonance penalties. While subjective or logical questions do trigger such penalties.

"In such cases, one should prioritize selecting non-dissonant options, otherwise it might result in significant losses."

The other players didn't speak; they weren't particularly smart players and were quite confused during phase one, let alone testing any data.

But this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because they only needed to carefully memorize the numbers 4000, 10000, 17000, 16000 now.

Without being disturbed by erroneous memories, they actually remembered more clearly.

The specific values would be difficult to test themselves, but memorizing them is quite easy.

Soon, everyone roughly remembered them.

Gao Jialiang then asked, "How do you determine that a 'unanimous' answer also triggers the 'majority faction' penalty?"

Qian Li shook her head and explained: "Lighting.

"I've observed the status of the second light; green is for minority, red is for majority, and in a 5-person room, there are no options beyond minority and majority, but with more people, a middle faction answer might appear, which should be grey.

"In our room, when all five players agreed unanimously, the light was red, indicating the majority penalty was triggered as usual."

Gao Jialiang nodded in realization: "I see."

Qian Li continued: "Currently, phase two seems to be about 'opening rooms' and 'dismantling rooms.'

"According to the game rules, players entering the room later will initially become the questioner.

"And if an answerer's total gains exceed 5500, meaning a questioner's loss surpasses 5500, the answerer can vote to force the questioner into 'consecutive terms.'

"Conversely, if the questioner's gains exceed 5500, they can choose to continue 'consecutive terms.'

"The former means all answerers jointly harvest the questioner, while the latter means the questioner harvests the unfortunate among the answerers.

"Suppose our people enter a certain room, purposely leaving an empty spot for an unfortunate soul from another community to enter.

"Then, through some means, our entire group consistently chooses the same answer, or at least guarantees total gains surpassing 5500, allowing continuous harvesting of this unfortunate soul's visa time until the game ends.

"We can even continue harvesting his community's members after depleting his visa time.

"In that case, we could safely secure extremely substantial gains."

Gao Jialiang nodded: "Yes, I also think this is the most accurate approach for phase two.

"Looking at the room sizes, the space is just right, so as long as we leave one vacant spot where our own community members don't enter, other community's trailing players must come in.

"The lower-ranked players have no choice but to be harvested.

"But the key issue is we don't have tickets numbered within the top three, so we can't be the host.

"Moreover, without contracts with other communities, relying solely on ourselves, five people can't fill up an 8-Person Room or a 13-Person Room."

Qian Li pondered for a moment before saying: "We need to attempt exchanging benefits with other communities.

"Although contracts can't be signed, limited collaboration can be conducted on a needs basis.

"We have our chips: two Free People identities.

"Free People have special protective status, providing significant advantages while serving as answerers.

"They are free from room rules constraints, and can uninhibitedly choose minority or majority answers.

"Choosing minority answers grants extra rewards, while choosing majority answers imposes losses on the questioner; no matter the choice, they absolutely won't lose, which is a major advantage.

"We have a total of five people, so we can distribute them as 3+2.

"Three players go into the '4-Person Room,' leaving the last position open for a 'fortunate' individual from another community, to harvest their visa time; while the other two Free People enter other rooms, answering under Free People's protective identity.

"In this way, as long as the visa time we harvest exceeds the visa time harvested from us, it's profitable."

Gao Jialiang nodded: "Indeed, without contracts with other communities, this is the best strategy. But how can we ensure acquiring '4-Person Room' host position?"

Qian Li looked at the time, then surveyed the situations of Community 15 and Community 17 to consider which side would be better to negotiate with.

At this moment, Xu Zhao from Community 15 approached.

In phase one of the game, he and Gao Jialiang had a verbal disagreement, but clearly, such minor friction wouldn't affect subsequent cooperation.

After all, both communities understand the priority of interests.

However, Xu Zhao still seemed somewhat unlikable, merely showing some of the front numbered tickets.

They were 'Number 1' and 'Number 3.'

"How about cooperating? We would like to borrow your two 'Free People.'

"No requirements on personnel, you can decide yourselves.

"These two don't need to execute any overly complex strategy, we will try to ensure these Free People yield positive earnings in our room.

"We simply need your two Free People to occupy positions and help defend against too many Free People controlled by Community 17 entering."

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