Where is the cute slave? He's in the cauldron in the Underground Man's kitchen!

The white wall is over three meters high, separating the two teams of players on either side.

Tang Mo looks up and sees Pinocchio lounging against the wall, humming his off-key "Merry Christmas" song. Tang Mo listened intently for a while. Not to Pinocchio's unpleasant song, but to the voice from the other side of the room.

Strangely enough, the wall didn't completely seal off the space on either side, but he could no longer hear a single sound from the opposite team.

White walls fall, no sound is heard, no one is seen.

After determining that the opposite side really couldn't hear the sound from their side, Tang Mo turned her head to look at her three companions. The female high school student tentatively reached out her hand, touched the edge of the grid, and exclaimed, "It's gone, I can get out of the grid."

All four tried it.

The four grids were connected into a line, originally everyone was confined to their own grids, unable to take a step outside. But when the white wall fell, the three invisible walls in the center of the four squares disappeared. Tang Mo still couldn't go out of the grid area, but he could walk around freely in the four grids.

The four men stood in the middle of the grid and looked at each other.

The young man started, "In that case, we'll be teammates next as well. Let's get to know each other first. My name is Zhao Wenbin , and I was a middle school teacher before Earth Online."

The other two were obviously experienced in introducing themselves. The high school girl didn't exactly reveal her identity, "You guys can just call me Lu."

The middle-aged man chimed in, "People used to call me Brother Qiang."

Tang Mo's turn: "My last name is Mo."

The young man nodded as he looked to the four cards on his side of the table, "As you've heard, this game of ours, first and foremost, certainly doesn't go by that so-called first out of the slaves rule." Not a single person objected to his words, even Tang Mo calmly listened to him continue, "This is a very classic Prisoner's Dilemma type of game theory game. You may not have heard of this theory, it doesn't matter, it's the same as the card game we're going to play. Though even the Black Tower says that the correct rules for playing cards for Wang Guo, the Underground Man, are Slave, Knight, Minister, and King. But do you think we can play slaves?"

The high school girl didn't even think about it, "There's no way they're going to play slaves. If we put out slaves, they'll definitely put out other cards to suppress us and eliminate us."

The middle-aged man also said, ''Playing slaves is just stupid, absolutely not. If we don't have our slave cards, we won't be able to deal with their king cards underneath. We're almost certain to lose."

Tang Mo listened quietly from the sidelines and made no comment.

Zhao Wenbin looked at him as if he thought he was an insignificant commoner, and went on to the other two teammates, "So what we need to determine now is, excluding the slave cards, what are we going to play this game?"

All three were in deep thought.

Tang Mo turned his head, his gaze fixed on the Queen's card. He looked steadily at the crown woman with long curly hair on the card, and his brows gradually locked. At that moment, Zhao Wenbin said, "Since everyone is fine with it, I'll go ahead. I think that we should play the Minister card this round."

The middle-aged man asked, "Why?"

"It's simple. First of all, we don't play slave cards because we're afraid of being restrained to death by the opposite side in the first game. Slave cards can be restrained by Minister cards and Knight cards, and there is a one in two chance that the opposite side can nullify our Slave cards. As long as you are not a fool, any team will not play slave cards in the first round of play." Zhao Wenbin analyzed, "Secondly, the most unlikely cards on either side of us are the King and Queen cards."

This is very understandable, the high school girl said, "Right. The King and Slave cards are so important that it's almost like a one-shot deal. It's better to put them towards the back. If you get eliminated in the first round out of the king card, it's too hard to play later in the tournament."

At these words, the middle-aged man thought, "Then we play the minister's card!"

Zhao Wenbin nods, "Yes, we should play the Minister. Nine times out of ten, our opponents think the same as we do, and they won't take any chances in the first game. They'll only play one of the Ministers or the Knights. Ministers can't control Knights, so we can't lose if we choose a Minister. At most, we'll play a Minister with them, and both cards will be invalidated at the same time. This leaves both sides with three cards, and the chances of playing a pair of Slave cards have increased from a quarter to a third."

Female high school students and middle-aged men alike agree with Zhao Wenbin's words.

Tang Mo looked at the queen card while listening to Zhao Wenbin.

Zhao Wenbin's words are not unreasonable. This is a classic Prisoner's Dilemma type of game. Under normal circumstances, no one would play the Slave and King cards in the first game. Both cards are too important, and if you lose one of them in the first game, you will lose the initiative and be passive in the rest of the game.

Of the four cards, the most important is not the King card, but the Slave card.

Once you lose the Slave card, your opponent can simply play the King card forever, and then the Minister card and the Knight card in order of priority from top to bottom. In this way, the first team to lose all their cards is considered defeated, and Tang Mo's team has no chance of winning.

So the first game is definitely not going to be a slave card.

But it's not always a ministerial card.

"That ...... Mr. Mo, do you agree that we should play the minister's card first next?"

Tang Mo turned his head to look at Zhao Wenbin : "I'm more inclined to play the queen."

Zhao Wenbin looked at him with surprise, and the female high school student and the middle-aged man were also very dismayed.

Zhao Wenbin thought for a while and shook his head, "No, this is too dangerous. In case the opposite side just really plays a slave card, then even though they can't see our deck, seeing that our cards are restrained by their slave cards, they know that we've lost our queen card."

Tang Mo faded, "Just leaning more toward the Queen's card, and if you all want to play the Minister's card, I have no objection."

"Good, then it's settled."

In this kind of gaming game, most teams will choose to play their minister cards together at the beginning. In all likelihood, the opposite team will also play the Minister card. This is the safest way for both teams to get through the opening round smoothly. One has to know more about what the other team is thinking in order to determine the mental mindset of the opposite team and thus what cards they will play next time.

One of the reasons why Tang Mo wanted to play the queen card was that in his judgment, there was an 80% chance that his opponent would not play the slave card. There was only a 20% chance that his side's queen card would be nullified by the restraint. Such a probability was worth betting on, as long as both sides had one less card first, whoever was at a disadvantage.

Another reason is because of this trump card.

Dark Tower Rule #8: The Queen card triggers the "Go Home and Kneel" effect, which asks the other player a question.

Zhao Wenbin said, "We have the Queen's card, so we can always ask a question to the opposite side. Have you guys thought about what question we ask? The question cannot be related to the contents of the deck, and the opposite side can only answer yes or no."

The female high school student immediately said, "Do you guys remember that the Black Tower said that if the opposite side lied when answering the question, it would be counted as our victory. Then ...... can we ask a question that they don't know, so that they have a half chance of typing it wrong, and that's a lie, right?"

Middle-aged man: "Makes sense, you can indeed win that way."

Tang Mo withdrew his eyes from looking at the Queen's card and stood a meter outside the trio, his voice calm, "The Black Tower won't give you a loophole that obvious. 99% of the time, you'll just waste an opportunity to ask a question, and the Black Tower regards the question as invalid. Do you really want to waste it?"

Tang Mo's looks were quite impressive, and the female high school student had been sneaking glances at him while he was standing at a distance just now. But after being so coldly stabbed by him, the high school girl glared at him in dissatisfaction, averted her eyes, and never looked at him again.

Zhao Wenbin also said, "Let's think of a more important question. But there's no need to rush, it's not too late to make a choice after observing the opposite side and understanding the psychology of their character."

It was at this moment that a loud child's voice rang through the white world--the

"Ding Dong! The first game of Pinocchio's Honest Card Game is about to begin, and the cards are now being shuffled."

The entire white world let out a violent ringing sound, and the earth began to tremble. Only to see the four silver and iron decks rumble and fly, and after levitating to a position half a meter above the ground, the four cards suddenly switched rapidly. These four cards switched positions with each other at an extremely fast speed, and with Tang Mo's dynamic eyesight, he was able to catch up with the speed of the card switching at first, but very soon, he couldn't see what was on the cards anymore.

Ten seconds later.

Bang!

The four cards came to a stop in the four grids, and a silver ray of light shot out from the center of the cards, connecting towards the eyebrows of the four Tang Mo people. The object that each card connected to was the person who was originally standing in the grid where it was located, but the position of the cards themselves had changed.

Zhao Wenbin's deck was originally a Knight, but now it's a Slave.

Female high school students who were slaves have become ministers.

The middle-aged man is a knight, and Tang Mo is still the queen.

After shuffling the deck, the Black Tower sends out a cue--

"Ding Dong! After three minutes, all players are asked to stand in the grid of cards that were decided to be shown. The cards in that grid are considered the cards presented in the next game."

Zhao Wenbin and the middle-aged man began to walk towards the ministerial grid. The female high school student, seeing that she had changed from a slave to a minister, stood hesitantly with a hesitant face and hesitated to move. Zhao Wenbin turned to look at her, "What's wrong, let's stand together in the minister's grid."

The high school girl clenched her fingers, "...... I'm a minister."

The middle-aged man heard what she meant and asked back in a very impulsive tone, "Then just now, I was the minister, and I didn't say that I wouldn't be happy to play my cards. This is only the first game, what are you afraid of, the opposite side is also presumed to be a minister, both of your cards are nullified, and you won't trigger the dueling arena."

The female high school student was still a bit hesitant when Zhao Wenbin said, "Don't be afraid, it's almost impossible for the opposite side to play a national ace to restrain you. They're just like us, they don't want to take such a big risk in the first round."

As if moved by Zhao Wenbin's words, the female high school student looked at the kind smile on Zhao Wenbin's face and finally made up her mind, lifting her step and walking to the minister's lattice.

Tang Mo looks at them, hands in his pockets, and without thinking, walks to the other side of the grid.

The three looked at him in surprise.

Zhao Wenbin : "Mr. Mo, what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, just a test. If the four of us choose differently, the Black Tower will determine what cards we play. If it decides there's a problem with the cards played, I'll stand to you guys again." Tang Mo stood in the Queen's Grid, looking calm.

Both the high school girl and the middle-aged man were a little upset with him, but they didn't say anything as they looked at Tang Mo's calm expression.

The three minutes were soon up, and the child's voice prompted--

"Dingdong! Deck has been selected."

The huge deck of cards slowly collapsed in front of the three Zhao Wenbin people, and was pressed to the ground with its back facing upwards. The moment this deck fell to the ground, the silver light connected to the four people's eyebrows also gradually disappeared.

"Follow the principle of majority rule?" Tang Mo heartily said.

Having already decided what card to choose, Pinocchio, who was lying on the white wall and humming, jumped up from the wall and stood on top of it. He looks at Tang Mo's side of the wall and then turns his head to look at the other side. Pinocchio gave a sinister laugh as he patted the wall, "My good man, it looks like these honest boys have made their choice, so you can rest for a while."

The white wall made a roaring sound and slowly rose upwards.

Tang Mo got a good look at the opposite side of the room, and the moment he did, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the man in black standing directly across from him.

When the other party saw Tang Mo, he slightly curled his lips and smiled at him as well.

Neither of them said anything, they just looked at each other in silence.

Tang Mo's heart, however, surged with a strong sense of uneasiness, and he gripped the tattoo of matches on his wrist tightly as he stared at the tall, upright man in black with a deadly stare.

The female high school student whispered in shock, "Why are they standing like us."

Not bad, of the four people on the opposite side, three stood in the same compartment, and only the man in black stood alone in one compartment, directly across from Tang Mo.

Could it be that this man in black, like Tang Mo, wanted to try out the Black Tower's rules for determining card selection?

Pinocchio jumped down from the wall and clapped his hands happily. The crisp sound of clapping echoed in the white world, and with his voice, the two fallen silver and iron decks pressed against the ground and moved a little bit towards the blank area in the center of the two teams. Soon, the cards were pressed tightly together, still with their fronts pressed against the ground and the contents of the cards unseen.

In the blink of an eye, Pinocchio runs over to Tang Mo's side of the deck. He leaned down and touched the card with his hand, "Gee, it's a good card."

Tang Mo didn't react at all to his words.

The Black Tower rules state that Pinocchio doesn't know what the two teams are playing for, and this Pinocchio is pure bullshit.

Pinocchio runs over to the opposite deck again and runs his hand over it. His face was serious: "Well, it's a good deck, too."

For the first time the cards were officially dealt, and except for Pinocchio, none of the two teams had the luxury of joking around. They stared at each other, and Tang Mo scanned the three players standing across from each other, and as he turned his eyes, he realized that the man in black was actually still looking at himself.

Tang Mo detected a hint of something wrong in the bottom of his heart, he had even thought of that possibility, but he subconsciously avoided the answer.

How is it possible ...... to get out of the country ace with four people on the opposite side?

Are those three actually unanimous in their desire to out trump the country?

That's not possible.

Pinocchio, seeing that all eight players ignored him, grimaced in resignation and sat down on his butt on the opposite side of the deck.

"Then let's start playing cards. You unfunny humans must not have heard the most famous Pinocchio Honest Card Song of Wang Guo, our Underground Man!"

"biu--"

Pinocchio changed his tune, "Okay, okay, this song isn't famous at all, but it's good ...... Yes yes yes, it's not good at all! Damn you stop making it longer for me, I'm going to start singing!"

"There was a king who went hunting, and the queen looked in the mirror every day."

"Minister Runs After King, Knight Wants to See Princess ......"

Pinocchio beats his hands and feet to the beat, closes his eyes, and immerses himself in his out-of-tune, unpleasant song. "Where is the lovely slave? Oh, he's in the cauldron in the Underground Man's kitchen!"

"Dingdong! First game, player out."

Dazzling white light flashed up from the two decks and Pinocchio, as if he had been burned on his ass by something, immediately stood up from the decks and stepped aside, grinning and humming the difficult song he had composed himself as he looked at the two glowing decks.

The white light became more and more blinding, filling the entire white space. The light shone so brightly that everyone couldn't see straight and closed their eyes. Tang Mo tried hard to open his eyes to see what was going on, but the intense light caused him to squint uncontrollably. Then, he heard a crisp cracking sound.

Almost instantly, his body shuddered as he realized what the sound was.

"Ka-ching-"

The light abruptly disappeared, and as everyone watched, a crack appeared on the silver iron deck on Tang Mo's side. These cracks started from the center and quickly spread outwards, and finally, like a spider web, covered the entire deck. Finally ......

"Ka-ching-"

The cards turned into white light and disappeared into thin air.

Pinocchio covered his mouth without being surprised at all and said in a deliberately surprised tone, "Damn, you dishonest kids, what cards did you play!" With angry words on his lips, his face was all smiles, his eyes looking expectantly at the eight players on either side of him.

Tang Mo All four of them had their eyes focused on the place where the cards had disappeared.

The high school girl's eyes widened in disbelief as she muttered "Impossible" and stepped back. At that moment, a silver ray of light shot out from where the card had disappeared, connecting directly to the high school girl's brow. Tang Mo rushed to look at the other card that hadn't shattered.

Only a silver ray of light shot out from the center of this card and flew to the right, connecting to the black-clothed man's brow.

Tang Mo mentally stuttered and stared at the man dead in the face.

The man in black calmly stepped into the blank area, the silver light on his brow disappearing as he stepped in. He raised his head and looked across the room at the blanched high school girl before finally turning his head back to Tang Mo. He smiled slightly, "So, triggering the dueling arena effect."