A Gamer’s Advantage

Yelena took a little longer to get online and log into her VR account. During that time, Bolt accepted Zen's invitation and was waiting in his VR room.

"The information cards for all the candidates are here," Bolt passed a virtual notebook to Zen, who quickly compared his gathered data.

There was some missing information from Bolt's list, but Zen was thrilled to know more about the candidates he had no access to.

"Is this allowed?" he asked cautiously. "Isn't this considered cheating?"

Bolt raised a brow. "Are there rules saying that a candidate cannot ask an invigilator for information?"

Zen shook his head. The school rules didn't mention anything about working with invigilators. It only said that invigilators shouldn't be harmed. Was this a loophole? If anyone else knew about this, there would be a riot!

Yelena was angry. It was evident from how she gave Bolt the cold shoulder. Zen didn't blame her. If he knew that Bolt was going to make the pledge of loyalty, he would have stopped the man. There was no need to make a pledge this early. As the candidate with the least skills and knowledge about the underworld, he was at a huge disadvantage. Sure, he had powerful allies. However, borrowing the strength of others would only go so far.

He needed to become stronger in the least amount of time possible.

"Training starts now!" the young commando declared, and Zen gulped. He didn't know what to expect.

Zen thought that Yelena would make him do sit-ups and push-ups in the virtual world, but to his surprise, she brought out a stack of coins and poker cards.

"This is…?"

Yelena narrowed her eyes. "Memory training. Egg Hunt is not about fighting. It's about hide and seek. First to be found loses."

The cards and coins were placed haphazardly with no logic at first glance. However, after a while, Zen understood what the young invigilator was doing.

"Are the coins people and the cards buildings?" he asked.

Yelena nodded. "It's this school. You play chess?"

Zen nodded. He wasn't a chess grandmaster, but he knew the basics of chess.

Yelena finished placing the coins and cards while Bolt observed from the bed. The two teenagers sat on the floor, and Zen was impressed by how detailed the school 'map' was. He had a similar idea about how to beat the Egg Hunt event when he told the guild members to survey the school grounds. Now that Yelena was here, it was even easier.

"The pool is here. This is the cafeteria. No cards in open field. Dormitory rooms on the three cards stacked together. Too small areas, Yelena doesn't show. You remember all the buildings?"

Zen nodded. The representation of the school grounds was accurate enough. Yelena explained where each room was on which floor of every building gave him an excellent general overview.

Coins were scattered in different locations, and Zen wondered what they were. There were a hundred candidates, but there weren't a hundred coins on the 'map'.

"Big coin, party. No party individuals, small coin. Starting positions on the map for everyone different. Killing zones in non-spawn areas."

The non-spawn areas refer to safe zones that the candidates could take refuge in. Mostly, they were places that they were placed in when the game started. If this was an insider's information, Zen would consider it trustworthy. However, he had backup plans just in case safe zones were not available.

"Memorise positions?" Yelena asked, and Zen took one last glance at the arrangement before nodding.

Then, Yelena shuffled the cards and coin placements. "Now, you recreate the map."

Bolt thought that Zen would take a little longer to get the placements correct, and Yelena wasn't expecting Zen to remember it within the first hour. She thought it would take Zen the whole night to remember all the buildings, spawn locations and safe zones. She didn't think he would also remember the number of non-affiliated individuals or alliances among the candidates, but Zen surprised them both.

"Done," Zen announced as he placed the last small coin. "Did I get it right?"

He was nervous. God might have given him the ability to learn at hyperspeed, but Zen didn't know if he remembered everything correctly. There were simply too many details to recall, and he had to fix the map twice because he forgot to stack the cards correctly.

Yelena and Bolt checked the card and coin placements. Zen took almost twenty minutes to finish recreating the map, and while it was twice as long as what Yelena took to do, he had everything down to the last detail.

"Hey, do you happen to have a photographic memory?" Bolt asked. Even as an informant, someone of Zen's capability was rare in his field of work.

Zen shrugged. "I messed up a little there, so I don't think I have a photographic memory."

That was true. Yelena witnessed how Zen had to change the orientation of a card when he was receding the map. Zen also stacked the wrong number of cards initially and corrected it later on. He learned fast but didn't have an infallible memory.

Thrilled by the unexpected progress, Yelena saw that Zen had some promise in him. Even if she was still angry at Bolt for making that pledge of loyalty so quickly, not all hope was lost.

"Very good! Very good! Now we learn movement patterns. This coin is you," she held up a blue coin that she pulled from her inventory.

Zen memorised the different colours for various coins that Yelena pulled out. The young commando understood that Guild Carnage was their greatest enemy and marked them with a different coloured coin. Non-affiliated candidates were represented by small coins, and neutral affiliated candidates were marked by green coins.

The simulation training that Yelena was teaching Zen was something that took years of experience to understand. Although she explained it as a game of chess, it usually wasn't possible for non-military personnel to understand quickly. Bolt expected Zen to stumble here when Yelena created a situation of Carnage taking over a strategic building and asked Zen to place his 'soldiers' from Guild Survivors.

"Do I know which coin is which person?" Zen asked, and Yelena shook her head.

"Always assume worst case. Make best choice with worst scenario. Survival first."

Zen took a look at the map. The shooting range was a very strategic place to capture first. Most people would think of raiding and capturing the shooting range first to secure weapons during the event. Guild Carnage would probably do the same, and there would be major bloodshed in that area right from the start. Whoever was spawned closest to the shooting range had an advantage, and in the worst case, Guild Carnage would be there.

Bolt and Yelena waited for Zen to make his move, and when he finally did, they paused at his answer.

"Why split the team?" Bolt questioned. They had strength in numbers. Splitting the people will put Zen's group at a disadvantage with Guild Carnage on a rampage.

Zen smiled. He already had certain considerations when he came up with a strategy this afternoon. The guild members' meeting was important because Zen needed to know every ally's character and strength. Now that he had this information, the rest was easy.

"This is the tallest building and also a safe zone. I will let our informant camp here throughout the game. It's a vantage point, and we can move around Guild Carnage while securing points."

"We have a hypnotist in the group. They will wait for a group to pass by at this cross-section. Most people getting to the shooting range will pass here. The party guarding her will lay an ambush. The gambler can steal luck from others to debuff them."

Amazed by the indirect war approach, Bolt understood that Zen aimed for a long term victory by chipping away at his enemies and using their predictability to get ahead.

"The strongest team will rush to the kitchen. This is our headquarters to defend and get weapons. We may not have firearms, but we have weapons. The reconnaissance team will search and destroy other teams' resources."

Killian and Faceless will make the perfect pair when searching for buffs for the guild and party. Any useful resources, they can bring it back to the kitchen. Anything useful for others, they can destroy it before it gets found. This was assuming buffs exist during the game. According to the rules, candidates can get drop item sponsors during an event. Zen wanted to prevent these aids from reaching his opponents if possible.

"The last team is a mobile army. Search and collect eggs. Movements are monitored by the informant and coordinated by headquarters."

Zen already had some names in mind when he put the team together. Every successful high mobility team required a tank, a ranged attacker, and a sneak attack expert. Sasha, Jessica and her berserker lover will form a well-balanced team that could retreat quickly from undesirable situations.

As Bolt and Yelena listened to Zen's explanations for his placement, they came to understand something.

Zen's strength comes from his years of experience playing all kinds of games. His understanding of strategies involving games surpassed their knowledge of the outside world.

If this was a war within the underworld, his logic would fail. However, as the Egg Hunt was a game, Zen's logic exploited the game system's limitations. He made many risky assumptions when he explained the process, which was usually a fatal flaw in reality.

Yelena and Bolt listened in silence and shared a tacit look. Zen was chosen for a reason.