Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 104 End Rewards and Unexpected Situations

June 10, 1:8.

With one minute left before the rules expired, Guan Tong stood at the door of the shelter cabin, her hand already on the doorknob.

He would go out as soon as he heard the fire-stealer's voice.

After being cooped up in a small room without getting any sunlight for half a month, his mental state is not very good now.

Especially in the last two days, after posting about the Holy Grail on the website, he didn't look at it much anymore and spent most of his time sleeping.

At exactly 9 o'clock, the voice of the fire thief appeared without fail.

The rule period has ended.

Guan Tong immediately stepped out of the small house and took a deep breath.

The fresh air invigorated him, and the gentle autumn sunlight on his skin instantly improved his mood.

The fire-stealer's voice continued.

Congratulations on passing the test of the sixth rule of the apocalypse!

[Reward has been sent to your storage box]

More products have been added to the Shenghua Store and can be viewed on your personal device.

The seventh apocalyptic rule will be released in thirty days.

This time it was pretty standard, and no new features were enabled after it ended.

Guan Tong found a rock and sat down in the sunlight. He squinted for a while before silently activating his personal terminal.

Name: Guan Tong

Nickname: Shadow

[Title: Winner]

[Psychic Power: 137 (137) (3240)]

[Ascended Coins: 687]

Overall Bioinformatics Evaluation: Excellent

His personal panel was not much different from before, and his mental power limit had increased as usual. He had also accumulated more mental power in the past half month.

Because the shelter's rate of mental energy consumption was slower than his own recovery rate, he did not use any of his reserve mental energy during this period.

Open the storage box again, and a new [Survival Treasure Chest - Silver Level] has been added inside.

The previous two survival chests were both "Bronze level". This time, through the rules, not only was the reward of Ascension Coins increased to 300, but the quality of the chest was also upgraded by one level, giving Guan Tong a feeling of entering a new stage.

He opened the box.

[Obtained random item: Giant Axe Warrior Hoodie]

[Giant Axe Warrior Hoodie]: A black hoodie printed with a giant axe warrior design. Equipping it allows you to summon a giant axe warrior to fight for you for five minutes by consuming mental energy. Its combat power is directly proportional to the mental energy consumed, with a minimum consumption of 50 points and a maximum of 1000 points. The cooldown is 24 hours. This item is tradable.

"Another summoning item... Did I accidentally stumble upon a summoning-focused meta?"

Guan Tong had previously obtained a [Corpse Whistle] that could summon the undead, and now he has obtained a hoodie that summons giant axe warriors. In addition, his shadow can be considered one as well. He already has quite a few summons.

Taking out the newly acquired item, it was indeed a well-fitting black hooded sweatshirt with a warrior in full armor holding a large axe printed on the front, looking quite imposing.

He put on the hoodie and temporarily removed the multi-functional stab-proof vest he was originally wearing.

Guan Tong then consumed 50 points of mental energy to summon the Giant Axe Warrior.

Suddenly, a black light flashed from the pattern on the chest of his hoodie, and a majestic warrior wielding a large axe and clad in full armor appeared before him.

Guan Tong ordered his warriors to attack a tree not far away. The warriors immediately strode over and cleaved the tree trunk horizontally with an axe, the power of which was astonishing.

With a thought, Guan Tong took out the Corpse Whistle and blew it twice.

Six undead men emerged from underground.

Then, at his command, the six undead and the giant axe warriors began to fight each other.

Guan Tong initially thought there might still be some suspense, but unexpectedly, in just one exchange, four of the six undead were cut in half at the waist by the axe. The remaining two pounced on the giant axe warrior, clawing and biting, but they couldn't even break through his defenses, and were chopped to death by the axe the next moment.

"Is the difference that big...? This was only summoned with 50 points of mental energy. If I spent 100, or even used my reserve mental energy, spending a huge amount of mental energy at once, I should be able to summon an extremely powerful giant axe warrior."

Guan Tong thought to herself that it was indeed a silver-level treasure chest, as the quality of the items obtained was much higher than that of the previous bronze-level chests.

However, this giant axe warrior does have a weakness: it moves rather slowly. It's unclear whether summoning it by consuming more mental energy would improve this. At least for now, in terms of combat, the undead can't defeat it, but when it comes to charging in one direction, one undead can take on two at once.

After testing the Giant Axe Warrior's combat capabilities, Guan Tong was generally satisfied.

He has plenty of mental energy, which he can store, so he's willing to accept more summoning items.

Ascendants with less mental energy might not like these kinds of items. Even if the summoned creatures are powerful, being limited by mental energy and unable to fully utilize their abilities will still be frustrating.

"Let's see what new items the store has."

Guan Tong opened the Ascension Shop on the terminal, where only one new item was available, and its effect surprised him quite a bit.

[Secret Call Scroll]: Can be used to communicate with friends for ten minutes. [Price: 20 Ascension Coins]

[Purchase Limit: 10]

……

After seeing the new props, Guan Tong's first reaction was that they were useless to her.

He still has zero friends on his personal terminal, so even if he buys a new account, there's no one he can communicate with.

However, he felt that this tool would be very useful to some people. For example, if two people wanted to communicate secretly, but other channels were not safe, then using this [Call Secret Scroll] could ensure that the communication would not be eavesdropped on.

Alternatively, it can be used for long-distance communication even if you don't have a mobile phone or are in an area with no mobile phone signal.

What surprised Guan Tong even more was that this item was actually limited in purchase; each Ascendant could only buy 10.

Ten calls, or ten calls in total, each lasting a maximum of ten minutes, would make a total of one hundred minutes of call time.

Guan Tong didn't know what the Fire Thief meant by putting this item up for sale. Was it to give the Ascended Ones another way to communicate secretly, or was it something that could be used in the seventh rule of the apocalypse?
"...Although there are purchase restrictions, it cannot be guaranteed that there will be no total quantity restrictions."

Although Guan Tong didn't have any friends, she was worried about the embarrassing situation of selling out when she needed them someday, so she immediately spent 200 Ascension Coins to buy the limited quantity of 10. After buying them, she put them in her storage box and would decide when she needed them.

This is hardly a waste, especially after witnessing how crazy the Ascendant market is. He now feels that spending a few hundred Ascendant coins is thrifty.

"This interval is one month, and the seventh rule will be released on November 1st..."

Guan Tong thought that he had about three plans for this month.

First, continue to raise the upper limit of mental power and keep trying to see if you can put pen to paper on the fifth page of the "Wordless Book".

Secondly, maintain and build your own "House of Ascended" website, and put some necessary storage devices into the shelter.

Thirdly, he should continue studying Shi Jingyi's "Flow of Spiritual Power" course, and he should be able to get to the basics this month.

Moreover, after that previous phone call, Shi Jingyi told him that he could call her directly if he had any questions. Guan Tong didn't intend to be polite; he would ask questions if he didn't understand something, as gaining more power as soon as possible was very important to him.

In return, he would naturally lend a helping hand if Shi Jingyi needed any assistance in the future.

He thought his plan was perfect, but at noon that day, an unexpected event completely disrupted his arrangements.

……

"Is the country going into a state of war?"

Around noon, Guan Tong sat in front of her computer, watching the live broadcast of the ongoing press conference, and felt a slight unease.

This live-streamed press conference was officially convened, and the speakers were high-ranking officials.

The main message was that ten days after the completion of preliminary preparations in the Northern Star Kingdom, on October 10th, society would officially enter a state of wartime management.

Senior officials explained in detail why they did this and cited a lot of data, most of which corroborated the argument that man-made disasters caused by rules are no less harmful than the rules themselves.

The video also showed chaos caused by vandals in some cities. They deliberately damaged gathering points, destroyed transport vehicles, and even set fire to self-sufficient supply depot warehouses.

Senior officials solemnly stated that this situation could not be allowed to continue. Once wartime management was implemented, all survival supplies would be centrally planned and distributed per person, and urban residents would be registered and included in the management system.

Not only residents living within designated areas need to register, but also urban homeless individuals and vagrants must register; concealment is not permitted. Following this, the city will conduct 24-hour continuous drone patrols, and those found deliberately avoiding registration will be severely punished.

As the first batch of shelters in major cities are completed, registered individuals will be admitted in order of their registration. Those who refuse admission must provide a reasonable explanation; otherwise, they will not be permitted entry.

People living within the city will not be allowed to drive out of the city freely unless they have a valid reason. Resources such as gasoline and electricity will be used only as needed and will not be wasted.

In conclusion, the high-ranking officials stated that the ultimate goal was to ensure the survival of more citizens in this horrific disaster brought about by the fire-stealers. To achieve this, some other sacrifices had to be made.

Guan Tong watched the entire live stream and was momentarily lost in thought.

Without a doubt, his original plans were completely disrupted.

What he cared about most was not that after entering wartime management, all kinds of supplies had to be strictly controlled and distributed according to the number of people.

What he cares about most is the official requirement for all city residents to register. This means that if he continues to live as a homeless person as he does now, it will become a violation after October 10th, and he will be immediately pursued and held accountable if detected by drones.

This sudden change left Guan Tong somewhat at a loss.

He was wondering what he should do.
According to the official statement, after being registered, they will be assigned to a collective shelter.

Guan Tong frowned; this was definitely not something he wanted to do. The reason he didn't go to the academy in the first place was because, in this post-apocalyptic era, he didn't want to live a life bound by rules and regulations.

Sending him to a mass shelter would be even more painful than being in the academy. It's completely unacceptable.

Unless he reveals his identity to the authorities, if the authorities know that he is the Shadow, they should give him some preferential treatment and not have to live in a mass shelter like ordinary people... But at the same time, he will definitely still be subject to some arrangements or accept some missions.

If he doesn't want to accept other people's arrangements, he should make and execute other plans during this short ten-day window.

Otherwise, once ten days have passed and the authorities are ready and officially declare the start of wartime, it will be troublesome to do anything then.

"So... what should I do?" Guan Tong thought. "If I stay in the city, I have to register, otherwise I can't keep avoiding the drones that patrol the city 24 hours a day... So, should I leave the big city?"

It's clear from the official live-streamed press conference that only cities will strictly enforce wartime regulations. As for remote mountain villages and wild areas, even if they wanted to, they couldn't effectively implement them.

So, should I go to those places?
Guan Tong has his own personal shelter, so he's not afraid to leave the city for the wilderness. However, the incident happened suddenly, and he wasn't prepared. He doesn't know where to go for the time being.

(End of this chapter)