Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 119 Experiments with Physicalization at a Distance

November 15th, the underground base of the Post-Apocalyptic Countermeasures Research Office.

Inside the laboratory, a majestic white mech brandished its dazzling power sword and slashed down into the void.

With a soft thud, the sound hunter's corpse, cut in half, materialized and fell to the ground, dead.

What attracted it was not a human, but a scarecrow.

click -

The cockpit of the mecha opened, and a long-haired girl of about sixteen or seventeen years old stepped out, her young face showing some fatigue.

The white mecha disappeared as a streak of light after the girl left.

The girl glanced at the corpse of the Sound Hunter, her eyes revealing undisguised disgust, and quickly left the laboratory.

Dr. Zhang stood at the door, watching the girl come out. He smiled and handed her an energy drink, then picked up his phone, which he had already typed: (Thanks for your hard work, Xiaobai. Did you manage to drop the call secret document this time?)
The girl glanced at it, took the drink and gulped down a few mouthfuls, then pulled out her phone from her pocket and typed a reply with lightning speed: (Didn't drop it, and also, I'm out of mental energy!)
(I know. Go back to your dorm and rest, come back tomorrow.)
(Can you not come?) The girl replied quickly, (These sound hunters are disgusting! More disgusting than snakes!)
Dr. Zhang gave a silent, wry smile: (That won't do. Your 'Snowflake Without a Trace' can effectively damage it, which will save a lot of attack items.)
(What a hassle!) The girl replied and walked away.

Dr. Zhang shook his head, having grown accustomed to the capriciousness of this girl named "Bai Xuewu".

It took a lot of effort and persuasion to get her into the official team.

While others were scrambling to get into certain places, she didn't care, feeling that as a socially awkward otaku, it was more interesting for her to stay home and watch anime.

After much persuasion from Dr. Zhang, she finally agreed after he promised to let her form her own team and not need to communicate with any other officials besides him.

The reason he went through all this trouble was because he believed that Bai Xuewu's mecha abilities were extremely outstanding and had great potential, making her a potential top-tier ascendant and worthy of being nurtured.

Forcing such talent to join is not an option. If it creates resistance, they might feign compliance but then betray you at a crucial moment, causing significant losses.

In retrospect, his initial decision was absolutely correct. Bai Xuewu's high value was demonstrated in the subsequent Ascendant Challenge and now in using the extremely powerful attack of the power sword to kill the Sound Hunter.

(Dr. Zhang, should I head back now?) At that moment, a young man with curly hair and glasses walked out from the next room, showing a text message on his phone.

Dr. Zhang glanced at the young man and nodded: (Good, thanks to your abilities, casualties were reduced.)
The young man with glasses possesses the ability of "Straw Doll," which allows him to create a scarecrow by consuming mental energy. This scarecrow has human-like characteristics, capable of speaking and making expressions; the only difference between it and a human is that its body is made of straw.

After the authorities found the person's registered abilities in the database, they immediately transferred him to the base and used his abilities to have the Scarecrow take the place of the tester to lure the Sound Hunters over. This would reduce casualties.

(This is what I should do.) The young man finished typing and left.

Dr. Zhang stroked his chin, thinking that this young man was quite promising. If the straw doll were explored further, it could definitely be developed into a new set of abilities; its potential was excellent.

Moreover, his mental strength limit is not low, currently exceeding 110 points, which puts him in the top tier.

The third team has been incomplete since Gu Fei left. After further evaluation, we might let this young man give it a try.

……

In a certain area of ​​the wilderness, not far from a campsite surrounded by several cars, five people dressed in the same black clothes are observing.

Gu Fei looked at the youngest girl in the group and picked up his phone: (It looks like the items on the list are at that camp ahead. How many people are there?)
Chen Na closed her eyes and activated her [Perception Domain]. The activity trajectories of all the creatures around her were generated in her mind.

She opened her eyes and replied on her phone: (Thirteen people.)
(So ​​few? I can take care of them myself.)
Gu Fei was about to step forward when the young man wearing headphones raised his hand to stop him.

Gu Fei typed in dissatisfaction: (What are you doing?)

The young man wearing headphones: (Taking supplies, not killing anyone.)
A cold glint flashed in Gu Fei's eyes: (How can you get supplies without killing people? Do you think they'll just give them to you for free?!)
The other two exchanged a glance but remained silent.

The young man with headphones: (I'll go negotiate.)
Gu Fei typed furiously: (Why should I listen to you?!)

This time, the young man with headphones didn't type anything; he just stared into Gu Fei's eyes.

Gu Fei glared back defiantly, but he soon realized that all his strength was rapidly draining away. His face showed fear, and he soon couldn't even stand up straight, almost falling to the ground.

The young man with the headphones looked away, ignoring Gu Fei, and walked straight towards the camp.

Gu Fei stared at his retreating figure in disbelief, wondering what had just happened.

At this moment, another short-haired young man who had been watching TV in the lounge typed to him: (I advise you not to argue with him; he is more capable than all of us combined.)
(What is his ability?) Gu Fei asked.

Although the team consists of five people, so far everyone only knows that Chen Na has sensory abilities. This wasn't revealed by her herself, but rather by the short-haired woman, which is why she was chosen to be in charge of the reconnaissance work.

As for the abilities of the other four, none of them mentioned them. They only knew that the others were not weak, otherwise they would not have been able to pass the selection process and form a team.

(I don't know either, I only know that it's activated by the eyes.)
(...)
Although Gu Fei knew that there were always people more capable than him, he had recently encountered too many setbacks.

First, his entire team was defeated by a single opponent in the challenge match. Now, even after joining another organization, he is still no match for his teammates. This has made him feel extremely frustrated.

Thinking about it now, if all these people had sided with the government, he probably wouldn't have been able to become the captain of the third team with his abilities. He remembered that Dr. Zhang had mentioned this in a subtle way, that is, many strong people in the private sector are confident in themselves, even arrogant.

Some proud individuals are unwilling to join official organizations and be driven by others, so even members of the official team should not underestimate or be careless when encountering those who have transcended the ordinary people, or they will suffer a crushing defeat.

Before long, the four saw the people in the camp come out one by one, get into their cars and drive away.

They went over immediately and found that the people in the camp had left, but most of the supplies had been left behind. It seemed that, as the young man with the headphones had typed, he had managed to persuade the people in the camp to voluntarily give up their supplies and leave.

(Send coordinates to the base.) The young man with the headphones typed instructions to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei swallowed hard. Although he was somewhat unwilling, he did as he was told. He knew that from this point on, there was a difference in status between him and the young man with the headphones.

If this team were to choose a captain later, it would undoubtedly be this young man with headphones.

……

On Mingdao Mountain, Guan Tong stood gazing into the distance.

As time goes by, today is the 15th, and half a month has passed since the rule period ended.

During this time, he was using his mental powers to generate Silver Hunter Bullets, eliminate Sound Hunters to obtain Ascendant Coins and Telephone Scrolls.

However, as his previously stored bullets ran out, his killing efficiency decreased significantly, and his output in terms of communication documents was no longer comparable to that of large official organizations.

As of today, a large number of tradable call scrolls have been listed on the market, with prices fluctuating around 23,000 Ascension Coins. They can be sold for a higher price, but it won't be as quick.

It seems that as production increases, those with huge sums of money will begin to consider the cost-effectiveness issue.

Guan Tong himself was quite satisfied. As the first person to try this approach, he sold the first two or three pieces at a low price, and the rest of the time he hovered around the highest price. A few pieces even sold for around 30,000.

This brought him huge profits; his current total number of Ascension Coins is less than 300,000, just a few thousand short.

But today, instead of using his fully restored mental energy to generate bullets, he planned to try something else.

That is the extremely long-distance movement of shadows.

He had this idea a long, long time ago, and had already tested the maximum distance his shadow could move. But back then, the shadow's movement was limited by his own field of vision, and he couldn't break free, so it couldn't go very far.

But now that the shadow has five senses, Guan Tong can extend it further and further away. He himself doesn't know how far it can go.

The reason for doing this practice today is that the popularity of the Ascendant's Home website is increasing, and many users have a surge in demand for transactions and entrustments. They hope that the website owner can implement this function as soon as possible and provide a "logistics" system as secure as the website itself.

So Guan Tong also decided to start experimenting and began working hard to build his "shadow logistics".

He summoned a blurred shadow, transforming it into its finest form—a thin line, only about 1 millimeters in diameter, as thin as a hair. This extremely fine line was connected to himself at one end and moved rapidly into the distance at the other.

Since a blurred shadow has no physical form, it can move inside the ground, thus achieving stealth and remaining undetected.

Guan Tong made it move towards Yunhua City. Unlike when it was materialized, its speed was linked to Guan Tong's own. In its ethereal state, the shadow was very fast and could travel a long distance in the blink of an eye.

Once the other end of the shadow was more than ten kilometers away from Guan Tong, he temporarily manipulated the shadow to stop. Then he attempted to materialize the shadow.

brush--

In an instant, the hair-thin shadow line became real. Guan Tong took a closer look at the consumption of mental energy and found that it had only consumed a single-digit amount of mental energy.

He was initially surprised, but after thinking about it carefully, he understood the key point.

Although this materialized shadow line is long, exceeding ten kilometers, its width is extremely small, only 1 millimeters. Thus, the total volume of the materialized shadow line is actually quite small.

Just like a young woman, if she has long, flowing hair, each hair is about 50 centimeters long and 0.1 millimeters wide, and there are an average of 100,000 hairs, then the total volume is less than 400 cubic centimeters, or less than 400 milliliters.

What does less than 400 milliliters mean? A small can of Coke is 330 milliliters, and this head of hair is only a few tens of milliliters larger than that small can of Coke.

Previously, the shadows Guan Tong manifested were all life-size replicas of him. Imagine how enormous that would be? How many cans of soda could they be compared to?
This discovery confirmed Guan Tong's belief that the concept of hyperdimensional materialization was feasible.

Let alone 10 kilometers, even 100 kilometers or several hundred kilometers would be no problem. He could easily extend the shadow line from Mingdao Mountain all the way to Yunhua City, more than 200 kilometers away.

However... Guan Tong wasn't overly excited, because the problems were obvious.

By controlling the shadow lines to the thickness of a human hair, an extremely small volume is achieved, but this also means that it is extremely fragile. It will break immediately if it encounters any damage.

Moreover, its strength is extremely poor. What can a single strand of hair pick up? If it can't even lift anything, how can it be used to transport things?
These factors made Guan Tong want to add words to the first page of the "Wordless Book" again.

If he can make the shadow lines extremely resilient by adding words, then his "shadow logistics" is probably not far from becoming a reality.

(End of this chapter)