Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 129 Hidden Rule Eight

"Can everyone become number one in the world...?"

Standing in the courtyard, Guan Tong listened to the eighth rule announced by the Fire Thief and inexplicably thought of the second marathon rule, in which he used the movement speed of his shadow to become the world's number one.

If I were to create a similar challenge based on those rules, I should still be able to easily take first place.

...It's hard to say.

At that time, the era of apocalyptic rules had just begun, and each ascendant was just starting out. Apart from their own exclusive items or abilities, they had almost no other items to assist them.

But now, more than half a year has passed, and the items and abilities that can be obtained from the boxes have gradually become more diverse and varied.

In this situation, no one can confidently say that they are 100% certain of being number one in a certain field.

However, Guan Tong wasn't under much pressure. With Shadow around, completing this rule shouldn't be a problem.

"Let's see what the hidden rules are this time."

Guan Tong opened her personal terminal and found a new function in the panel.

Create your own challenge/challenge list
Out of curiosity, he opened it and discovered that it was a two-in-one function.

You can create your own challenge scenarios, goals, rules, etc., or you can view challenges that others have already created.

Guan Tong glanced at the list casually; many people had already created challenges.

The total number of push-ups performed by the end of the challenge.

The Challenge: Don't Poop Until the Rules End

The challenge is to drink only the minimum amount of water until the end of the rules.

Challenging the speed of solving a 3x3 Rubik's Cube

……

There are countless challenges of all kinds, some of which are relatively normal, while others are quite bizarre.

To be honest, seeing these diverse challenges gave him the feeling of idly browsing various Guinness World Records before he traveled back in time.

Many of these records are quite bizarre, but once they're included in the Guinness World Records, it means others can challenge them. Anyone who thinks breaking a record is "easy as peasy" is welcome to try.

The current rules are similar: every challenge created is public and searchable by keywords. This way, anyone with the same idea can find similar challenges and decide whether to challenge the creator.

The main difference is that the winner won't be known until the rules expire. Before that, even with just one second left, there's always a chance for a comeback.

Guan Tong closed the interface and opened the rule details. He would definitely wait until he understood the hidden rules before creating a challenge.

Hidden Rule Eight: Never Satisfy

[Hidden Rule: After this rule ends, achieving three world number one challenge results will increase your maximum Mental Power by 10 points. Each subsequent achievement will increase your maximum Mental Power by an additional 5 points, up to a maximum of 500 points. Note that during this rule period, each person can only create one challenge.]

[Note: For ordinary people, achieving world number one in any challenge is enough to be satisfied. But is simply being number one in the world truly enough for a strong person? If you want to become stronger, participate in challenges created by others and take their number one spot.]

Guan Tong's eyes lit up after reading the hidden rules.

"If I remember correctly, this is the first time a rule has appeared that raises the upper limit of mental power, right?"

After the first rule was followed by the activation of mental power, the next six rules did not introduce any way to increase the upper limit of mental power. Ascended individuals can only increase it naturally through a cycle of self-recovery—a process of exhaustion.

During this period, you might be able to improve your character using items, such as the Gene Optimization Essence that Guan Tong obtained from the Glory-level chest, or the Optimization Essence that others purchased from the Ascension Shop.

As for other items that could increase the upper limit of mental power, Guan Tong didn't know. Perhaps they existed, but he had never seen them.

Because raising the upper limit of mental power is so difficult, Guan Tong was pleasantly surprised to see the rewards related to it in the hidden rules.

Getting first place in three challenges will increase your mental power cap by 10 points, and each additional first place will increase it by an extra 5 points... In other words, if you can get enough first place, you can significantly increase your mental power cap by relying on this hidden rule.

It would be a lie to say Guan Tong wasn't excited. What he needed most was to increase his mental power limit—because his exclusive mental power item, the "Wordless Book," needed a sufficiently high mental power limit to start a new chapter.

"This rule is a valuable opportunity for me, and I must seize it," Guan Tong silently made up her mind.

If there's anything to be mindful of, it's that the rules state "each person can only create one challenge."

This means that if a strong player wants to meet the requirements of the hidden rules, it's not enough to just get the world's number one spot in the challenge they created; they also need to take the number one spot in the challenges created by at least two other people.

In order to fulfill the rules, the two who lost the first place in their own challenge must try to take the first place in a challenge created by someone else.

This means that for every strong person who completes the hidden rules, there will be two more people who fail to meet the requirements of the rules and ultimately fail, resulting in a decline in their mental power.

If this strong person wants to improve even further, then two more first places will not be enough; they will want to seize more and challenge for first place.

This will lead to even more people failing in their attempts.

"I see……"

At that moment, Guan Tong understood the meaning of this hidden rule.

"The increase in your mental power limit did not come out of thin air, but was reduced by the mental power limit of the person you took first place from."

This somewhat cruel reality was not unexpected for Guan Tong. From the very first rule, the hidden rule of "plundering consciousness" had laid bare its true nature to him.

Guan Tong's choice that time was "no," but this time his choice was different.

If you ask where his bottom line is, it's that he doesn't want to get his hands dirty with the blood of innocent people.

[Plundering Awakening] That time, knocking someone unconscious would actually kill them. But this time is different. This time, the rule failed, but only mental energy was weakened.

While the depletion of mental energy is equally devastating for those who have ascended, it pales in comparison to the loss of a human life. Therefore, Guan Tong was able to make a different choice than before; after all, he was no saint.

and……

Guan Tong thought to himself that this hidden rule was perfect for being the first piece of information he would "sell".

Since establishing the Ascended Home website, he has never sold any information. It's not that he doesn't want to, but rather that there hasn't been a suitable one.

This hidden rule is a typical example of a rule that "cannot be proven within the rule's effective period".

Some might guess that achieving more world number one rankings will yield additional rewards. However, until the rules expire, unless someone can see the hidden rules like Guan Tong, the specific rewards will remain unknown.

Only Guan Tong knew that the reward was not Ascension Coins or any kind of item, but rather the most precious thing for every Ascension user: an increase in their maximum mental power.

In his view, this news would be invaluable to some powerful individuals, but it might not be so important to those who are not strong enough.

For the latter, even achieving a world number one ranking within the 15-day rule period is not easy, let alone meeting the minimum requirements for three additional rule rewards.

But for the strong, even without knowing the hidden information, they will definitely try their best to get more first place.

In this situation, Guan Tong is not worried that selling the information will lead to more competition, because competition will exist whether she sells or not.

Therefore, Guan Tong wants to sell this information to earn a large amount of Ascension Coins, which will also further increase his credibility as the site administrator—but he does not intend to disclose the specific reward points.

"If I want to sell this information, it's best to only say that getting more first place will result in a reward that increases the maximum mental power. But there's no need to mention details like getting 10 points after getting three, and then getting 5 more points for each subsequent one."

He knew that if he explained the details of the reward points one by one, everyone else would know that he knew the detailed hidden rules.

However, if the information is vague, only mentioning a reward for increasing the cap without specifying the exact number of points, others cannot determine how detailed the information is.

There are still differences.

It's like investing in stocks. Someone telling you that a certain stock will rise tomorrow is completely different from someone telling you exactly how many points it will rise tomorrow.

If it's the former, you might think that this person has good judgment or is just lucky to have guessed correctly.

But with the latter, you'd only feel horrified. Does this person have futuristic vision or traveled back from tomorrow?

Guan Tong didn't want others to think he was intimately familiar with the details of the hidden rules, so he would only sell a vague piece of information. Although vague, its value was high enough.

Thinking of this, Guan Tong immediately returned to her room and opened the website.

The special "Webmaster Zone" section, which he had previously kept under wraps, is officially launched today.

This forum is different from the other four forums, the biggest difference being that only he has the authority to post.

Then he posted his first message in this forum.

Selling classified information related to the Eighth Rule of the Apocalypse

Details: The price of this information is 50000 Ascension Coins. This information will not be provided immediately; a unified notification will be given 24 hours later.

Guan Tong designed the system to notify everyone 24 hours later in order to prevent the first person to buy the information from buying and selling it.

As for the price of 50000 coins, it's very high, clearly showing his attitude of not ripping off poor people.

It wasn't that he didn't want to take the low-profit, high-volume approach, but rather that he felt it wouldn't be of much use to ordinary Ascendants who bought this information; it would only be a waste of Ascendant Coins.

The post received a flood of comments from users within just ten minutes of being published.

"Does the site administrator have hidden information related to this rule?!"

"50,000 coins? Sorry to bother you..."

"Wow, as expected of 'Webmaster Domain', the first post is already such a hit!"

"Selling for such a high price? And even if I buy it, I still have to wait 24 hours to receive the information. Would anyone really be so foolish as to buy it? Besides, is it some kind of fake information designed to scam people?"

"I've seen a few posts from the site administrator so far, and I think the information is quite credible. It's a pity that judging from the pricing, the site administrator's target users are probably those large organizations of Ascendants. I doubt that ordinary individuals can afford this price."

"How could it be fake information? Have you forgotten the information posts about the Holy Grail and the Voice Hunter? Especially the Voice Hunter, the site administrator released information before the official announcement, which gave me quite a shock."

"Why doesn't the site administrator sell it cheaper? If it's 100 Ascension Coins, everyone can afford it. With so many users on the forum buying one, the profit might not be lower than selling it at a higher price, right?"

The administrator of the Ascendant's Home website was selling information at a high price, specifically information about the newly released eighth rule. This news quickly spread throughout the forum, and also reached various organizations and official departments that follow the website.

All organizations and groups, including government departments, received the same response after their staff consulted with their superiors.

buy!
　Day 17 of my daily check-in challenge. Keep up the good work, and thank you for your support.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)