49 Apocalypse Rules

December 15th, in the early hours of the morning.

In the quiet academy dormitory, the only sounds were the rising and falling breaths of the students.

And the sound of someone tossing and turning restlessly.

Lu City tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep no matter what.

Tonight was the third night of his "seven-day training halt."

He had previously thought he could easily keep the promise he made to Shi Jingyi, but he never expected to be struck by severe insomnia before even half the time had passed.

He hadn’t been able to sleep since last night. He had forced himself to stay in bed until five in the morning, when he finally dozed off for three or four hours before having to get up for class.

Logically, after a poor night’s sleep and a full day of classes, he should have been dead to the world the moment his head hit the pillow tonight.

But to his surprise, he was suffering from insomnia again tonight.

’...This isn’t working. If I just keep lying here, I’ll be wide awake until dawn.’

After forcing himself to lie there for three hours, Lu City finally couldn’t take it anymore and sat up.

His other three roommates were sound asleep. He sat on the edge of his bed, his brow furrowed as he stared out the window.

’What in the world is wrong with me? Am I really addicted to the spores, going through withdrawal?’

He thought back carefully. He had indeed been a little different lately.

For instance, his need to eat had diminished. But he didn’t see this as a bad thing; on the contrary, he viewed it as a sign of his body’s accelerated optimization.

Even when eating only one meal a day, or even every two days, his energy levels remained high. Wasn’t that a sign his body was improving?

’The insomnia must just be because my routine was broken... It has nothing to do with the spores.’

Lu City felt that he had been constantly practicing Psychic Power Flow ever since joining the academy. With such a long-standing habit suddenly stopped, his body was bound to have trouble adjusting.

’I just have to hold on for a few more days. If I can’t sleep in the meantime, so be it!’

Lu City got out of bed, sat down at his desk, and turned on his computer.

He planned to pass the time until dawn by watching other online courses, but he couldn’t focus, no matter what he watched.

He couldn’t even get into mindless entertainment videos or variety shows.

And it seemed as though voices were constantly whispering in his head, coaxing him.

Train. If you don’t, you’ll fall behind.

Sailing against the current, you either advance or you’re swept back.

You’re slacking off for a whole week. Others are going to catch up and surpass you.

Just train in secret. As long as you don’t say anything, Shi Jingyi will never know.

...Lu City couldn’t tell if these gentle voices were real or just a figment of his imagination.

He tried to drive them away, but it was completely useless.

Even putting on headphones and blasting heavy metal couldn’t drown out the influence of those voices.

And as the voices grew stronger, he found himself thinking they had a point.

The academy’s program was only a short year long—just 52 weeks.

After subtracting the time when classes were impossible due to the rules, he’d be lucky to get half of that—26 weeks—to train and grow stronger.

And in those precious, fleeting 26 weeks, Shi Jingyi wanted him to take a whole week off to do nothing... Wasn’t that incredibly cruel to him?

Three days would have been reasonable, but a whole week was just too long.

A trace of resentment flared up in Lu City’s heart. On second thought, it wasn’t like he and Shi Jingyi had signed any contract; it was just a verbal promise.

Just like the voices in his head said, if he trained in secret, she would never know... ’No!’

Lu City shook his head hard, trying to banish the thought. But it was already deeply rooted in his mind.

"Lu City, what are you doing?"

His roommate from the opposite bunk got up to use the bathroom and was startled to see Lu City sitting there in the middle of the night.

"I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep, so I’m watching some online courses."

"Watching online courses because you can’t sleep? You’re working way too hard..." his roommate advised. "You weren’t serious last time when you talked about Mr. Guan, were you? The man’s a genius. You’ll never catch up, no matter how hard you try."

With that, the roommate climbed down and went to the bathroom, completely oblivious to the ugly expression on Lu City’s face.

"Mr. Guan..."

It was one thing not to mention Guan Tong, but now that he had, the scales of Lu City’s resolve instantly tipped.

That’s right. It was impossible to catch up to a genius like Guan Tong through ordinary effort.

But under the enhancement of the spores, Lu City had felt his strength advancing by leaps and bounds... Would he ever get a chance like this again?

Lu City glanced at his phone screen.

"Today’s the 15th. There’s only half a month left of the rule. That means in two weeks, the rule will end, the spores will disappear, and without their help, it’ll be impossible to keep making these kinds of quantum leaps in progress every day."

Lu City took a deep breath.

He had to consider if this was the only chance he would ever get in his life.

Should he honor the promise he made to Shi Jingyi and waste a precious week of spore-assisted time? Or should he trust himself, seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and enhance his strength as much as possible?

Lu City’s breathing grew heavier.

He had made his decision.

...

「Strategy Research Room Base」

Inside the cafeteria, a few researchers watched with curiosity as a group of people wolfed down their lunch like a whirlwind and then hurried away.

"They’re from the intelligence department, right? Why are they in such a rush to eat?"

"Seems like something’s happened in the last couple of days. All the personnel departments are swamped."

"You guys haven’t heard?" one of them said. "Something big really did happen. And not just one thing."

"What is it? Don’t leave us hanging, spill it."

"This is just what I’ve heard. One thing has to do with Shadow’s true identity. The other is about Sakura Prayer—apparently, Shadow went over there, caused a huge ruckus, and killed the Divine Son."

The others at the table, who spent their days buried in research and were out of touch with outside events, were stunned.

"Shadow’s identity has been discovered?"

"Isn’t the Divine Son the leader of Sakura Prayer’s ruling family? And Shadow actually killed him?"

"This really is a major incident..."

The topic being fervently discussed by the base personnel was already laid out on Director Gao Liangwei’s desk.

He was currently holding a discussion meeting, attended by the heads of various departments.

"Although there’s no conclusive evidence yet, based on the experiences of our internal personnel, we speculate that the true identity of the Ascender ’Shadow’ could be this person."

A young face with a calm expression appeared on the large screen.

The people from the various departments saw the photo and all recognized him.

"Isn’t that Guan Tong, the lecturer from the academy?"

"He’s Shadow?!"

Gao Liangwei said, "The intelligence department is currently conducting a detailed investigation and searching for evidence. One thing we can confirm is that this Guan Tong has been missing ever since he left the academy. And it has been confirmed that Shadow recently appeared in the Sakura Prayer region."

"Our intelligence department has already requested that Sakura Prayer transfer over surveillance data from all their regions. If there are any records of Guan Tong’s appearance, then we can be almost certain that he is, in fact, ’Shadow’."

Everyone looked at each other.

It would be great if they could confirm Shadow’s identity, but what then?

"On another matter," Gao Liangwei continued, "Sakura Prayer’s diplomatic department has lodged a strong protest during a remote Human Federation meeting, accusing Shadow of committing war crimes against their nation."

"War crimes?"

"Yes. Sakura Prayer accuses Shadow of attacking an official government building, capturing and killing several of their official Ascenders, and assassinating the head of the Mizusawa Clan, Mizusawa Chun... also known as the ’Divine Son’."

"Given Sakura Prayer’s national structure, Mizusawa Chun was effectively their supreme commander. Therefore, Sakura Prayer’s government believes Shadow’s assassination of him was not merely a murder, but an act of war against all of Sakura Prayer."

Zhang Minglu then asked, "Director, what is Sakura Prayer’s official demand?"

"As a member state of the Human Federation, Sakura Prayer is demanding that we, North Star, assist them in capturing Shadow. If North Star refuses, Sakura Prayer will withdraw from the Human Federation and declare North Star a hostile power."

"A hostile power?" Someone became instantly furious upon hearing this. "Where do they get the nerve to threaten us! If we hadn’t sent ships to help them evacuate their population during the earthquake rule, how many people would Sakura Prayer even have left?!"

"They’re just posturing. Becoming a hostile power to North Star is suicide. Do they really think those weapons they secretly bought from the Soloma Empire will be of any use?"

"Exactly. Besides, we don’t even know why Shadow did what he did. It would be irrational to jump to conclusions. If this situation is anything like what happened with the Andai Kingdom, then helping Sakura Prayer capture Shadow will only infuriate our own citizens."

"How this matter is decided is not up to us," Gao Liangwei said. "What we can do now is try to contact Shadow as quickly as possible and find out what really happened."

Hearing this, Zhang Minglu thought of a few people.

If the speculation was that Shadow is Guan Tong, then a breakthrough could naturally be sought through Guan Tong’s personal connections.

People like the mother and daughter Wang Yan and Chen Na, Xu Xiaotian, and Shi Jingyi could all be approached in an attempt to contact Guan Tong.

"However," Gao Liangwei’s tone shifted, "I personally cannot accept Sakura Prayer’s threat. I will report the Strategy Research Room’s opinion to the higher-ups."