49 Apocalypse Rules

「September 1st, morning.」

Today wasn’t a weekend, but it was a holiday for the academy. The academy’s rules stipulated that there would be a day off on the final day of every Rule Stage, allowing the students to relax better.

At nine o’clock, the notification for the end of the Rule Stage rang in everyone’s mind.

[The Rule Stage has ended]

[Congratulations on passing the trial of the twelfth Apocalypse Rule]

[Rewards have been delivered to your storage box]

[The thirteenth Apocalypse Rule will be announced in thirty days]

The Fire Thief’s voice had never changed, but that didn’t stop it from sounding like a demon’s whisper when announcing a rule and an angel’s song when ending one.

Instantly, roaring cheers erupted from the dormitory buildings.

"It’s finally over..."

"Boys, log on!"

"Fuck, my phone is dead!"

Most students were immersed in the excitement of being able to freely use the internet again, but a small minority who weren’t as reliant on it were actually reluctant to see the Rule Stage end.

"Will there be more stress-free rules like this in the future? I really wish it had lasted longer..."

"Yeah. It’s rare to get a relatively easy rule."

"Huh? Have you guys noticed? The Mind Network seems to be down."

"It really is!"

"Was it only active during the Rule Stage?"

As soon as the Rule Stage ended, news that the Mind Network had been disconnected spread quickly.

Everyone who had connected to it felt a sense of bewildered loss.

Although they hadn’t experienced it for long, the ability to use only the mind as a medium to transmit a single sentence to tens of millions of people simultaneously had given Ascenders a completely new understanding of "communication."

It would undoubtedly be a shame if they could never use it again.

At that moment, in the shelter at the bottom of the canyon, Guan Tong also sensed that the Mind Network connection to the other instructors had been severed.

Unlike the others, who were surprised, he had been mentally prepared for this.

On the first day the rule was announced, he had seen in the content of the hidden rules that a prerequisite for the Mind Network was that it be "within this Rule Stage." This meant that once the Rule Stage was over, this application of Psychic Power would cease.

However, Guan Tong didn’t think it would stop permanently. He felt it was more like a "free trial."

’Perhaps the current abilities of Ascenders are insufficient to support the existence of the Mind Network. The reason we could use it during this Rule Stage is that the Fire Thief acted as some kind of ’server’.’

Guan Tong thought for a moment, then mentally called up his Terminal Panel.

[Name: Guan Tong]

[Nickname: Shadow]

[Title: Civilization Observer]

[Psychic Power: 890 (890) (181,912)]

[Sublimation Coins: 3,156,780]

[Comprehensive Bio-Information Assessment: Excellent]

He had actually been storing up Psychic Power every day for the past month, but compared to a month ago, his total amount hadn’t increased. In fact, it had decreased by more than ten thousand.

This was because he had conducted quite a few experiments with the "Shadow Realm" this month.

This was a hugely consumptive ability, with each use costing anywhere from several thousand to ten thousand points of Psychic Power. If Guan Tong hadn’t left himself a large reserve of Psychic Power, he wouldn’t have even been able to afford the experiments.

The good news was that the experiments had yielded some results.

For example, he had gained a preliminary grasp on expanding and contracting the Shadow Realm, absorbing the Psychic Power of Ascenders within it, and so on. These were all decent results.

As for his Psychic Power limit, he was still making steady progress toward the one-thousand-point mark. However, without some sort of fortuitous encounter, he estimated it would be next year before he could break through one thousand and write on the seventh page of the [Wordless Book].

’The next rule will be announced in October. A one-month interval isn’t bad.’

After the eleventh rule ended, the Fire Thief had first given a two-month interval. Then, because the twelfth rule wasn’t difficult, it was like a free month for Guan Tong. Adding this month’s interval... from his perspective, he’d had almost four consecutive months without any pressure.

This was certainly good news for the governments of various countries as well. Having such a long period to focus fully on post-earthquake disaster relief, containment, and other work had produced obvious results.

’Time to go online and take a look.’

During the month that the twelfth rule was active, Guan Tong hadn’t touched his computer or logged into the Ascender’s Home website.

He sat down at his desk, turned on his computer, and logged in. He saw quite a few posts that violated the forum rules he had set, all of them posted while he was unable to moderate.

He deleted all posts with anti-human content and banned their authors, restoring the forum to a clean state.

He then noticed that in the general discussion section, the most popular posts were all about the Shen Yun incident.

Although the website was called "Ascender’s Home," Guan Tong, as the administrator, didn’t exclude ordinary people from posting. As a result, a large number of the site’s users were ordinary people. Usually, many of them only browsed posts and rarely created them, but this time, faced with an incident related to their own rights, they had all come forward to speak out.

Guan Tong clicked on the most popular post, titled "’Ordinary Person’ Is an Ecological Niche."

The post read: "The recent incident where an academy student killed several ordinary people at a wilderness camp has sparked widespread public debate. You’ve probably all seen the video from the scene. When faced with an Ascender’s attack, ordinary people are truly defenseless. In less than a few seconds, more than a dozen people fell, and seven or eight of them died.

Ordinary people, feeling a sense of shared experience, are furious and are demanding that the government severely punish the student, sentencing him for murder in accordance with the law. The government has already issued a notice that the court hearing will be held on September 2nd. Anyone nearby is welcome to attend and observe.

That’s the background of the incident. But my purpose in posting on this website is to call on Ascenders to also support ordinary people in this matter. The reason is what I wrote in my title: ’ordinary person’ is just an ecological niche.

Imagine if the government prioritized the interests of Ascenders in all things, disregarding the rights of ordinary people. The number of ordinary people would undoubtedly plummet, eventually leading to their mass extinction. But would every Ascender be satisfied then? I can state with certainty that it’s impossible.

Without ordinary people, the Ascender community would also begin to stratify based on strength and Psychic Power limits. At that point, the weaker Ascenders would occupy the ’ordinary person’ ecological niche and would also face discrimination and all sorts of unjust treatment. This is something that is bound to happen.

So unless you are one of the top-tier Ascenders, you should support ordinary people in this incident, put pressure on the government, and ensure that they must enforce the law impartially and show no favoritism."

After finishing the post, Guan Tong looked at the comments below. The support was basically one-sided.

"I agree with the OP. I’m an Ascender, and I also support handling this according to the law!"

"That’s right. If we ignore an Ascender killing an ordinary person today, will we also ignore a strong Ascender killing a weak Ascender tomorrow?"

"Ever since we entered the era of the Apocalypse Rules, North Star has always promoted the ideal of equality between ordinary people and Ascenders. Now is the time to test it!"

"I believe the government will uphold justice! We in North Star are not a nation like Sisiya or Soloma where might makes right. They will never favor the Ascenders!"

’The crowd is really fired up...’

Guan Tong finished reading and silently closed the post.

He felt that everyone had a point, but very few people mentioned that the ordinary people in the incident had used firearms.

Guan Tong imagined himself in Shen Yun’s position. If the other party had fired a gun at him, would their goal have been merely to injure him? Not at all. A gun is the kind of thing that, once used, is meant to kill.

Considering this, Shen Yun’s counterattack against the gunman seemed justified in his eyes. The only debatable point was the ordinary people who weren’t holding guns but were caught in the crossfire from the item.

"I wonder how the government will rule in tomorrow’s hearing." Guan Tong felt this was a real hot potato, and the thought that he himself had to be there tomorrow was a bit of a headache.

He shook his head and opened his private messages. He had received quite a few over the past month, mostly from representatives of various organizations and factions asking if he was selling rule-related intelligence. However, the messages were all from the first part of the month; after news of the Mind Network spread, there were no more such inquiries.

He switched to his Shadow account, where he had even more private messages. Most of them were just "add me as a friend," "can you gift me some Sublimation Coins," and the like. Only one message caught his attention.

The sender’s nickname was a string of Pinyin, "Baqizi," and the message read: "On the island that day, you said I could contact you?"

’It’s that woman from Sakura Prayer...’

Seeing the words "island" and "contact," the image of the woman with snake eyes he had met on Leming Island immediately surfaced in Guan Tong’s mind.

At the time, she had directly handed her Qimo Star Fragment to Guan Tong, her whole demeanor one of complete nihilism, which had left a deep impression on him.

Guan Tong checked the date the message was sent—it was ten days ago. The fact that she had used the internet then meant she had failed the rule’s challenge.

He thought for a moment and replied to the private message: "That’s right. What’s on your mind?"

Although he didn’t know what this woman wanted from him, since he had said she could contact him, he certainly wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t seen the message now.

After sending it, he was about to log off and check back later, but unexpectedly, the other person was online and replied immediately.

Baqizi: "Can you do me a favor?"

Guan Tong: "What is it?"

Baqizi: "I want to know who my parents are and if they’re still alive."

Guan Tong frowned and replied: "You don’t know who your parents are? And if I’m not mistaken, you’re an Ascender trained by the Sakura Prayer government, right? Wouldn’t it be easier to have your country’s official departments handle something like this?"

Baqizi: "They left after I was born. The Sakura Prayer government won’t help me with this. They wouldn’t before, and they certainly won’t now that they’ve put me under house arrest."

’House arrest...’

A thought struck Guan Tong, and he asked, "Were you put under house arrest because you gave me the fragment?"

Baqizi: "That’s only one of the reasons, and not the most important one."

Guan Tong thought for a moment. Although he hadn’t promised any reward for the fragment, she had, in any case, saved him a great deal of time.

Especially since the "Civilization Observer" title he received after collecting all the fragments was of vital importance to him...

Guan Tong replied: "I can help you with this favor, but I can’t guarantee a good outcome. Do you have any information about your parents?"

Baqizi: "I only know that they’re from Wind Island, and that they gave me my original name, ’Shangyuan Zi’."

’That’s the only information she has...’

Guan Tong thought to himself that to find someone, he would most likely have to post a bounty request on the website.

The problem was, if he did that, people from Sakura Prayer would see it too.

Guan Tong: "Are you aware that as soon as I start looking, your country’s official departments will immediately know this is related to you? Won’t they punish you?"

Baqizi: "They might."

Guan Tong: "How about this? I can help you from another angle. You’re under house arrest, right? In the future, I can find an opportunity to break you out, and then you can search for your parents yourself."