Doomsday Rules Counterasures Research Office.
After the country declared the warti state, relevant data was aggregated and discussed here.
A data officer reported, "Currently, 18,819 first-phase shelters have been constructed nationwide, estimated to accommodate around twenty million people. The second and third phases of shelters are under construction. Before the seventh rule is announced on October 31st, a portion of the second phase should be completed."
"Has the population count been tallied?" an expert asked.
One reason for the preliminary personnel registration conducted during the transition to the warti state was that the authorities wanted to confirm the country's current total population.
From the first rule onwards, the subsequent rules—the Snow Disaster, the living dead, and the Blood Plague—all resulted in a certain number of casualties. The Snow Disaster and Blood Plague rules, in particular, caused massive casualties.
However, due to insufficient manpower, detailed data statistics had been impossible to conduct. Especially for many villages, which had been essentially out of contact since the Snow Disaster rule; how many people survived was unclear.
The data officer checked and replied, "Currently, the total registered population across all major cities nationwide is approximately 713,456,200."
"Just over seven hundred million..."
Everyone in the conference room fell silent.
Beixing Country originally had a population of 1.6 billion. Now, in just half a year, it had dwindled to less than half. The brutality of this outco was enough to shock anyone.
"This is only the registered population," the data officer added. "There is also a certain number of unregistered individuals living outside the cities. If we include these people, the total population is estimated to reach around eight hundred million."
"Eight hundred million is still only half of what it was before!" Gao Liangwei said gravely. "After just six rules, only half the population remains. Colleagues, the severity of the situation we now face is evident!"
"Indeed... However, the situation should improve sowhat going forward. The first few rules gave us too little ti, not allowing for extensive construction. Now that large numbers of professional-grade shelters are being built in batches, casualties in the future shouldn't be so devastating."
At this point, soone spoke up, "Regarding those living outside the cities, should we take so action? According to reports, it seems quite a few people are forming organizations and establishing camps outside the cities, even giving rise to groups resembling religions... If this develops long-term, could it beco problematic?"
"I don't think that's necessary," Dr. Zhang said. "Those who choose to live outside the cities are either strong individuals confident in their own abilities, people who resist collective living, or non-Ascendants who feel discriminated against... Forcing these three types of people into the cities would only cause chaos."
"Moreover, these people in the wild lack sufficient material resources; being self-sufficient is already an achievent. Even if they establish camps, it's just for banding together to survive. They are unlikely to pose any threat to the cities."
"Correct," Gao Liangwei said. "Forcing everyone into shelters would only provoke resistance from the dissenters and cause internal strife. Since they have chosen to go outside the cities, let them be. What we need to focus on now is taking care of the seven hundred million people inside the cities."
Everyone nodded in agreent.
Gao Liangwei then added, "Also, I'd like to remind everyone of sothing. Everyone knows about the newly listed [Communication Scroll] in the Ascension Store, which can be used for private communication between friends."
After the sixth rule ended, the research office tested it as soon as the item was listed.
The test results showed that communication using the [Communication Scroll] occurs entirely within the mind. It doesn't require the speakers to open their mouths; communication happens directly through thought.
This undoubtedly presents a new challenge for highly classified units.
"Everyone here is well aware of the confidentiality level of our work. So, even though there are still twenty days until the seventh rule is announced, I'll state this clearly upfront... If anyone attempts to use the [Communication Scroll] to secretly communicate with the outside world and leak confidential information, the research office will impose severe punishnt upon discovery!"
Everyone's expressions turned solemn as they said in unison, "Understood."
...
October 30th, one day before the announcent of the seventh Doomsday Rule.
In the morning, Guan Tong was sitting in the small courtyard he had cleared in front of his wooden hut—to be precise, it was cleared by the living dead; he had simply acted as a hands-off manager.
A circle of wooden fencing surrounded the small courtyard. The reason for this was that, starting a few days ago, so wild animals had appeared, scratching at his hut's door in the middle of the night, creating disturbing noises.
Guan Tong thus conceived the idea of modifying his environnt.
He first summoned the Greataxe Warrior to chop down so trees with its axe, then summoned a group of living dead, ordering them to clear out a small courtyard around the hut and arrange the chopped and split wood into a circle of wooden fencing.
This way, any small wild animals would be blocked by the fencing first and wouldn't be able to directly run up to Guan Tong's hut to cause trouble.
At this mont, Guan Tong was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, circulating his Qi.
Ever since Shi Jingyi sent him the course materials on Circulating Qi, he had spent a considerable amount of ti each day studying and practicing.
Compared to rote morization of acupoints, Circulating Qi was much more difficult, testing one's personal control over their body. It took Guan Tong half a month just to sense the presence of Qi. Then, trying to control it and make it circulate within his body took another couple of weeks.
It wasn't until just a few days before the end of October that he finally succeeded once, making that stream of Qi pass through different acupoints.
So today, he couldn't wait to try and see if he could manipulate the flow of Mind Power similarly to Circulating Qi.
Starting from six in the morning, he ca outside to sit in ditation, breathing the fresh mountain air and attempting it. Now, past nine o'clock, over three hours had passed, and he still hadn't succeeded.
After another failure, Guan Tong opened his eyes. "Am I being too impatient? Maybe I should try concentrating on a single point first."
He cald his mind, no longer pursuing the flow of Mind Power, but only aiming to materialize it in the form of a single point.
Once the requirent was lowered, results appeared imdiately. In less than half an hour, Guan Tong successfully made a point of Mind Power light appear on the index finger of his right hand.
It only lasted about two seconds before dissipating. Even so, Guan Tong was very satisfied.
This proved his cultivation was effective, and that was enough. As long as he continued, he would eventually be able to circulate it throughout his body, enhancing his physical functions.
"Let's stop here for today."
Guan Tong stood up, stretched, and gazed into the distance.
His shelter was located on the mountainside. Looking out, he could see villages and towns in the far distance, offering excellent visibility.
This elevated vantage point, gazing far into the distance, put him in a good mood every day and made him feel once again that his choice was right.
If he had moved into a shelter or the faculty dormitory, what he could see daily would probably just be walls, beds, and towering buildings. That kind of life would truly be an ordeal for him.
"The new rule will be announced tomorrow... My preparations are pretty much complete."
Over the past month, Guan Tong's Mind Power Upper Limit had increased by 4 points as expected, rising from 137 to 141.
Each ti it increased by 1 point, he would open the [Wordless Book] and attempt to write on the fifth page, but all four attempts ended in failure.
During this period, he also considered whether to add more characters to the previous pages for enhancent. But after thinking about it, he didn't have many ideas for the mont, so he gave up on that.
Thus, the Mind Power he recovered daily was divided into three portions for use.
One portion was used to maintain the existence of the shelter. The shelter consud 1 point of Mind Power every ten minutes, totaling 144 points per day.
This seed like a lot, but after equipping the "Victor" title, Guan Tong's Mind Power recovery rate had reached the high speed of 1 point every two and a half minutes. Over 24 hours, he could recover a total of 576 points.
Subtracting the 144 consud by the shelter, 432 points remained. He then divided these Mind Power points in half: one half was converted into reserve Mind Power, and the other half was used to generate Silver Hunt bullets.
After a month of this, his current reserve Mind Power had reached 3,890, just over a hundred points short of four thousand.
As for the Silver Hunt's bullets, the current quantities were also quite staggering: Type 1 Ammunition
105; Type 2 Ammunition
102; Type 3 Ammunition
315; Type 4 Ammunition
141; Type 5 Round * 68.
With so many bullets stored, unless absolutely necessary, he would never return the Silver Hunt to the [Wordless Book], as having it all reset to zero in one go would be unacceptable to him.
Additionally, he took the ti to conduct a test on the "Greataxe Warrior."
Previously, when he summoned it to chop trees, the minimum 50 points of Mind Power was sufficient. To test its higher combat capabilities, he later conducted tests using 100 points and 200 points of Mind Power.
The Greataxe Warrior summoned with 100 points was slightly taller, approaching two and a half ters, and its strength increased considerably. With one axe swing, it could split a large rock on the mountain.
Doubling the cost to 200 points for the summon, the changes in size and strength weren't significant, but its speed increased sowhat, reaching that of a normal adult male. With this speed, its combat power could be said to have improved by more than one level.
Guan Tong did not test summoning with even more points.
On one hand, it would waste reserve Mind Power. On the other hand, he felt it was unnecessary at present. It was worth rembering that this guy supported summoning with up to 1000 points of Mind Power. At his current stage, Guan Tong couldn't bear to spend that much reserve Mind Power just for a combat power test.
Furthermore, during this period, he logged into his "Ascendant Ho" website daily to check posts and ssages.
Ever since society entered the warti state, the traffic on his website had been skyrocketing daily, one person bringing two, two bringing four, with the number of registered users doubling and redoubling.
As of today, the number of registered website users had exceeded twenty thousand. Compared to Beixing Country's massive population, twenty thousand might not seem like much, but this growth rate indicated a bright future for the website.
Continuing to grow like this, it wouldn't be long before it broke one hundred thousand, or even one million, which wasn't impossible.
However, with the surge in users, Guan Tong gradually felt the strain of managent. He was starting to find it difficult to handle alone, unless he devoted all his ti to it every day, which was impossible.
Therefore, he had recently been considering recruiting a few administrators. There would definitely be no salary; it would be purely voluntary. He thought perhaps so people would be willing to sign up—if no one else, that "Mask" guy would certainly be willing, as he had posted several tis expressing his desire to beco one of the website's administrators.
However, with the new rule announcent imminent, the matter of selecting administrators would have to be postponed.
After a night of rest, the next day, Guan Tong maintained perfect condition, gazing into the distance, silently waiting for the Fire Thief to announce the new rule.
When the ti arrived, the rule was announced.
[The Seventh Doomsday Rule has been announced]
[Doomsday Rule Seven: The Hour of Silence]
[Rule Content: From the mont this rule is announced, all humans are forbidden to speak. Any aningful words or nas uttered from the mouth are included. Whispers, crying, laughter, groans, etc., are also included, but the sound of breathing is not restricted. This rule will last for 30 days.
If one opens their mouth to speak, violating the rule, the challenge will be imdiately judged as a failure, and the speaker will be hunted and attacked by "Sound Hunters."]
[Success Reward: 300 Ascension Coins, Survival Chest · Silver Grade]
[Failure Punishnt: Mind Power Upper Limit reduction]
[Note: Do not blindly test the limits of the rule, and do not attempt to provoke the Sound Hunters with aningless roars. If you want to survive, then try to beco a silent statue that only breathes.]
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