July 9, Doomsday Rules Counterasures Research Office.
The atmosphere in the eting room was sowhat heavy, because as of today the fourth rule had ended several days ago, yet the casualty statistics still hadn’t been completed.
This was different from the first rule. The first rule killed far more people, but most of those victims had died at ho or in bed, which made postmortem handling and transport relatively easier.
This ti, countless people had been swallowed by heavy snow or buried under collapsed buildings. It wasn’t easy to dig out all the bodies quickly, let alone produce accurate statistics.
A statistics researcher said, “The main difficulty in casualty statistics right now lies with deaths in rural areas. Many villages have been completely buried under snow, becoming ‘vanished villages,’ and current rescue personnel are seriously insufficient.”
“Has rescue robot technology made no progress? Didn’t we pour a lot of resources into research and developnt after the first rule?”
“Right now, the rescue robots are still in data debugging. There are too many possible situations they might encounter, so the logic processing is very troubleso…”
“Although we can’t count exact casualties, based on the current situation and data-driven inference, our country’s total casualties may reach the million level, and worldwide casualties will definitely break into the hundreds of millions.”
Silence fell over the eting room.
Director Gao Liangwei said, “Everyone, I think the reason casualties are so severe is partly due to the cunning, difficult nature of the rules themselves, but we also bear responsibility for psychological complacency and inadequate contingency planning.”
“Because the first two rules were non-lethal, everyone — myself included — developed a sense of fluke luck. People thought that if a rule was impossible to overco, they could just give up. At worst their Mind Power would decline; as long as they survived, that was fine.”
“But that fluke ntality is completely wrong! Giving up on a rule is just the Fire Thief’s poison pill to numb humanity. If people obediently swallow it and allow their Mind Power to atrophy, when they face survival-type rules they will flounder and suffer heavy casualties.”
Gao paused, “Therefore, after this rule, we must step up publicity. Every citizen must clearly realize the importance of Mind Power, and we must get the academies reopened as soon as possible!”
“Agreed.” An expert nodded, “A lot of people actually know Mind Power is important, but they’re too lazy to go through the daily consumption-and-recovery cycles to raise their upper limit. That’s also influenced by environnt: if you’re surrounded by people striving to improve, you’ll probably work harder too.”
“I agree as well. The academies must open quickly, and recruitnt requirents can be relaxed sowhat.”
“Lowering requirents isn’t appropriate, right? An 80-point upper limit isn’t that low already. If we lower it further, too many will enroll and the academies won’t be able to accommodate so many students.”
“Then acquire more land, recruit while building! And run online courses simultaneously!” Gao waved his hand.
“The leadership has decided. After this rule, most comrcial shops and office buildings in cities will be demolished, and the freed land will be converted into facilities that improve survival rates. The academies will naturally be among them.”
Everyone nodded.
After entering the Doomsday Rules era, comrcial shops and office buildings truly had little reason to remain; they should have been torn down earlier, but the work had been delayed. This rule finally made the leadership resolute, and they began sweeping, decisive conversion projects to rework major cities for survival.
“Now, let’s discuss another matter.” Gao said, “According to intelligence collected by our covert operations departnts, countries around the world that still have strength have begun cultivation plans.”
“The Suroma Empire started its ‘Eden Project’ a month ago. The project gathers the country’s top Ascendants with the highest Mind Power upper limits, lets them freely fall in love and pair up, then bear children.”
“According to materials from the informant, the project leader believes that a child born to two high-Mind Power Ascendants will naturally possess high Mind Power and rapidly improve. The ultimate goal is to select so-called ‘Children of God’ from these offspring, have them complete all subsequent rules, and ultimately seize all power.”
The researchers in the office were stunned, instinctively thinking the plan was sowhat absurd.
But on closer thought, if a child born to two high-Mind Power individuals truly inherited high Mind Power, the plan might actually have so feasibility.
Although the interval periods between rules are irregular — as long as a month at the longest, as short as three days — suppose the average interval is twenty days. Ten rules would be 200 days, twenty rules 400 days.
From pregnancy to childbirth takes just over nine months, under 300 days. That ans if a mother could go through a dozen or so rules during pregnancy, the child could be born safely.
Whether that child could survive the subsequent rules was another matter. Babies don’t understand anything; even if adults supplied them with Mind Power tools, they would have no concept of how to use them.
“The success conditions for this ‘Eden Project’ are too stringent.” A researcher shook his head, “I don’t see much likelihood of success.”
Gao said, “The Suroma Empire has its reasons for doing this. We must keep monitoring. Additionally, the Tulip Federation has its own plan called ‘Operation Wolfpack.’”
“That plan pits high Mind Power individuals against each other to determine relative strength, then selects a ‘alpha wolf.’ The alpha will pick other Ascendants to form a ‘wolfpack’ that operates together.”
“Other countries each have their own plans, and our Beixing Country can’t fall behind.” Gao turned to soone. “Dr. Zhang, how’s the personnel selection process for the Doomsday team going?”
Dr. Zhang, responsible for personnel selection, imdiately replied, “The candidate list has reached one hundred people. Each has passed strict background checks and t the excellent standard of a minimum 100-point Mind Power upper limit.”
“One hundred people.” Gao pondered for a mont, “Top-tier resources are limited; spreading them thin will only produce diocrity across the board. We must pick the best of the best — select thirty from these one hundred, then form teams and tailor training based on their abilities and tools.”
“Okay. I’ll get started on that after the eting.” Dr. Zhang said.
Gao nodded, then looked to a middle-aged woman on the right side of the long table. “Dr. Li, how is procurent of terminal market items going?”
Dr. Li said, “So far we’ve selected and purchased over eighty high-value items, and assigned several dedicated personnel to constantly monitor the market to snatch high-value items and pick up undervalued finds. However…”
“However?”
“However, it’s apparent that other organizations are also buying items in large quantities.” Dr. Li said sternly, “And not only in the terminal market; so groups are using offline violence and other illegal ans to seize items from Ascendants. I think we must stop them as soon as possible.”
“I’ve already made arrangents for this.” Gao said coldly, “No matter what organization or group it is, anyone who dares to do this will be crushed! No rcy!”
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