Apocalypse Rules Strategy Research Room.

"After the Rule ended, all the remaining Living Dead died automatically," a researcher reported.

"We should cremate their bodies as soon as possible." Someone sighed. "I can’t believe the Fire Thief used corpses in its Rule. It’s completely deranged."

"The Fire Thief’s inhuman nature was laid bare from the very first Rule. We must never mistake it for something that has emotions."

"But the casualties from this Rule weren’t too high. Although many people failed to complete the challenge... at least they survived."

Gao Liangwei listened to the discussion, then turned to Dr. Zhang. "How did the Official Squads perform?"

Dr. Zhang said, "Out of the five squads, Squads One, Two, and Four completed their mission and eliminated the ’Screamer’ in their respective areas. Squad Three and Squad Five failed."

"Two squads failed their mission?" Gao Liangwei frowned. This fell short of his expectations. "What was the reason?"

"Squad Five was on the verge of success, but the ’Screamer’ suddenly summoned a large number of Living Dead to besiege them. It escaped in the chaos, and they haven’t been able to locate it since."

"The reason Squad Three failed their mission is..." Dr. Zhang paused. "According to their report, they were too late. The ’Screamer’ in their designated area had already been eliminated by independent Ascenders."

Gao Liangwei asked in surprise, "Independent powerhouses?"

"Yes. There were two of them. One is Shi Jingyi, a guest lecturer at the Psychic Power Development Academy. The other’s identity is currently unknown, but they are suspected to have a connection to Shi Jingyi."

After hearing this, Gao Liangwei’s expression darkened.

Dr. Zhang said, "There are actually quite a few powerful independent Ascenders. A situation like this isn’t entirely unexpected."

"Are you saying it’s reasonable that Squad Three, with support from local armed forces and having locked onto the target’s location immediately, was still less efficient than some independent powerhouses?"

"..."

"Dr. Zhang, we spent enormous resources creating these five squads, not for them to fail."

"I understand. I will strengthen their management and training."

Gao Liangwei pondered for a moment before saying, "Give Squad Three and Squad Five one more chance. If they team up for the Ascender Challenge in a month and still fail to achieve satisfactory results, it will prove they are no longer worthy of priority cultivation."

Dr. Zhang’s expression grew stern. He nodded. "Understood."

...

Guan Tong opened the Sublimation Store. The first thing that caught his eye wasn’t a new item, but the very first item ever listed, the [Basic Weapon Crate: Bronze Level], which now showed a "quantity remaining" display underneath it.

’Looks like quite a few people bought weapon crates during this Rule.’

It wasn’t particularly surprising. He had seen while browsing online that many people were buying these crates just so they could use an item related to Psychic Power to kill Living Dead, thereby earning extra Sublimation Coins.

The cold weapon most of them chose was the "long spear." There were many videos about it online—at some Gathering Point, people would barricade a doorway with junk and then use their chosen long spears to stab at the heads of the Living Dead through the cracks.

This was undoubtedly a relatively safe way to kill enemies.

Guan Tong, of course, had no intention of buying one. With Silver Hunter in hand, he had no need for such a basic cold weapon.

He selected "Sort by Listing Date" and checked the new items that had been added after this Rule. There were two in total.

[Multi-functional Lock Opener]: Can be used to open various types of basic locks. Single-use item.

[Price: 30 Sublimation Coins]

...

[Small Reconnaissance Drone]: When used, scans a 100-meter radius and locates human targets. Single-use item.

[Price: 80 Sublimation Coins]

...

’A Lock Opener and a drone?’

After looking at the two new items, Guan Tong found them a bit strange.

He felt they weren’t released for the upcoming sixth Rule, but rather as new items for the Ascender Challenge.

Especially the [Small Reconnaissance Drone]; it could only be used to scan for humans, which most likely meant it was intended for player-versus-player combat.

Guan Tong didn’t buy them right away. He closed the store and opened the market, wanting to see if there were any items he wanted.

But as soon as he opened it, he found that the prices of all items had skyrocketed!

Guan Tong glanced at a few items. Their effects were mediocre, yet their prices were in the high hundreds of Sublimation Coins.

Items with slightly better effects were priced at over a thousand.

He even saw an item priced at over ten thousand.

[Universal Medicine]: When consumed, removes all current negative statuses and fully restores stamina and Psychic Power.

[Price]: 15,000 Sublimation Coins

’...The effect of this Universal Medicine is amazing, but this price... ’

Guan Tong quickly understood what was happening.

It was related to the fifth Rule.

The major organizations, and even the officials, must have acquired a massive amount of bonus Sublimation Coins from the fifth Rule.

The people in charge of distribution would have pooled these Sublimation Coins, giving them terrifying purchasing power.

With the challenge coming up in a month, every major organization would want to make a showing, so they were sparing no expense to sweep the market for items, investing in the participants from their own organizations.

Naturally, this would rapidly drive up the prices of good items on the market.

Some distributors with a knack for business were even treating the market like a stock exchange. They would buy up a large batch of items, wait for the other Ascenders to accumulate more coins and for inflation to set in, then sell the items at an inflated price to profit from the difference.

’And here I thought my one thousand Sublimation Coins was a lot, but it turns out...’

Guan Tong felt a little helpless. He had underestimated the market’s frenzy and the resource integration capabilities of the major organizations.

After looking for a while, he found there wasn’t a single item he wanted to buy.

Slightly better items were priced over a thousand, and the worse ones were still selling for several hundred.

Guan Tong didn’t want to be a sucker, so he closed the market.

He reopened the store and bought one [Multi-functional Lock Opener] and one [Small Reconnaissance Drone], spending a total of 110 Sublimation Coins.

He planned to save his remaining coins and wait for the "market-sweeping" frenzy to pass.

The fifth Rule had just ended, and the major organizations were flush with coins, eager to snatch up as many good items as possible. He wasn’t going to join the circus.

’I’ll check again in ten days or half a month and see if I can buy anything then.’

Guan Tong closed the terminal, grabbed a stool, and went outside, sitting in the warm nine-o’clock sun to contemplate his plan for the month.

His goal was clear: to further enhance his combat power.

To achieve this goal, he planned to do the following:

First, as before, stock up on bullets for Silver Hunter.

Silver Hunter had been incredibly useful during the last Rule. Although it was Shadow who delivered the final blow and eliminated the Mother Transformer, Silver Hunter was still needed to clear the field in multi-enemy scenarios.

Second, store up Psychic Power.

He had saved over a hundred points in the previous week; this time, with a whole month, he would save even more.

The upcoming challenge was a team-based competition. If he were to face a full five-person squad alone, and even if each member only had an average of 80 Psychic Power, that would be 400 points total for the five of them. If they each had 100, that would be 500 total.

Guan Tong wasn’t saying he needed to save that much, but he planned to store at least 300 points. Only then would he have the confidence to handle multiple enemies at once.

The third area for improvement, he believed, had to do with Shadow.

After having Shadow use "implosion" to eliminate the Mother Transformer, he had a new appreciation for its power.

As long as an enemy was unprepared, its transformation between corporeal and incorporeal states allowed it to invade anyone’s body and then implode by solidifying. An enemy might die without ever knowing what killed them.

But the prerequisite for this was that the enemy had to be unaware. If an enemy knew about Shadow’s characteristics and was on guard, succeeding would become several times more difficult.

Therefore, keeping Shadow’s abilities a secret was of the utmost importance.

But this also made Guan Tong think in reverse—what if an enemy had a similar hidden technique? If he could use Shadow to assassinate others, others could use their own methods to assassinate him.

’You have to be alive to deal damage. If my own defenses are insufficient, then no matter how strong Shadow is, it will be severely limited.’

With this in mind, Guan Tong took out the Wordless Book and summoned Shadow.

Staring at it for a moment, an idea suddenly occurred to Guan Tong.

’Since Shadow can shapeshift, why can’t I use it for defense and offense at the same time?’

Acting on the thought, he immediately willed Shadow to transform.

He watched as Shadow stretched out from its center, one part covering Guan Tong’s body while the other extended forward. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Solidify.

With a single thought from Guan Tong, the part of Shadow covering his body immediately transformed into Shadow Armor, while the extended part formed a long spear.

"It works!"

A look of delight appeared on Guan Tong’s face.

He had previously been stuck on the idea of single transformations for Shadow. In reality, Shadow was fully capable of "zoned transformations"—one section could become one thing, and another section could become something else, achieving a state of integrated offense and defense.

However, this also presented an unavoidable problem: excessive Psychic Power consumption.

’The larger the volume of Shadow’s transformation, the more Psychic Power it consumes. If the enemy is close, it’s fine. But if the enemy is far away, then the ’Shadow Armor’ part for defense and the ’weapon’ part for offense will need to be connected by a long Shadow Line.’

This "Shadow Line," when solidified, would also consume a large amount of Psychic Power.

’What if I make the line extremely thin?’

Guan Tong made Shadow incorporeal, then used his will to stretch it as much as possible, seeing just how thin the line could get.

He discovered that at its absolute limit, Shadow could be thinned to about the width of a human hair, a few tenths of a millimeter. Any thinner was impossible.

At that width, it seemed like solidifying it would consume very little Psychic Power. But he also had to consider the length—imagine a hair a few tenths of a millimeter thick. If its length were stretched out indefinitely, its overall volume would still not be small.

Therefore, to achieve integrated offense and defense, the enemy couldn’t be too far away. Otherwise, he could only focus on one aspect, not both.

’...In the end, it all comes down to not having enough Psychic Power. If my Psychic Power could reach one thousand, I could use Shadow much more freely.’

Guan Tong shook his head, deciding not to aim too high for now. He recalled Shadow and flipped through the pages of the Wordless Book.

The first page, "Shapeshift, Solidify, Guan Tong." The second, "Gun." The third, "Psychic Power"... He flipped to the fourth page, hesitated, and then flipped back.

At his current level of Psychic Power, even writing on the third page was a struggle. If he were to start a new page, even if he managed to write something over the course of a month, he definitely wouldn’t be able to manifest it.

Rather than waste his effort like that, it would be better to focus his thoughts on the existing pages.

The "Shadow" and "Psychic Power" pages were difficult to modify. For one, he didn’t have many ideas for them, and for another, they both currently met his needs and didn’t require any changes for the time being.

But that single word "Gun" on the second page...

Guan Tong flipped to the second page. Staring at the solitary word, he began to wonder if he could add some new "components" to his Silver Hunter... After all, besides being able to fire three types of bullets and display the ammo count, his gun had no other functions.

’What if I could add other types of bullets... or maybe a suppressor? The gunfire was really loud when I was dealing with the Living Dead before. I’d kill one group, and the sound of the shots would just attract another... It’s fine against unintelligent enemies like the Living Dead, but if I’m up against human opponents, they’ll definitely dive for cover the second a gun goes off.’