[Purchase Limit: 10]
...
After reading the new item’s description, Guan Tong’s first reaction was that it was useless to him.
The friend count on his personal terminal was still zero. Even if he bought them, he had no one to communicate with.
However, he felt the item could be very useful for some people. For example, if two people wanted to communicate secretly but other channels were insecure, using this [Communication Secret Scroll] would ensure their conversation couldn’t be monitored.
It could also be used for long-distance communication if one didn’t have a phone or was in an area with no signal.
What surprised Guan Tong was that the item was actually purchase-limited. Each Ascender could only buy ten.
Ten scrolls meant ten calls, each up to ten minutes long, for a total of one hundred minutes of call time.
Guan Tong didn’t know what the Fire Thief’s intention was in stocking this item. Did it want to give Ascenders another means of secret communication, or would it be useful in the seventh Apocalypse Rule?
’...Even though there’s a personal limit, there’s no guarantee the total supply isn’t also limited.’
Even though Guan Tong had no friends himself, he worried about a situation where he might need them only to find they were sold out. So, he immediately spent 200 Sublimation Coins to buy the maximum limit of ten. He’d store them in his chest for now and figure out when to use them later.
It wasn’t a waste, especially after witnessing how crazy the Ascender market could be. Nowadays, he considered spending a few hundred Sublimation Coins to be frugal.
’The interval is one month this time, with the seventh rule being announced on November 1st...’
Guan Tong thought about his plans for the month. He had about three.
First, continue increasing his Psychic Power cap and keep trying to write on the fifth page of the [Wordless Book].
Second, maintain and develop his "Ascender’s Home" website, and get some necessary storage devices to put in the shelter.
Third, continue studying Shi Jingyi’s "Psychic Power Flow" course. He should be able to reach the introductory level this month.
After their previous phone call, Shi Jingyi had told him he could call her directly if he had any questions. Guan Tong didn’t plan on being polite about it. He would ask whenever he didn’t understand something; mastering more power as quickly as possible was very important to him.
In return, if Shi Jingyi needed help with anything in the future, he would naturally lend a hand.
He felt his plan was perfect. However, an unexpected event that very afternoon completely disrupted his arrangements.
...
’The country is entering a state of war?’
Around noon, Guan Tong sat in front of his computer, watching a live press conference with a flicker of shock in his heart.
The press conference was being held by the government, and the speakers were high-ranking officials.
The main announcement was that ten days after completing preliminary preparations—on October 10th—the North Star Country would officially enter a state of wartime administration.
The official explained in detail why this was necessary, citing numerous statistics. Most of the data supported one argument: the man-made disasters derived from the rules were causing damage no less severe than the rules themselves.
They also showed some videos depicting the chaos caused by saboteurs in some cities. These people were deliberately destroying Gathering Points, damaging transport vehicles, and even setting fire to self-service supply point warehouses.
The official stated grimly that this situation could not be allowed to continue. Once the state of wartime administration began, all survival supplies would be centrally planned and distributed on a per-capita basis. All city personnel would be required to register and be integrated into the management system.
It wasn’t just people living in the Gathering Points who needed to register; urban nomads and drifters were also required to register, with no concealment allowed. Afterward, drones would conduct uninterrupted 24-hour patrols of the cities. Anyone found deliberately avoiding registration would be severely punished.
Furthermore, as the first batch of shelters in major cities were completed, registered personnel would be moved in according to a list. Anyone who refused to move into a shelter would need to provide a valid reason, or their refusal would not be permitted.
At that time, people living in the cities would no longer be allowed to drive out of the city at will without a valid reason. Resources like gasoline and electricity would also be allocated based on need and could not be wasted.
Finally, the official concluded: the purpose of all this was to allow more citizens to survive the world-shattering disaster brought by the Fire Thief. To that end, some sacrifices in other areas were necessary.
Guan Tong watched the entire broadcast, lost in thought for a moment.
Without a doubt, all of his original plans had been thrown into disarray.
What concerned him most wasn’t that all sorts of supplies would be strictly controlled and distributed per capita after entering the state of wartime administration.
What concerned him most was the government’s requirement for all city residents to register. This meant that continuing his current life as a nomad would become a violation after October 10th. If a drone discovered him, he would be immediately pursued and held accountable.
This sudden change left Guan Tong at a loss for a moment.
He wondered, ’What should I do?’
Should he register as the government required and then move into a collective shelter as assigned?
Guan Tong frowned. That was absolutely not something he wanted to do. The whole reason he hadn’t gone to an academy was because, in this era of Apocalypse Rules, he didn’t want to live a life bound by rules and conventions.
Now they wanted him to stay in a collective shelter? Wouldn’t that be even more miserable than an academy? It was completely unacceptable.
Unless he revealed his identity to the government. If they knew he was Shadow, they would probably grant him a certain degree of preferential treatment, and he wouldn’t have to live in a collective shelter like an ordinary person... But at the same time, he would definitely be subject to certain arrangements or have to accept missions.
If he didn’t want to be subject to others’ arrangements, he would have to come up with and execute another plan within this brief ten-day window.
Otherwise, once the ten days were up, the government would be ready, the state of war would be officially declared, and it would be much more difficult to do anything.
’So... what should I do? If I stay in the city, I’ll have to register. Otherwise, it’s impossible to keep avoiding the 24-hour city-wide drone patrols... In that case, should I leave the big city?’
It was clear from the government’s press conference that the state of wartime administration would only be strictly enforced in the cities. As for remote mountain villages and untamed wilderness, it would be impossible to enforce it effectively even if they wanted to.
So, should he go to those places?
Guan Tong had his own portable shelter, so he wasn’t afraid of leaving the city for the wilderness. The only problem was that this had all happened so suddenly. He wasn’t prepared, and if he were to leave, he had no idea where to go.