Chapter 137: Chapter 130: Smart People and Guardians
A dazzling array of challenges filled the screen; it was impossible to look through them one by one.
Some Ascenders were clever, deliberately making their challenge descriptions overly complex. When others saw the wall of text, they couldn’t be bothered to figure it out, which to some extent lowered the probability of being challenged.
There were also Ascenders who created a bunch of disgusting challenges.
Perhaps their abilities or items weren’t special enough, and any normal challenge they created would surely be beaten by others, so they simply went the disgusting route.
The ones Guan Tong saw alone included: a challenge for the longest time spent rolling around in a pigsty with ten pigs, a challenge for holding one’s breath with their head stuck in toilet water, a challenge for the number of live maggots eaten, a saliva exchange challenge, and so on...
He had to admit, he respected these creators. They were truly hardcore, making huge sacrifices to keep their Psychic Power from decaying.
Guan Tong respected these hardcore individuals and had no intention of stealing their first-place titles. His targets were mainly the common challenges, the ones created with a more casual attitude.
Guan Tong searched directly with keywords like "speed" and "distance," and numerous challenges immediately popped up.
The very first one he saw seemed perfect for him.
Challenge: Travel from the Mountain Peak Stele on Skytop Mountain to the entrance of the ticket hall at its base in the fastest time possible.
This kind of point-A-to-point-B challenge was all the same to him. With his Body Shifting ability, he just needed to coordinate with his Shadow to complete the challenge in an instant.
However, he had never heard of Skytop Mountain. He pulled out his phone and a quick search revealed it was a little under six hundred kilometers away.
He also discovered that Skytop Mountain was a remote, minor tourist spot in a local county town. After the era of the Apocalypse Rules began, the attraction had been closed and was no longer open to the public.
This wasn’t surprising. Since the era of the Apocalypse Rules began, many tourist attractions had been shut down. This was especially true for places requiring regular maintenance to prevent life-threatening hazards, which were all closed due to manpower shortages.
The creator likely chose this mountain for the challenge thinking that others wouldn’t travel to such a remote place to compete.
But Guan Tong had his Shadow for travel, so a little more or less distance made no real difference to him.
’I’ll add it to my list for now. I can go knock it out later.’
Guan Tong bookmarked the challenge and continued scrolling down the list.
There were other, similar challenges, all of which specified a particular location.
This was actually a great strategy, as it added an extra cost for potential challengers—’It doesn’t matter if you’re stronger than me. If you want to take on my challenge, you have to get here first.’
If two people were on opposite sides of the country, or even in different countries, the short fifteen-day period the rule was active might not even be enough time for travel alone.
This time cost alone would deter a large number of potential challengers.
Guan Tong’s own challenge—running 200 kilometers anywhere—was one with broad conditions. But even if he had been required to specify a location, he wouldn’t have chosen Mingdao Mountain. People would have definitely shown up looking for him, and he would have lost his peace and quiet.
’But if I can set a challenge location,’ Guan Tong wondered, ’would a hidden place that no one knows about give me an advantage?’
His question was answered almost immediately.
When he clicked on another challenge with a specified location and focused on the place name, a set of coordinates automatically appeared before his eyes.
’I see... If a creator specifies a location, the terminal marks it with coordinates.’
He thought, ’In that case, people with secret bases would never dare to specify their own location. Forget about the challenge; they’d be exposing their position first and foremost.’
Guan Tong continued to scroll.
He soon found another interesting challenge.
Challenge: Maximum long jump distance. Location: Sports area inside Jinyang City Shelter No. 710.
The first half of the challenge wasn’t difficult. Guan Tong could simply use Body Shifting as he jumped, landing at the maximum possible distance. Taking first place would be easy.
But the key was the second half of the description.
’The challenge location must be inside a shelter...’ Guan Tong understood the intention. ’Clever. They’re using the official shelters’ no-outsiders rule to limit the competition to people within that same shelter.’
The officially constructed shelters only permitted entry to government personnel and registered residents. No outsiders were allowed.
So, any outsider who wanted to enter and compete would have to force their way in. That would be tantamount to confronting the official armed forces, and the outcome of that was predictable. Few people were willing to pay such a high price just to snag a first-place title.
Thus, as long as someone in a shelter was confident that one of their abilities was superior to everyone else’s there, they could design a challenge around it to secure first place and pass the rule.
’I remember the official shelters can each house over a thousand people. Ensuring you can take first place among a thousand-plus people with an ability or item is definitely far less difficult than taking first among the entire country, or even the world.’
Guan Tong figured that other shelter residents would soon follow suit, if they weren’t already doing so—using the government’s armed forces to shield themselves from a wider pool of competitors.
However, according to currently available data, the number of newly constructed shelters in the month following the end of the seventh rule was limited.
Previously, over twenty million people had moved into the shelters. Now, even if the second wave doubled that number, the total population living in shelters would still be less than a hundred million.
In other words, fewer than one hundred million people could leverage the shelters to reduce competition. The rest still had to face the general public. After all, ordinary Gathering Points were different from shelters; they were semi-enclosed, not completely sealed off.
Guan Tong continued scrolling, bookmarking a few more challenges he could take on before hopping over to his own website for a look.
Quite a few people had already sent him private messages expressing their desire to buy the information, along with their digital ID numbers.
’Looks like my website has gained enough credibility, even in the eyes of some large organizations.’
The steep price of fifty thousand Sublimation Coins was something almost only medium-to-large groups could afford. The fact that they were willing to buy meant they trusted his intelligence-gathering capabilities.
This trust likely stemmed partly from the website’s security and partly from the information he had previously made public in the intel section.
Guan Tong opened his terminal; his friends list was still at zero. He always deleted people after a transaction.
He could always add them again for the next transaction. Guan Tong was more worried about being harassed than being inconvenienced.
Yes, harassment. After the seventh rule, many people had gotten their hands on an item called the Communication Secret Scroll. This thing could be used to directly initiate a call with a friend, an effect that was quite forceful.
Guan Tong didn’t want to add a bunch of temporary contacts, only to have someone suddenly use a Secret Scroll to call him... The probability might not be high, but it was best to avoid it if he could.
He added the people who had messaged him to buy the information and collected the Sublimation Coins. New inquiries immediately followed, many asking about the "delivery" time.
Guan Tong had already stated in the post that the information would be delivered 24 hours after the rule’s announcement, so he didn’t bother to explain again.
A total of eleven accounts had paid for the information. At 50,000 Sublimation Coins each, that came to a total of 550,000.
Adding the 210,000 he had left over, Guan Tong now possessed a staggering 760,000 Sublimation Coins.
This was already a huge sum, probably several hundred times the average for an individual Ascender.
So far, an Ascender who had passed all seven previous rules—or perhaps failed one—would have accumulated around 1,000 Sublimation Coins, after accounting for expenses.
A thousand per person meant ten thousand for ten people, and a hundred thousand for a hundred people.
Guan Tong’s 760,000 Sublimation Coins were equivalent to the total wealth of about 760 people.
In other words, he could now personally mobilize the same amount of Sublimation Coins as a medium-sized organization, which was incredibly impressive for an individual.
Of course, he still couldn’t compare to large organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of members, and the gap was even more massive when compared to behemoths like national governments, which could mobilize the resources of hundreds of millions.
Still, Guan Tong was very satisfied with his accelerated progress. He could feel he was on an upward trajectory, and as time went on, the pace of his overall improvement would only quicken.
’Alright, the rule only lasts for fifteen days. I need to make the most of my time.’
Fifteen days didn’t seem short, but it was an incredibly tight schedule if you wanted to claim multiple first-place titles.
Since many Ascenders would designate specific challenge locations, you also needed time to travel...
’I’ll start by grabbing first place in that Skytop Mountain challenge.’
Guan Tong sent out his Shadow, having it transform into a Shadow Line and extend out toward the coordinates.
Even at the Shadow’s speed, covering the nearly six hundred kilometers took some time. It was already afternoon by the time it reached Skytop Mountain.
Guan Tong didn’t notice anything at first. It was only when his Shadow reached the "Mountain Peak Stele" specified in the challenge that he discovered seven or eight tents pitched there, completely encircling the stele.
Hm...?
Seeing this, Guan Tong thought, ’I didn’t expect to find a camp set up here. And judging by the looks of it, are they trying to stop others from taking the challenge?’
With that thought, he took the [Bystander Transformation Device] from his storage and activated it.
The next moment, he transformed from a young man into an old man in his sixties.
After transforming, Guan Tong glanced at the wrinkled skin on his hands and felt something was off. He pulled out his phone to check his reflection and was instantly speechless.
’Why did I turn into a little old man this time... Whatever, an old man is an old man. As long as it doesn’t affect my powers.’
In his new form, Guan Tong activated his ability: Body Shifting.
The next moment, the Shadow appeared where he had been standing, while he materialized on the summit of Skytop Mountain, over five hundred kilometers away.
Just as he landed, the flap of one of the tents surrounding the stele was pulled open, and a young man in a padded jacket emerged.
The young man was hiking up his waistband as he came out, apparently looking for a place to relieve himself. He froze for a moment when he saw Guan Tong.
"Where’d this old geezer come from?"
"An old geezer?"
"Someone’s here?"
Hearing the commotion, people emerged from the other tents to see what was happening. There were fifteen or sixteen of them in total.
They all stared at Guan Tong in confusion. It was clearly a rare sight to see someone so old since the Apocalypse Rules began.
Just then, a portly, dark-skinned man with long hair stepped forward. "Hey, old man, what are you doing here? Got nothing better to do than climb up a mountain for god-knows-what?"
Guan Tong put on a show of coughing twice. "Ahem... Well... I saw there was a challenge, from the stele on this mountain to..."
"Hahahaha!"
He hadn’t even finished his sentence before the men and women of the camp erupted in laughter.
"So you’re here for the challenge? You alright there, gramps?"
"At your age, you still want to take on a challenge? Shouldn’t you just find a place to lie down and wait to die?"
"I don’t know where this old fossil crawled out from, but he’s pretty amusing."
Guan Tong said slowly, "Since the rules allow others to issue challenges, it’s perfectly normal for me to be here to compete, isn’t it?"
The long-haired, dark-skinned, portly man from before sneered. "Listen here, old bastard. I’m the one who created that challenge. You want to take it? Not a chance. My brothers and sisters are standing guard right here. Forget about an old fossil like you—no one is getting through!"
"Oh. So you’re ensuring you get first place by preventing anyone else from competing," Guan Tong said.
"Meng, why are you wasting your breath on this old fart!" another young man cursed. "Get lost, or I’ll kick you right off this mountain, believe it!"
Guan Tong nodded. "It seems I’ll have to teach you lot a lesson about respecting your elders."
