Chapter 141: Chapter 133: The Counterattack of Ordinary People
"That’s the fifth one."
Guan Tong saw that he was ranked first and, satisfied, retracted his Shadow.
He had just completed another challenge: "Greatest Underground Depth."
The creator of this challenge probably worked in some deep underground facility or had an item or ability that let them burrow into the earth. That’s why they created it, thinking their first-place spot was foolproof.
But they certainly never imagined that Guan Tong’s Shadow, in its ethereal state, had no physical form and was immune to pressure, allowing it to extend indefinitely into the earth’s depths.
Taking first place in this challenge was a piece of cake for him.
And so, on the afternoon of January 2nd, the second day of the new rules, he had taken first place in five challenges.
These five challenges were almost all related to distance and speed—a domain Guan Tong had deliberately chosen. Using his Shadow and Body Shifting abilities, he held an almost absolute advantage in this field.
’Five first-place finishes. Three of them gave a 10-point cap increase, and each one after that gives an extra 5 points... I’ve accumulated a total of a 20-point increase to my cap.’
A 20-point increase to his Psychic Power cap was an incredible boost for Guan Tong. His power normally only grew by four or five points naturally in a month. This was equivalent to four or five months of natural growth.
But he certainly wasn’t satisfied with just 20 points. ’If I don’t seize this precious opportunity to gain more, who knows when a similar rule-based reward will appear again?’
Besides, the fifth page of his Wordless Book was waiting to be written, something he couldn’t possibly do without enough Psychic Power.
’Just like that challenge about going deep underground, there must be people creating challenges related to the ocean...’
Guan Tong thought to himself that people like divers, or even submarine crews, would likely create similar challenges.
His Shadow could plunge deep into the earth, and it could just as easily plunge into the ocean. Taking first place in those challenges would be trivial.
However, Guan Tong also noticed the widespread impact of the intel leak.
At first, he hadn’t thought it would be exposed.
The eleven people who had spent fifty thousand Sublimation Coins to buy the intel, regardless of the organizations they represented, would surely all want their own group to be stronger than the others.
With that in mind, the buyers wouldn’t have needed to conspire; they should have had a tacit understanding to keep the information secret and use it to strengthen their own teams of Ascenders.
Guan Tong had guessed that the Strategy Research Room was among the eleven buyers, but he never expected the North Star Country government to ultimately decide to release the information to the public.
Based on past experience, he thought the government would have kept it secret to avoid widespread conflict.
It seemed now that the government’s previous announcement—the one stating they would release non-core data—hadn’t just been for show. They had truly shifted their policy.
After more than ten hours of discussion and stewing since the intel went public, people’s attitudes had become clear: they didn’t want to use their own Psychic Power to pave the way for the strong.
Guan Tong glanced at the forums on his website. In the general chat section, many people were explicitly stating they wouldn’t create challenges. Some had even started a petition, hoping the government would step in and provide an explanation.
He even saw many people lambasting him, the site administrator.
"If you ask me, the admin never should have sold this intel! If nobody else knew, none of this would be happening."
"Yeah, if only the admin and a few others knew and quietly profited from it, that’d be one thing. It wouldn’t have caused this huge uproar."
"I bet the admin isn’t strong enough to win many first-place spots himself, even with the intel, so he just sold it to make a quick buck! Fifty thousand a pop, he must have made a killing, right?"
"Admin, get out here and face the music!"
"This is all on the admin. He screwed over countless ordinary people for his own gain. Do you have the guts to respond? @Ascender’s Home-Admin"
Reading this, Guan Tong scratched his head. ’They’re not exactly wrong,’ he thought. He had indeed sold the intel for his own benefit.
So, he wouldn’t use his admin privileges to delete the posts, but he wouldn’t reply, either. ’Let them curse me out. When they’re done, I still won’t have changed my mind.’
If there was one way Guan Tong had changed since the era of the Apocalypse Rules began, it was that he’d become more self-centered. After living in isolation for so long, his words and actions came from his own convictions, and he rarely considered the opinions of others anymore.
Besides the public outcry against him, many people were discussing how to hold on to their first-place rankings.
After all, aside from those who were determined to create no challenges and drag everyone down with them, most ordinary people still wanted to get through this Rule Stage without their Psychic Power caps decaying.
The widespread discussion had produced a few countermeasures.
One was the strategy Guan Tong had noticed on the first day: using the restricted access of official shelters by placing a challenge’s location inside one, thereby drastically reducing competition and securing first place.
It was a good strategy, but fewer than one hundred million people currently lived in shelters. With a national urban population of over seven hundred million, most people were still living in temporary Gathering Points, waiting for more shelters to be built.
These people couldn’t use this strategy. Many had called on the government to temporarily open the shelters to them for the duration of this Rule Stage... but everyone knew that was basically impossible.
If the government actually did that, every shelter would erupt into chaos, and they couldn’t bear that cost.
Besides the shelter strategy, people had discussed another one—coincidentally, the very same one Guan Tong had encountered, similar to the camp on Skytop Mountain: defending one’s first-place spot by force.
The principle was the same, but the scale was completely different.
The specific implementation was for hundreds, or even thousands, of people in a Gathering Point to band together as a collective to defend the first-place ranking of every single member.
In other words, if an outsider tried to challenge any member’s project, the entire Gathering Point would unite and use violence to stop them.
The strategy was simple and brutal, but it was also surprisingly effective.
Guan Tong even saw a post on his own forums where members from two nearby Gathering Points in the same city had contacted each other and formed a "mutual protection alliance."
The people from the two Gathering Points agreed not to challenge each other’s first-place spots. If an outsider came to challenge either of them, however, both Gathering Points would join forces to fight them off.
One Gathering Point had several hundred people; two together meant over a thousand. They arranged for sentries to stand guard and had large patrols around the designated challenge locations at all times. Any approaching outsider would be discovered immediately and an alert would be sent out.
Then, a veritable sea of hundreds or even thousands of people would rapidly arrive. Even a powerful individual would have no choice but to give up and retreat when faced with such numbers. Very few were stubborn enough to do otherwise.
The poster claimed that with this strategy, not a single first-place spot among the thousand-plus people in their two Gathering Points had been taken.
As the post gained traction, many people commented: "Taking notes," "Our Gathering Point just had a meeting and we’re going to do the same thing!" and "Let’s get these mutual protection alliances going! Since the government won’t stop the strong from preying on the weak, we’ll protect ourselves!"
Guan Tong couldn’t help but marvel at the power of human initiative and collective will.
If the people in the Gathering Points could truly unite, place their challenges in the immediate vicinity, and post patrols and sentries around the clock, any outsider who wanted to attempt a challenge would face enormous risk.
Guan Tong understood this all too well from personal experience. Back on Skytop Mountain, if his own power hadn’t so greatly surpassed that of the camp’s inhabitants, he might have struggled to even get away.
’If the Gathering Points in the cities quickly reach a consensus and form these mutual protection alliances, most powerful Ascenders will be out of options. They’ll have no choice but to turn their attention to the loosely organized campers outside the cities...’
’...It’s also worth noting that, aside from releasing the intel, the government has made no other official statements. They aren’t stopping the strong from seizing first place from others, nor are they stopping the Gathering Points from forming mutual protection alliances...’
Guan Tong figured the government was probably caught between a rock and a hard place. If they condemned the strong, how could they justify their own centralized resource distribution system? And if they tried to stop the Gathering Points from violently attacking challengers, they would lose all credibility with the public.
So, they simply refused to take a stance, letting the strong and the weak each find their own ways to seize or protect their interests.
’That’s fine by me.’
Guan Tong himself wasn’t inclined to enter the cities to take challenges from the people there. His targets were mostly in the wilderness.
It wasn’t just about the risk assessment. As he’d thought before, people had to be responsible for their own choices.
People who chose to stay in the cities had their movements restricted and their items and Sublimation Coins distributed collectively, but in exchange, they received protection from the government in all aspects.
And those who chose to leave the cities and live in the wilderness opted for freedom of movement, but they no longer had anyone to provide them with sanctuary.
So if their first-place spot was taken, who could they blame? Would they wonder if it would have been better not to leave the city, where they could have used a shelter or a Gathering Point collective to protect their ranking?
You make a choice, you accept the consequences. For this reason, Guan Tong felt no shame in taking first place from others. This was simply a reality one had to face after choosing to enter the law of the jungle that was the wilderness.
He scrolled down and discovered a peculiar post.
The post’s popularity was second only to the "strategy threads," with replies already numbering in the thousands and growing rapidly.
The post’s title read: "Calling For/Compiling a List of Challenges Created by Supporters."
Supporters...
The word in the title caught Guan Tong’s attention. He opened the thread, and the original poster had unloaded with a long, fiery post on the first floor.
"First off, some of you might not know what I mean by ’Supporters.’ To put it bluntly, they’re Ascenders controlled by certain organizations and groups, forced to provide resources for the key individuals those organizations are cultivating! These people are Supporters. To put it more crudely, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them ’human resource farms.’
"Let me give you an example. The most typical model of this is the Tulip Federation’s: Flock—Wolf Pack—Alpha Wolf model."
"Most of you have probably never heard of this, but the Tulip Federation now divides all the Ascenders in their country into three categories:"
"The Alpha Wolf is the chosen strongest, and all resources are funneled to them first. The Wolf Pack is a group of powerful individuals surrounding the Alpha Wolf, second only to them in status, who also receive prioritized resources. And the Flock... they are the ones responsible for providing the resources. They’re the Supporters I mentioned in the title!"
"How do I know this so clearly? Simple. I’m in a city in the Tulip Federation right now, and I’m one of the Ascenders in the Flock! My Sublimation Coins, my items, and even the challenge I have to create for this event—all of it must be used to serve the Wolf Pack and the Alpha Wolf. If we don’t comply, we’ll be publicly executed!"
"So, why am I posting this? First, this website is the safest place to be. I can speak the truth without fear of being traced. Second, I believe that we ordinary people shouldn’t be treated like this. We need to launch our own counterattack!"
"And I believe one way to fight back is for us Supporters to publicly post the details of the challenges our superiors are forcing us to create. Then, I’m begging the truly powerful individuals from every country, or any capable public groups out there, to go and take first place in these challenges! The more you take, the faster this entire support system will collapse!"
