Time flew by, and before we knew it, it was mid-November.
From the end of October when Guan Tong posted his long exposé to now, nearly twenty days had passed. During that time, the waves of global public opinion had remained at their peak, with countless arguments erupting every single day.
Even though the Suroma government had various signed documents that seemed to justify its actions, many people, guided by their basic values, still couldn't accept what Bruce had done.
After all, laws are made by people. If a law goes against the intuition of the majority, then it's most likely a piece of evil legislation born solely to protect the interests of a tiny minority.
In this storm of public opinion, the most contentious issue was Ye Dang's daughter.
Most people believed that even if Adam had signed documents waiving his custody and guardianship rights—and even if his subsequent backtracking was questionable—that didn't mean Bruce had the right to transfer his son Gaelid's consciousness into the girl's brain, replacing her autonomous will.
Because this wasn't the era of slavery. No one had the right to dispose of another person at will.
Just as parents have the right to raise and supervise their children, that doesn't give them the right to hit or scold them as they please. What qualifications or authority did Bruce have to suppress a child's self-awareness?
The layers of domestic and international public opinion had nearly torn Suroma apart, dividing its population into two distinct factions:
The "King-Deposing Faction," which advocated for Bruce to step down and stand trial.
And the "King-Defending Faction," which supported Bruce's rule and pushed for increased research into memory digitization backup transfer and human modification technology.
The King-Defending Faction was smaller in number, but they held overwhelming power. This was because most of its members were modified Ascendants, or people who wanted to become modified Ascendants.
Not to mention that after Bruce had purged the Senate to complete his final centralization of power, there was absolutely no one left in Suroma who could restrict his authority. He had become the true, unquestionable king of the nation.
The King-Deposing Faction, on the other hand, was mostly made up of ordinary people. They had little power of their own and didn't control the military. Aside from verbal condemnation, there wasn't much they could do. And whenever they gathered in public, they were immediately suppressed by force.
The international external environment was even more complex than the simple "defend the king" or "depose the king" dichotomy.
Beixing and Xisiya both took a firm stance against Bruce, while several other small nations remained ambiguous, their positions wavering.
The reason was simple: no one could predict how the situation would evolve.
Right now, it seemed Beixing and Xisiya had the population advantage over Suroma and held the upper hand. But Suroma's technology was a black box.
If a modified Ascendant could take on two, three, or even more ordinary Ascendants with the same level of Mind Power, then Suroma under Bruce's control possessed terrifying war potential.
The small nations couldn't determine who would win if Suroma, with its massive army of modified Ascendants and intelligent war weapons, went to war with Beixing and Xisiya. So they didn't want to pick a side prematurely.
Moreover, some decision-makers were extremely interested in Bruce's "memory host transfer" technology.
A few had even secretly contacted him to inquire about the details, wanting to add an extra layer of insurance for themselves. Under these circumstances, they certainly weren't going to openly oppose him.
...
November 14th. Only one day remained until the release of the new Doomsday Rule. Most people were actively making preparations.
In the valley of Pinglu, two figures locked in combat occasionally crossed paths and clashed, producing dull or sharp sounds.
Their movements were very slow, constantly exchanging offensive and defensive positions. Every punch and kick carried immense force.
"Alright, that's enough for today."
After another exchange of offense and defense, Guan Tong voluntarily stopped.
The opposing party, Shi Jingyi, took a deep breath and wiped the fine sweat from her forehead, her gaze at Guan Tong filled with undisguised admiration.
After more than half a month of combat training, she had come to truly realize just how terrifying Guan Tong's martial arts talent and application of Mind Power were.
If you calculated the ratio of Mind Power consumption to effectiveness, Guan Tong could use 1 point of Mind Power to produce 1 point of effect. But under the same conditions, Shi Jingyi's effectiveness was several times that—reaching 3 points, 4 points, or even more.
This had prompted her to reflect during their training sessions: because of her reserve Mind Power, she had grown accustomed to being lavish and had weakened her attention to detail compared to before.
Back when Guan Tong couldn't store reserve Mind Power, he had been extremely frugal with every single point.
At that time, whenever he summoned Shadow, he would strictly calculate its consumption. The moment it was done, he would immediately send it back, not letting it stay outside for an extra second to avoid waste.
Later, after he gained the ability to store reserve Mind Power, his attention to these details grew worse and worse, more and more careless.
There were even times when he would summon Shadow and leave it standing there "on punishment duty," doing nothing—something that would have been absolutely unthinkable in the past.
If his past self had seen how wasteful his present self was being, he would have cursed himself out for being a "reckless spendthrift."
On the other hand, Shi Jingyi—and indeed, almost all top-tier Ascendants—were meticulous about their Mind Power consumption, never wasting a single point. This was how they maximized their combat effectiveness.
Over these more than half a month of combat training, she had bluntly pointed out Guan Tong's problems in this area and conducted targeted training.
For example, she forbade Guan Tong from using his reserve Mind Power, forcing him to rely solely on his flowable Mind Power. She even restricted him from using Shadow, making him use only flowable Mind Power in close-quarters combat—a style he wasn't good at.
The purpose of all this training was to make him regain his sensitivity to Mind Power.
He shouldn't go into every battle thinking only about overwhelming his enemy with massive amounts of Mind Power. This "brute force creates miracles" or "one trick conquers all" fighting style wasn't sustainable.
Especially now that Bruce saw him as his number one enemy and would inevitably find ways to research countermeasures specifically for him. It was crucial for Guan Tong to ensure he kept iterating and improving himself.
"The new Doomsday Rule will be released tomorrow." Shi Jingyi helped Guan Tong straighten his clothes, which had become disheveled from the intense battle. "Don't overtrain today. Save your strength."
"Mm." Guan Tong nodded. "Thank you for all the hard work these past two weeks. You have to lecture during the day and then give me extra training at night."
"What kind of extra training is this? I've benefited a lot from training with you too. There aren't many opponents like you in the whole world."
"That's true." Guan Tong smiled. "Let's head back and rest early. We need to conserve our energy for tomorrow."
Early the next morning, Guan Tong saw Shi Jingyi back to the academy.
As an academy lecturer, she had to spend the day of the Doomsday Rule's release at the academy.
But if the new rule turned out to be a high-threat one, neither the government nor the academy could handle it well. In that case, Guan Tong would immediately come and get her out again to face it together.
After seeing her off, with more than two hours still to spare, Guan Tong returned to the shelter and opened his Terminal Panel to thoroughly check his current status.
[Name: Guan Tong]
[Nickname: Observer]
[Title: Advanced Civilization Observer]
[Mind Power: 1775 (1775) (1170680)]
[Ascension Coins: 614700]
[Overall Biometric Rating: Awakened]
...
His current Mind Power upper limit was close to 1,775, with a very fast growth rate. If things went smoothly, he would likely break through the 2,000 mark shortly after the New Year.
For most ordinary Ascendants, this was already an unreachable level.
The vast majority of Ascendants still hadn't broken through 1,000 in their Mind Power upper limit. Those who could enter the second stage and use the Mind Network were still few and far between.
Additionally, his reserve Mind Power was approaching 1.2 million. Having accumulated this much after the battle at Wensilisa Castle was the result of his deliberate preparations for war.
During this period, apart from training with Shi Jingyi at night, Guan Tong had hardly rested during the day. He had been constantly moving between Xisiya, the Sakura Prayer Country, and other places to collect Mind Power.
The Sakura Prayer Country contributed the bulk of this supply, and it hadn't cost him many Ascension Coins.
The reason was that after Suroma had issued a war threat to the Sakura Prayer Country, instead of intimidating the twin cities, it had actually united the remaining Sakura Prayer people against a common enemy.
The Serpent Hair Society, led by Uenoshi, had genuinely saved a massive number of Sakura Prayer people. And after establishing a new order, things were far better than the chaos of before.
If they lost Uenoshi and the Serpent Hair Society, the Sakura Prayer Country would undoubtedly revert to its former half-dead state.
And if a Doomsday Rule as dangerous as [Green Hell] ever appeared, it might destroy the remaining twin cities and completely erase the nation from history.
So Suroma's threat had actually ignited the fighting spirit of the Ascendants in the Sakura Prayer Country, leading more people to join the Serpent Hair Society and voluntarily contribute their share of power.
Uenoshi had seized this opportunity to collect a large amount of flowable Mind Power every day to provide to Guan Tong for conversion.
Guan Tong certainly didn't hold back. He knew that the contradictions between them were irreconcilable. He would inevitably clash with Bruce again, and before that, he had to strengthen his power as much as possible.
As for Xisiya, Yelanka had contacted him once during this period. While expressing her concern, she had mainly focused on asking about the details of Suroma's modified Ascendants.
If she viewed Suroma under Bruce's control as a potential war target, then the more she knew about the enemy's strength, the better.
Guan Tong told her. He also informed the Countermeasures Research Office through Silver Fox.
In truth, even if he hadn't said anything, both parties could have inferred it: once someone became a modified body, their life as an Ascendant would be in the hands of the technology controller.
Unless they could modify themselves, they didn't understand the technology. The modifications were all done by someone else. And when that's the case, of course, the modifier could install backdoors or plant bombs wherever they wanted.
Many people online were discussing that if becoming a modified body had only benefits and no downsides, Suroma wouldn't be promoting it so relentlessly.
After all, throughout history, good things rarely fell on ordinary people.
The so-called "Impossible Triangle"—"Ordinary People," "Get Benefits," "Don't Have to Wait"—was an empirical formula people had derived after being deceived countless times.
Now Suroma was saying that by signing a consent form to become a modified body, you could get your memories uploaded for free, and if anything happened to you, you could download those memories for free and be "reborn." Was this kind of pie-in-the-sky offer really going to fall from the sky for free?
Whether others believed it or not, Guan Tong certainly didn't.
He had eliminated over a hundred modified bodies at Wensilisa Castle. He didn't think Bruce had backed up the memories of all those people, let alone granted them "rebirth."
In addition, Zhang Minglu had also sent Guan Tong a private message during this period. He said that the Countermeasures Research Office had tried to capture a modified body alive through their agents and bring it back to Beixing for public dissection.
The operation had ended in failure.
The Beixing agents had captured the modified body alive, but as soon as they crossed the border out of Suroma, the modified body immediately self-destructed. It was clear that the designer had already planted a self-destruct program that would activate once the subject left a designated area.
At the same time, Suroma had also activated many agents lurking in other countries.
The task of these agents was to approach and persuade Ascendants from other nations. They hoped to convince them of the superiority of mechanical modifications, to make them believe this was the main direction for future survival and development, and to urge them to voluntarily go to Suroma to undergo the modification process.
It was evident that while the major nations might not easily take the step of "Declaring War Openly," all kinds of open and covert struggles that qualified as acts of war were already in full swing.
This seemed to make the passionate [Humanity's Joint Declaration] signed by dozens of nations even harder to realize. The ideal of setting aside conflicts had become increasingly distant.
And this was undoubtedly exactly what the Fire Thief wanted to see.
It was in this turbulent and uneasy environment that time arrived at November 15th. The 24th Doomsday Rule was released on schedule.