"Coordinate resonance..."
In the living room on the first floor of the shelter, Guan Tong held the Wordless Book, attempting to use its power to create anchor items.
So far, he had not written on the eighth page, intending to keep it as a trump card, saving it for important needs in the future.
Now, as he attempted to create an anchor item, he was still using the "anchor" character on the seventh page.
To materialize a need using the power of a page, one must first define the need clearly, and the more specific, the better.
Guan Tong's only prior understanding of this "Coordinate Resonance Anchor" was that it could be used to stabilize the space behind a door.
But after multiple attempts to inject Mind Power to generate it, all ended in failure,
which made him reconsider whether his need was incorrect.
"Judging by the production conditions for anchor items, they are only produced when spatial folding coincides perfectly with the original space..."
"In other words, the space behind the door hasn't remained unchanged, but rather, it has changed, and that change happens to be identical to the original."
It's like a random transformation item that, when used, coincidentally transforms you into an identical copy of yourself. The probability of that happening must be incredibly low.
Precisely because of this, the production of this item was extremely scarce. Even with Suroma's frantic experiments and acquisitions, they hadn't managed to obtain many.
"From this perspective, to create an anchor item, the accurate need should be 'a stable and controllable folding space.'"
After grasping this point, Guan Tong tried again.
He poured a massive amount of Mind Power into the seventh page. Perhaps because he had proposed the correct need, this time the Wordless Book responded to his expectations and began to take effect.
The "anchor" character on the page began to emit light. The light projected into the air, gradually taking shape, as if being sculpted in mid-air.
During this process, Guan Tong's Mind Power was consumed at a terrifying rate. His Mind Power upper limit, which was over two thousand points, was nearly depleted every second, forcing him to constantly draw upon a large amount of reserve Mind Power to replenish it.
This cycle of consumption and replenishment lasted a full three minutes. After investing nearly four hundred thousand points of reserve Mind Power, the anchor item, sculpted from light in the air, finally took form.
When the light dissipated, this finger-sized anchor item, resembling a diamond-shaped crystal, hovered in mid-air.
"Success..."
Guan Tong reached out and grasped it in his palm, and the relevant information immediately appeared.
[Coordinate Resonance Anchor]: After binding with a Door, it can stabilize the fixed space behind it. Not tradable.
"Nearly four hundred thousand Mind Power just to produce a single anchor item is a bit exaggerated."
Such enormous consumption was hard even for Guan Tong to stomach.
But on second thought, he felt he had come out ahead.
Suroma was currently buying anchor items at an astronomical price of ten million, while he only spent four hundred thousand Mind Power. His cost was far lower.
It goes to show that "more" and "less" are relative. Compared to Suroma's purchasing price, Guan Tong suddenly felt that spending four hundred thousand Mind Power to obtain an anchor was quite acceptable.
He opened his Terminal Panel to check his reserve Mind Power, finding just over three million remaining.
If he used all of it to make anchors, he could probably make eight.
However, he didn't have that many door spaces that needed stabilizing. Moreover, danger lurked everywhere right now, and he needed to keep enough reserve Mind Power to deal with unexpected situations.
"I'll make one more to test."
Guan Tong once again channeled Mind Power into the page, repeating the same process. Soon, another anchor item took shape.
When he held it in his hand, both Coordinate Resonance Anchors simultaneously emitted a brilliant light. The lights pulled at each other, intertwining and merging into one.
This abrupt change made Guan Tong's eyes widen: "This is..."
After the lights of the two anchors fully merged, their detailed information changed.
[Coordinate Resonance Anchor · Matched]: Once matched, a stable spatial folding passage can be established between the two anchors. Once established, it cannot be undone or altered.
"!!"
After seeing the new information, Guan Tong instantly understood why Bruce was desperately acquiring anchors, even "importing" ordinary people from other countries to conduct experiments.
"Two anchor items can match with each other, establishing a stable spatial folding passage... And judging by the description, can this passage be unrestricted by distance or personnel?"
Guan Tong's heart raced.
Didn't this mean that as long as someone holding a matched pair of anchor items went to a distant place, say Terra, and established a passage with Beixing there... then everyone else could fold over to that place through this passage?
"In this way, as long as a powerful 'pioneer' can establish a path, other weaker individuals, and even ordinary people, can traverse that path to reach places previously unreachable..."
For humanity as a whole, this was undoubtedly a massive boon!
One of the main reasons the space migration plan had always faced criticism and skepticism was that spaceships could carry too few people.
With humanity's current level of technology, even with the massive efficiency boost from the previous Emergence Acceleration Rule, supplemented by Mind Power items and abilities, it was still impossible to build enough spaceships to carry everyone.
Even if all nations pooled their efforts, constructing a fleet capable of carrying a population of millions would be extremely difficult.
If there were plenty of time, it might be manageable, but the Doomsday Rules kept coming one after another. Humanity simply didn't have that much time.
So the question arose: with a global population of several hundred million, if only tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or a million people could board spaceships and leave, would the rest sit idly by?
Undoubtedly not. In fact, they might, under certain instigation, unite to destroy the completed spaceships, on the grounds that "if I can't go, then nobody goes."
Beixing had been unable to solve this problem before, but with these matched Coordinate Resonance Anchors, everything was different.
If humanity could find a suitable planet for migration, as long as one spaceship could reach it and establish a "spatial folding passage," everyone else could traverse the passage to arrive, without needing to board a spaceship.
"Suroma must have discovered this secret through their research, which is why they were so desperate to acquire as many anchors as possible during the Rule Period, to prepare for establishing multiple stable spatial folding passages in the future."
Guan Tong's face lit up with joy at this realization, feeling he had hit the jackpot.
He had originally assumed that the anchors created with the Wordless Book were all bound and wouldn't be particularly valuable.
But if he had enough matched anchors in his hands, he could build multiple stable passages in the future. Whether for himself and his team, or for helping the masses, they would be incredibly useful.
He could even use them to make money—you all use the passages I built, so wouldn't it be fair to charge a small toll in Ascension Coins?
With this thought in mind, Guan Tong immediately put it into practice.
With his remaining reserve Mind Power, he could still create seven more anchor items. Paired up, that made three pairs and three passages. Combined with the existing pair, he could build a total of four passages.
In Guan Tong's eyes, this number was far from enough.
He wasn't just thinking about everything on Tianshui Star; he had his sights set on the entire universe.
If humanity was destined to enter the space age, and given the vastness of the cosmos, the places humanity would set foot on would likely be countless.
At that point, what were a mere few passages compared to the demand? And with humanity's current technological level, mastering stable spatial folding technology on their own would take who knows how many years.
"There are still about ten days left in the Rule Period. Although I can scrape together quite a few Ascension Coins myself, it's still far too little for generating anchors."
A pair of anchors required nearly eight hundred thousand Ascension Coins, and it would be very difficult for Guan Tong to bear that cost alone with his small team.
Unless...
A thought struck Guan Tong, and an idea came to mind.
......
Countermeasures Research Office, Intelligence Department.
Everyone was busy at work when suddenly a short "beep" sound came from a computer.
The sound was very distinctive—it was the "exclusive alert," which only rang when the Administrator of Ascendant Home posted.
Several people heard the sound and were surprised.
"The Administrator posted?"
"Posting mid-Rule Period? Has that ever happened before?"
"Quick, check it out!"
The Administrator of Ascendant Home usually posted with a certain regularity. Basically, after a Rule was announced, if there was hidden information to sell, a post would be made. Most other times, there was no activity.
Now, with a sudden post in the middle of the Rule Period, it was only natural for people to be curious about its contents.
Relevant personnel quickly opened the website, entered the "Administrator's Domain" section, and sure enough, saw a new post from the Administrator.
"For Sale: Hidden Effects of 'Coordinate Resonance Anchor' Items, and Seeking Cooperation Projects Related to These Effects"
Details: Intelligence priced at 1,000,000 Ascension Coins. Cooperation matters to be discussed via private messages.
"This..."
Seeing the post's information, the staff didn't dare delay and immediately reported it to the Higher-ups.
In the large meeting room, after receiving the report, Gao Liangwei immediately instructed them to make the purchase.
For the officials, time was more important than anything. Even though the research department was already working at full speed, spending one million Ascension Coins to save that time was well worth it.
After the transaction was completed, the Countermeasures Research Office received the information content sent by the Administrator.
When everyone learned about the anchor matching effect, they were all just as shocked as Guan Tong, and they also thought of the same applications.
The head of the space department couldn't contain his excitement and urgently said to Gao Liangwei, "Head Gao, we need these stable spatial folding passages! This way, we can save a massive amount of resources currently used for building personnel transport spaceships and invest them all into manufacturing more advanced long-range exploration vessels!"
Gao Liangwei nodded. He had a vague guess about what the "cooperation project" in the Administrator's post meant and had the liaison officer send a private message to the Administrator to inquire.
Soon, a reply came from the Administrator's side, completely matching Gao Liangwei's conjecture.
Administrator of Ascendant Home: "The content of the cooperation project is 'spatial folding passage leasing.' They confirmed they have no need to set the locations at both ends of the passage, so you handle establishing the passage for their use."
That's right, this was precisely the open-source method Guan Tong had thought of.
The money earned from selling information was still a bit too little.
But selling passages? That was a whole different story.
The enormous arbitrage opportunity lay in the cost difference.
Suroma was willing to spend tens of millions of Ascension Coins to purchase a single anchor, meaning Suroma's cost to build a passage was in the tens of millions range.
And Guan Tong? His cost was only just under a million—less than one-tenth of Suroma's.
This way, he could easily engage in substantial arbitrage.
For example, he could sell passage leasing rights at a price of "5 million Ascension Coins per passage." In this way, even though the items he created were all bound, he could still sell them indirectly.
He knew this project would definitely succeed, because the extreme scarcity of anchor items would make this business an absolute seller's market.
Any country or organization with space exploration needs would inevitably require stable spatial folding passages.
Either they bought passages from Guan Tong, or they spent several times more resources on building a spaceship fleet that wasn't even guaranteed to succeed... any rational, sensible person knew which option to choose.
Especially since, after long-term verification over time, the identity of "Administrator of Ascendant Home" had never been involved in any scams or absconding, having built long-term, stable trust on a global scale.
Now, that trust and this opportunity combined would create enormous profits for Guan Tong.