In front of a dazzling, opulent building in the capital of Manchidon
More than a dozen men and women dressed in gold-trimmed robes waited, occasionally whispering among themselves.
"I wonder what kind of person they'll be..."
"This seems to be their first public appearance, right?"
The person these people were waiting for was none other than the Administrator of the Ascendant Home.
The two sides had agreed to establish a spatial folding passage today, and the relevant personnel from Manchidon's side had begun waiting half an hour early.
Although many of these people held high positions and were members of Manchidon's decision-making echelon, they absolutely did not dare look down on the administrator of a website.
In fact, from officials to civilians across various nations, everyone believed that "Ascendant Home" had essentially become a "nation of the internet."
In the peaceful era, there was a saying that "the media is the fourth estate," and that was still under circumstances where the media was governed by various nations' official authorities.
But now, in the age of the Doomsday Rules, or rather the Fire Thief era, the administrator who controlled the Ascendant Home, a website with the right to freely disseminate information, was effectively holding immense power.
For this reason, Manchidon's officials dared not be negligent, and even harbored a somewhat ingratiating attitude toward that administrator.
"Ah, they're here. Is that them over there?"
At that moment, someone spotted a self-driving car slowly approaching. The vehicle came to a stop, and as the door opened, a mysterious figure stepped out.
When the Manchidon official personnel waiting in front of the building saw this person, they all wore strange expressions.
The newcomer was completely wrapped in a thick overcoat, wearing gloves and a helmet, with not a single inch of skin exposed.
A young woman stepped forward proactively, speaking uncertainly: "Excuse me, are you the Administrator?"
"It's me." An undisguised electronic synthesized voice came from within the heavy coat. "Where is the door?"
Everyone exchanged glances. Even though they all knew the Administrator would conceal their identity, they hadn't expected it to be done so... directly.
"Hello, Administrator." At this point, a young man stepped forward. "I am Manchidon's Vice President, Tilar."
Guan Tong observed this man in his early thirties through the vision Shadow shared with him, and had a slight impression of him.
Because after Manchidon had previously been invaded by parasitized forms, nearly wiping out the entire decision-making echelon in one fell swoop, those newly elevated to power were all young people, including this Tilar.
And the reason Guan Tong had an impression of this man was because he was the one who had announced the conferral of the "Manchidon Hero" honor upon him back then.
Although the effect brought by this honorary title had already faded, as reflected in the natural growth of Guan Tong's Mind Power now, it had lost the boost of faith power...
Just as Silver Fox had said back then, emotions like "gratitude" don't persist in the long term.
Sometimes, when you do someone too great a favor, it might instead turn into what the saying describes: "Heaven's grace can become heaven's enmity."
When others can't repay you and feel the debt of gratitude is too heavy, those with more extreme tendencies will instead wish for your death, because once you're dead, they no longer have to repay the favor.
This was also the reason Guan Tong never used his favors to demand repayment. Whether he saved people or killed them, he did so according to his own judgment, without expecting any reward from anyone for what he did.
"Where is the door?"
Guan Tong remotely manipulated the electronic device to ask again.
He wouldn't appear in person himself, nor would he let Shadow show up without disguise.
Even though many people suspected that the Administrator was Shadow, Guan Tong wasn't ready to publicly admit it yet.
Keeping these two identities separate still benefited him for now.
"Oh, my apologies. The door is upstairs in the building." Tilar said, leading the way forward along with the others.
The group entered the building, took the elevator, and headed straight for the highest floor.
Inside the elevator, one of the Manchidon people said: "This building is a very famous structure in Manchidon. The Administrator must know of it, right?"
"Mhm."
This building was called the "Golden Sailboat Hotel," and it was indeed world-famous, serving as Manchidon's national landmark.
The reason for its fame wasn't how well the building was constructed, but rather that multiple retired presidents and vice presidents of Manchidon regularly resided in the top-floor suites.
Combined with the fact that during the peaceful era, a massive number of wealthy people from various nations also lived here permanently, that was what made it so popular.
Later, when the Doomsday Rules appeared, aside from Manchidon's elite, people from other nations no longer stayed here, as it could no longer provide them with a sense of security.
But even so, Guan Tong hadn't expected Manchidon's decision-making echelon to build the passage inside this building.
What if a natural disaster rule occurred, or it took a hit from a high-yield missile? Wouldn't the passage be destroyed if the building collapsed?
But that was Manchidon's decision-making echelon's own business, none of his concern. He wouldn't meddle.
The elevator reached the top floor, and the group came to another elevator requiring both facial and fingerprint recognition.
After completing verification, Tilar explained: "This elevator leads to the rooftop at the very top. In all of Manchidon, fewer than twenty people have the clearance to unlock it."
Guan Tong inwardly grumbled at this: Those dozen-plus people definitely don't include the elevator maintenance workers, right? If it breaks down, it won't even be easy to fix.
They took the elevator up to the rooftop, and as the doors opened, a sturdy concrete door at the very center of the rooftop came into view.
Compared to an ordinary room door, its height was similar, but its width was doubled.
What left Guan Tong most speechless was that this door also had facial and fingerprint recognition systems installed.
This meant that at a critical moment, even if someone without clearance found this passage, they wouldn't be able to use it without an authorized person present.
Guan Tong manipulated Shadow to walk up to the door, took out a prepared coordinate-stabilizing anchor, pressed it against the door, and then injected Mind Power to activate it.
Accompanied by a humming sound, the anchor emitted a silver glow that gradually spread to cover the door.
Everyone watched with unblinking attention, and Guan Tong was no exception, as this was also his first time constructing a spatial folding passage.
When the glow had completely covered the door, an inexplicable, invisible-to-the-naked-eye strange fluctuation spread outward from the surroundings.
Everyone could feel that the space around them had become somewhat abnormal, though they couldn't quite articulate exactly how.
The fluctuation lasted for about a dozen or so seconds before disappearing, and the anchor's glow also completely faded.
But at the center-top of the door, a deep anchor imprint had appeared.
It was exactly the same as the imprint Guan Tong had seen on the massive gate of Suroma's construction in the prophecy painting Moon Key had drawn.
This was the symbol of successful binding.
"It worked?!"
"What just happened? It felt so strange..."
"When the anchor was glowing just now, I felt my skin itch a little, like some change had occurred in the magnetic field."
Everyone present was extremely excited, and Guan Tong then asked: "Where is the other door?"
Two doors and two anchors were required to form a complete passage, a point Guan Tong had already made clear in his private messages.
Tilar then said: "The location of the other door is in Xisiya."
Xisiya?
Guan Tong, manipulating Shadow from a distance, showed a surprised expression upon hearing this.
He had originally thought that the other end of Manchidon's passage would either be in Beixing or in Suroma... with Beixing being the more likely option.
But he had never imagined that the other end would actually be in Xisiya.
Did Yelanka have some scheme in mind?
"Administrator Yelanka of Xisiya is very efficient. Actually, we submitted applications to both Beixing and the Kingdom of Xisiya simultaneously. As for Suroma... we just didn't feel very reassured about them.
But Beixing hasn't replied even now, while Xisiya agreed very quickly... so we decided to set the other end of the passage in Xisiya."
Guan Tong listened to Tilar's explanation and found no issue with it.
Beixing's "slowness" wasn't surprising; in matters of this kind of decision-making, Beixing's officials had always been rather cautious.
In contrast, Yelanka was young, bold, and made any decision very quickly.
Her audacity wasn't only reflected in matters like this.
Publicly refusing Suroma's official compensation, proposing to provide Guan Tong with tactical nuclear bombs to blow up the Hall of Halls and decapitate Bruce, openly supporting Yishan's call for internal opposition within Suroma to launch a civil war... all of these were decisions that timid, risk-averse decision-makers could never make.
Now, on this passage matter, her willingness to first establish a test with a small nation to gauge its effectiveness wasn't surprising at all.
Perhaps testing was precisely her main objective.
When great powers build passages, they tend to be cautious, carefully considering the location, which pushes back the timeline for testing.
Now that a small nation was proactively seeking to build a passage with a great power, the great power could conveniently use that small nation's passage to test the effect.
Mutual openness at both ends of the passage was a necessary condition. You couldn't build a passage into someone else's home without allowing them to use it.
"Two doors are required to form a passage, so what would happen if one door were opened now?" Someone in the crowd asked curiously.
"It's best not to do that." Guan Tong warned. "If something goes wrong, I won't provide after-sales support."
"..."
"Rest assured, Administrator, we won't do anything that stupid!" Tilar shot a glare at that person and gave a solemn guarantee.
Guan Tong didn't say much more. After completing the passage construction on this end, he left directly.
Tilar would have liked to keep him for a meal and a chat, but he clearly didn't have time for such things.
After Guan Tong left, several members of Manchidon's decision-making echelon were somewhat displeased.
"So many of us, welcoming him with such fanfare, and this Administrator's attitude is so cold, not even willing to say a few more words."
"Exactly. Regardless, we spent nearly ten million Ascension Coins, a huge fortune, to buy this passage."
"And this person shows us absolutely no trust. Not showing his face is one thing, but he even uses an electronic voice synthesizer. At least using a fake human voice would have been better!"
"Alright, stop complaining." Tilar's expression turned displeased. "Warmth isn't his obligation. As long as the passage is built properly, that's enough. Go prepare for the test. Once Xisiya's side is done, we'll try whether this passage works."
The group dispersed, and one of them returned to their vehicle, pulling a miniature spy camera from their sleeve.
Once activated, it could record everything in its surroundings. This person sent the video data out, then destroyed the item.
......
The next day.
In Xisiya, not far from the Konia Manor, there was an air-raid shelter.
Yelanka and Sigaochin were both inside the shelter at this moment. Aside from them, there were also some engineers, as well as a door identical in spec to the one on the rooftop of the Golden Sailboat Hotel in Manchidon.
"Administrator, is it really alright for this door to be so close to the manor?" Sigaochin asked with some concern. "If enemies were to exploit it, you could be in danger."
Yelanka shook her head slightly: "There are people and automated devices monitoring the door at all times. If there's any teleportation activity without communication between the two nations' higher-ups, we'll know immediately."
"Even so, there's still risk. I still think it would be better to build the passage door inside a military camp."
"In that case, Manchidon's decision-making echelon wouldn't agree." Yelanka said. "Sigaochin, don't think that just because we're a great power, we can hold all the cards. To complete the test as quickly as possible, making some concessions isn't a loss."
Sigaochin nodded thoughtfully. She felt that in political matters, she truly wasn't as thorough as Yelanka, even though the latter was nearly ten years younger than her.
She thought that perhaps this too was a kind of talent. Without that talent, Yelanka couldn't have completed the consolidation of domestic power in such a short time.
In this regard, she had even done better than Bruce. At the very least, there weren't masses of people in the country calling her actions to eliminate the Security Bureau a "great purge."
"Has the Administrator still not arrived?" Yelanka asked.
Sigaochin glanced at her watch: "Should be arriving soon. There's still less than ten minutes until the agreed time."
Just as Sigaochin finished speaking, the voice of the outer perimeter guard unit came through her earpiece.
"Report, a person claiming to be the 'Administrator' requests entry into the air-raid shelter."
"Let them in." Sigaochin said.
"Understood."
Before long, the Shadow Guan Tong was manipulating entered the shelter.
After seeing that figure wrapped up tightly, neither Yelanka nor Sigaochin found it strange in the least.
It was perfectly normal for the Administrator, being a special figure, to avoid exposing their identity.
Guan Tong, on the other hand, was somewhat surprised that Yelanka was here. It seemed she truly placed great importance on this passage's construction.
"I am Xisiya's Administrator, Yelanka." She stepped forward and extended her hand proactively. "Hello, Administrator of the Ascendant Home."
Guan Tong shook her hand: "Hello, Madam Administrator."
"I received word from Manchidon's officials yesterday. It seems the door on their end was built quite smoothly."
"Yes."
"Then please begin establishing the spatial connection between the two doors."
Yelanka gestured toward the door not far away. Guan Tong manipulated Shadow to walk over to the door and, just like yesterday, took out a coordinate-stabilizing anchor and pressed it against the door.
The spatial fluctuation appeared once again, this time far more intense than yesterday. Everyone present could feel a pulling sensation.
"Please leave the air-raid shelter immediately, Madam Administrator!" Sigaochin was especially nervous upon feeling that pull, afraid something might go wrong.
Yelanka, however, remained composed and could even manage a smile: "Since this Administrator is here, I don't think there will be any danger."
Guan Tong thought to himself, I'm not actually here, only Shadow is. Even if something went wrong, he wouldn't be in any danger himself.
Of course, if something truly did go wrong, he'd still have time to use Body Swap to get over there and save people.
When the anchor's glow faded, the intense spatial fluctuation disappeared, leaving only a teleportation door bearing the imprint.
At the same time, a special sensation arose in Guan Tong's heart. Just as he could sense all his own Mind Power items, these two doors were now included in that list.
"The passage is complete." He said. "Do you want to run a test?"
"Of course." Yelanka looked at the anchor imprint on the door, seemingly eager to give it a try.