New Functions of the Terminal

"What's the difference between excellent and ordinary?"

Guan Tong thought to himself that he'd have to check online later to see if the White Paper on the Apocalypse Rules had been updated.

But for now, he still had things to study.

First up were the new features unlocked on his Personal Terminal.

There were two in total: [Social] and [Trade].

Their names were easy enough to understand—just what they sounded like—but upon closer inspection, he realized there was more beneath the surface.

In the [Social] feature, display names were allowed to be duplicates.

That meant Guan Tong could call himself "Shadow," and someone else could also pick the nickname "Shadow."

To tell them apart, you had to rely on each person's exclusive "Unique Digital ID."

Guan Tong checked—his own Digital ID was 771539268.

If you wanted to add a friend, entering their Digital ID would do the trick, so there was no risk of adding the wrong person.

But besides adding friends, the [Social] feature also had an option to add a "Nemesis."

Guan Tong looked into it: if you added someone as a Nemesis, the other person would receive a notification. Once both parties were mutual Nemeses, a prompt would appear when they were within a certain distance.

Moreover, two people marked as Nemeses couldn't perform the "Team Up" operation.

Guan Tong had no idea what "Team Up" was for, but he guessed it would come into play in later rules.

As for the other new feature, [Trade], opening it revealed a "Market" option.

Anyone could list tradable items on the market and set a price to sell them.

Those who wanted to buy could spend Ascension Coins to make a purchase.

But for now, the market showed zero items—no one had listed anything yet.

Guan Tong stared at it, recalling that the Fire Thief's voice had mentioned the Ascension Shop had stocked more goods.

He closed the market function and opened the Ascension Shop.

Sure enough, the interface had changed.

Before, the shop had nothing but a search bar; now, there were items on display.

Still, the selection wasn't large. Guan Tong glanced through it—the list was only one page, and the items on that page were just a few.

[Bronze Grade Primary Weapon Crate]: Use to select one cold weapon of your choice.

[Price: 50 Ascension Coins]

[Bronze Grade Primary Medical Crate]: Use to obtain a random medical item.

[Price: 80 Ascension Coins]

[Bronze Grade Basic Food Crate]: Use to obtain 1 unit of basic food.

[Price: 20 Ascension Coins]

Three items total for sale. Guan Tong finished scanning them in a few seconds.

His first impression was two words: useless junk.

Take the weapon crate, for example. Open it, and you could pick a cold weapon—like a dagger or a machete.

Choosing a dagger from a crate versus buying a knife at a supermarket—the former's biggest advantage was portability and concealability.

That's because man-made objects from the real world couldn't be stored in the Personal Terminal's Storage Box.

In other words, if you bought a crate from the Ascension Shop and got a dagger, you could keep it in your Storage Box when not in use.

If danger struck, you could will it into your hand from the terminal's Storage Box in an instant to deal with the threat.

—That was about the extent of its advantage.

Not bad, sure, but would Guan Tong actually spend 50 Ascension Coins to buy it? No way.

For one, he was broke—couldn't waste Ascension Coins recklessly.

For another, rather than waving a cold weapon around and getting into fights, he'd prefer to avoid ending up in that kind of danger altogether.

If he had to buy something, he'd lean toward the second crate—the medical one.

If it gave him some multi-purpose medicine, it might come in handy when he least expected it.

As for the third crate, the food one, it left Guan Tong a bit puzzled.

The first two had their uses, but what was the deal with the food crate?

"If society collapses and a massive famine breaks out, then sure, spending Ascension Coins on a food crate as an emergency measure makes sense. But under normal circumstances, as long as there's anything to eat, no one would bother buying it."

Everyone knew how hard-earned Ascension Coins were.

The only known way to produce them now is by successfully challenging apocalypse rules, making their scarcity off the charts.

Guan Tong believed that with the [Trade] function now open, along with new items in the Ascension Shop, the value of Ascension Coins would become terrifyingly high.

He figured those Big Bosses in the real world wouldn't even blink at trading a pound of gold for a single Ascension Coin.

Too bad even if they wanted to trade, they couldn't.

Even if someone wanted to gift their Ascension Coins to another person, it wasn't easy!

Currently, there was no "gift" function in the terminal. To get someone else's Ascension Coins, you had to sell them an item.

But it seemed no one had any Tradable Items yet—at least, nothing was listed on the market.

The [Sobering Mint Candy] produced from Rule One couldn't be traded at all.

The [Gene Optimization Fluid] Guan Tong had just pulled from the box was tradable, but unless someone had their head kicked by a donkey, no one would list such a precious item on the market.

Even if they did, who could afford it? Selling it cheap was an option, but that would be incredibly stupid. People dumb enough to do that probably couldn't obtain such a rare item in the first place.

"I'll just save my coins for now."

After looking it over, Guan Tong closed the shop.

He didn't plan to spend anything—there was no need.

Saving up to buy better stuff when new items dropped later was the best choice for Guan Tong.

Then, satisfied, Guan Tong went to the study and turned on the computer.

He originally wanted to check the White Paper updates online, but the internet was flooded with complaints from netizens.

"Holy crap! My Mind Power dropped by 15 points, and my cap got slashed to just over thirty!"

"I lost 7 points, so painful..."

"I'm dizzy, man. I was at 80, barely scraping a Normal rating. Now I'm down to 72, back to Poor!"

"Why is the Mind Power Cap reduction different for everyone who failed the challenge???"

"The White Paper updated—it seems related to rule completion rate. The closer you were to succeeding, the less you lose."

"I'm crying! The shop updated, but now I have zero coins and can't buy anything!"

From the earlier group's challenge success rate, it was obvious most people hadn't succeeded.

That meant no Ascension Coin rewards, and on top of that, their precious Mind Power Cap would decrease.

In Guan Tong's eyes, that was the most devastating part.

"The further the rules go, the more crucial Mind Power will probably become. If it's insufficient, passing challenges will only get harder."

With that thought, Guan Tong knew he couldn't let pride get the better of him.

He couldn't get cocky just because he'd scored a bottle of Gene Optimization Fluid that boosted his cap by 20 points.

The cycle of pushing himself to the limit every day and recovering his Mind Power absolutely couldn't stop.

Guan Tong logged into the official website of the Apocalypse Rules Countermeasure Research Office, hoping to check the White Paper updates.

But as soon as he entered the site, a pop-up appeared.

[Notice: The Mind Power Development Academy is currently under preparation and construction. Those interested, please call for details.]