August 9th, morning.

Guan Tong hadn’t been up for long when he suddenly received a call from Xu Xiaotian.

"Tong!"

"Xiaotian, what’s up?"

"Nothing special. The academy starts tomorrow, right? I just finished moving into my dorm and didn’t have anything better to do, so I gave you a call."

"How’s the dorm?"

"It’s awesome!" Xu Xiaotian laughed. "They’re all two- or four-person rooms, and super spacious. Plus, they have every appliance you could need. It’s really comfortable!"

"That’s great."

"What about you, Tong? Where are you living now?"

"I’m just staying wherever."

Guan Tong was still living in that tiny property management storage room. He didn’t envy Xu Xiaotian or anyone else. To him, where he lived didn’t matter at all; as long as it was a place to sleep and shelter him from the elements, it was good enough.

"Oh yeah, Tong, I’ve been researching how to develop my Instant Noodles Items recently. And guess what?" Xu Xiaotian’s voice was tinged with excitement.

"I developed noodles that can increase movement speed! Awesome, right?"

"Not bad," Guan Tong said, surprised. "If you can develop more noodles with different abilities, your items should be very useful."

"That’s what I was thinking! Hehe. By the way, Tong, about that challenge... you know how I used Instant Noodles to get past the rule about Fasting Therapy? Well, I have an Invitation Letter too."

"I was going to ask if you wanted to team up, Tong, but it seems like you have to be face-to-face to do it, and you said you aren’t coming to Yong’an... so I’m planning on teaming up with a few classmates who are starting with me."

"That’s fine. You guys go ahead and team up," Guan Tong said.

"So, Tong, do you have a team?"

"I do." ’A one-man team is still a team,’ Guan Tong thought. "Don’t worry about it, Xiaotian."

"Alright then," Xu Xiaotian said. "I’ll call you another time. Gotta go!"

"Okay."

After hanging up, Guan Tong thought for a moment.

In the past eight or nine days, people had pretty much figured out the newly released "teaming up" function.

First, as Xu Xiaotian had said, the function required users to be face-to-face; you couldn’t just add a friend remotely by their ID number and form a team.

Second, after two people teamed up, some special Psychic Power items could be shared between team members.

For example, during the third rule, [Fasting Therapy], only Xu Xiaotian himself could eat his [Instant Noodles]; no one else could eat them at all.

But with the "teaming up" function enabled, if two people were teammates and a similar fasting rule appeared, Xu Xiaotian could give his Instant Noodles to his teammate, allowing them to complete the challenge as well.

It was foreseeable that with the introduction of the teaming up function, the status of Ascenders who possessed "support-type" Psychic Power items would rise.

Take Xu Xiaotian’s case. His [Instant Noodles] item was weak before, but he had developed noodles with special effects on his own. And now that they could be shared with teammates, they could prove incredibly useful at a critical moment.

’I guess teams that are particular about their composition will probably arrange for one or two teammates with support-type items,’ Guan Tong thought.

As for himself, Guan Tong wasn’t envious of others. He knew that as long as he had enough time to develop, he could rely on the [Wordless Book] to satisfy any need he had.

This was the greatest source of his confidence to survive alone. As long as his Psychic Power grew over time and he unlocked enough pages in the [Wordless Book], he could write down whatever he needed.

If he needed food, he could write "food"; if he needed transportation, he could write "car."

Guan Tong was confident that in the future, he might even be able to live a self-sufficient life relying solely on the [Wordless Book].

But not yet.

’Of the people I know, besides Xu Xiaotian, Shi Jingyi should also have an Invitation Letter. I wonder if she’ll participate in this challenge.’

Guan Tong thought about Shi Jingyi’s special "Psychic Power Flow" ability; it was indeed formidable. It was naturally suited for both offense and defense, and teaming up with her would likely result in a high win rate.

But not only had Guan Tong never exchanged contact information with her, but even if he had, she was now in Capital Yong’an, and he had no plans to go there for the time being.

’I should just focus on my own business.’

Xu Xiaotian’s call had given Guan Tong a moment’s pause. He soon returned to his daily routine, strengthening himself according to the method he had previously established.

Ever since the Apocalypse Rules first appeared, he had gotten used to slowly accumulating strength on his own. In a way, this was his comfort zone, and it helped him cultivate a stress-free mindset.

By the evening of the next day, the tenth, one-third of the thirty days had passed, and he had already stored 280 points of Psychic Power.

That’s right—he had stored all the Psychic Power he’d recovered in the first ten days at a one-tenth conversion ratio.

Adding the 50 points he had left over from before, his stored Psychic Power had now reached 330 points.

He planned to use the next 20 days to store bullets for the Silver Hunter and to add words to the second page of the [Wordless Book].

That evening, sitting on his folding bed, Guan Tong opened his laptop and logged on to the official website of the Psychic Power Development Academy.

Just as Shi Jingyi had said before she left, all the courses from the first day of the academy had already been recorded and uploaded.

Although the academy had a Psychic Power cap for student enrollment, that was only a necessary measure due to limited space.

Otherwise, without enrollment requirements, a huge number of people from all over the country would have flocked there to enroll. At that point, never mind the academy being unable to accommodate so many people—the entire city of Yong’an might not have been able to handle such a population influx.

Therefore, to allow Ascenders who didn’t meet the requirements to study along, all courses were recorded as online video lessons.