After the seventeenth Doomsday Rule was announced, rather than worry or fear, Guan Tong's first reaction was actually confusion.

"Terra... Not long ago, several astronauts suffered heavy casualties there, and the authorities still haven't released a detailed investigation report. Could there be some connection?"

Ever since the manned rocket launch, he had been paying some degree of attention.

Now, astronauts had an incident there, the space agency's press conference hadn't been over for long, and a new Doomsday Rule revolved around this very satellite... It seemed unlikely there was no connection at all.

But with the currently known information being insufficient, he couldn't recklessly speculate.

"A Terra that has turned scarlet red, human gaze will trigger deep-seated fear... But judging by the rule's description, it's not that looking once will drive you insane; there's an accumulation process."

Guan Tong felt it was like the "Sanity Meter" set for characters in some horror games. When it empties, the character falls into madness, and the game ends.

"As long as you don't look, it should be fine... Need to check the Hidden Rule first."

He silently chanted to open the Terminal panel and entered the rule details.

Under his gaze, the Hidden Rule manifested after its color particles reassembled.

【Hidden Rule Seventeen: Immersed in Fear】

【Hidden Rule Content: During the Rule Period, aside from direct viewing of the scarlet, watching its images, refractions, reflections, and other methods will all be affected to varying degrees. Beyond fear, there are other unknowns hidden within the power of the scarlet, awaiting discovery.】

【Note: The boundary between madness and sanity often lies in a single thought. The way to conquer fear is to become it.】

Immersed in Fear... 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

After reading this Hidden Rule, Guan Tong frowned.

It wasn't just direct viewing; witnessing the scarlet in any way would affect one's sanity more or less. This information was important, but people should discover it soon enough.

As for the latter part, that some unknown was hidden within the power of the scarlet—that was the focus of Guan Tong's attention.

What exactly was that unknown? Was it good or bad? No one knew.

If one wanted to investigate it, they had to face the fear brought by the scarlet... This was undoubtedly an extremely risky act.

"For me, the safest way is like during the Blood Plague rule, staying completely inside the shelter throughout the entire Rule Period."

Guan Tong knew this would allow him to pass the challenge smoothly, but it also meant giving up on exploring the unknown.

After pondering for a moment, he returned to the shelter and sat down at the table.

He logged into Ascendant Home and entered the [Administrator's Domain] section.

He would put the decision on how to proceed aside for now. First, it was necessary to list the Hidden Rule for sale to exchange for Ascension Coins.

Now, he had a fixed daily expenditure of twenty-six thousand Ascension Coins. Later, when Black Star's "production capacity expansion" was ready, or if he opened new channels himself, the daily expenditure would be even higher.

If he could collect twice daily later, with the consumption speed doubling to fifty-two thousand per day, one million Ascension Coins would be used up in less than twenty days.

To maintain such a massive continuous cash flow without relying on official bodies or large organizations, he could only rely on constantly selling Hidden Rules.

Guan Tong quickly edited a post and published it.

《Selling Secret Intelligence Related to the Seventeenth Doomsday Rule》

Details: Intelligence price 500,000 Ascension Coins. Not instant notification; unified notification after 1 hour.

The price was the same as last time, still set at five hundred thousand.

Based on last time's sales volume, his current clients were only in the single digits, and he estimated they wouldn't increase in the future.

If his future income couldn't keep up with his expenditure, he could only further increase the selling price, but that wasn't needed yet.

After the post was published, as expected, he soon received private messages from those old clients in the backend.

Same as last time, not one more, not one less, he still sold eight copies, earning a total of four million Ascension Coins.

These four million, plus his current remaining seven hundred thousand, totaled eleven million.

This Rule Period lasted 30 days. Even if he consumed a hundred thousand per day, the total consumption after a month would only be three million, leaving eight million left.

"It seems I need to expand production capacity quickly... Wait, can I increase the conversion ratio of reserve Mind Power now?"

With a thought from Guan Tong, the [Wordless Book] appeared in his hand.

He casually flipped it open, directly turning to the seventh page.

He looked at the blank page, knowing that after entering the second stage of Ascension, he could now write on this new page and then use Mind Power to materialize the written content.

But what to write now, he wasn't very sure.

Before, when he couldn't put pen to paper, he had many ideas, many things he wanted to write. Now that he could write, he momentarily didn't know what was best to write.

Because his current mindset was vastly different from the initial one.

Initially, when he obtained the [Wordless Book], he didn't think too much about the first few pages, deciding what to write fairly quickly.

But starting from the fifth page, as the difficulty of opening each new page drastically increased and the required Mind Power upper limit kept rising to new heights, he had to become more cautious with his writing.

Now, after looking at the blank seventh page for a moment, he shook his head. "I'll think about it some more."

He flipped the pages back to the third page. The three characters "Mind Power" on this page had, for a long time, been second only to the Shadow on the first page in terms of the help they provided him.

Without the massive reserve Mind Power providing security, he couldn't have won in those numerous battles where he was outnumbered.

This reserve Mind Power allowed him to be an army of one. Seemingly just one person, but the total Mind Power he could actually use surpassed that of hundreds or thousands of people. This was the secret to his invincibility in battle.

He had been very satisfied with the previous 10:1 conversion ratio, but now this ratio could no longer meet his needs.

After entering the second stage of Ascension, Ascendants received comprehensive enhancements, and the acceptable conversion ratio must be higher.

Guan Tong took out a pen from the Storage Ring, steeled his heart, and wrote "1:1" in front of the three characters "Mind Power."

If he could achieve a 1:1 conversion, then...

Before Guan Tong could even start fantasizing, he saw the new characters he had written rapidly fade and disappear.

"...It seems leaping to the top in one step is still not quite possible."

If he could truly achieve a 1:1 conversion ratio, storing tens of thousands of Mind Power daily would be simply unimaginable.

"Then let's try slowly."

He continued writing "2:1." After writing, the numbers faded again.

He wrote "3:1" again, and it faded again.

He kept going like this until he wrote "5:1." Just as he was prepared for these numbers to continue fading, unexpectedly, they remained fixed.

Guan Tong's heart immediately raced. "Success? The conversion ratio increased to 5:1?"

He immediately tried injecting 100 points of flowing Mind Power into the page. The next moment, seeing the reserve Mind Power on the panel increase by 20 points, he clenched his fist tightly and let out a low cheer.

"Good!"

The conversion efficiency doubling—how could this not make him cheer?

"With a 5:1 conversion ratio, the 26,000 points of flowing Mind Power collected daily from Black Star can be converted into 5,200 points of reserve Mind Power... Over a month, that's one hundred fifty-six thousand."

A smile appeared on Guan Tong's face. This was probably another major gain after entering the second stage of Ascension, aside from the Mind Network restarting.

"Buzz, buzz."

The phone on the table vibrated. Guan Tong picked it up; it was a message from a new number.

"Hello, Guan Tong. I am Li Meng. For this Human Consortium joint operation targeting the Fire Thief Worship Cult, I am responsible for coordinating and commanding the Beixing contingent. The first team meeting is scheduled for the day after tomorrow at 10 AM. Location as follows. Please attend on time."

...To act during the Rule Period?

Previously, after learning the new rule was a survival-type rule, Guan Tong thought the operation might be postponed.

It seems now that the Human Consortium might not judge this rule as a significant operational threat.

Perhaps the committee members all believe it's fine as long as they act during the day.

Only...

Guan Tong looked at the Hidden Rule in the panel. He still hadn't decided whether he should take the risk to investigate that unknown hidden within the fear.