Seized by the System

Overtime days always seemed… slow.

Fang Ning had two weeks of overtime, but he still could not finish developing the Dream-Cultivation Method.

Thankfully, the System did not bother him at all in order to borrow money in the future, allowing his research to slowly inch toward the goal.

He was working overtime, but the other people were also keeping up.

After entering summer, everyone seemed to work in a faster pace, and overtime became a common occurrence.

Underground somewhere in China.

In a spacious underground hall, Elder Ancestor Bai, Bai Shixin, Bai Shifu, Nie Yuan, and the others sat on a raised platform. They were facing a whole hall of Greater Rat Clan as they held a mobilization meeting.

“From today on, we want to go all-out for a hundred days and popularize the computerized informatization method in our brethren, so that we can surpass the humans!”

Standing on top of the stage and shouting his slogans, Elder Ancestor Bai did not behave sly and cunning as usual.

He looked entirely like a hot-blooded orator. With every sentence, the greater rats offstage would applaud loudly.

There were about ten thousand greater rat attendees in the meeting, and all of them were Bucket-level and above, as well as being able to shapeshift into humans.

If they include those that were sapient and can communicate with human languages, but still unable to shapeshift, the total attendee count would have exceeded ten million.

This was the result after Elder Ancestor Bai had ordered the Greater Rat Kings of each city to control the reproduction. If they had not been restricted, they could reach up to a hundred million greater rats within months.

It would not be exaggerating to say that a pair of mice could give birth to an entire race of mice.

Bai Shixin smiled slightly onstage, seemingly satisfied with the turnout.

However, as Elder Ancestor Bai had gained renown among the greater rats, Bai Shixin was nearing desperation.

He was planning silently. Elder Ancestor Bai’s speech did not register much in his brain.

Ren Ruofeng’s sudden retirement was rumored to be because of his family, he could relate to that.

It could not be delayed any longer, if Elder Ancestor Bai became the founder of a nation, it would be considered treachery to attack him then.

Rebellions almost never succeed unless there was a total dominance of power.

Bai Shixin had his own power and influence that could be considered sizable, but Elder Ancestor Bai would definitely have his own trump card as well.

There was once when Vigilante A and Bodhisattva Spirit King almost fought their way into their base, but Elder Ancestor Bai resolved it with relative ease. The two must have been worried that the rats would revolt once Elder Ancestor Bai had died, and he utilized that to escape his dying fate.

This computerized method was one of his plans to turn the tides.

Even though Elder Ancestor Bai values human’s technology, he could not use his time to learn and master it. After all, he was in charge of so many things and had no time to invest in learning to master technology.

Most technological skills only had an impact on parts of the society, but computer technology was different. Used well, it could become a great tool to rule a whole clan, as well as maneuvering situations as a whole.

As he dived into the learning process, Bai Shixin started to understand the true power of this technological mastery.

Originally, he only wanted to learn computer theory so he could better control the spiritually-controlled mech that Ren Ruofeng would eventually gift him.

However, he had a realization.

With the computerized informatization method, he could easily hollow out Elder Ancestor Bai’s support and make him a puppet.

As strong as he was, Elder Ancestor Bai was just one person with 24 hours a day and limited energy to spend on management.

Bai Shixin wanted to become the most powerful hacker who could control everything from behind the screen.

After Elder Ancestor Bai become a puppet, it would be easy to allow Ren Ruofeng to send an assassin to take Elder Ancestor Bai out without provoking a rat revolution.

Bai Shixin was daydreaming when Elder Ancestor Bai raised his voice again to encourage the rats offstage.

“Don’t think that we can’t surpass the human civilization just because they have tens of thousands of years in history while we only have a dozen or so.

“That’s not true! We are a piece of blank paper, we don’t have the politics of the humans, we don’t have the clashes of interests that humans have.

“Computerized informatization can revolutionize our productivity, military, defense, and all facets of our lives. The efficiency of one day of our work can translate to ten days worth of the humans!

“We can also optimize our resource management and use the limited resources we have to reproduce the biggest population with the greatest number of powerhouses!

The humans don’t have our advantage! They are split into hundreds of nations worldwide, and they kept fighting among each other! Even within one country, they have differences in opinions!

“Their utilization of their resources are super inefficient with severe wastage!

“Their strongest countries have declining fertility rate per year, and it’s getting harder and harder to convince people to do otherwise. We are the complete opposite!

“They were able to live under the warm sun and above the ground in comfort while we can only stay underground. However, in this new era, their resilience against all the dangers in the world was much lower than ours!

“Maybe, in the next hour, a tiny rock would slam into Earth. By the time we awaken, all the humans on top of us would have vanished… haha!” Having said that, Elder Ancestor Bai cackled.

“Haha haha!” At this point, all the greater rats began to laugh sincerely.

The hall was filled with warm laughter and a welcoming atmosphere.

In the beginning, most rats fear the mammoth known as the human race.

The humans have a strong cultural foundation as well as their scientific breakthroughs. The existing technology that the greater rats possessed were all learned from the humans.

As for energy cores, geothermal power stations, and ninety-nine percent of the materials, they had to smuggle from the humans.

Their individual powerhouses could not even compare to the humans.

For example, the Eastern Pharos that shines above their heads.

If the greater rats did not take the humans’ scraps and no longer cause any problems, Vigilante A would not have let them go.

Many greater rats could still remember that when they tried to undermine the humans in Qi City and dug through many of the communication cables, Vigilante A had hunted them down with no possibility for a reversal.

However, now that Elder Ancestor Bai had broken down the advantages and disadvantages of both sides, they started feeling confident again.

Bai Shixin was also impassioned by the speech. Once upon a time, he had wanted to work together with the entire Greater Rat Clan and to build a Greater Rat Nation by slowly surpassing the humans.

Regrettably, Elder Ancestor Bai did not trust him and tried to dispose of him multiple times.

As the only greater rat who holds the core secrets of Elder Ancestor Bai, they could not be of one heart and mind.

At this moment, Bai Shixin laid his eyes on all the greater rats offstage.

Most of these rats had been born for just over a year, their maturity was comparable to that of a junior second student as they were passionate, active, idealistic, and were not afraid of doing work.

Sometimes they would be a little naive, but that could be a good thing, as they would fully dive into the strive for progress and would earn experience.

The mobilization meeting soon adjourned. The greater rats were really pumped up and immediately started work. Not one of them complained.

As the supervision team’s head of the computerized informatization project, Bai Shixin had to lead by example in working overtime, naturally.

In the office with a plaque that said ‘Computerized Informatization Supervision Team’ after the meeting.

Bai Shixin was talking to two human engineers in outdated fashion.

“Manager Liu, Manager Li, thank you for your cooperation. Please inform me if there’s anything you need or if anyone’s not cooperating.”

The project managers, Liu and Li were first-rate software engineers.

They were both in their thirties, their most motivated years. They were honest people sent by XX E-Management Software Ltd. to help the Greater Rat Clan set up their information network with a team of twenty or so people.

Liu was the project manager, but he was not much of a talker, preferring to stay quiet most of the time.

It was Li, the deputy project manager, who did the talking.

Li answered smilingly, “It’s nothing. It’s nice here, much easier than working for the people up there.

“Did you know? The humans up there didn’t care if they know enough, they only knew to demand first. After all the changes and editions, it would be normal to have a system worked on for at least three years.”

Bai Shixin listened patiently.

Within the first few sentences, he knew that the two engineers were probably high in intelligence, but not very charismatic. Otherwise, they would not have been the people in charge for huge projects like this.

It looked like they had been squeezed out of the race to the top internally. After all, it did not reflect well on their resume to have worked for demons, they might even be eaten alive.

However, Li was brave enough to face the greater rats.

Bai Shixin nodded and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve already instructed my underlings to follow your expert directions. We would like to review the workflow of our departments according to your systemic designs.

“After all, you have done so many projects and have a rich experience. Your standard procedure was much stronger than our own.”

Li and Liu shared a look and immediately expressed their delight.

If the clients said that, it must mean that they need not revise their software and could immediately set up a temporary server for demonstration and training purposes.

As they were training the rats, they could also start leading the greater rats to set up the hardware.

Specifically, it was the setting up of the server room, the local area network, and the computers, so that each department may be connected to each other.

In their perspective, these were familiar segments that could be done easily.

After the training, each of the departments could go online one by one.

Just as Elder Ancestor Bai had said, they were blank papers that were ready to be drawn on.

The Greater Rat Clan did not have a database of their history, so they had no need to worry about the transference of data, that had saved them from a lot of work.

Li said in gratitude, “Leader Bai, you’re really understanding. We don’t need to work overtime into sleepless nights again.”

Bai Shixin smiled. “Naturally. Most of the work had to be done by my workers, after all, since you would leave one day. When training starts, I would like to be informed. I will supervise their learning, in case anyone was trying to slack off.”

Li immediately thanked him. “That’s great! Thank you, Leader Bai, for your cooperation. I believe we would be able to complete our mission successfully.”

Bai Shixin chuckled and looked at his watch. He said, “It’s getting late. Let’s have an opening feast and have some drink before getting started at work tomorrow.”

The two engineers nodded enthusiastically and called their group members in.

Different from Bai Shixin’s guess, they were not squeezed out of the race to the top, they volunteered.

They had worked in the same company for years, but they still could not afford the down payment for a house, so they decided to take a chance.

Humans could risk their lives for money, while birds could risk theirs for food; A man of bravery will always step forward if they were promised a big reward.

Their company was calling for volunteers. The other managers were unwilling to do so, so Liu and Li got the job and brought their whole team along.

It was a little unsavory to claim they were working for rats. However, the reward was pretty hefty, and they were sure that there are extra benefits, as the rats were filthy rich.

The recycling industry was a money generator, but most people would not know that.

As soon as the greater rats had taken the job, the entire city’s garbage bins were contracted to them.

Handling trash was now their clan’s mainstay industry where they earned a lot legally from the humans.

Ignoring the rest, they would already make a huge profit by extracting the rare metals such as gold from electronic waste. They could just sell them as hard currencies.

Human’s method of extraction would usually product heavy pollution. The greater rats circumvented that by completing it with alchemical processes. They would only expend vitality in the process, this had been more advanced than the human’s method from the beginning.