Seized by the System

These two days, Fang Ning had been staying in the third level of Draconic Arcane Realm as he wandered back and forth.

Over here, the place was shaded with rows of trees and filled with herbs, which gave a fragrant aroma.

With everything available, everything was naturally green and pollution free. As he stayed over here, his state of mind was relaxed and untroubled.

It was just that after making a few calls, he started to look from time to time at the Whitestone people who were working tirelessly. Occasionally, he looked like he was hesitant to speak, which made Sir System feel odd.

Finally, Sir could not hold it in anymore so it said, “Rich-man Host, you contributed greatly to the worship ceremony this time, thus I didn’t bother you for strolling around here for two days. That being said, you’ve rested enough, it’s time to work…”

Upon hearing this, Fang Ning was rather guilty. Previously regarding the matter of holding up the sky, he acted again out of habit and showed a dignified bearing that was of Zhuge Liang.

However, he could not let Sir see through this matter, how much money he needed to lose to settle it?

Hence, he pretended as if nothing happened and fooled it. “Oh, I’m doing something serious, I’m not strolling around aimlessly… These two days, I’ve been thinking, it’s not very assuring to have a gigantic bear to hold the sky, we’ll have to look for a conscientious and reliable person as a backup.

“You know it, I have a programmer background, so I’ve always understood the importance of having backups.”

Sir System said with complete certainty, “Great minds think alike. Last year, I thought the same, have you forgotten? You still have some important organs as backup in my System Preservation Area…”

“I didn’t forget…” Fang Ning quickly shifted the topic and pointed at a Whitestone person as he said, “Let’s not talk about this first. Do you remember what Dragon Carp said back then?”

The System replied, “What exactly are you trying to say? Stop going in rounds, I can easily hang…”

Fang Ning was speechless. “In simple terms, the Dragon Carp mentioned that the ancestors of the Whitestone people were resourceful and had once destroyed a mainland from the Upper Realm. The Upper Realm is vast and is truly where heaven is round and the earth is flat, I’m afraid that a mainland will soon become a planet over here…”

The System said, “I understand, no wonder you’re being hesitant. You’ve always been soft-hearted. Back then, the Dragon Carp also mentioned that should these fellows reach a dead end or encounter a huge danger, they could summon their own ancestors to save their lives. I suppose that it’ll be a heavy price to pay, a large amount of them will be dead before that happens.”

At once, Fang Ning agreed repeatedly, “System, you know me best. I think their ancestors are their last insurance, if all else fails they can summon them out to wreck the planet.

“Even so, they have no obligations to sacrifice. If the moon gets eaten up by earth and there’s a huge change to the environment, they can still live extremely well.

“Thus, I don’t want to mention this. If I do mention it, according to Clan Leader Shi’s upright spirit, he’ll agree for sure. How can I let this group of honest people pay such a bitter price to save people who aren’t even related to them?”

When Sir System heard that, it immediately said proudly, “They don’t need to pay a bitter price… You forgot that I’ve just learned the Bodhi Sutra, I’m able to revive the dead.”

Fang Ning had been waiting for this, he immediately replied, “Sir, you’re very wise, I know that you’re a kind System. It’s settled then, if they die from summoning their ancestors to save the world, you’re in charge of reviving them, Sir.”

“Uh…” Sir System was at a loss for words, after some time, it finally said, “That won’t do, you better go look for Bodhisattva Spirit King. He’ll do it for free whereas it’ll be too expensive if I do it.”

Fang Ning was tongue-tied. “Of course I’ve looked for him, didn’t you hear that I’ve been making calls these two days?”

Sir System rejected again and again. “I didn’t hear, I didn’t hear, these two days I’ve been capturing sinners who have gathered in the desert. I’ve earned a few ten millions of Experience Points here and there, but it’s not enough to revive even a few of them… There are 250 of them.”

Fang Ning could only explain patiently, “The Bodhisattva has said that his magic is far from recovered. He can summon revenants, reincarnate them into spiritual insects or gather them as souls, but he can’t revive the dead into a living person.

“Tell me, after doing such a tough work to save the world, they can only become ghosts or insects, I won’t be able to live with myself…”

Right then, Sir System said, “You’ll be able to, since they’re not really dead anyway… Being a ghost isn’t very great, but being spiritual insects is quite good. Look at Chong Daqing, it is heartless every day, it eats most of the time and sings whenever it is free, look at how much freedom it has?

“Oh right, I still owe it four meals, but it has terrible maths, I guess it doesn’t even know how many meals I owe her… I’ll just treat her all at once.”

Damn, Fang Ning was just struck dumb. As long as benefits were involved, there was no chance of fooling it to lend a helping hand, fortunately he had a backup plan.

Hence, he changed his tone and said, “Let’s put it this way, as the leader of the Alliance of Justice and Order, I’ll inform this matter to all countries, as this is related to their stakeholders.

“When that happens, a bailout…a salvation foundation will be established, should we hire the Whitestone people to save the earth and they die from it, the resurrection fee will be obtained from the foundation.”

Sir System asked hurriedly, “How much money can this foundation carry?”

Fang Ning remained calm and composed as he said, “Think about the GDP scale of each country, for extensive matters that involved the whole planet, it’ll be fine for each country to fork out ten percent of their GDP. If this happens then the scale of funds will at least be a few trillion or even tens of trillions… Of course, the payment won’t be made by cash, it’ll definitely be paid according to corresponding humans and resources.”

“Hiss”, Sir was both shocked and elated, “By the looks of it, after doing this, I won’t have to borrow money from you or be under your control anymore, Rich-man Host? Mmm, in this case I’ll agree to it.”

As Fang Ning heard that, he only laughed a while and did not say anything else.

Sir System only took it as the host was speechless, so it continued to accumulate experience points as it was extremely driven.

…

China’s Truth Department Headquarter Base. The sun was already setting as it was five to six in the afternoon. As the sun shone on the base, long shadows of people were cast everywhere.

“Sigh, Zhuge (Liang) may be smart, but destiny is far more complicated.”

At this instant, Ren Ruofeng was sitting in the senior advisor office in Truth Department. He was waving a fan and reading a document with his head lowered, then he casually said such a thing.

A year later, regardless of whether the moon could be stopped from crashing into the earth, the environment would certainly suffer severe changes.

Just like the dinosaurs who had once ruled over planet earth, humans were about to encounter a drastic change in their environment.

One of the general features after the change in the environment was the concentration of vitality, which was suitable for cultivation.

There was a fact that needed to be made clear, which was vitality itself was harmless, and it could be discovered after comparing with vitality with attributes like demonic energy and Yin energy.

This was an extreme case, only cultivators possessed the resilience to even use it to strengthen their bodies.

In spite of that, the vitality of nature in general would be harmful to ordinary people once the concentration increased.

The current vitality concentration was comparably low, which was not helpful for cultivators to advance, as it was far from cultivating in the arcane realm. Many powerhouses experienced successful breakthroughs in the realm.

Even so, this concentration was just right for most of the ordinary people, it was even said to be beneficial as it could slowly strengthen their bodies.

As soon as the concentration increased, ordinary people with no knowledge of cultivation would not be able to handle something so strong. It would be hard for them not to suffer illness since they ate ginseng everyday…

Consequently, those who were able to live a long-term in the arcane realm, be it the Azure Mountain or Truth Department’s Heritage Realm, they were all cultivators. There was only a variation in their cultivation base. It was rare to find ordinary people there.

This forced the human countries to spread abilities among the ordinary people on a large scale, they could no longer implement a strict control over this just like they did before…

Clearly, this ruined Ren Ruofeng’s plan that had been set long ago.

He conceived to use spiritually-controlled mechs to control extraordinaire powers so instead of spreading cultivation abilities, only Basic Cultivation of the Spirit would be taught, in order to prevent the occurrence of uncontrollable situations.

In the past generations, without extraordinary powers, all sorts of human services were already difficult to be carried out. The junior officers had the most experience in dealing with various arguments and disputes.

Now only an extremely small number of people possessed superpowers and cultivation techniques, but it had already caused many tricky security issues.

If it were not for Vigilante A who appeared in China and had such an outstanding efficiency, most of the remote areas had already been brought to a halt due to manpower issues.

Should everyone have superpowers, the scenario was imaginable – putting aside controversies from gaining benefits, trivia daily matters were sufficient to cause heaps of problems.

It would not do any help even if Truth Department and Special Affairs Department expanded a hundredfold.

The years were peaceful and quiet because somebody struggled and paved the way.

Nonetheless, this time round, the burden was too much to bear and could not be carried at all.

After Ren Ruofeng let out a sigh, he sensed that somebody had entered the room.

He did not lift his head up to avoid looking at the person.

“What’s the matter?”

“I have major intelligence, a group of strange oceanic creatures have appeared at Bohai Bay. They have pointed out that they’d like to hire Xie Dong.” A man’s voice could be heard, it came from Hong Yunqiao, the newly appointed leader of Think Tank Group.

No doubt Twelve Arms did not know about the ways of the world, but whether it was Tom the black cat or the black and white dolphins, they still understood the rules of human acts.

Could they just look for a partner if they wanted to?

Did he not need to eat, sleep, or spend money?

That being the case, they took two days to arrive near Bohai Bay, which was the heart of China’s Border, then they stopped and did not proceed rashly.

Twelve Arms had experienced the awful trauma of this country, because the fellows who had terribly beaten up his gang came from this place.

Moreover, the black and white dolphins were unable to go on shore, hence of course, the matter was up to the black cat.

In these two days, Tom the black cat naturally noticed the sudden disappearance of its loyal servant Huang Rui, but it immediately guessed where he went…

Nevertheless, faced with huge temptation for the Heavenly Book, it decided to let Old Man Huang suffer for a while more. In the past, it had no ways to deal with the Draconic Penitentiary.

Even Mahabrahma and the Seventh Envoy were imprisoned there.

Back then, it had no clue of the background and details of the place, but now it could confidently get people out of there, so it was not in a rush.

Besides, it had contacts to take care of him over there, so Old Man Huang probably did not need to pick up soap. (TN: There’s a saying that when a man bends over to pick up soap, another homosexual man will take advantage of the situation to attack them from behind.)

Huang Rui and Anderson were quite close after all.

It still had some remaining remnants in China, thus it informed a follower with proper identification to convey the message to Truth Department that they had the intention to hire Xie Dong.

At this instant, Ren Ruofeng was overjoyed after he heard of the intelligence.

What kind of figure was Xie Dong?

An important member of Truth Department, the leader of the Public Relations Team that he had personally promoted, could he be hired by some sea demons just like that?

Of course he could.

He smiled slightly as it was a perfect timing for him to kill two birds with one stone.

“Advisor Ren, you’re smiling so brightly, I wonder what thoughts do you have on this? Please let us know as soon as possible for us to draft a proposal, we’re not like someone, who can be so laid back every day.” Hong Yunqiao asked faintly.

Ren Ruofeng stopped smiling halfway through, it felt uncomfortable for him to hold it in but he still did not look up and only coughed a little before he said, “Plan 201, you know that, use that as the base, I’ll work overtime today to perfect it. Dismissed.”

That was right, after returning to the Truth Department as the advisor and after getting along for a few days, he had already seen through Hong Yunqiao’s true colors. After all, it was not such an easy thing for a woman to disguise as a man…he must be weird if he could not tell.

Despite that, he felt even more unpleasant after he had found out about it. Ren Ruofeng thought to himself, ‘After this busy period, I better return to work at the Venerable One’s house.’

In comparison, he felt more at ease over there as he did not need to work overtime every day. At night, he could even have drinks and boast about with the Dragon Carp, it was truly an enjoyable moment of his life.

…

At the same time, not far from the Public Relation Office, Xie Dong had just finished managing his tasks on hand. When he looked at the time, it was already time to get off work, so he walked out of the leader’s office.

Arriving at the workspace, he said to everyone who was in the midst of work, “If it’s not something urgent, leave it for tomorrow, I’ll be leaving now, you should leave earlier too.”

Right after he said that, with an awesome mood, he was the first to clock out of work.

Afterward, he heard cheers coming from the workspace.

“Finally we can get off work on time, long live the new leader!”

Upon hearing them, Xie Dong smiled pleasantly.

The former leader was a lunatic, even if he had no work left to do after working hours, he worked till nine at night. He left his room brightly lit for the rest in Truth Department to see, and if the leader did not leave, who dared to leave?

Owing to that, he was determined not to do something like that.

The cheers behind him were all truths that could not be any truer.

…

The people from Public Relations Team talked and laughed at one another, they started to leave after packing their bags one after another.

Not long later, Ren Ruofeng knocked on the door and entered. As soon as he saw the scene, he was dispirited.

“What time is it now? The sun is still high up on the west. I haven’t been long gone from Truth Department, have I? Since when the Public Relation Team gets off work so early?”

Ah? A group of people looked at each other and thought, ‘Didn’t you personally recommend Leader Xie?

‘Did you not know of his working style?’

Somebody whispered, “It was the newly appointed Leader Xie who ordered us to leave earlier.”

“Bullshit, what time is it now? Do you really think that the sky won’t collapse because of the Celestial Dragon, the Venerable Dragon God, and you don’t have to work overtime?”

“Call him back, there’s a serious situation, work overnight with me today.” Ren Ruofeng said with his eyes widened.

“Yes, yes.” An administrator responded, then he stood up and ran out immediately while he called Xie Dong on the phone.