Seized by the System

After Fang Ning finished working, he was just about to return to the System Cyber Cafe and go on a Killing Spree when he saw the stone monument suddenly disappear before his eyes. ¹

He hurriedly used Spiritual Fluctuation and sensed around him, and discovered that it was at the blacksmith’s forge.

Fang Ning quickly went over as well, afraid that a certain idiot would act alone again.

He saw the familiar forge’s storefront had become much larger now that it had been upgraded to Intermediate-level. It had an extra stove in the center of the shop, and both stoves were emitting clinking sounds while making utensils and apparatuses.

At this time, there was a large stone monument in the middle of the shop. It was the Divine Monument that Fang Ning saw earlier.

Fang Ning hurriedly asked, “Sir, didn’t we agree on not melting it? We were supposed to use this to collect tickets. What do you think you’re doing?”

The System said, “Didn’t you see that this thing can transform? I’m worried that if we put it outside to collect tickets, it’ll just transform into nothing…”

Hearing this, Fang Ning mind worked and came to a realization.

He tried to communicate spiritually with the stone monument, but the only feedback was a cold feeling. It was just like him trying to greet a high and cold beauty.

“Sh*t, Gu Buwei was right. We really aren’t the chosen ones. It doesn’t want to teach us how to use it at all.”

The System muttered as it worked, “We’ll see whether it wants to teach us or not after I finish modifying and debugging it. We might have to spend quite a lot of experience points though.”

Fang Ning considered, chuckled, and ran to the System Preservation Area and searched for half a day before finding what he was looking for.

Looking at all these items, he felt a chill in his heart and sighed as he picked up a bottle of bright red liquid from inside.

After returning to the blacksmith’s forge, Fang Ning opened the bottle and prepared to pour it on the stone monument.

The System hurriedly asked, “What are you doing?”

Fang Ning said rightfully, “Letting it acknowledge its master.”

The System was frustrated, “I’ve already tried that, it’s no use… There are many methods of making a treasure acknowledge their masters circulating in the net. I’ve tried them all while you were talking to me earlier. Otherwise, why would I waste experience points to modify it?”

Fang Ning was shocked. Then, he gave up and watched as the System started beating up the stone monument incessantly.

Afterward, he wondered, “You said that after upgrading the system infrastructure, the efficiency will increase by 50%, From what I’m seeing, there’s only one more stove here, so shouldn’t the production line obviously double? Why has the efficiency only increased by half?”

The System said quickly, “It’s because I’m the only one working. If you were to join in, the efficiency will definitely not just double…”

Fang Ning pretended not to hear that and only hurriedly turned around and exited the forge, returning to the System Cyber Cafe.

After around an hour, he finally heard a System Notification.

[The System consumed 100,000,000 experience points and modified the Heavenly Axiom Treasure ‘Divine Monument’. The following additional functions are:]

[1. System Bind. No one except the System and the Host can use the Divine Monument.]

Fang Ning was speechless, “You had to use 100,000,000 experience points just to add that one function?”

The System said, “What did you expect? For better or worse, it’s a Heavenly Axiom Treasure. Do you want to sponsor a little, Mr. Multi-Millionaire Host?”

Fang Ning declined immediately, “I just gave you 40,000,000 experience points. Where do you expect me to find more? Do you think I have that much left? No, I don’t.” ²

He stopped talking to the idiot and immediately communicated spiritually with the stone monument. As expected, it was much more welcoming this time, and very quickly taught him how to use it.

Fang Ning shut his eyes and comprehended.

After a while, he saw the large black stone monument in the forge automatically shrink until it became the size of a spirit tablet.

Fang Ning opened his eyes and reached out, and the originally high and cold Divine Tablet threw itself into his embrace.

Even while Fang Ning held it, it was so light that he felt like he was holding nothing.

He recalled how the yellow dog and that fat bear could not pull it out even after using all their strength and sighed, “There’s this really good saying, ‘Chasing after someone who doesn’t love you is as hard as climbing a mountain, but chasing after someone who loves you is as easy as rolling down a mountain. Even after chasing for hundreds and thousands of years, it won’t even spare you a glance…”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean chase… This thing is ours now, no one can chase after it now,” said the System.

Fang Ning ignore this thing without human emotions and casually tossed it up in the air. After chanting a spell, the stone monument caught on the wind and floated up.

Instantly, a golden light shined, and ethereal sounds could be heard.

The light and sound effects were much stronger than when the System pretended to be Buddha. Its daddy was the Heavenly Axiom, after all.

The monument was no longer inky black, but had instead changed to purple in color.

From top to bottom, golden words were emitted in neat rows.

Just by looking at the color, it was obvious that this stone monument was very valuable. After all, the color purple symbolized the rank of a high official in ancient times.

However, Fang Ning suddenly remembered the time he went to the hospital and saw some people who had been beaten to a pulp. Their faces had patches of purple all over them…

God’s design really was unfathomable.

He collected his thoughts and focused on reading the words.

“Divine List. Current areas under jurisdiction: Earth, Moon.

First place: Humans. Resources undivided, resource points level: Intermediate.

Second place: Sprites. Resources undivided, resource points level: Beginner.

Fourth place: Spirits. Resources undivided, resource points level: Low.

Fifth place: Demons. Resources undivided, resource points level: None.

…”

There were a total of ten.

Seeing the repeating word ‘undivided’, Fang Ning communicated with the Divine Monument spiritually and instantly understood that it meant the various major groups would be subdivided into different groups in the future, and everyone would undergo disputes at that time.

Vitality concentration was a good thing, geniuses were good things, and valuable resources were good things as well. How those resources are distributed all depended on the development of the various clans.

In the past, nature only unconsciously distributed various resources according to the natural law.

Whoever had a stronger ability to adapt to the environment would be able to occupy more natural resources… occupy more territory, and even spawn more clans.

Now, the new Heavenly Axiom with its new active consciousness, had already begun to take an active part in the allocation of natural resources.

The dominant and those with potential will obtain more resources.

Looking at this, Fang Ning suddenly connected it to reality.

The Heavenly Axiom was not playing a game like ‘Earth Online’. On the contrary, it was drawing from the reality of human experience.

That was because it was exactly the same education that he received.

When Fang Ning was in high school, the school had artificially divided students into key classes and normal classes.

Good students would be assigned to the key classes and were taught by teachers with higher professional standards, and average students would be assigned to the normal classes. As for their teachers, naturally, they were only average as well.

The key classes were further divided into Science Experimental classes and Olympiad Math classes… The better they learned, the high standards their teachers were, and the more they dabbled in other aspects.

Obviously, this was very unfair, but due to various pressures, things like these were very normal, so resistance was of little to no use.

At the very least, when Fang Ning first went to school, almost every school in his county had been divided this way.

At present, it did not seem to have gone out of date.

Hot terms like ‘school district houses’ and ‘key schools’ were the same thing, except that parents were also included in the competition for educational resources.

Of course, Fang Ning saw that it was similar in the West as well. There was also a very huge difference between private elite schools and ordinary public schools.

It was easy to enter the ordinary schools, but if they wanted to enter the top-class schools… Fang Ning saw some reports about ambitious middle school students before. Their studies were not more relaxing than China’s at all. In fact, they might even be more tiring.

That was because top-class schools had more requirements.

The East do not comment on the West, just like how the Eldest Master will not comment on the Second Master. There will always be one with superior resources and one with inferior resources.

Superior resources will always be scarce, but the number of people will increase. Naturally, the stronger one would occupy the resource.

The Heavenly Axiom learned from humans and created a similar system. Whether it was a good or bad thing, Fang Ning did not know.

He only knew one thing. In the future, there will be a teacher constantly staring over the heads of every living being.

Whoever does not study well and climb the list would be forced to walk the plank and drop down into the abyss.

It was not as simple as it was at school. If you did not study and just entered society, as long as you chose a path suitable for yourself and continued working hard, there would still be many opportunities to develop again with some chances.

However, under the Heavenly Axiom, if you dropped off the list, that would spell the doom of your entire clan…

It was something that everyone would have to worry about in the future, except for Fang Ning.

That was because he was seized by the System.

On the aspect of being hardworking, Fang Ning pondered. The most hardworking student he had ever met only slept 5 hours per day. They studied while eating, and studied while walking as well, but they still could not be compared with the System.

Sir System studied 24/7 and was always highly functional and mentally refreshed. It was never affected by physiological factors.

After comparing, Fang Ning secretly felt some dissatisfaction.

He opened his mouth to say, “Alright, now that I know how to use it, I’m going to Morality City to take a walk. Right, you need to find a railway line and a fixed departure point for your Golden Train.

“Cang Gongzi is going to build a city soon, so people and a large number of materials would have to be transported there then. We can’t be bothered to drive the train every day after all…”

The System said, “Oh, then who do you want to let drive the train?”

Fang Ning pondered, “A soul is capable enough to drive the train. Tell Anderson to make a performance rating. The one with the best performance and behavior will drive the train. Besides, the train is bound to the System, so we don’t have to worry about losing it.”

The System said, “No, I think you’re the most suited. That Golden Train is a secret treasure in the arcane realm, so no one can break it. It’s very safe, and it just so happens that you’re in a spiritual state. You can be the driver while training at the same time.”

Fang Ning spat out two words, “Dream on.”

He had no intentions of being some train driver. If he was not around in the System Space, who knew what trouble Sir System would get itself into.

Plus, there was definitely no internet connection in that train.

…

After Gu Buwei left the Kunlun Snow Valley, he pondered before going to another place.

This was the mouth of an active volcano with bubbling magma that was emitting an acrid smell of sulfur.

He stared at the mouth of the volcano, not making any movements. He only sat nearby and meditated, not afraid that we would be baked.

The time for the Earth Monument to appear had not come yet.

He thought about this.

However, the Divine List had already been opened.

He raised his head to look at a white cloud in the sky.

Although it was seemingly just a simple white cloud, in his eyes, it was ever changing. One by one, possible pictures of the future flashed before his eyes.

The Divine Monument had actually fallen into Vigilante A’s hands, and not Ren Ruofeng’s, as calculated by his grandmaster.

This made him more aware of how unpredictable God’s design was.

Looks like this new Heavenly Axiom only cared about the results.

No matter whose hand the Divine Monument landed in made no difference as long as its goal was achieved.

Be it Vigilante A or Ren Ruofeng, to the high and mighty and ubiquitous Heavenly Axiom, what difference was there?

The only ones who feel like there will be a big difference are ordinary people like himself.

In many of China’s ancient myths and legends, they all mentioned something called ‘overcoming tribulation’, which was to make someone else the scapegoat. ³

Thinking about it now, it was simply because the Heavenly Axiom needed a certain amount of cultivators to die before it could reclaim the cultivation resources.

As for who died, the Heavenly Axiom would not care. If you wanted to overcome the tribulation, then just let others die instead…

Gu Buwei had some new doubts about this.

Did China’s broad and profound culture hint early on about the Heavenly Axiom characteristics?

Or was it that the Heavenly Axiom was still in its infancy stage and needed to learn from the Chinese culture, so it was influenced by those myths and was contaminated by the unique characteristics of the ‘Heavenly Axiom’ inside?

He felt that the latter was more plausible because those who descended from the Upper Realm were the same. They all clung to human myths and acted differently than who they really were.

He just never expected the high and mighty Heavenly Axiom to be bound by such conventions as well. Speaking of which, it had been quite down-to-earth instead…

Looks like if he wanted to complete his grandmaster’s explanation, he would have to go and see more.

Thinking, he was just about to get up and go to some county to buy some physical books.

However, at this moment, he suddenly frowned.

That was because he saw a plume of black gas suddenly pass over the white cloud and charge straight up to the sky, and disappeared in a moment.

What new change was it this time?

He did not stand up, but instead fell back into deep thinking.