Seized by the System

The specter leader continued to speak dutifully.

“Based on the internal records of our Heavenly Spirits Clan, in the World of Spirits and Souls, there are the Five Great Spirit Lords. Under each Spirit Lord, there are ten great spirit generals. Among these ten great spirit generals, three of them are malevolent spirit commanders, and they each command a squad of malevolent spirit guards. These are all seeds of malevolent spirits found from all over the World of Spirits and Souls. They are bloodthirsty, brutal, and have astounding combat capabilities, allowing them to be the vanguard of every war.”

Having a guide was indeed different. With just these few lines, the overall situation of the World of Spirits and Souls became much clearer.

Of course, Fang Ning could also ask for this information from the Bodhisattva Spirit King. The other party should have a clearer understanding of the situation.

However, Sir System’s intention was not pure. Coming to the World of Spirits and Souls to catch malevolent spirits and cultivate them was not the kind of business heroes should be involved in. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to ask.

“I see. Then I suppose there are no powerful malevolent spirits who live in scattered places.” Vigilante A mused.

“The Venerable One is wise indeed. The World of Spirits and Souls has been ruled by these Spirit Lords for 500 million years, so the powerful malevolent spirits have already been subdued and wouldn’t be wandering among the civilians. They also have a sophisticated culturing system. Every decade, there’ll be a search conducted throughout all the lands. Especially with the present state of affairs, even if there are any fish that have slipped through the net, it’ll also be challenging for them to maintain survival.” The specter leader seemed to be thinking of the current situation of his people and sounded rather downcast.

“What you’re saying makes some sense.” Vigilante A fell silent for a moment before asking suddenly, “In the Upper Realm, there’s a Celestial Clan. How are you related to them?”

“Sss…” A hint of delight flickered across the face of the specter leader. “To be honest, we the people of the Heavenly Spirits Clan are indeed related to the Celestial Clan in many ways. The Celestial Clan possesses formidable talents and extraordinary powers. Their people enjoy long lifespans, and for every person from the Celestial Clan who dies, the body will be placed into the clan’s tomb. We’re the spirits that awake from the bodies in the tomb, who are eventually received and led into the World of Spirits and Souls. After all, the environment of the Primary World isn’t suitable for us to live in. Based on this relationship, the Celestial Clan can be considered our ancestors, although we’re way below their league.”

“Hey, Mr. Rich Boss, they’re really related to Daqing after all…” Sir System sounded impressed. “Your intuition is almost catching up with mine. But what should we do with these specters?”

“Actually, I was just speaking without thinking.” Fang Ning responded humbly. “This group of specters seems to be quite well-behaved. Might as well bring them back and send them over to help with raising herbs.”

“You’re right. Let’s do that.” Sir System decided.

Later, Vigilante A and the specter leader exchanged a few lines. The latter became surprised and overjoyed, and would not stop thanking the former.

After that, Sir System stored these few thousands of specters into the System Hotel before choosing a direction and flying away.

…

In a deep cave, a cloud of greyish-white air was slowly swirling.

On the cloud of greyish-white air, images were flickering by one after another.

The scene in the images showed exactly the various situations that occurred after Vigilante A and the others entered into the World of Spirits and Souls.

Around the cloud-like air mass stood three men in gold, silver, and bronze masks respectively. They were standing separately in a triangular manner, their eyes fixated on these images.

After a long time, the man wearing the gold mask heaved a deep sigh. “How unfortunate. According to our intelligence, the Dragon God’s spiritual sense has attached itself to the body of this Fang Ning, and aren’t dragons the greediest? The Nine Transformation Soul Restoration Orb is a precious treasure that appears once in every million years in the World of Spirits and Souls, and he didn’t want it? If it was those True Dragons in the Primary World, they would’ve kept it in their treasury. If he’d kept it with him, after a year and a half, we’d be able to know 　where this guy’s uniqueness truly laid. If he was relying only on the True Dragon’s spiritual sense, he could never be able to achieve the level of abnormality he has right now…”

“Perhaps he wanted to take care of the hero’s face, and so it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to keep it for himself. However, that Devil-Vanquishing Bodhisattva is most familiar with our tricks. Whatever we’ve tampered with probably won’t escape his notice,” the man in the silver mask said from the other side while shaking his head.

“Never mind, these are just some minor tricks. Brother Bronze, how are the experiment results?” Gold-masked Man directed the question at the man across him who was wearing the bronze mask.

“The results aren’t very ideal. The transformation rate is too low! Out of the 43 people from the bounds of Earth, 24 people died in battle, so we’re left with 19 people. The dead with the highest power level is equivalent to a spirit with a cultivation base of five thousand years. As for the lowest, it’s equivalent to a spirit with a cultivation base of five hundred years. After dying, only ten percent of their cultivation base is absorbed into the World of Spirits and Souls and transformed into Yin Energy. The rest of it mostly dissipated, and not even a trace of it could be found,” Bronze-masked Man said in exasperation.

The other two heard his words and fell silent.

After quite some time, Gold-masked Man spoke again, “According to the Law of Vitality Conservation that’s been recently summarized, vitality can’t be created out of nothing, but it also won’t disappear into thin air. It can only be changed from one form into another, or transferred from one object to another, but the total amount of vitality will remain the same. This is precisely the theoretical basis for why the saints would want to take the lives of the gods and deities to mend the heavens. Then here comes the problem. For all these foreign powerhouses who died in the World of Spirits and Souls, if their dissipated vitality has not been absorbed by this same world, where else could it go?”

“Hmph, I think it must’ve been absorbed by the Primary World!” Bronze-masked Man said without thinking. “The World of Spirits and Souls is dependent on the Primary World, but the Primary World is governed by the saints, and is unobservable to us. That’s why we couldn’t figure out the whereabouts of all that vitality. These saints are just like a band of robbers. We did so much hard work to find such a small amount of vitality, and it was all exploited by them!”

“Brother Bronze, please be careful with what you say. Although we’re faced with inexorable doom, and nature’s mystery seems muddled, we shouldn’t talk nonsense about the saints,” Gold-masked Man soothed. “However, your guess does make sense. We already know the whereabouts of the Primary World’s vitality. A part of it has been drawn on by the gods and deities as well as the saints while the other part of it is trickling into the Lower Realm, tainting and transforming the Order of the Lower Realm. Now, the Primary World is exactly relying on absorbing power from worlds attached to it in order to continue preserving itself.”

“If that’s the case, then the current method we’re using can hardly be promoted for its usage. The Spirit Lords will never agree to a method that requires spending so much effort and paying for such high costs, but will only bring in ten percent of the earnings,” Silver-masked Man said while shaking his head.

“This must be the reason for the destruction of the World of Deadly Souls. Death had once placed an agent in the Lower Realm, for he wanted to absorb power from the Lower Realm to extend his life. However, he still couldn’t make ends meet and failed to sustain himself. I heard that he has been removed from his world, and has probably become a lonely restless spirit with a situation worse than ours.” Bronze-masked Man reveled in the unfortunate news.

“If we didn’t resort to such sadistic means, but instead used some vessels that could store magical energy as a channel for transferring vitality, will the efficiency rate become somewhat higher? If it’s vessels, the magical energy can be directly sucked up by the Spirit Lords, and then be fed back to the World of Spirits and Souls by the particular Spirit Lord predominating the world order. This method would be way better than such extensive harvestation, and its transformation rate could at least reach ninety percent.” Gold-masked Man was more steady and composed in giving his suggestions.

Silver-masked Man heard this and nodded in agreement at first, but after thinking about it further, he shook his head and said, “This won’t work. I know the Spirit Lords very well. They’re not the type to personally carry out such things unless they encounter a desperate situation. However, right now, the World of Spirits and Souls can still survive for another thousand years, and they’ve even left themselves some room for maneuvering, so they definitely won’t put themselves through this kind of hard work.”

“If it were up to me, we might as well just end the Spirit Lords. By killing a Spirit Lord, not only can we make up for the loss of the World of Spirits and Souls, even the expense of Yin Energy can be reduced. Then, the entire World of Spirits and Souls can continue to live for another ten thousand years. With that, we’ll have enough time to research a way to help this world recover from this hopeless situation!” Bronze-masked Man suddenly became irritable.

“Sss…” Silver-masked Man was shocked by those words. He looked around before he said fearfully, “Brother Bronze, you shouldn’t say things like this. Since we’ve taken benefits from the Spirit Lords, we should help them solve their problems. Which employer would agree with your idea of killing the employer as a problem-solving means?”

“Aren’t there five of them Spirit Lords? Kill one of them, and there will still be four,” Bronze-masked Man said without yielding at all.

“Uh, this can’t be decided by us. It can only be sorted out amongst themselves. We only have to stall it out by saying that we need more time for research,” Gold-masked Man said as he shook his head.

“I got it. What Big Brother Gold said just now makes some sense, so let’s do this instead. Since they’re unwilling to do any hard work, we can design an artifact for them. As long as they contribute some part of the world order, we can cast a Heaven Mending Cauldron, perfuse it with magical energy, and then feed it back to the world. By referring to automated assembly lines in the Lower Realm, we can also create a similar system for the World of Spirits and Souls, so that we can get the best of both worlds. The Spirit Lords can not do any hard work, but we’ll still be able to enhance the vitality absorption rate,” Bronzed-masked Man said with sudden inspiration.

Gold-masked Man thought it over and nodded at once.

Although this Bronze-masked Man was ill-tempered, he had a lot of inspiration. This was also mainly why he and Silver-masked Man could tolerate this person.

For this entire heaven mending project, he was the leader. Silver-masked Man, on the other hand, was in charge of coordinating with the Spirit Lords while Bronze-masked Man was the main force in tackling various problems.