Seized by the System

A Buddhist Mantra echoed in the living room.

Fang Ning’s Buddha-like posture was one of complete solemnity; his entire body shone with golden light, and when paired together with the sounds of the cicadas, it was truly suitable for brainwashing… No, for guiding people down a virtuous path.

The Black Dog was bathed in the golden light and the cicada sounds, and an inexplicable black gas writhed all across its body as if unwilling to part.

The Black Dog squeezed its eyes shut, as if experiencing extreme pain. The expression on its face was lifeless, its entire body twisting and contorting.

The Yellow Dog, Xue Ba, slowly stepped back; it felt that there was truly something wrong with the Black Dog, and was worried that the worst was about to happen.

After chanting for over an hour, Fang Ning suddenly raised his voice.

“You evil beings, retreat from this body now and stop delaying the inevitable!”

The Black Dog’s body twitched once upon hearing those words. With a loud “bang!”, the black gas dispersed into the air like mist, before disappearing completely.

Immediately after, the Black Dog’s entire body spasmed a few times before rays of golden light emitted from its body. It had finally achieved harmony in its life!

It opened its eyes suddenly and said, “Master, I’ve been wrong. I should’ve never been so infatuated with a pipe dream, and I should’ve known my place. I tried to take over Yellow Boss’ position, and I even thought that I might be smarter than it…”

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Wanting to compete against someone else is a good thing, but you must remember that there is one thing more important than competition, and that is love,” Fang Ning said in a merciful tone.

“Love… I understand now.” The Black Dog’s eyes glimmered inexplicably before it looked at the Yellow Dog, who was hiding behind their master, and showed the latter a pleasing look.

“Hiss…” Noticing the situation, Xue Ba’s tail immediately dropped between its legs, ‘Dude better not have turned gay because of Master’s Buddhist chants…’

Fortunately, the Black Dog’s gaze immediately dropped and it stretched one of its limbs and said bashfully, “Master, I feel I’m seeing clearer now, and there isn’t a voice interrupting my thoughts anymore. I want to surf the Internet, can I, Master?”

“Go ahead, go ahead. A proper balance between work and play should always be maintained,” agreed Fang Ning.

“That’s right, this is the Brett I know. That Brett from before that only searched for treasures every day without rest was obviously fishy. It was acting just like those people that infiltrated internal China… Wait, that isn’t the right metaphor,” said the Yellow Dog thoughtfully.

The Black Dog ignored their statements and immediately dashed into its own room to surf the Internet.

The Yellow Dog relaxed significantly, ‘Yes, yes, it’s finally back to normal. Now I don’t have to worry about that fellow coming after my position anymore. Now that I think about it, what he said just now about me has made me quite guilty, I should probably work harder…’

Then, it told Fang Ning embarrassedly, “Master, this whole incident was my fault too. All this while, I haven’t properly helped my associate in its growth. From now on, I think that I need to try my very best into helping Brett completely master the Atmospheric Morality Technique. That way, it won’t be possessed by any evil devils anymore. My mastery of Morality is so much better than it, so I’ve never been disturbed by devils. This ultimate ability that Master has gifted us shouldn’t be wasted.”

Fang Ning was touched upon hearing the Yellow Dog’s words. However, he could not help worriedly saying, “The Black Dog’s nature isn’t suited for practicing the Atmospheric Morality Technique so it might not improve a lot. Are you prepared for that?”

Xue Ba immediately stood at attention and seriously said, “It might not have been possible in the past, but if it evolves into possessing a mythical metal body, I believe any evil thoughts will disperse gradually. It’ll be just like Sun Wukong ¹ when he was Monkey King, who had a harem of female monkeys at his beck and call but right after he was trained into a bold and courageous monkey, he no longer caused trouble along the journey to the West and no longer paid attention to female monkeys either.”

” As expected of a genius, I may have named you wrongly, but it still fits. ²You’re an avid reader, so you’re extremely knowledgeable, which makes me happy to see. Very well, you’re in charge of this difficult task now.” Upon hearing Xue Ba’s words, Fang Ning immediately felt relieved.

Fortunately, the System cultivated the Dragonization Ability, which did not require anyone turning into a metal person, otherwise Fang Ning would have his hands full.

“Thank you Master, I’ll definitely have Brett accomplish more with its Atmospheric Morality Technique. I’ll have it learn how to rid itself of sinful desires so that it won’t have to worry about devils anymore,” said the Yellow Dog sternly.

“Go now. Oh right, this bottle over here…” Fang Ning was just about to retrieve a bottle of Dragon Clan Honey-flavored Pills, but hesitated at the last moment as if he had finally remembered something, and immediately retrieved a bottle regular Vitality Pills instead before continuing, “This bottle of Mind Easing Pills is yours. Let Brett eat them, it should aid its cultivation quite a bit.”

Xue Ba carefully took over the bottle and thankfully said, “If Brett finds out about this, it’ll definitely start crying out of gratitude again.”

“You have a way with words. Alright, you may leave now, and don’t come knocking on my door unless something’s happened. I’ll be busy cultivating immortality for a few days…”

“Then I bid you good luck for that…” said the Yellow Dog sincerely.

Fang Ning finally left then.

The Yellow Dog turned and dashed towards the Black Dog’s room.

A heartbeat later, a voice sounded from within the Black Dog’s room.

“No, don’t come close.”

“Relax, I’m educated, so I won’t harm you. Eat this Mind Easing Pill first, then I’ll guide you through cultivating the Atmospheric Morality Technique; together with that mythical metal body of yours, you’ll definitely possess awe-inspiring morality. Sooner or later, you’ll become a noble among dogs, a saint among demons… Nowadays, there’s no distinction between demons and humans, so you’ll be a saint among humans too.”

“Oh, is that so? Then do nobles and saints have wives?”

“Of course, and most of them pay their own dowry too.”

“Then I’ll eat the pill.”

“Hmm, that’s good. Now, repeat after me, the atmosphere possesses Morality…”

“The atmosphere possesses Morality…” echoed the Black Dog naively, the disobedience and arrogance from before long gone.

Yellow Dog was relieved at the situation, ‘In this house, I’m still the boss. Sky Eagle, Butler Zheng, Dragon Carp, Xiao Cang can all stand outside; and this Black Dog wanted to come after my position, how ridiculous.

‘After Master cleared its head, it finally understood too.’

…

The true boss, Fang Ning, was currently playing a game in his bedroom.

He had finally found an extremely interesting game that would definitely take up three days of so-called immortality cultivation.

After all, the System was currently busy with upgrading the System Map, so it would not appear to nag at Fang Ning unless absolutely necessary, which meant Fang Ning could finally enjoy some peace and quiet.

Those that have not been nagged at would never understand a happiness like this.

Unrestrained freedom without being bound by anyone; it was no wonder countless heroes turned into devils despite the terrible reputation that devils had…

After all, the nature of all living creatures was to chase after unrestrained freedom. In simpler terms, everybody wanted to do things because they wanted to, and everybody wanted to like whoever they wanted to.

Devils liked using promises like this to lure people in too; like Black Dog just now, it was tricked into thinking that once it toppled Yellow Dog, it would be number one and that once it became number one, it would be able to attract any female dog it wanted, it would be able to like whoever it wanted.

However, this was inherently wrong, of course. The order of the world has always needed to be maintained, and living creatures would always need to be restrained. Otherwise, chaos would definitely ensue.

As Fang Ning played his game, he could not help but let his mind wander.

After “cultivating immortality” for two days, the Wechat icon in the lower right corner of his computer suddenly lit up.

Fang Ning immediately clicked on the software to check his messages.

“Venerable One, I have terrible news. The Alliance of Justice and Order released an emergency notice. The Aboriginals of Australia have decided to consecrate themselves and are asking the local authorities to give them their land back because they want to welcome the Holy Race!”

“Hmm? The Holy Race, what is that?”

“Oh, after we decided to refer to all demons as Post-Evolved Humans, these Aboriginals have decided to regard them as holy beings that are much more noble than humans. They don’t actually know that they’re actually referring to the demons that humans used to look down upon. Here’s the rest of the information.”

Fang Ning reluctantly stopped his game, and shifted his attention to the matter at hand.

He opened up the file and read everything, instantly understanding the situation.

“I see. When Cang Lang said it would have the humans give up Australia, this was what he was talking about. It’s trying to seize another person’s land, this is practically back door listing. How very smart of it, but humans have used this scheme for centuries,” grumbled Fang Ning.

Proxy wars, comprador wars, fostering internal influences, all played roles on a global scale every day, and even ordinary people are familiar with these terms.

Some things might look grand, but if you thought about it, these schemes were not extraordinary as they were all merely schemes in the end.

“You’re right, Venerable One. However, we’re still obstructed by the layer between us, so we can’t interfere directly,” commented Zheng Dao.

“If they want to deal with it, let them. Once Landlord Yun’s done with his meeting, they’ll starting playing comprador again. When that happens, we’ll have to cut the ground under their foot.” Fang Ning was not the System, so he did not have the patience to let something so troublesome stew.

Of course, he was right; this matter was not something that anyone could interfere with easily, and everyone had the freedom of choice. There was nothing wrong with the Aboriginals choosing to demonize themselves to obtain power.

As for their request to the local authorities for their land back, history played a part as well, and Fang Ning did not want to interfere with that at all.

Nobody had a concrete figure on problems like this; ever since the dawn of the 21st century, how many problems have been caused because of history?

Countless matters caused by history could not even be solved by international issues experts or geniuses,

“You can do it. All you have to do is just take out all the evildoers, then global peace will be achieved,” said the System suddenly.

“You scared me again. You’re not done with levelling up right? Everything’s safe now, there’s nothing absolutely necessary for your presence,” insisted Fang Ning.

“Why not? A whole bunch of my experience points are going to fly away, so you’re going to bring me there. You can’t fight, so have that ratty book…no, that precious book of yours replace me in the fight instead. It can temporarily store my experience points, but it still needs to give the experience points to me in the end,” preached the System.

“Haha, I don’t even want to argue with you entirely because you didn’t interrupt me while I was cultivating immortality, so I agree.” Fang Ning was still a humble man in the end. Anyone that has spent their last few days playing always act the same; once they realize they have things yet to be done, they start feeling flustered.

If they did not feel flustered at all, then it would go without saying that that person would be beyond saving, and Fang Ning was not as shameless as that.