Seized by the System

Fang Ning approached the Earthly Monument where the green frog had already shifted back into its frog form. It reminded Fang Ning.

“Brother, just allow your spiritual sense to come out and communicate with it, I’ve already told it that this would happen.”

As expected, no matter where they went, connections were important. Helping others was as imperative as helping oneself.

The System could not understand this and would never make an exception for special situations.

Fang Ning gave it a thought and turned into a tiny white dragon as he zoomed toward the Earthly Monument.

The System tried to stop him. “Hey, Billionaire Host, what are you trying to do? You’re only required to communicate with it with your spiritual sense, but you look like you were gonna sell your body to it…”

“Pfft…” Fang Ning almost puked. “Sell your *ss, haven’t you heard about Divine Unity?”

“Of course I did, but right now ‘it’ is only an Earthly Monument, so the most you can achieve is probably bury yourself in the dirt…”

“Stop spouting nonsense, am I the type who would bury myself alive?” Fang Ning ignored the System’s teases and went straight for the Earthly Monument.

The green frog did not stop him this entire process, so Fang Ning’s confidence in his move was bolstered up even more.

In the next second, Fang Ning had dove into the ocher-colored Earthly Monument, his presence completely disappearing.

“Billionaire, where are you? I can’t sense you at all.” The System sounded concerned.

Fang Ning did not answer.

The Earthly Monument was slowly shifting between light and dark, turning yellow, green, white, black, and a myriad of other colors, it was as if it had decided to set up a dyehouse…

Moments had passed before a low draconic grunt rang inside the System Space.

“My path hath been completed.”

A majestic voice with swathes of regalness came out of the monument.

The System asked flatly, “Billionaire, will you die if you don’t pretend to be such a badass?”

“Um, how did you know it’s me?” asked Fang Ning curiously. “With your intelligence, you shouldn’t have guessed.”

“Nonsense, there’s only one human in here, who else could it be? Even if you were burned to ash, I will still recognize your voice,” said the System bitterly.

“Your intelligence is a problem. If I’m a pile of ash, how would I speak?” snapped Fang Ning. “I’m done wasting time talking with you, I wanna go out.”

“Hm? This is your way of coming and going as you will?” asked the System in fascination.

“That’s right. I’ve already merged with this Earthly Monument successfully. With its protection, my spirit would never be harmed by most, if not all, weapons and spells, so of course I can come and go as I please.” Fang Ning was pretty proud of himself.

“Is that so? I don’t believe you, I have to do an experiment,” announced the System.

“What are you trying to do?” Fang Ning instinctively felt a looming danger.

“Heh, I gave it some thoughts, I think I need to add a layer of protection on it…”

In the next instance, before Fang Ning could escape from the Earthly Monument, it was sent into the smithy…

“Croak…” The green frog’s eyes widened as it waited in front of the smithy, staring in disbelief.

“Brother, you were sent in there too? Even you couldn’t resist…” It said with a surprised expression.

“That’s right. I have no other choice. A certain evil presence had always used its might to bully others no matter how wicked or contemptible the actions were. Even I was no match with it.” Fang Ning sighed helplessly.

“I see, as long as we’re here, we would always be beaten up without reason. That’s a completely evil presence who wanted to twist our wills to its own benefits,” yelled the green frog indignantly.

“Hey, Billionaire, you’re talking bad about me in front of my treasures, have you no shame?” The System was not happy.

“If you’re willing to throw me inside this smithy without consulting me, I’m willing to talk bad about you. You don’t mind the shame anyway,” Fang Ning retorted without missing a beat.

“Not only will I throw you inside, I will also beat you up together with the monument.” Furious, the System blurted out.

System Notification: [The System consumed 100,000,000 experience points to transform the Heavenly Axiom Treasure, Earthly Monument. Properties added include:]

[System-bound, only the System and the Host can use the Earthly Monument.]

Dazed by all the knocking, Fang Ning could understand why the green frog acquired its bruise-like greenish-purple color…

It was not easy being the frog…

He should really treat it better.

Fortunately, the monument was protecting him from the direct hit of the hammer, so he did not feel any pain resulting from the pounding.

Not long after, Fang Ning exited the smithy, controlling a greenish-purple Earthly Monument.

“Brother, you’ve turned green as well as purple…” said the green frog teary-eyed.

“Uh, your brethren is still unconscious, it’ll take a while to regain consciousness,” clarified Fang Ning as he left the Earthly Monument.

“It was still young and cannot stand torture, unlike me who can stay awake the entire time. Fortunately, it means the pain it endured was less.” Wiping a drop of tear away with its foreleg, the green frog seemed to have fallen into an indescribable trauma.

“Brother Frog, please don’t be too upset about this. I’ll accompany you next door to rest and relax for a bit. It gets better. A wise man once said that if you can’t defend against an invasion, learn to enjoy it.”

Fang Ning comforted the green frog before flexing his finger and pointed. A tiny door that leads to the Draconic Arcane Realm appeared.

“Mm-hmm, thank you for your concern.” The green frog stopped crying and blinked a few times, its eyes focusing on the tiny door in front of it.

Subconsciously, it had started to change its attitude toward Fang Ning. Evidently, it had begun to rely on the soft-spoken Fang Ning in this horrifying place.

“Enter here, and you’ll find yourself in a garden full of green lives. It’s livelier in there, and you may even find yourself plenty of playmates, no one will ever bully you,” exhorted Fang Ning.

“Thank you, Brother. I take my leave.” The green frog’s eyes brightened and promptly forgot about its poor brethren as it leaped into the door.

“Finally got it away. And now, it’s much free time,” mused Fang Ning proudly.

“I wanna see how you’re gonna go out,” said the System doubtfully.

“Hmph, look at my Divine Unity!” Once again, Fang Ning turned into a dragon and slipped inside the Earthly Monument.

Within a split second, a yellow dragon appeared. With its appearance, came an awe-inspiring, saintly aura.

“Sss…” The System drew a breath sharply in shock. “You, you can make the Heavenly Axiom Treasure do that? So it’s true when you said that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink? That green-skinned amphibian had never done that for me.”

“Hah, aren’t you scared? This earth dragon is strong. Let me tell you this, it has another hidden property. Heavenly Axiom Treasures are special in that they won’t have even a dent unless the Heavenly Axiom was destroyed. Now do you know why I dared to go in and out of the System Space so freely with this?” boasted Fang Ning with pride.

“Sss, no wonder they only changed color even though I kept hitting them with the hammer. They didn’t even have a scratch on them! It’s all because of this hidden property.” The System soon got over the initial shock and continued, “What’s so powerful about that? It’s just an ‘invulnerability’ property. Even that stupid book of yours has it, I just have to spend some experience points on it.”

Fang Ning almost slapped his palms on his face. “You unteachable thing! Your ‘invulnerability’ can only target the thing itself. My treasure’s property targets even the user! As long as the Heavenly Axiom was not destroyed, the treasure will not be destroyed, and the user, in turn, will be rendered indestructible and immortal.”

“Sss…” The real shock had finally hit the System. “I see, I’ve always seen human novels talking about some destiny-altering treasures. This monument counts as one, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right. The Divine Monument, the Earthly Monument, and the Mortal Monument are all destiny-altering treasures. When I say destiny-altering, I mean it could guarantee the survival of an entire race. As the saying goes, ‘Even if you’re dirt poor, you still could beg for food. As long as you didn’t die, there will be a day for you to rise again.’ Look at China, we’ve experienced several cycles of rising, falling and rising again. That’s because our race is bountiful and hard to eradicate, and that ensured the longlasting destiny of our kind. Many other races could not. They would achieve their golden age and then fall to their demise after, disappearing in the river of destiny. That’s an unsustainable prosperity,” explained Fang Ning.

“I see. Looks like I should really treat that green skin better and shouldn’t keep beating it up,” said the System guiltily.

“Hm? You’re still beating it up? How did I not know about this?” Fang Ning asked in bewilderment.

“Oh, I just wanted to reverse engineer the Heavenly Axiom Treasure and see how it was created, so I would occasionally take it out of the Preservation Area to give it a few hits. You were always playing games or napping, so you wouldn’t know,” proclaimed the System.

“No wonder it was giving you that look just now, it had suffered quite a bit.” Fang Ning realized.