Seized by the System

Soon after Madam Zhao’s departure, a group of short, strange things wiggled out from a dark patch of farm soil.

“Has the snake left?”

“Most probably.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Screw your thank goodness! I told you to not simply eat those low-level workers. Before this, we ate a few supervisors in the farm in the span of months, which we would then disguise as themselves and resign after. No one came to investigate! Once you started eating these workers, the suspicion came almost immediately. Pretending to resign doesn’t even work here; someone’s going to come and check once no one is working here.”

“We nearly finished the supervisors, though. Couldn’t we eat anyone anymore in the future?”

“How are we going to grow fast by not eating humans? We have to continue, but we need to leave this place. There was something as terrifying as a snake demon right here! It doesn’t seem to be suitable for us to stay here anymore.”

As these weird, short things kept with their discussion, on the topic, it was vaguely hilarious but terrifying in actuality. A white python rose from behind them, its head arched. A pair of red, glowing eyes stared coldly at them.

“Found you…”

///

In the System Space.

At this point, Sir System felt like the sun might rise from the West tomorrow morning.

In a control situation where nothing major was happening, the System would typically find the Host plopped down in the System Cyber Cafe, either reading novels, playing games, or both. The only other thing he would do was watching some ‘action movies’ ¹ with a filthy smile plastered on his face…

It was worth noting that the Host had just gotten the entire draft for one of the on-hiatus novels after they had finished farming one monster tonight. Instead of reading it, the System found the host forlornly squinting at the thread-bound scripture for the Dragonization Ability. He stared intensely at the pages given by Madam Zhao, and would occasionally look up certain words through the online dictionary.

It remembered vividly that the Host did mention before that he intended to learn the Dragonization Ability. Apparently, he no longer had the honor to remain human, and he would much rather become a dragon. It lasted for a grand total of 3 minutes, though, as Fang Ning promptly gave up after he realized that the scripture was too difficult to understand. The book was quickly tossed aside and he picked up the much easier novel and dived in.

Tonight, however, Fang Ning seemed prepared to burn the midnight oil to get something out of it. Two hours passed in a blink of an eye, and it was soon 3 a.m. Usually, Fang Ning would’ve been asleep at this point, but now he was mumbling to himself, bent over the book. “Train the heart before you train the body, as once the heart is of justice, your mind would be sincere, and then your… wait, how do I pronounce this? ² Let me look it up.”

Does this mean that the Host was shocked by the godly aura of a real dragon? Is the Host ready to turn over a new leaf, and step onto the road of diligence?

Alas, Sir System over-analyzed the situation. The only reason that Fang Ning left the novel draft and focused on cramming the Dragonization Ability was – catch this – he wanted to look cool.

After the appearance of a certain fire dragon with its own BGM, one shut-in has found himself a dream come true.

He could not reveal his identity, and he only had one body. The System will never give up the time it had to control his body. However, thanks to Fang Ning’s wild imaginations, he thought of transforming his spiritual sense into the primordial soul of an actual dragon. Then, no one would be able to identify him, and he could finally join in the fun when Vigilante A was farming criminals. He could show off his skills then! Although people might think that he was just another pet, at least he would be noticed…

After it repeatedly checked that this was not just a flash in the pan, the System spoke up. “The Dragonization Ability that you’re trying to learn is not the complete version. It only has the basics of the ability, and some of that is missing too. When I chose to master it, I’ve sacrificed a substantial amount of EXP to fill in the gaps. You would never be able to learn anything from the scripture you hold in your hand if you don’t have a mentor…”

Fang Ning felt 3 imaginative crows flew past his head. ³

“So that’s why I feel that I’m turning in circles despite how developed my mind was recently. I thought it was supposed to be this difficult! Why didn’t you inform me earlier?”

The System replied, “Oh, I wanted to tell you when you first picked up the book, but you casted it aside for novels when I was just about to tell you. Thus, I concluded that there’s no point in telling you as you’re all talk. If I actually started to explain, it would take quite a while, and that would most definitely disrupt my training time.”

Fang Ning was dumbfounded. ‘Alright, so that’s my fault too? You sir was unwilling to waste even a minute, but you’re fine if I wasted two hours running in circles. Great.’

Fang Ning said, “If that’s the case, quickly give me the complete version in Simplified Chinese! This ancient language is so f*cking confusing.”

The System was indeed efficient. It immediately presented a Word document in the System Cyber Cafe, and it was the complete Dragonization Ability. It had a word count of more than ten thousand, and it consisted the 3 main parts of the Ability, which were the Cultivation of the Heart, Spirit, and Body. The three steps were outlined clearly with footnotes, explanations, and illustrations included!

Fang Ning scrolled from start to finish, and read it as if it was just another novel. According to his experience, he would probably need a day to finish that. Maybe he’ll need to burn some midnight oil as well…

After the System has finished sending the document, it slid smoothly into its good ol’ complaining mode, “That cheap sifu of yours seems to be satisfied by my cooking, but why did she only give you the beginner-level stuff? I wasted so much EXP to patch it all up! It would not even be half as good as it was before if I didn’t do it, and you can forget about transforming into a dragon and rejoice if you could even become a snake! It wouldn’t even help in strengthening the power of the dragon-type skills.”

Fortunately, Fang Ning was not Sir System the Naive, and it only took him a moment before he understood the entire issue. No wonder the Snake Demon was so generous with her gifts! He now understood the reason behind the 4 out of 6 ruthless System Options that showed up before. So that’s why murder was involved, huh?

He felt that he could finally save his reputation here. “Heh, you’ll need to listen while I explain everything to you here. I can immediately understand this just like how you could instantly learn martial arts. It’s absolutely normal for her to only give us parts of the beginner-level skills, as I’m neither her son nor have I become her son-in-law. She’s no Comrade Lei Feng ⁴ , why would she give us everything in the precious scripture when all we did was just cook her a meal using her own ingredients? There’s no such thing as free lunch in this world.”

“I’m thinking that she’ll come seek for our assistance in the future. That was why she was willing to share some of this precious martial art scripture with us. As long as she doesn’t achieve her real objective, she would never reveal the complete version to us. But the catch is, she never would have imagined that you existed, oh Sir System, and you even had the ability to exchange EXP for the completion of the skill. Of course, there was always a possibility that we’ve misunderstood her, and she really only had this much of the scripture. After all, the Dragonization Ability seemed to be too strong of a skill to be able to be looted off a starter-level Snake Demon.”

The System stared, dumbfounded. “Oh, oh! How did you develop your brain, dear Host? How did you inference all that from our experiences? It’s true, then; I would never be able to catch up on these issues like you are, Host….”

Fang Ning replied, “It’s good that you understand this. Specialization is incredibly useful in life, so be quick and explain to me the complete version of the Dragonization Ability…”

The System spoke, “Okay. Presently, it’s almost too easy for you to pick up the ability, as the last and most difficult step – the Cultivation of the Body – is already complete since I’ve been training your physique after I took over your body. Your spiritual sense was also nurtured alongside your body and is now stronger than the average human, so as long as you learn the first two steps, I will give you a live and complete demonstration to give you that boost. You’ll soon pick up the first few basics.”

Sir System started its lecture after that. Although it wasn’t really equipped in the intelligence department, no one was its match when it came to cultivating martial art skills. After all, it was born as a martial art system, and aside from the setting it was born in, it had developed its perception as well…

There was indeed a massive difference between the presence and absence of a mentor, it was no longer a scenario where the key was found by stumbling around in the dark. It only took Fang Ning half an hour to transform his spiritual sense into a tiny snake that could freely roam the skies in the System Space. It had such a clear contrast with him walking around in human form…

Fang Ning felt as if he could leave the body and join the outside world whenever he wanted, and that had made him very excited. However, the next few words of the System shot his dreams to smithereens.

“I will not let you out anytime soon. The outside world is too dangerous, and if you were captured, we’ll both die. Maybe you could show up and help in the farming once your primordial soul can transform into a dragon…”

Fang Ning squeaked, “Please don’t, I won’t show up for the normal monsters; it’ll be a waste of my overwhelming awesomeness. Once my primordial soul has become a dragon, you can call me for help when there are any major monsters to farm. We’ll literally scare our opponents to death when they see two dragons going after them…”

“Oh, that could work too,” the System agreed, “Since this is how we’re going about it, you should start learning the Ice Dragon out of all 9 Celestial Dragon types. Coincidentally, I’m focusing on the Fire Dragon part of the scripture, and I will always adopt the Fire Dragon form in battle. When ice and fire come together, our power will surely increase exponentially.”

Fang Ning froze. “Wait, so you transformed my physical body to become a Fire Dragon while my primordial soul turns into an Ice Dragon? Wouldn’t it look like a dance of ice and fire when we show up? ⁵ Just saying, I have no intentions of selfcest! None!”

The System was once again confused. “What are you saying, Host? You didn’t make any sense at all. Come, let me show you how to pick up the ropes in being the Ice Dragon, and with my help, it won’t be long till you master the necessary skills! Time will pass in the blink of an eye…”

The System was very enthusiastic, as always, whenever it came to actual progress and the furthering of his skills, let alone when the present situation was much like tying a swimming person to a motorboat; the benefits in having two instead of one during combat was astounding. The System kept stressing that the training would not take much time, for fear that the Host would chicken out once again.

The more enthusiastic the System was, the more anxious Fang Ning became. However, after some contemplation, he came to the conclusion that the System definitely did not know about sexual practices, and could finally calm himself down. Ice Dragon it is, then; the freezing debuff would help in delaying opponents, and would very much increase the System’s efficiency in farming. The 4-hour marathon chase won’t be happening anytime soon….