Chapter 184: Never Forget The Bottom, When You Get To The Top
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Sir System carried the four-headed snake monster back home with satisfaction.
It felt that since the black cat was weaker than the sky eagle, it was a waste letting it escape. It meant nothing now, however.
The Land of Heritage still had monsters waiting for him to harvest, so it was alright to miss one monster in the outside world…
The sky eagle said that he had obtained the seed of divine power and needed to find a place to cultivate in isolation, slowly figuring out how it should continue training the path of godhood. With that, they parted ways…
Sky eagle looked at him leaving with great speed and inevitably felt jealous. It was the best among all eagles, but its top speed was only 400km/h. It was fast enough to travel to the Land of Heritage, but in the outside world, it couldn’t even catch a human plane.
Sir System, however, still complained that its speed was still too slow. Sir System was like a human, with no limit to its greed…
…
Fang Ning arrived at his farm villa and relaxed. He had been traveling everywhere with the System lately, and never had the chance to sit back and take in the breeze.
Without saying anything, he jumped onto his bed. He left Sir System to its own device and immediately went into the System Space, running into the internet cafe, and starting his game.
“System, help me make 100 vitality pills. Keep the bill in the record.”
System replied, “Get me some cheap herbs first.”
Fang Ning said, “Well, the harvest ceremony just finished. President Zhao should have more than enough stock. I’ll ask Zheng Dao to get someone to bring them over.”
Vigilante A and his real identity held one-third of the company’s shares combined, and was the majority shareholder, so he had the right to do so. As for how the bills will be cleared, he was too lazy to think about that. Butler Zheng would handle it with President Zhao; it would either be cut from the year-end bonus, or paid with cash. Anyway, he was not short of funds to begin with…
He calculated in secrecy. Sir System was full of cash, with more than $2,000,000,000 in the bank account under the Venerable Dragon God. This identity was approved by the Truth Department. It was a model citizen, and a VIP customer of the bank, but unfortunately, the System never allowed him to have a look at its bank accounts…
The System had no idea how to invest that money. The only thing it did was ask the bank to provide the most basic fixed deposit service. If he were to recommend himself to it about helping with money management, he would get looked down by the System…
The only bank account he could access was the Venerable White Dragon account, which only had $10,000,000 inside it.
However, the account opened with his “Fang Ning” identity was filled with money, with fixed interest paid towards this account every month. However, even that account also belonged to Sir System. It was normally used to buy important ingredients and move them to the System Space. This one would not affect his chivalrous virtue…
Fang Ning had three identities currently approved by the society. If he had more, he would be confused as to what money belonged to which identity…
Fang Ning corked his jealousy towards the rich and immediately started plotting how he would become just like them.
He logged into his QQ and talked with Zheng Dao. Fang Ning told him about his request, which Zheng Dao immediately worked out. He replied quickly and said that the items would arrive in two hours.
During his free time, Fang Ning calmed his heart and decided to go and look at the changes the System Space went through while he wasn’t around. If nothing cropped up, then this would be his permanent home…
However, as he thought about this he felt slightly put off. “Anyway, in what world would someone’s house be only big enough to hold a soul?
“Other than Heaven and Hell of course. These two places, according to legend, can only be entered after death…”
From that, for the System Space to be called the Draconic Penitentiary, or Hell, was quite apt.
After talking with Zheng Dao, Fang Ning exited the internet cafe and walked on the cobblestone pathway.
The door of the internet cafe was facing that wooden prison door. The more he looked at it, however, the weirder he felt… At least it was much easier to go and find Anderson and the others. They might even hear him from the other side if he yelled.
He walked towards the east, following the road. On the east side of the cafe was the System Preservation Area, occupied by a limestone warehouse.
Inside the warehouse were boxes labeled with various descriptions like “herbs”, “raw medicines”, “pills”, “food ingredients”, “cooked food”, “building materials”, “creation materials”, and many other labels.
This area was 70 meters long, 20 meters wide, and 15 meters tall, touching the edge of the top. The area was 1400m2 in size and 21000m3 in volume.
The whole preservation area was the second largest building in the System Space, just behind the Draconic Penitentiary, which occupied three-quarters of the available area.
Though, Fang Ning had a feeling that the current area would not be sufficient that as the need for the ingredients increases in the future. Sir System would need to spend more Experience Points to further expand it.
He thought about it, and realized that the storage area could be used for more purposes. The System had the potential to become a logistics tycoon in the future, but it was obvious it would have zero interest in it…
No matter how much money it earned, though, it would still be pointless if it were easily destroyed by someone else. In the current era that focused on vitality, power-level was the most important aspect to remain competitive…
Especially for someone like Sir System, whose main aim was to be a hero, all its skills and the main purpose of all training was to push its power-level to a higher limit.
After he finished looking at the storage area, Fang Ning turned around and walked towards the west. New buildings had been erected on the west side, but the space was still largely empty.
There was the basic lounge with green walls. Fang Ning only slept in it a couple of times. It was attached to the West side of the internet cafe. Sir System did mention that this building needed to be upgraded to be able to change its color.
To the west of the lounge was a blacksmith’s forge with a blazing fire within. A “Ding dang” sound was echoing from the shop, but strangely, no one was inside.
Fang Ning wasn’t afraid of it. He knew that this was one of the programs Sir System established to create equipment, but he had no idea what it was creating. Legendary armor, or legendary interspatial equipment?
“Why must he move the forge next to my lounge though. Is it trying to stop me from taking a nap? Guess I’ll sleep on the internet cafe floor then…”
He was speechless when he saw it, and continued west to a wood processing factory. There wasn’t anything going on in the factory. The mechanical puppet was created here. A lot of the building materials were sent here to be further processed, for example, the little wooden door on the prison wall.
Next to it was the alchemy lab. It was very quiet because Sir System had yet to start making pills. It would never waste any high-quality ingredients on improving its familiarity before those cheaper herbs arrive. It was more beneficial for consuming Experience Points than using those expensive ingredients.
After the lab was the library, filled with musical instruments, board games, books, as well as drawing equipment.
Fang Ning had no interest in using this building. He learned a bit about Go before and knew his ‘Tianyuan’ from his ‘Dianmu’ 1 He also understood the deep knowledge that came with the game. He wondered what tactic would Sir System come up with if it upgraded its skill to master-level.
However, for Sir System, it would never try to learn useless techniques.
There weren’t any buildings after that, and Fang Ning returned to the internet cafe. He read his novel while waiting for Zheng Dao.
System suddenly started talking, “What do you think after walking around?”
Fang Ning felt something was off. “It was very tidy. Very nice.”
The System replied, “Don’t you think many of the buildings are empty? Those buildings cannot be used by other souls, but we are one entity, so if I can use them, you can too. I can teach you some survival skills like smithing and forging, making pills, working with wood…”
Fang Ning had no interest in what he heard. He thought. “Don’t give me that bullshit…’ (TN: The original Chinese text is a string of slang phrases that express dissatisfaction. Literally, it goes like so: As soon as Fang Ning had heard that, his head went large [having trouble comprehending what was heard], thinking ‘I’ll beat your head [I’ll beat you up] and transmute your balls [I’ll transmute your ass]. )
He immediately rejected the offer, “No thanks, I still have three techniques that I’ve yet to master, do you think I’d still have the time to learn your life skills? Sir, why don’t you hurry up and upgrade yourself so that you can create more programs.”
System replied, “Oh, about that, I still have less than 60,000,000 Experience Points. I am now level 20, and it will take more than few million Experience Points for every level, so I won’t get much better. Plus, I need to make that flying sword, so how about we leave this for later…”
Fang Ning said, “If you don’t want to level up then that’s your choice. Then how about making more mechanical puppets. They can learn to cook, can’t they?”
System replied, “This is wasting my Experience Points. And upgrading them with life techniques won’t help me to learn a new martial skill or improve my power-level, so this is pointless. But when you learn it, you can be like me and try to comprehend different types of martial techniques and improve our strength…”
Fang Ning thought about something and immediately changed the topic to avoid it giving him more conversation fodder. “Talking about martial skills, why did you say I’m just a rice-level like a normal human? I can activate my spiritual power to open doors and bring myself some drinks, normal humans could ever do that.”
The System said, “Oh. When I measure your ability, I exclude your physical body. Inclusive of your body, you could be a bucket-level powerhouse, with pond-level defense, the one using your body isn’t you, it’s me. You can never manage yourself during battles, so I can’t include your body when I’m evaluating you.”
Fang Ning was speechless, “Fine, Sir, you’re correct. My spiritual power is just enough to prank normal people, but I actually can’t even defeat a mug-level opponent.”
The System replied, “You still have some self-awareness I see? Go out and have a look, your herbs are here…”
Time wasn’t standing still while they were talking; two trucks had pulled into the farm, and a group of workers with yellow uniforms jumped down from the trucks and unloaded the vitality herbs.
Although these herbs had much lower vitality content compared to those sold by the Truth Department, their value for each piece was much higher.
For the same vitality herb, those harvested from the secret valley by the Qi Sheng New Herbs Plantation LTD had one-tenth of the vitality concentration compared to the Truth Department’s, but the price was a hundred times cheaper.
This was the selling point that allowed their domination of the market. The most profitable items weren’t the best of the best, but they were priced competitively. This was how the market functioned.
Sir System saw it and complained about the other organization.”Our own company is still better. They can deliver immediately upon order. Looks like we should support them more and save the time we waste buying stuff from the market. I will make your pills now.”
“Pa. Pa.” noises started to appear from the once quiet alchemy lab. Green smoke started to rise. It was clear that Sir System had just executed a program to make pills for Fang Ning.
After ten minutes, Fang Ning received one hundred Low-Quality Beginner-Level Pills, which could be used by souls to increase their longevity, as well as slowly improve one’s power.
This was similar to how a ghost could survive by taking in Ying energy in areas with high concentration. Ying energy was one type of vitality in this new era, one that was cold in nature.
The pills that were produced by Sir System had a balanced nature and vitality. They could be used by both ghosts and trainers.
Fang Ning found Anderson and passed that hundred pills to them.
He said, “Andy, you should know about the game Battle of the Beasts released by the Truth Department. The game has a controller option using spiritual sense, and they’ll soon release the Battle of the Spiritual-Controlled Mechs mode. You try and pick a few honest ones that can join me to play that game. If they do well, they will regularly get some pills. But if they suck, they will need to suffer a beating…”
Anderson heard it and got excited. “Since it’s a spiritual mode and controlled by spiritual sense, other than you Venerable one I have never met another worthy challenge. I am ready to prove my ability.”
Fang Ning listened to him and felt pressurized. “Is my Dragon Ascending the Heavens account going to lose its fame?” He thought.
However, the more he thought about it, and realized that the better Anderson’s in-game performance was, the more money he would earn, so he turned and praised him instead. “Yes, do your best for me.”
…
A few days later, the bank account under the Venerable White Dragon started to have a few small transactions coming in, and on his handphone was filled with bank notifications.
This was the money earned through selling equipment to normal players, which Anderson and their followers got from fighting the in-game boss. However, this was just an ordinary marketing technique used in the game, so the money that came in wasn’t a large amount by any means.
These couple of days, they had changed their identities through Zheng Dao and their connections with Truth Department, and registered new IDs for the game. When they entered the forum for Battle of the Beasts, they noticed that this was the place where all the trainers earned their money.
Some were hired to teach Basic Cultivation of Spirits at $150,000 per person. China had a population of roughly 150,000,00, so it would take twenty to thirty years to fully exhaust this method. It was still a budding industry.
Some were also hired to guard their training grounds, with a basic monthly salary of $50,000.
There were also many other ways to earn money. In conclusion, they were methods of earning money without ever leaving their houses.
…
However, the best way of getting money was still related to spiritual-controlled mechs.
Two months later the game will release the Battle of the Spiritual-Controlled Mechs. This will be the most anticipated part of the game.
As the current gaming industry could earn so much money in so little time with things live streaming and such, he could easily see the potential of using this mode as a money-making tool.
It would be different from the Dark Tournament. With the support of the strongest member of the GASATO, this game would have the green light to be released to the public.
The main challengers in that game would be mechs with metal bodies, so the battles would still be exciting, sans any gory scenes. It would easily avoid any age or regional restrictions to the money all over the world.
This was no longer a held secret within big families and co-organizers of the Truth Department.
Though, the Truth Department never really kept any secrets for this game. They had purposely leaked pieces of news to promote in secret. The masses would be abuzz with excitement and get even more curious when things remained partly secretive.
That was why some people had already started finding potential candidates on the forum to form their own gaming team before the release of the game, starting their training as well as strategizing. The people with strong spiritual-sense were highly sought after.
It was clear that whoever was captured by Sir System and locked into the Draconic Penitentiary were all strong spiritual-sense users, or had high potential.
Anderson’s in-game character was performing so well that in just a few days, they signed a contract with Tianyuan Gaming team, with an initial salary of $500,000. The salary was to be decided again after their performance in the first match as well as the income of the gaming team.
The pond-level Maram and a suspected lake-level four-headed snake monster, on the other hand, were still locked up in solitary confinement.
When they all surrendered willingly, he could form a league team as well with a few training sessions. The money they could earn would be more than Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Manchester United by a distance…
Fang Ning saw it and yelled, “Haha, I am going to earn so much money… Little System, you never would have guessed it, right? Those games that you despised can roll in money for me and will be a hundred times more than what you are earning now. Plus, I can just relax and lie down when the money rolls in without any danger…”
The System said, “Host, have you forgotten that when I lent you some money previously, I said I was impressed with those games you were playing and would no longer tease you. I remember there’s a saying among the humans. Never forget the bottom when you get to the top…”
Fang Ning laughed. It was hard to overpower this idiotic System.
“All you need to do is train properly and improve your skills. I will support you with lots of money. I know what’s important and what’s not.”
