Seized by the System

Shi Da was working hard on the yard outside the wood cabin and was ready to plant some flowers.

He was planning to beautify the place into a real residential area from a place initially meant as a guard post. He was following the orders from the Venerable White Dragon and taking care of Tom the black tiger.

Unfortunately, brother Tom is a male tiger. If not, he would have found a male tiger for him as his partner.

He was also wondering if his old friend, the white tiger, had descended or not.

Without it giving him its vitality, he would have remained like a stone sculpture like how Mr. Tom was previously.

‘Why did the Upper Realm lose all its vitality so suddenly? That caused the Bodhisattva, the saint from the devil clan, River God of the Sky River, plus other divine beings to descend onto this small planet.’

Shi Da questioned while working tirelessly.

Conflicts and misunderstandings usually started by this. It was important to have trust and communication between each other…

…

Right outside the Divine Gate in the sky above the Pacific Ocean.

Zhi Nan the devil lord opened his eyes and looked at the divine gate with a complicated look.

He finally understood something after seeing Vigilante A’s Godlike ability in making and forging treasures.

So long as the Divine Monument remained in his hand, the devil clan would never gather many resources.

If he was guessing correctly, both the Divine Monument and the frog had been beaten till they submitted to him…

It was time for him to use his plan that was set up earlier.

“Let’s go.”

Black robe and Claudia nodded without question.

Only his student, Saki Yamanashi, one of the future devil generals, asked in confusion, “Master, why aren’t we sending our representatives to continue climbing the stairway?”

“Haha, it’s not our time yet,” Zhi Nan answered with a smile. He suddenly thought of something and added on his words, “Our situation can be described by a poem; we are comparable to a fierce tiger hiding in the shadows, resisting its own killer instinct… ¹

“Oh,” Saki Yamanashi nodded and turned towards the Divine Gate. “then shall we leave that guy alone?”

Nie Yuan was standing in the Divine Gate and and basking in the glory and power…

Zhi Nan looked and shook his head, “I will pick him up when the time is right. We don’t need to waste our time here any longer. All of you should remember one thing. The hard work you put in today will shape you into a better version which cannot be replaced tomorrow…”

“I shall remember your teaching, Buddha,” Black Robe held his hands and replied.

“I shall remember your teaching, devil lord,” Claudia replied respectfully.

“I shall remember your teaching, master,” Saki Yamanashi replied.

Zhi Nan smiled as he handed a bowl of chicken soup to three people at the same time.  ²

‘Hehe, the people in this world are still relatively clever. At least they are much better than the stick I was using the whole time.’

Everyone was looking at the devil clan as they started leaving.

“Haha, they only have so few members and can no longer create any miracle for themselves.”

“That’s right. The saint of the devil clan? Isn’t he the same like the rest of us here?”

“Such a waste to put them at the fourth place in the ranking. Looks like us the Phantom Clan can improve our ranking once again.”

“I remember the third-ranked clan is still hidden away from us and have yet to show themselves here. Who are they and why is the Divine Monument trying to keep their identity a secret?”

“We will know in the future. Right now, we need to think about how to continue our climb. These three days are going by rather slowly. When is the Venerable Dragon God going to start his seminar?”

Everyone was already anticipating the Devil Clan’s withdrawal from the competition and thus, there were not many reactions towards it.

The Devil Clan was a strong race in the Upper Realm. They were involved in everything back then.

Their slogan was that every living thing can become a devil.

All the other clans were targeting them since that was their slogan…

Many members from the other clans were pulled over by their slogan and became devils themselves.

No one could predict that in the lower realm, the devil clan would be so weak and outnumbered by other clans even though they had planned for their descendants much earlier.

They thought that the devil clan was keeping their trump card away, but after a few days, their army had yet to arrive. Plus, there was no reason for them to keep it away from the public for so long, as it would only lead to them being left far behind by the other clans.

It was obvious that those were the only members they could gather in this realm.

They might have even faced some difficulty finding the place without the devil saint.

It was natural for the others to express their hatred towards them.

…

Across the ocean inside a 20,000 square meter villa, three hundred maids were busy attending to their master and the visitors.

Luxury cars were parked in the yard and the summer sunlight was reflecting off their bodies, demonstrating the wealth and spending power of the owner.

Maggie, the President of the Global Power Balance Association, was busy greeting Zhi Nan and his group of followers.

“That’s it, you can leave now. Black Robe will look for you if we need anything,” Zhi Nan said like he was the master there.

“Yes, yes. Make yourself home, devil lord,” Maggie left.

“This Global Power Balance Association is doing rather fine even though Vigilante A is present in the world. Tom must be pretty resourceful,” Zhi Nan commented.

Claudia followed up and said, “I can get this for you if you like this, devil lord.”

“No need to. These little things don’t interest me. Make sure your heliotrope underlings continue to guard those factories I bought. I don’t want anything to happen to them,” Zhi Nan replied.

“Yes, I will remember that.”

“Alright, you all can leave as well. I will call you back when needed,” Zhi Nan waved his hand and everyone left the main hall.

Zhi Nan was the only one left in the main hall.

He lied on the sofa and closed his eyes.

He was doing different things from the other guy who was sleeping on a sofa somewhere else. A moment later, a black gas flew out from his head towards the sky.

A long time had passed before he shivered and turned weak.

Zhi Nan opened his eyes later and looked rather crippled before he shook his head.

“This human eye is still usable. There’s no sign of life in the hundreds of planets nearby. Either I need to look even further or think of something else.”

He activated his ability and started regenerating his power.

He gathered all the vitality surrounding the villa and turned it into Devilish Energy using his devil powers.

He realized that the conversion rate was rather inefficient. He thought to himself, ‘it would be great if Lei Tian hadn’t lost the Infernal Realm so recklessly.

‘Looks like I need to talk to Old Man Mo again.’

…

Gu Buwei was reading a novel near a crater while having a sauna under the hot sun. He suddenly placed the book down and looked up to the sky.

‘The air is once again filled with Devilish Energy. Is Zhi Nan still holding onto his dream of reviving his clan?

‘The earth is the entrance to both realms and the birthplace of vitality.

‘It is impossible that other planets have such vitality, and that is stopping the reproduction of the Devil Clan. What is he trying to do then?’

He was confused and looking at the cloud would not help him solve the problem. His Divining by the Clouds Technique was also useless when performed on someone like him.

…

The devil clan had withdrawn from the competition while the human had progressed nine levels. However, the demon clan had progressed zero steps, and they were starting to feel impatient.

That was an important competition to determine the distribution of vitality in the time to come.

The demon clan had many species as well, just like the devil clan.

The devil clan had their slogan in the Upper Realm, while the demon clan had a similar sounding slogan. Theirs was every living thing can cultivate themselves into a demon.

The humans also put up a slogan to combat the others, and it was every living thing can reform themselves into a human.

These three bowls of chicken soup helped gathered talents for the three clans.

The demon clans from earth also started gathering their forces. Even though they were made up of different species, only the China’s Greater Rat Clan and the Western Devil Rat Demon Clan were considered great clans that presented themselves at the gathering.

The Western Devil Rats were like a fence-sitter between the demons and devils. Since the devil clans were weaker at that moment, they chose to side with the demons and registered as the Devil Rat Demons.

The Devil Rat Demons lived deep inside forests and grass fields and were disconnected from the outside world.

That was the reason why Vigilante A had never interacted with them prior to that.

Basically, China’s Greater Rat Clan was evolved from home rats and lived on leftovers from the humans, while the Western Devil Rats came from wild rats and acclimatized to surviving in the wild.

Other than the two families, the rest of the species were low in number, but it was not their fault.

Most of them had been on the verge of extinction before that…

Since the number of wild animals was already low, there would be an even lower number of them that successfully demonized.

There was another group of demons that had a large population on earth with a long history. Only a few of them were placed in the list of highly protected species.

However, they chose to be absent, and no one knew why.

Elder Ancestor Bai was elected as the temporary leader of the demon clans on earth. Unfortunately, it failed its attempt just now and was at a new low in terms of its reputation. Most of the rat demons still supported it thanks to its own ability.

“Elder ancestor, what do you think now?” A black-faced and strongly-built man said.

He was the leader for the Western Devil Rats, a volcanic rat nicknamed the Infernal Flame. It was famous for always being in the sauna and bathing in lava. Since others failed to compete with it in that way, they named it their leader.

Its leadership was just a name as well. Since the wild rats were distributed all over the world, it had some problem asserting its power all over its clan.

It could only use its power to gather everyone if something major happened. That was why it was rather jealous as the Greater Rat Clan were living like a nation compared to its clan.

“Haha, brother Lie Huo, what do you think we should do now?” Elder Ancestor Bai was an experienced man that had faced its fair share of difficulties.

Why would it feel ashamed just because it failed to nominate someone for the competition?

Lie Huo heard him and replied, “Since you asked, shall I nominate someone as well?”

“Who?”

“Myself,” Lie Huo answered with confidence.

“Haha, since you nominated yourself, I would never say no. I shall wish you good luck then.”

“Hmph, however, I have a request,” Lie Huo replied with a wicked smile.

“I want to go for the seminar organized by Vigilante A. Unfortunately, our clan doesn’t have the budget for me to do that. I hope that your clan can sponsor me to attend that seminar with your wealth.”

Elder Ancestor Bai replied calmly, “There’s no way we are sponsoring you. However, we can talk about a loan.

“I am not trying to be conservative here, but people tend to get lazy if they obtain something they want too easily. I believe that through a loan, I can push you to greater heights and greatly improve yourself,” Elder Ancestor Bai served its chicken soup to it.

“Er…” Lie Huo was speechless. It knew it had no chance when it came to arguing against its opponent.

“Alright, a loan will do. Three days later, I will need you to pay for me after I auction for a spot,” Lie Huo said unwillingly.

Everyone heard about trapping a wolf with bare hands, but no one had known that they could do the same to a rat. It knew it needed to provide great benefits before it could earn its returns. ³

“Nice one. Of course, I must give my support for the greater good of the demon clan,” Elder Ancestor Bai replied with a smile.