Chapter 399 - Indigestion

Fang Ning watched, his face a mix of disbelief and jealousy. ‘If I had an ability like this in school…

‘I can’t eat the official test paper, but I can eat the draft paper after I copied the questions. As for whether I would be accused of cheating, can’t I destress by eating some draft paper? Plenty of people have their own quirks.’

Immediately, he laughed. ‘I have no less than ten thousand powerhouse spirits in the Draconic Penitentiary…

‘Do I even need to eat some rubbish questions?

‘However, that raises another question…’

He gave it a thought as it reminded him of something.

Exiting the System Cyber Cafe, Fang Ning paced toward the Draconic Penitentiary.

The System said, puzzled, “Billionaire Host, why are you going there?”

Fang Ning said seriously, “I realized we need to improve the education for those spirit inmates and not just force them to work. Manual labor like this would not be helpful toward increasing their productivity.”

“I don’t understand,” said the System in confusion.

“Heheh, can’t you already catch my wordplay? How is it failing you now? As I thought, as soon as some harder issues are at play, your lack of intelligence would show its tail.” Fang Ning took the opportunity to jab at the System before escaping into the wooden door to the Draconic Penitentiary.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do, but my instinct tells me that you were trying to slack off…”

System Notification: [The System saw through the Host’s lies, instinct was raised.]

“Heheh… Sir, your instinct is quite accurate.” Having no comeback, Fang Ning replied perfunctorily.

Anderson approached him.

“Mr. Warden, it’s been a while since the last time you checked on us. You’re busy, I presume?” Anderson said.

It had been a while since he showed up, and that was not a good sign.

“Mm, I was a little busy, so I need more high-quality manpower,” said Fang Ning pretentiously.

“You’re right, sir. We need to strengthen their education. According to my post-mortem survey, over a third of our 9753 inmates thought they claimed to have superb memory and could memorize all the digits of pi, how foolish.” Anderson followed up.

Fang Ning was satisfied with Anderson’s foresight. He said, “Mm, to further the deepening of the transformation of these spirits, we shall set up a huge studying event in the future. You will be tasked with collecting all the knowledge that could be collected in the world and allow the inmates time to study. Organize an exam periodically with credits that allow them to exchange pills, break times, something like that, you can flesh out the details.”

Anderson agreed immediately, “Your insight is really well thought-out, we can’t have the inmates have any breaks. As soon as they have time for themselves, they would overthink things and start sh*t up. We need their time to be well-utilized.”

“Good, the Ensnaring Maze on the first floor of the Draconic Arcane Realm is almost done. Choose some of the stronger spirits who studied harder and place them there, allow them to play some games, relax a little bit. You know how it goes.”

“Yes sir, I will follow your instruction completely, as well as teaching them in accordance to their aptitude so that they reach optimal improvement,” guaranteed Anderson.

They were relieved. As long as they were still useful, they would never need to worry about their safety in the prison.

Soon, the foremen, led by Ma Dechun, and those who were freer were assigned all sorts of high school materials as well as elementary school materials. All of them were tearlessly wistful.

They could have become an infamous powerhouse or a warlord somewhere, but now they were demoted into becoming a student again…

Fang Ning left the Draconic Penitentiary contented, but the System called out to him, scaring Fang Ning.

“As I thought, you’re trying to slack off again. You must be worried that you may not have a good answer to copy, so you want to prepare beforehand…”

“Watch your mouth. Can you call this copying? That’s learning from, imitating, referring…” said Fang Ning thick-facedly.

“Psh, just say you’re copying, not like I could do anything to you…” mocked the System.

Fang Ning shrugged and continued his online browsing.

“Hey, something happened to the great green insect,” the System reminded him.

Fang Ning put down his webnovel and looked out through the System View.

Chong Daqing was rolling around on the second step…

The green frog looked at it with a smug look on its face.

“It hurts… so much…”

“It hurts, Azure Dragon… daddy, Big Sis Luo Xia, Second Sis Zi Yu, help…”

The palm-sized insect rolled around and cried loudly. All who heard it were able to hold their emotions hearing it in pain…

“That’s what you get for eating anything you can find! Do you think you can digest everything?” said the frog.

Fang Ning was worried. Giving it a brief analysis, he said in enlightenment, “It must be having a hard time digesting the question!”

“Oh, I heard it wanted to digest the question, so it must be. I’m guessing the Hemispherical Dome Cosmology was too difficult for its new ability to understand,” the System agreed.

“That’s right. We have to save it.” Fang Ning immediately made a decision.

“That’s right, we have to save it. After we found its treasure in the ocean, I haven’t asked it for remuneration, we can’t let it expire before its time,” said the System somberly.

“What a perfect proverb to describe this.” Fang Ning had no comebacks, so he began churning his mind.

“Sir, please create some kind of medicinal pill or digestion aid tablet to help it,” Fang Ning came up with an idea.

“I can’t do that. It must be the causal side effects. If it couldn’t digest the question, it would be rebounded with a stomach ache. Usual cures and pills wouldn’t help!” The System said while shaking its head.

“What do we do now?”

“I’ll try and activate its meridian points. My martial arts skill is at the Legendary-level, so I can see the meridian points of the insect.” The System thought of an idea.

“Sure, let’s rush over,” urged Fang Ning.

At that point, the Bodhisattva Spirit King, Gui Da, Gui Er, Zhong Hongying, and her subordinates surrounded the Divine Gate anxiously.

“I want to save Lord Insect Prime!” pressed Zhu Hongying. As a female, she had always liked the pure creature with naivete.

Now that she saw Chong Daqing rolling in pain, she felt as if it was her own baby enduring the pain.

“No,” warned Bodhisattva Spirit King.

“Why?” Zhu Hongying asked as she looked at the great green insect worriedly.

“You can’t get through the first step,” Bodhisattva shook his head as he said.

“Oh.” Zhu Hongying’s face darkened.

Bodhisattva was not wrong. She knew her own situation and her unfinished business. The mystery of her fiery death had been left unresolved with the death and disappearance of Gui Qi.

“What do we do now?”

Bodhisattva Spirit King sent his voice telepathically, saying, “Daqing, you can stop trying so hard. Come back, two steps are plenty enough.”

He had a true heart of kindness. He would not force Chong Daqing to keep trying just so the Spiritual Insects could have a brighter future.

Chong Daqing rolled around in pain and began to roll down from the second step.

The green frog asked nicely, “Do you want to quit?”

“I quit, I wanna quit…” Chong Daqing pleaded.

The frog waved its arm, sending Daqing out of the Divine Gate.

A line updated on the Divine Gate. “Spiritual Insects, 1 entered, 9 remaining, ascension progress 2.”

“What a shame.” The bystanders all shook their heads.

“As I thought, there aren’t many shortcuts we can take. In times where real talent and raw power count, we need to be hardy ourselves.”

“That’s so tiring. After cultivating a whole day, I’m exhausted. You want me to read? The Heavenly Axiom was just finding fault.”

Chong Daqing charged at Bodhisattva Spirit King and complained, “I’m in a lot of pain, daddy, help me.”

Vigilante A approached them and the green insect immediately switched over, rolling around on his shoulder.

“My stomach is aching, Great Azure Dragon, please save me.”

“I’ll ease your pain temporarily.” Vigilante A pointed with his finger as a stream of vital energy shot at a joint on the insect’s third leg.

“Hey, I’m not in pain anymore,” said the great green insect in surprise. “Great Azure Dragon, you’re really great. What technique is this?”

“This is the Art of Meridian-Blocking. It can only ease your pain temporarily. If the source of the pain is not removed, the pain will come back twice as strong in six hours.” Vigilante A shook his head.

“What? It’ll come back stronger? I’d better die now. Daddy, remember to resurrect me, I want someone with even more legs than this.” Finishing its sentence, the great green insect wanted to knock its head on the Divine Gate.

A stream of vital energy appeared and stopped it.

“It’s no use. You must be injured by the Maxim of Causality. As long as the question was not digested, you would experience the pain no matter what body you’re in,” Vigilante A explained.

“Brother Dragon is right. Daqing, your new ability is unbelievably strong, but it carried a risk as strong as its power, as was shown to you.” Bodhisattva Spirit King said seriously.

“So, what can I do now? I don’t want it to keep aching, how would I eat? The big blue whale just gave me something to stimulate my appetite, isn’t it wasted now?” Chong Daqing said with a sad face.

“What thing can stimulate your appetite? Let me have a look,” Vigilante A’s eyes lit up. “If it is something rare, I might be able to use the Dragon Clan’s secret technique to synthesize something for you.”

A black-something was flung out of the silver bangle on Daqing’s leg.

Vigilante A perused it for a while before his eyes brightened up even more. Nodding, he said, “It is a treasure, it should be able to solve your problem.”

Bodhisattva Spirit King inspected it and shook his head. “I can’t tell what the mystery about this thing is. Care to explain?”

“Hehe, you’ll find out soon enough.” Vigilante A smiled lightly before the black thing disappeared into his hand.

The great green insect said, “Please be quick, or I will wish to have died six hours later…”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t take six hours. I can use a Dragon Clan’s secret technique to speed things up, it’ll be ready in a few moments.” Vigilante A explained confidently.

“Alright then, I’m not worried anymore.” Chong Daqing touched its belly and said, still slightly scared.