Chapter 151: 2

Chapter 151: 2

[Ding! You have completed the side mission- Live for 100 Years. You have been awarded with 2000p and guaranteed one random special skill from Jin Bao]

[Ding! You have completed the side mission- Son-In-Law Acquired. Father dragon was very happy that his son had found someone to spend his years with, though was slightly dissatisfied about how short-lived his mate was. You have been awarded with a vial of fortune dragon blood, a lock of fortune dragon hair, and two medium dragon jades (approx. 4,400kg*)]

[Ding! You have completed the side mission- Determine the Next Emperor. Because you surpassed the time limit of 30 years, the World's Consciousness refuses to give it's share of the reward, you have been awarded with A Small World's Gratitudex1]

*4,400kg is about four grown bulls worth of jade for reference.

Jia Hyson: ''

Bebe: 'I think it's mad we blackmailed it about the Pan Shuchun thing.'

Jia Hyson: 'Tsk, how stingy. It's just one extortion ah.'

Bebe: 'You get upset when people don't give you free pens at job conventions. Like, you didn't even need to go to the convention, you already had a job, but you still got annoyed there was no free pens.'

Jia Hyson: 'WHAT IS THE POINT IF NOT FOR THE FREE PENS! THEY'RE THE BEST FREE PART!'

Bebe: _

Ignoring the last side mission reward, the reward made by father dragon also was something worth complaining about.

Maybe before, if Jia Hyson had no context, he would be ecstatic upon receiving such a large amount of the highest quality warm jade. Not just top tier jade but jade infused with spiritual energy that promotes health benefits and anti-aging effects too! But now that he knows where the dragon jade comes from in this world, ehmmm

Well. A good thing was a good thing. Even if he felt complicated thinking of the reward he wouldn't be stupid enough to give it away because he felt a bit awkward. That shit was expensive. No matter where it came from or where it came out from the various benefits of it were irrefutable. Whether in the modern world, ancient, wuxia or even zombie worlds, there was an obvious use for such an item that was not only rare, beautiful and also had both healing, nourishing, spiritual and anti-aging effects. Plus since it came from father dragon, there was probably a luck boost as well.

Jia Hyson who suddenly arrived at his safe space, had initially instinctively flinched at the sudden barrage of formal pings in the sky. But after listening to it and chatting with Bebe, he had quickly calmed down. However, he was still a little dazed looking at the unfamiliar yet nostalgic appearance of his safe space.

He had lived over 250 years in the last world, mainly to fulfil his side mission, but also to ease the hearts of father dragon and mother dragon.

However in the end he still left under the excuse of his weak body and poor foundational nourishment causing him to die young as a little sickly seed. His parents were of course sad, but they had long given time to make peace with this and their hearts were now able to move on again after seeing with their own eyes that their child had lived a happy spoilt life.

To be honest, he could've stayed longer, nothing was really stopping him. While it was true his body was essentially not good compared to other dragons it was still the body of a dragon. A sick dragon was basically healthier than a hundred athletes, and living five hundred years or more would probably be no problem.

However after Da Gong left, Jia Hyson felt everything was a bit boring.

To be fair he had spent a very long time traveling the lands on earth and during his time in heaven he had realised, like many cultivation-esque worlds, heaven had mainly more scenic attractions than anything else. No matter how beautiful the scenery and wildlife was, there was a limit to how much enjoyment you can get out of it.

Jia Hyson had even started his old little research projects out of lack of anything better to do. In fact this was actually quite novel, and he did enjoy it. After all, if he hadn't become such a successful writer he would have pursued a career in animal science. However the biggest problem with the career- ignoring the salary, job stability and so on- was that 1. Writing up scientific reports and theses was the biggest pain in existence and 2. The animal welfare board made it difficult to do animal exerimentaion.

Bebe: ...Wait, is that why you did your studies focusing on insects and invertebrates*??

*Insects aren't really covered under the animal protection regulations and stuff. Because fuck cockroaches amiright? -LittleBlueLake, an ex-zoology student that picked to specialize in invertebrates and insects, based a lot of Jia Hyson on herself, possibly needs therapy she can't afford.

Jia Hyson: ,,UwU,, Maybe.

Anyway, now that the side mission rewards were sorted it was now a matter of p and a game of skill gacha. Unable to wait much longer Jia Hyson rubbed his hands and requested to use [Skill Stealer]. Since he was a lucky dragon in his last life some of that must have rubbed off on him right?

[Skill Stealer] gave a chance to steal special skills the original body was born with, and the list of special skills Jin Bao had was extraordinary, putting all the previous bodies to shame. Mainly because the number of special skills they had could be counted with one hand collectively.

Past original bodies: '' Well sorry we're so useless!

"Come on luck," Jia Hyson muttered with his eyes squeezed shut as he activated [Skill Stealer], praying that he would be able to pull more than one special skill at a time. "Gacha gods please be kind, I worked so hard, I did so many good things"

"No you didn't." Bebe scoffs, making the veins in Jia Hyson's forehead throb.

"I paid my taxes and did charity!" Jia Hyson protests, "And don't say these things when I'm communicating to the gacha gods or I will buy a teacup pig body for you, I'm rich now, it can fucking happen."

Bebe: ''

Oh, it really had hoped it's host with his short term memory had forgotten the teacup pig thing already. It seemed petty spite was a very good motivator to maintain your memories.

Successfully quelling the sass from his sasstem, Jia Hyson finally opens his eyes and sees two blue notification text boxes floating in front of him.

[Saintess Soul Bind, Who doesn't want to find someone to worship you ah? (Conditions not met)]

Jia Hyson didn't expect he would catch this one. He was indeed intimately familiar with the skill after using it for so long with Tang Muxin. Essentially with this skill you will be able to bind with someone and can telepathically speak to them, and as owner of the skill you have more control in sending the other thoughts and emotions to maintain your character set better.

It sounds good at first until you consider two main points- the conditions that need to be met and the fact you really can't take off the soul binding. Theoretically it was actually possibly to take it off but it would require someone with extremely high ability in the subject of souls to help. This meant that unless the world was of a high level world such as one with a fantasy or cultivation setting, it really was impossible.

"Bebe, what are the exact conditions for the bind?" Jia Hyson had always just assumed when he saw that, it was simply just a matter that the condition was the person must be a protagonist such as Tang Muxin. However if that was the case the skill was really quite useless and would only be rarely used. After all, most stores are written mainly in the protagonist's perspective, there's a limit to the excuses one could make to suddenly develop a telepathy plot line.

"A person who meets the conditions is meeting someone that is important to the plot such as a protagonist, love interest, supporting lead or even vital cannon fodder," Bebe immediately explains, "However the person could also be favoured by the World's Consciousness or Heavenly Path, someone with strong luck or a constitution suitable to having their soul easily manipulated so you could force the binding onto them without their consent."

Jia Hyson was surprised there was actually quite a few options. Then again it was true one of the first few people he had met was Tang Muxin the main character whose thighs Jia Hyson immediately hugged the moment the option was available to him. Afterwards he was bound to her and didn't get to see who else he was compatible with.

Curious he asked, "Was anyone else compatible for the soul binding Bebe?"

Bebe falls silent for a second before saying complicatedly, "Do you think the soul of a wrongly transmigrated person, a barely mentioned character that could not even be defined as male supporting lead at some point, a gloomy crippled prince who was barely mentioned and may or may not be the true villain of the story, and a villager who could not be anymore of a background character- could fit with the conditions of being vitally important to the plot, favoured by the World's Consciousness slash Heavenly Path and, or, someone with strong luck or a constitution suitable to having their soul easily manipulated?"

Jia Hyson also falls into silence. Contemplatively and hesitatingly he answers, "Prince Yan Huizhong seems eligible for the last one?"

"Well that is true but unexpectedly no."

Bebe and Jia Hyson pause for a second before they simultaneously burst into laughter.

Wrongly transmigrated person Pan Shuchun, barely mentioned character Duan Mengyao that could not even be defined as male supporting lead, villager who could not be anymore of a background character Ye Cheng: '' Damn, you just left the world and spend no time mocking us huh.

Gloomy crippled Prince Yan Huizhong who was barely mentioned and may or may not be the true villain of the story and totally looks like he would have the constitution suitable to having their soul easily manipulated: '' You fucking bitches.

The next skill was a little more useful but not by much in Jia Hyson's opinion.

[Psychic Terror (Active) level 3]

[Soul Sucker (Active) Level 4]

[Corruptor of Children Level 2]

[Whipper Snapper Level 2]

[Future Weapons Master Level 2]

[Saintess Soul Bind]

[Dance of the Dragons].

[Karmic Insight, Level 8]

Jia Hyson pressed his forefinger and middle finger to his lips, kissing them before lovingly touching the [Karmic Insight, Level 8]. "Oh god, aren't you just the sexiest words ever typed up." He groans.

"Are you flirting with a skill?" Bebe calls him out with disbelief and disgust.

Jia Hyson shrugs, "Hey, I'm just making sure it knows it's being loved and appreciated. Now tell me, what's with the greyed out area?"

Bebe sighs, "Many hosts have started to really complain about the skillset menu for the last six hundred years or so when the general average level of technology host's were taken from had finally caught up to roughly your modern age. Because they are more aware of technology and gaming mechanics people realised how redundant and useless such a skillset menu was and demanded an overhaul."

Thinking about the endless amounts of skills, both useful and useless at varying levels, how you would have to spend points to slowly grind it up and how the higher the mastery of a skill the more points needed to be spent, Jia Hyson had to agree that the way it was designed and developed was really a bit too pitted. It's normal for most people who have played games and have good self-awareness on this subject to feel the need to complain, especially when you could also buy items to temporarily or even permanently improve yourself with the easier to earn p. "So what happens now?"

Most systems had gotten a notification to the unprecedented modification and upgrades they were going to go through. Bebe was no exception, "Well, as you can see the skillset is locked for now to prevent hosts from using more points. It's impossible to reimburse everyone for the exact number of points already spent or had, after all there's so many hosts and the processing power and energy costs for undergoing maintenance is already a lot."

A lot was under-exaggerating. The programs for the systems to show a host's menu was interlinked with their banking, their special skills and so on. This meant in itself it was quite intricate programming work just deleting the needlessly large amount of skills in the basic skillset menu. Not to mention with so many systems to give out to, with varying levels of complexity, there will inevitably glitches and problems.

Maybe a Pet system will download the new format perfectly but for a Counterattack system which has slightly different considerations and technicalities there could be an error which deletes the host's entire savings of p or something.

This was also why the higher ups were reluctant for making the change and why it took so long. Even a genius Overlord like Overlord Li Jun needed a lot of time and planning for this proposal to be accepted.

Jia Hyson didn't understand the details but he knew at least that it wasn't a small matter. Still as a host he has more opinions biased toward a host. Hearing Bebe's explanation so far he can't help but frown. After all there were many more hosts who have been doing this longer than him and assumably have spent a lot of points as well. To hear that they can't get their points back might make them great dissatisfied, especially if they were the type to save up and spend frugally. "Is there any compensation at all?"

Bebe also understands what Jia Hyson was talking about, and quickly assured him, "We systems aren't heartless. While it's not set in stone, Bebe heard from the grapevine that they'll be compensation according to the length hosts have been working. For example if you have worked over 100 worlds you should get about a million p but if you are a newbie with one world, you probably only get 100p." Bebe also adds cheerfully, "And for the people who carefully saved over 100 points or more they will also get some bonus compensation on top of that."

Touching the tip of his nose thoughtfully Jia Hyson hummed as he parsed through the information. Honestly things like financial math was really a weak point of his, fortunately this was not too hard to mull over and he finally determined it was a rather fair deal.

"Well, I didn't really spend many points so I don't really care," Jia Hyson sighs, he wouldn't say no to more points but he had recently gained a decent amount right now and honestly his job as a Beta System host was fairly forgiving anyway. "How long will the maintenance be?"

"This because the more systems upgrade themselves they will differ a little to other systems of the same type you see." Bebe coughs, trying to hard it's emotions, fortunately it had no physical form of Jia Hyson could see the system's mouth failing to suppress a big smile, "This means systems will be called up in groups to undergo a period of maintenance and their respective hosts will be temporarily assigned a new system for at least one world."

Jia Hyson: "Why do I feel like you sound really happy ah?"

Bebe: "Hahaha Bebe? No way~" ()

Jia Hyson: _

....

.

Authors Note- Hey guys~~ Fifth arc soon! My fans on discord told me a long time ago they wanted more system world stuff so next chapter is still on that and then we will finally get to the fifth world!

A few people have said they didn't like Tang Muxin's mother in the last chapter and that she was wrong (some of y'all said some other stuff but it got deleted by WN's stupid fucking censor like what the fudge some of it was just normal comments gah (though some were a bit less neutral in fairness)). Anyway I just want to clarify some of my thoughts on it ah.

The mother in the story is indeed on some level not correct. However it is not good to say she was the most wrong, or deserved the subsequent suffering for her silence and so on. That is a little like saying a bullied victim was wrong for not having the courage to speak out, it's true all they had to do was open their mouths and maybe a lot of things would be solved but just because they're afraid to do so for various reasons is it really okay to blame them for what they endured?

People are different, some are stronger and independent and some aren't. It's fine to say you don't like the mother for relying on a man, or that she's weak for it, but you also have to understand that not everyone can be a strong, independent woman who need no man. Should we disdain all the women don't have their shit together and find comfort in relying on another person? Personally, I don't think so ah. As long as it's not to an extreme extent that is clearly harming others and themselves I don't see what's so bad.

In this case it is not that the mother could not find happiness without a man but there was no one but that man that gave her happiness in that life.

For a lot of conservative older Asian people, divorce is looked down upon and I suppose worldwide, no matter the situation, generally the view is always harsher to women. The mother character had literally no support from anyone, even though she was cheated on. She didn't tell her daughter yes, but what about the others who knew? As a housewife many of her friends were also her husband's friends or acquaintances, the parents also did not approve, and her daughter who she took care of, who she personally raised while her husband works, also had seemed to have long turned her back on her.

Sure it may be because her father told her, her mother initiated the divorce but the thing is- in a lot of people's shoes, if your mother suddenly wants to divorce your father there would be some reluctance to assume the worst no matter how much you dislike how she scolds you about cleaning your room ah. There is trust and empathy but Tang Muxin is also flawed that way, she clearly saw the stress of her mother but blindly did not question her father who was suspiciously calm enough to coax her.

In short this woman had practically no pillars of support during this hard time. She had to go work as a receptionist to help financially support herself and daughter, as the husband had given the bare minimum alimony. I'm sure a lot of us can't fully empathise this, however I can imagine such a transition from long term housewife to something else is jarring. As someone who experienced the anxiety and pressure and insecurity of job hunting, I can only think of that but times ten, after all, at least I'm up to date with my education and am decently qualified and had a decent amount of volunteering to make my resume look good hehe.

Anyway if you consider the stress of an unfamiliar new job, working with people many years younger and more capable, the generation is different, the people your age are either better jobs or simply more educated and professional than you, there's little common language, and you're also still recovering from the emotional damages alone- how can you not feel more isolated than ever? Mental violence is more poisonous than physical violence, and can cripple a person's mind and let them do what normal people consider 'stupid' like enduring abuse silently.

The sickly boss was the only one to reach out to her in a sense and make the effort to get to know her more. Is it wrong that she would feel better and be happy just because this was a man and not a female friend? No, because it doesn't matter if the person is a man or woman, romantic or platonic or familial, as long as there is support people can grow.

Maybe there are people who can be happy with absolutely no friends and family and lovers, but I've never seen one personally. At the very least they would find support in a pet ah.

It is wrong to solely and unhealthily depend on someone that's true enough. The point of support is to have something to rely on as you branch out, not to continue to entwine onto one pillar and never leave. For the mother, her support may have been a man, but she soon branched out slowly and tentatively, rebuilding the support with her daughter and her step son. Maybe in the future she will become a big tree all by herself or maybe she will continue being a sapling satisfied with a small simple circle of people, both sound fine to me ah.

The worst thing she had done was not be communicative. Her character is indeed a bit weak and mild, and she tends to be a people pleaser. Even though she resolutely asked for a divorce people can't always change and be forged into sharp weapons under fire. In her mind she still wants her daughter to have her parents even if they were separated.

There are many cases where a parent doesn't tell their children about the other partner cheating for similar reasons, waiting until they are older and more mature so they understand better. There are also cases where they do tell their children but it comes from resentment and a need for children to sympathise with them. All these ways are wrong (according to psychologist and research that I googled lmao). Divorce through cheating is messy and very emotionally straining for the cheated party. There's hundreds of wrong ways and maybe four right ways to handle it, it is undeniable nobody is perfect and not many can pick the best way in such a situation when it actually happens.

Again, the mother character is not perfect. Not every female character will be a Pan Shuchun, Tang Muxin, a Song Chuntao, or even a Maddy. I always like to bring a sense of some realism occasionally, and there will be flawed and very flawed characters that I will also do my best to show, even if they aren't the best people in the world, they shouldn't be blindly despised and hated.

I mean, some will clearly be brought in to be despised cannon fodder- which by the way is another thing. I found much more people commented more about the problems of the mother rather than any comments on how awful the dad was, which I found a bit sad. Confidently toxic people like that, even if the mother had spoken out, know how to emotionally manipulate people to still sway into their favour, I dunno, the point is, if the mother is the most wrong then I would like to ask how is the father better?

A good example is Chef Wen. Even though it was Da Gong who did ultimately force him to do what he did at the end for the ritual, there were many people who hated him a lot or cheered when he suffered living a long life at the loss of youth until Da Gong eventually came back and died a second time ah.

Anyway the point is~ well there's not much of a point~ I saw an AN do this where they will occasionally put in depth ANs on the author's thought process and views so the audience understands where you coming from and I figured it was nice. I dunno if you guys liked it very much tho but I'll try this a few times to see the response~ you can still think how you want ah, I won't force my views on you~ just talking simply about how I see things~ maybe I'm callous or too apathetic or devil's advocate but I hope that just cuz we clash on certain ideals that doesn't take away the joy from the story UwU