CHAPTER 340: CHAPTER 340: THE SYSTEM CAN KILL AND CRUSH THE HEART

"At the beginning, I said it, didn’t I? I bound the system because I was unemployed, living off my savings, and had no money."

The shadow didn’t expect an answer to his question, assuming the other agreed with his view, and continued speaking on his own: "I couldn’t resist spending money back then, initially invested quite a bit into it, even failed to pay the rent.

Once I withdrew the money, I figured I didn’t have time to look for cheap housing or buy groceries and cook.

I needed to focus on cultivation over there; anyway, if I got forcibly transported back anytime, I had a rented room and instant noodles, buns prepared. As long as I didn’t starve, it’d be fine.

Once my stomach was full, I’d have the energy to log back in and traverse again, and become an immortal cultivator in the Otherworld. No worries about being forcibly transported back by the system, then I’d have made it! I wouldn’t need to return to this miserable world and labor for capitalists as if I were an ox or horse!"

Jiang Yuan still couldn’t understand. The Wilderness over there was indeed magnificent and strange, but the modern conditions of the real world were also great. Why couldn’t both sides be developed and enjoyed, why choose only one?

Didn’t this side have parents and family, nothing worthy of attachment?

Moreover, since he always suspected the system of betraying him, why didn’t he consider—what if it wasn’t a complete body traversal, then what?

Let this side starve to death?

Or wait until he’s too weak from starvation to forcibly come back, and then use buns and cold water to scrape by, could the body take it?

Isn’t a normal person’s idea to earn money after obtaining a golden finger to improve life, ensure a balance and comfortable stability on both sides, and then slowly enjoy the adventure?

After hearing the query, the shadow fell silent immediately.

Yeah, had he not been addicted to the thrill of burning, killing, and looting in the Otherworld back then, perhaps he could have been driving luxury cars, living in a mansion, and supporting a bunch of female models.

"I never followed the tasks issued by the system, so the first time I was forcibly transported back, my Storage Bag was full of cultivator items, thinking nothing could be brought over." He sighed heavily, "That’s why the system played me, damn it, it didn’t remind me of anything!"

Jiang Yuan: ...

Is it so hard to admit to one’s arrogance? Must the system take the blame?

"Back then, I thought, anyway, items couldn’t interchange between the two worlds. Although there were those two skills I could use, they were for killing people. I couldn’t make money as a hitman in the real world, could I? I didn’t think Ice Cone could outmatch a cop’s gun either."

The shadow mumbled: "Think about it, over there, with no constraints, living it up was the way to go. I even gathered a group of pure, naturally beautiful women to serve only me; on this side, I didn’t even have money for takeaway besides gnawing on buns, so why come back?

No attachment to parents or family, you can understand the pain of an original family, right. Dirt poor and meddlesome to the extreme, controlling everything from the heavens to the earth and air, not the freedom of the Otherworld."

Clearly faltering as he spoke, Jiang Yuan pressed on, "Then how did you end up like this? Were you killed in the Otherworld?"

Hitting a sore spot, the shadow lowered his head dispiritedly, "Of course not. I swept the field in just a year and a half, meticulously crafted an advanced skill combination even high-level monsters feared, had no worries about mana consumption, rolling bombardments without an indestructible foe!

Alas... I really got played by the system.

The last time I was forcibly transported back, I felt a bit feverish and weak, with a miraculous Spirit Pill in the Storage Bag but couldn’t take it out to save my life!

My bank funds were almost depleted, gnawed on some buns, drank some water, thinking to hurry and cross back to the Otherworld and take the pill to cure my ailment; I still had a bunch of Secret Realms to explore.

But after crossing back and oral Elixir promptly relieving the whole body, not long after, I was preparing to take another beautiful girl into my harem, and suddenly I died before even laying hands..."

This incident was clearly a huge blow to him, the shadow’s voice carried a sobbing tone, "I found myself hovering by the bed, looking down at my own emaciated, skeletal body on the bed, nothing like my Otherworld high-spirited self!

I wondered if the system, crossing, was an illusion before I died of fever.

Couldn’t I, after dying, just see it as a mere fantasy? Damn it, the system still popped up at such a time!

It replayed and displayed a bunch of achievement, mainline, and sideline tasks stuff, specifically pointing out that my account was the worst ever with everything zero, nothing unlocked.

Then, for the first time, the system proactively spoke to me. It said..."

"What did it say? Didn’t it play you an MVP calculation screen?" Jiang Yuan looked bewildered, people were dead, what’s there to say? Could the system also assassinate the heart?

The shadow painfully hugged his head and mumbled: "The system said, lucky ones bound to it could directly receive a year and a half of lifespan in the Wilderness World."

It said players could discover hidden Easter eggs through tasks and sideline exploration - by exchanging lifespan time, a day in the Wilderness World equaled a year in the real world!

Even after binding the system, without doing anything in the real world, just living carefully, I could live five hundred years!

The system also showed the items that could be brought back to the real world, all kinds of agricultural products, as long as something that exists in reality, it could be brought over.

But at the time, I didn’t even do the task to cultivate fields... if given another chance, even growing some vegetables and fruits to resell, I could have been a billionaire to enjoy prosperity for hundreds of years!

The system also said traversing Otherworld was a duplicate that could only influence a certain extent of the real body’s origin, and if the real body died, no matter how powerful the duplicate in Otherworld was, it would perish.

Also said... had I obediently followed and done tasks, the duplicate might condense origin in the latter stages, allowing either side to die and still have a chance at resurrection... isn’t this the ultimate hindsight?"

Saying this, he suddenly rushed forward and knelt in front of Jiang Yuan, "Fellow Daoist, being chosen by the system means I have great opportunity, I am a malleable talent!

I have decisiveness in battle and am adept at combat; I just dislike pioneering cultivation, the system never reminded at all, I was played by it!

If only you can help me find a cultivation technique, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

In the past, I was a presence that could easily slay Divine Split Realm cultivators in the Otherworld! Now, only as a remnant soul, I still have the chance to start from scratch and achieve Ghost Immortal status!"

"Firstly, what you did wasn’t decisiveness in battle but rampant killing.

Secondly, the system provided you with enough convenience, yet you are ungrateful, blaming it without a modicum of gratitude.

What qualifies you to start over? Why should I trust a person who kills indiscriminately, is ungrateful, fabricates yellow rumors when undeserved? Why assume helping you, you’d maintain loyalty to me instead of betraying and backstabbing?"

Jiang Yuan coldly laughed, bluntly asking, "Finally, and most importantly, did you ever independently cultivate without relying on the system in the Otherworld?"

It’s now certain both were bound to the same system; Jiang Yuan methodically built from scratch, but had failed to complete any cultivation technique on his own thus far.

In other words, he was self-aware that his existence depended entirely on the system.

Without the system, never mind releasing skills, even chopping down a tree wouldn’t be so easy.

The Paperman and Paper Horse Skill still allowed folding paper, but whether the spells to endow them with mystical powers could take effect was another matter; Incense Making only knew the manual process but not identifying herbs, let alone guaranteeing power to enhance its curative efficacy.

"I..." The shadow was completely flustered, "Just a glance, the system reads the progress..."

"But now, you no longer have the system to read for you."