Fang Ning only had to use one sentence to make the System, who was busy chasing down thieves and pickpockets, to agree to his suggestion of going to Ji City for the Aristocratic Cultivation Club.
"It's time to gauge the level of monsters in the world."
Fang Ning was initially confused when Sir System did not suggest switching a farming location despite the unlocking of the Reputation Module. After they had achieved the level of Prestigious Figure in the module, they were free of the problem of resetting their Fame if they changed their base of farming.
In the end, the System popped up with, "We don't have the maps for the other locations unlocked. We can't see where the monsters are, and can only spot them when they're close enough to the range of my senses that I can pick them out based on the ripple of their power and breath. Only then will the map display show us the situation of the monster."
"On the other hand, if we keep farming in the same location until we achieve a Friendliness Aptitude high enough for others to worship us, this could become our home base. A home base would greatly burden opponents that rely on people's wills to cultivate, such as those who cultivate Morality like Qiao Zishan. If they became our enemy and decides to start a fight with us in Qi City, their abilities will suffer a significant drop."
Fang Ning was very excited when he heard this. Who wouldn't want to garner support from their home ground? Besides, it also meant that Fang Ning would have an increase in battle powers without doing anything. This provided him with a backup plan.
However, Fang Ning couldn't help but grumble at the System. "You really behave just like toothpaste, don't you? You'll only tell me the bare minimum whenever I urge you to. If you had told me earlier, then I could help you in early planning too, no?"
Before the System could answer, Fang Ning continued, "How do we unlock the other System Maps?"
The System explained, "The maps around the initial spawning area are free of charge. We cannot get the remaining maps by just walking around. In order to know what's happening at the location in real time, we'll need to achieve the relevant Friendliness Attribute to unlock that."
"There are 5 levels of Area Friendliness Attribute, namely Local Malicious, Local Neutral, Local Friendly, Local Confidence, and Local Worship. There might be hidden levels of the Friendliness Attribute, but we need to rely on you to activate them. To get the local map, we must achieve Local Confidence, in which we would finally be able to check the situation of the monsters and geographical circumstances in real time."
Initially, Fang Ning was quite confused by the trainwreck of words, but he soon caught up to something: Sir System's principles were mostly related to heroic matters. For instance, if you were to do evil in an area, it would not help you in any way. If you were to do good in the area, it would activate the local map for you as a way of assistance when hunting down the local criminals.
Fang Ning asked, "What Friendship Attribute level are we at in Qi City?"
The System replied, "We just got past Local Confidence. We're still quite far away from Worship, though."
Fang Ning nodded. That was what he expected after he reviewed what the System did. He carried on asking, "What about Ji City, then? The one that we're supposed to go to? How is our Friendship Attribute there?"
The System answered, "We're at Local Friendly. It's probably because we helped them eliminate some man-eating demons when we went to farm those monsters of the Bai Family."
Fang Ning asked again, "How far are we from Confidence?"
The System hummed, "We'll need to farm for another 2 months."
Fang Ning contemplated their circumstances. Qi City wasn't too far away from Ji City, and if Sir System flew back and forth in supersonic using its dragon form, traveling wouldn't even take 20 minutes. It was a closer commute than the daily trips some took to go to work.
Besides, the high population density in Ji City has made it into an international metropolis. With a population count of more than 20 million, Ji City was a perfect choice for them to establish as a second base of farming. It would probably only take them days to replenish the Morality Bar if it ever depleted. If the situation became unforgiving, they could still sprint in human form to the city. It would take them less than 2 hours to arrive.
Fang Ning said, "Alright. Once we go there, we'll stay for a while and only send the mechanical puppet back. We could then avoid the suspicious similarities between two of our identities, as now wherever Fang Ning goes, Vigilante A would follow. Vigilante A returns when Fang Ning returns as well."
The System agreed. "Alright."
The next day, Fang Ning and President Zhao arrived at the Sky Gardens after some fussing. Along with some attendants, they trailed behind the porters to the outskirts of Ji City. Once he stepped out of the car, President Zhao frowned immediately.
President Zhao sounded very disapproving. "Why does this place look so deserted? If this wasn't recommended by some really reputable people alongside with your aunt, I would already assume that this place is started by a scammer. We can never be too careful in a climate like this."
When Fang Ning got down from the car, he noticed how this place was located near the mountains, just like the Headquarters of Qi City's Special Affairs Department. Was this a coincidence? It was surrounded by waving hills of different heights, and the scarce greens in the mountains in spring and winter accentuated the desolation of the place. Yellowing trees littered the backdrop, carved apart by the singular road leading into the place.
In the Sky Gardens, fences of average height enclosed a few mountains around the area, with only a few three-storeyed buildings scattered in the compound. Aside from that were fields planted with unknown greens and plants, covered by plastic greenhouses, and if one hadn't known better, he would most definitely assume that this place was a wide span of farmland out in the outskirts. There was no way that someone would know that this place was for cultivation.
Fang Ning had stayed in enough places that he no longer cared about the dismal surroundings around him. He comforted the elder man, "Maybe the vitality is more concentrated around these mountains. This would greatly benefit our cultivation."
President Zhao finally stopped frowning. "Maybe that's the reason. Well, we'll follow them into the place then. Though we still need to be careful"
Fang Ning nodded in agreement. President Zhao was not afraid of getting through some hardships. He got to where he was from ground zero, and he shared all of his experience with Fang Ning before. What he went through was so much more than Fang Ning's experiences.
The accommodation and catering that were provided was acceptable, but President Zhao's palate was probably spoiled by the meals prepared by Fang Ning's mechanical puppet that the elder could not stop his displeasure from showing on his demeanor. If they weren't guests, President Zhao would've told Fang Ning to show off his skills already.
Classes officially started the day after that, in a three-storey building located in one of the mountains. Under the guidance of an attendee, Fang Ning and President Zhao reached the classroom, where they could hear bouts of small talk from within the room.
"Nice to meet you, President Kuok."
"Oh, you're here too, President Xie! What a pleasant surprise!"
Words of pleasantries continued to echo in the room, but the voices were controlled and soft. It was obvious that these people took great consideration in their image.
When the two of them stepped into the room, someone greeted them as well. Loudly.
"Old man Zhao, you're really here! I knew you would have come anyway, so I didn't bother to invite you along."
When they raised their eyes to look, a man of 160cm tall and 200kg in weight stood in the corner, shouting at President Zhao. The people around him looked displeased at the commotion, and President Zhao quickly gave them looks of apology. The latter attempted to wave off the issue, indicating that he did not know who the fat man was.
"Stop pretending already, you. We're people of the provincial cities that got rich off new money. Are you trying to fake the grandeur of being in a family with generations of old money?" Fatso Liu shook his obese body as he forcibly dragged Old Man Zhao to a seat beside his own.
Fang Ning knew that both of them were good friends for years, and that he should never push Fatso Liu away no matter how easy it would be.
With a face as bitter as bile, Old Man Zhao sat beside Fatso Liu. The former immediately called for Fang Ning to join him when he had the chance.
"You're the future son-in-law that Old Man Zhao found, right? Good, good, I need only one look to know that you're one with great talent. I recently went to that restaurant of yours, and it was indeed impressive, especially since you're willing to personally cook now! Your cooking was irreplaceable. Sadly, I never managed to get a slot with you," praised Fatso Liu. The man was much warmer to Fang Ning than with Old Man Zhao.
Fang Ning knew that he was probably talking about that mechanical puppet of his. Sir System would never cook for irrelevant guests. "Greetings, President Liu," Fang Ning cordially greeted.
As the three were about to embark into a conversation, a tanned, fit man walked into the classroom. He walked onto the podium, before scanning the audience in front of him. Beneath the podium sat rich men, or second generation trust fund babies, all of different sizes and age. Disdain flashed in his eyes.
"Ahem," he coughed. His voice wasn't booming, but it was enough to catch everyone's attention. It was as if his voice spoke to hearts instead of ears. The buzz of conversation disappeared quickly.
"My surname is Xu. You can address me as Instructor Xu, and I'll be in charge of your classes this week. To be honest, it's really boring for me to teach you, but no one told me to lose to Sister Hai next door. She could teach the young talents that were handpicked from all junior and senior high schools all around the country while I'm stuck here, wasting my week away with you transfer students."
Just as he finished talking, a man with gold-framed spectacles raised his hand, signaling his intention to speak.
"You're really respectful. Yes, you can stand to state your point." Instructor Xu leaned against the podium as he drawled.
The middle-aged spectacle man spoke with a smile, "Instructor Xu, I believe that respect goes both ways. Since we've all paid a large sum to join the class, we believe that we should be treated with due respect as well. Please take note of your tone when you speak to us, Instructor."
His voice was gentle, and everyone felt a wave of the warm summer breeze wash through them after they listened to his voice. They felt their heart calm, and they immediately took a liking to the man.
On the other hand, Instructor Xu looked unaffected. His smile was slight, "Ah, I was wondering when someone would say that. Alright, this is my first time explaining this, but this will also be the only time."
He continued to drag his voice. "Me speaking to you in that tone is my first lesson to you. Your first lesson is to learn how to respect the powerful ones that are born in this new age!"
As he spoke, he seemed to offhandedly reached to his hair in an attempt to tidy his undercut. However, the middle-aged spectacled man who stood almost 8 tables away from him suddenly saw a palm appear too close to his face. The palm was as big as a cattail-leaf fan, and it rushed towards the man's head!
The middle-aged man froze in shock, but he soon found out that the palm finally stopped a few millimeters away from his cheeks. The wind that came from the palm nearly blew his spectacles off his face.
Instructor Xu glanced at the middle-aged spectacled man and spoke dismissively, "What? You thought I was just scaring you? I can tell you this; if that palm landed on his face, his entire head will be gone. Even if there was surveillance footage, no one would have the ability to sentence me under the current law after the incident."
"That's too much!"
"That's right! He's trying to scare us into submission!"
The group of people here bonded immediately over their anger. This middle-aged spectacled man spoke up for them! Their stances were crystal clear.
Instructor Xu shook his head in disappointment. "Why are there still so many of you that don't understand this? I am the instructor that was tasked to teach you after the people above receive your high member fees. That was the only reason why I would explain to you patiently, and why that palm would never land on his face. However, what do you think would happen if he used that rude, questioning voice against an strong figure unfamiliar to him? Do you think that the person would stop his attacks like I did?"
The middle-aged spectacled man slowly sat down and shook his head helplessly. However, no one noticed how his eyes changed color the moment he sat down. A flash of blue disappeared in his eyes as quickly as it appeared.
At the same time, an irritated Fang Ning suddenly heard a surprised gasp from Sir System, "Oh? A red dot flashed by just now? Did a monster just walked past us?"
Fang Ning was speechless. "We're now in class. Be quiet and don't take over my body. Someone is trying to be cool on stage, so we need to help him out a little…"
The System asked, "What if he used us to show off?"
Fang Ning answered, "One word - retaliate! We should do that without exposing our identity."