Li Fan stared at the interface in front of him. From initial surprise to wild ecstasy, the transition took only a few seconds.
At the same time, Li Fan struggled to control his facial expression, trying not to reveal any joy.
Although his head was lowered, and logically no one should be able to see his expression...
This was the ninja world. No one could guarantee there wasn't some ninja using a strange method to observe him right now.
Li Fan tried reciting silently in his heart: "System?"
After a few seconds, no voice appeared in Li Fan's mind.
However, Li Fan wasn't disappointed in the slightest.
He simply continued trying to click on the interface in his mind.
As Li Fan clicked on the interface mentally, it quickly changed. Simultaneously, a voice appeared in his mind:
"Attempting to activate the Super Affection System. Activation requires extracting one year of the host's lifespan. Do you agree?"
Li Fan heard this emotionless, gender-neutral voice in his mind.
There was no change on his lowered face, but he breathed a sigh of relief internally.
One year of life? No matter. The price was well worth it.
Li Fan recited silently: "I agree."
After saying this in his heart, Li Fan had prepared himself for any physical changes that might occur.
But after waiting a few seconds, he found no changes in his body at all.
Only the voice in his mind told him that the system had been officially activated.
"Host agreed within one second. Standard met. One year of host's lifespan extracted. System officially and perfectly activated!"
Hearing this sentence in his mind, Li Fan had mixed feelings.
So if he had hesitated for a few more seconds, the system wouldn't have been perfectly activated?
Li Fan suppressed the thoughts in his mind and turned his attention to the system interface before him. The interface had changed.
Three icon names appeared before his eyes:
[Host]
[Character Affection]
[Exchange]
Li Fan silently looked at the names of these three icons. Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he clicked on the Affection icon first.
"Host clicked on Character Affection for the first time. Rewarding a random item: Medium Grade Affection Doubling Fruit!"
"Using this fruit allows the host to double the designated character's existing affection daily, capped at 100!"
As the emotionless voice sounded in his mind, Li Fan was immediately instilled with a detailed introduction to this fruit.
Seeing the dense text of the introduction, Li Fan's eyes almost lit up.
Although he still kept his head down, his breathing involuntarily became heavier.
With such a heaven-defying item, couldn't the harem fantasy he had always hidden deep in his heart be realized effortlessly?
Thinking of this, Li Fan continued to click on Character Affection. Suddenly, a message popped up in his mind about being gifted one point of allocatable affection.
He ignored this sentence and looked at the Character Affection list that appeared.
This Character Affection list gathered all the characters who had affection for him.
It was a ranking list sorted by the level of affection.
Li Fan saw Pakura at a glance, ranked 19th on the affection list.
Her affection for him was currently only seven points.
Before Li Fan could ask anything in his mind, the system's mechanical voice sounded automatically:
"Zero affection points means strangers. One affection point means slightly heard of. Five affection points means nodding acquaintances. Ten affection points means ordinary friends..."
Hearing the system's automatic explanation, Li Fan understood.
His Super Affection System wasn't like the affection systems in novels he had read before.
In those novels, the affection system started at 50 for ordinary friends, and below fifty meant dislike.
And the character affection in those novels dropped very easily.
As long as the protagonist said one wrong sentence to someone, their affection would immediately drop by a few points or even more.
But his affection system? Below zero meant dislike, while forty affection points meant a life-and-death friendship.
And once raised, it would be very difficult for affection to drop.
For example, a good friend with twenty affection points... even if he accidentally said a few wrong things, she wouldn't mind. Instead, she would just laugh it off.
The higher the affection, the more this applied.
Above thirty affection points, even if he said many wrong things or did wrong deeds...
Her mind would automatically defend him and rationalize his actions.
Simply put, it was an enhanced version of the "love brain" during the passionate phase of a relationship.
And this "passionate phase" thinking would only deepen over time, becoming more automatically rationalized, not cooling down with time.
Furthermore, this wasn't some so-called genjutsu. Once he used the system to increase affection for a character, her affection would be genuine and come from the heart.
Thinking of this, Li Fan's worries about the future completely vanished.
Although there weren't many strong women in this world, there were still a few.
By maxing out their affection, he could completely open up the situation.
Moreover, he hadn't even looked at the system's Exchange function yet. There must be other combat-related items.
Li Fan thought for a moment and recited silently:
"Allocate that one point of affection to Pakura, and use the Affection Doubling Fruit on Pakura."
"Ding. Allocation successful. Pakura's affection raised to 8 points!"
"Successfully used Affection Doubling Fruit. Pakura's affection raised from 8 points to 16 points!"
"Host allocated affection for the first time. Based on the allocated affection, gained 1 Skill Point!"
"Host used an item for the first time. Based on the item's grade, gained 30 Skill Points!"
"Host successfully increased affection by 9 points. Gained 9 Skill Points!"
Listening to the continuous system notifications in his mind, Li Fan breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to reality.
Fortunately, the whispered discussions in the office were still ongoing. Although his head being lowered for more than twenty seconds might make people look twice, it wouldn't attract too much attention.
But Skill Points?
This thing should be the currency within the system.
And it seemed that for every point of character affection increased, he could gain one Skill Point.
He wondered if the purchasing power of these Skill Points was strong. If it was, perhaps he could create a perpetual motion machine?
"Lord Li Fan, are you alright?"
Suddenly, a cool female voice came to Li Fan's ear, carrying obvious concern.
Li Fan turned to look at Pakura and saw her hot figure leaning slightly toward him.
Her usually cold, beautiful face also showed a clear expression of concern.
Li Fan knew in his heart that this was the effect of those sixteen affection points.
After all, according to the system's standards, sixteen affection points meant relatively good ordinary friends.
Li Fan habitually put on a gentle smile, shook his head slightly, and said softly:
"I'm fine."
Pakura looked at Li Fan with concern. She didn't know why.
She suddenly felt that she was already very familiar with Li Fan, like they were relatively good friends.
Pakura began to feel strange about this matter in her heart.
After all, she hadn't met Li Fan many times.
And every time they met, they only exchanged a few formulaic pleasantries. In every aspect, they were just nodding acquaintances.
Pakura began to ponder:
"Strange, why... Wait, he and I have always been friends. Really, what am I wondering about!"
Pakura pondered for less than half a second before suddenly feeling strange about her current thoughts.
She and Li Fan had obviously always been friends. Although they didn't meet often or talk much, they hit it off instantly!
If anyone else knew about the changes in Pakura's psychological thoughts at this moment, they would definitely feel a chill down their spine.
Because this was clearly a mind being forcibly twisted and changed by some power, yet the person herself was unaware of it and took it for granted!
Pakura smiled self-deprecatingly and turned to gaze quietly at Li Fan.
Due to her personality, she didn't have many friends, and Li Fan was impressively one of her more important ones.
Li Fan didn't have time to observe Pakura right now. He carefully considered what he was going to say next.
Even with the super cheat of the system, he still had to correct the huge mistake the Sand Village would make soon.
Only in this way could he have enough buffer time to improve his combat power and possess sufficient self-preservation ability.
Only after having enough ability to protect himself could he have the mind to consider other things.
Chiyo silently watched everyone whispering to each other. It wasn't until the voices grew louder and could no longer be called whispering that she spoke quietly:
"You are all the backbone of the village remaining here at this time. I wonder what your views are?"
Chiyo's aged and raspy voice wasn't loud, easily drowned out by the increasingly loud chatter of the crowd.
However, as soon as she spoke, the increasingly noisy voices in the office vanished instantly!
This showed Chiyo's prestige in the Sand Village!
After a brief silence, a middle-aged burly man in his forties spoke cautiously first:
"Lady Chiyo, since Lord Third Kazekage is missing, I think we should immediately mobilize all the village's forces to conduct a comprehensive search of the entire village from the inside out again."
This was the most normal, logical answer, and also the thought in the minds of the vast majority of Jonin present.
After all, the head of the village, the core of the entire Hidden Sand Village—the Kazekage—was missing. This was no small matter.
Chiyo nodded slightly, then turned to look at Li Fan.
"Li Fan, what do you think?"
Ever since announcing the Kazekage's disappearance, Chiyo had been observing everyone's performance.
And she found that among everyone present, only Li Fan's behavior was most commendable.
There was no sign of panic; instead, he wore an expression as if he had expected it.
That was why Chiyo asked Li Fan first.
Li Fan had already organized his words. He looked up slightly, met Chiyo's gaze, and said in a deep voice:
"Lady Chiyo, I think this must not be done!"
As soon as these words came out, everyone's eyes immediately focused on Li Fan.
Li Fan turned a deaf ear to these gazes and continued in a deep voice:
"Lady Chiyo, you know my Master's character. It is absolutely impossible for him to leave the village with his left and right guards without anyone knowing!"
"And if we rule out the possibility of my Master leaving privately, then there is only one possibility left."
"That is, Master may have already been murdered, and it is very likely that he was murdered within the village!"
Hearing this, Chiyo's half-closed eyes suddenly snapped open, staring straight at Li Fan.
It seemed as if this was the first time she had truly recognized Li Fan!
Before Chiyo could speak, the middle-aged burly man who spoke first stood up abruptly.
Dissatisfaction was visibly written on his fleshy face as he stared fiercely at Li Fan:
"Li Fan, watch your words! The Third Kazekage is the strongest Kazekage in the history of the Sand Village. How could he be murdered, and murdered in the village at that!"
"Jonin Aoki is right! How could the powerful Lord Third be murdered, and murdered silently within the village?!"
"That's right! And Lord Third always has two Jonin following him closely."
"In the ninja world right now, who has the ability to kill the Third and two bodyguards without attracting the attention of the village ninjas?"
"Yes, to kill Lord Third and his bodyguards in the village without attracting attention, it must be done in a minute or even less than half a minute. Do you think that's possible?"
As the burly man stood up, a second and third Jonin stood up to stare at Li Fan, refuting him viciously.
Although the other Jonin who didn't stand up remained silent, they also stared at Li Fan with unfriendly eyes.
The Third Kazekage was the pride of the Sand Village.
The Sand ninjas, who had always been inferior, could hold their heads high in front of ninjas from other major villages precisely because of this Kazekage's existence.
Li Fan's words had truly provoked public anger.
Being stared at viciously by more than a dozen battle-hardened Jonin, Li Fan's face didn't change in the slightest.
He simply continued to look straight at Chiyo and said unhurriedly:
"Lady Chiyo, you are a senior who has experienced the First and Second Great Ninja Wars. I wonder, can my Master rank in the top five among all the Kage in history of the Five Great Ninja Villages?"
As soon as Li Fan said this, Chiyo didn't speak but fell silent.
At the same time, a trace of sadness appeared on her calm face.
As living fossils of the ninja world, the Chiyo siblings had witnessed decades of changes.
How could they not be clear about the possibilities behind the Third Kazekage's sudden and inexplicable disappearance?
However, Chiyo dared not admit it in her heart.
The Hidden Sand Village had low self-esteem due to various reasons, and was arrogant because of that low self-esteem.
Now, thanks to the existence of the Third Kazekage, the mindset of the ninjas had finally begun to improve a little.
But now you tell people that their strongest Kazekage was actually murdered around the village, or even very likely inside the village?
And they knew nothing about it, only realizing it with hindsight a full day after the disappearance?
Wouldn't their Sand Village become a joke?
Moreover, this would be a severe blow to the Sand Village. The village residents and ninjas would definitely become more inferior and afraid because of this.
There might even be more defections.
But Li Fan's merciless words directly and ruthlessly shattered the self-deceptive thoughts of the Chiyo siblings. It was ruthless, but also very realistic.
Hearing Li Fan's words, the few Jonin who had stood up looked at each other in dismay.
Then, one by one, they sat down weakly.
Although Chiyo didn't speak, everyone present understood the answer.
Because the Sand Village was located in the desert with scarce resources, coupled with various other reasons, its high-end combat power had always been half a head weaker than the other four major ninja villages.
The so-called "Strongest Kazekage" was only the strongest Kazekage of the Sand Village. If placed in other ninja villages... hehe.
The atmosphere in the office suddenly plunged into depression.