Chapter 105 – Course Correction

  “Does the Great Xia Dynasty have income tax?” Yu Han asked.

  “What’s that?” Fang Zhao paused, punching the air. His form shifted from fist attacks to leg swipes.

  “Tax on all income generated by individuals or businesses.” Yu Han elaborated on it.

  As he listened, Fang Zhao paled. He stopped his practice and took a step back. “Why would our Great Xia Dynasty have something so diabolical? Peasants would die. Ministers would resign. sects would rebel!”

  “Got it.” Yu Han took out his pen and notebook and scribbled.

  Until now, he had identified a few existing tax systems.

  First was the sales or commercial tax on products sold in the sect’s marketplaces. This was simple: a percentage of every sale went directly to the sect.

  Then there were taxes on goods passing through the port at Great Barrier City, tariffs and customs duties, so to speak.

  Similar tariffs were imposed on resources harvested from the Hidden Realm, which entered through the Realm Crossing Passageway. For example, the fifteen stalks of Lesser Nurturing Bloodferns the group had paid the sect—for which they received no contribution points—fell into this category.

  Regulating an exact percentage-based tariff was impossible because of storage artifacts, and the sect didn’t maintain a controlled price for all Hidden Realm products. Consequently, they established fixed tariff brackets and required disciples to take on external missions just to access the Hidden Realm. For instance, a disciple on a mission to harvest Lesser Nurturing Bloodferns had to hand over a specific quota in goods (or spirit stones with an added fine) while anything else they acquired remained untaxed. They were also required to exchange a minimum number of goods for contribution points; failure to do so resulted in a higher fine.

  This tax increased based on the realm’s level, again on a sliding scale. To enter the Hidden Realm, a normal disciple needed an external mission, which served as ticket, permit, and receipt. Yu Han didn't doubt that sect members with higher clearance could dive in without such permits.

  There were also fixed port tariffs regardless of the volume of goods brought in via sea routes. Every ship was subject to a tonnage tax. The larger the vessel, the higher the duties, regardless of whether it carried cargo. Beyond that, the specific volume of goods was also subject to sales tax, though how the sect enforced that Yu Han didn’t know. Pioneering villages and towns utilised a lesser version of this for fishing and trade boats, and similar taxes applied to merchant carts and caravans.

  There was tax for land. And finally, mandatory missions for all sect members, both internal and external. Perhaps this was analogous to labour tax.

  But no income tax.

  Good, good. Yu Han checked a box in his notebook. If he was a dictator’s evil adviser, this might have been one thing to whisper. Or perhaps not. The amount of ire attracted might have made him ascend to ghosthood directly.

  Yu Han gave the confused Fang Zhao a hug. If he could, he would kiss the stone ring too, but not to show loyalty.

  Fang Zhao wasn’t a bucket of spirit stones. He was the whole factory. The road, the trucks on the road, the ships at the port. He was the reincarnation of a supply chain.

  Fang Zhao kicked him away with a creeped out face, escaping further signs of appreciation.

  Yu Han continued his market research with Huang Niuniu. Nowadays, noble scions from the same cohort avoided them as if they had contagious skin disease.

  Outer sect disciples murmured the incident with the Mad Bloodhounds for some time.

  But soon enough, other stories captured their attention.

  A external recruit had reached Level 5 in record time.

  Three outer sect bullies had ganged up to ambush another external recruit, only to be ‘accidentally’ crippled.

  A third rookie, an internal recruit, had refined an earth-grade body tempering pill within her first month in the sect. A Core formation Elder of the Alchemy hall immediately took her as a named disciple.

  One Liang clan rookie had been targetted by a team of demonic assassin while on an outing in Great Barrier City. She killed them despite being outnumbered three to one, and a whole realm weaker than the assassin leader. A Shu clan prodigy had defeated fifteen challengers from visiting ally sect and immortal clan delegations.

  Yu Han’s group of four weren’t the only ones busy making waves.

  This year’s newcomers were monsters. Made sense, since the last few years there were no newcomers from the outside world. Internal recruitment had also been stagnated, though not fully stopped. It was nowhere near the range of tens of thousands like it was this year.

  It was like a rain after a long drought. The previous cohort was a few good years older, and the sect needed new blood.

  All eyes were on the freshers. Achievement after achievement stacked up, but could they hold to scrutiny? Betting had already started for the rookie tournament. Yu Han’s crew wasn’t even in the top hundred, though they seemed to be in the top thousand.

  Yu Han trained his Martial Art, focusing more on fasting and cardio. In his dreamscape, he trained his Psychic Art and rote Cultivation.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Fang Zhao got challenged by the lackey of a certain Core Disciple.

  Li Yao found out about his previous butchery supervisor’s weakness and spread a malicious rumour.

  Huang Niuniu’s Bloodline Trait Flickering Sea Wisp Lineage was at the threshold of evolving to the elite-grade. But it was stuck. She needed an epiphany or an elixir, but did not have the contribution points for the latter. She didn’t want to pay an exorbitant amount of spirit stones as premium either.

  They consulted Elder Chang. “Excellent progress, Huang girl. If only you had elite-grade qi affinity, the sect would hold no resource back to nurture you.”

  He could not give out valuable resources without a proper cause. Perhaps he could, but he chose not to.

  Huang Niuniu wasn’t his disciple.

  But he made a promise to get her some less-valuable alchemy guides. They would be the most common ones that already circulated the marketplace, but it would be a boon to her nonetheless.

  Most importantly, he gave her a rudimentary guide on how to train the Inner Awareness Trait. His own notes, not a book by any measure. Yet helpful nonetheless.

  Entering the Qi Gathering Realm would automatically give a Cultivator the Qi Manipulation Trait. For Foundation Building, it was the Qi Sense Trait.

  Inner Awareness was a nascent version of Qi Sense, though it worked for not just qi, but also lifeforce and essence. It gave a Cultivator the ability to be aware of the spiritual energy within their body to a limited context, without the ability to manipulate it.

  After all. body tempering realm Cultivators couldn’t intentionally manipulate spiritual energy unless it was with an Art of some kind. Most commonly with Bloodline Arts.

  But with this Trait, they could become aware of the their internal world, even if slightly.

  It’s a must for all production-related Cultivators like Alchemists, Healers, formation Masters, and Artefact Refiners.

  Why only Qi Sense and Qi Manipulation? Why not Essence Manipulation, or Lifeforce Sense? Is the dao biased against body and mind cultivators?

  Yu Han’s group got together to finalise their establishment plans.

  “I’m not against it,” Li Yao said while scratching his head. “More money is always a good thing. But we need a fifth person. Who’s it gonna be?”

  “That’s where you come in,” Yu Han said.

  Li Yao put his hand down. “So finally my talents shine. Who do you want me to blackmail?”

  “What? No. Where’d that come from?”

  Li Yao shrugged.

  “You’re a people person,” Yu Han said. “You know how to make fast friends. Share a drink, get them talking, to do stuff.”

  “Come on.” Li Yao bit his lips. “The first part makes me sound good. The last makes me sound like a sleaze.”

  “If Fang Zhao or Huang Niuniu talk too much, they’ll get punched,” Yu Han said. “You won’t!”

  The two in question showed a rare moment of solidarity and protested.

  “People underestimate me because of my size,” Yu Han said. “In the mundane world, I could pretend to be rich. But three seconds into a conversation here and most people will become suspicious of me.”

  “So you’re self-aware?” Li Yao said. “Tubs was so pure and honest back in the days. Now you scheme better than a snake. Why not trick someone into joining? Or fix a problem. Make them indebted to you like you did with Red-Eyes, Crabby, and Cow Girl.”

  “That won’t work,” Fang Zhao interrupted. “Fei Rui and I had neatly packaged issues Brother Yu could solve. Others might not. Most people will never share intimate details like how I did. It was only because I had no other options left that I opened up.”

  Someone else is quite self-aware too, Yu Han nodded along Fang Zhao’s words.

  “I don’t think Brother Yu wants to wait months before starting the courtyard,” Fang Zhao said. “Brother Li has a lot of friends. Brother Yu and Sister Huang are loners, they only have each other and Fei Rui.”

  “If you say that much, I can’t refuse now can I?” Li Yao slammed his knee. “I know someone. Met him recently. Out of options too. We help him, he helps us. He can be trusted.”

  “I want to leave future recruitment to you too,” Yu Han said.

  “Hold it.” Huang Niuniu chopped the air between the four. “We don’t have a vice-leader.”

  Yu Han looked at Huang Niuniu with confusion. Fang Zhao and Li Yao’s face turned grim.

  “We don’t have a leader either,” Yu Han said as a matter of fact.

  “Brother Yu is going to be the leader,” Fang Zhao said. “ If he can solve my problem, he can do anything. He also has Fei Rui.”

  “Tubs, you have the brain of a traitorous minister,” Li Yao said. “I’ll trust you to fuck others over for our sake. You also have Fei Rui.”

  “Han’er, you’re my idea-man,” Huang Niuniu said. “Mother said the smart one has to be at the top!”

  The three boys gave her a blank look.

  She leaned away, hands going for her knife. “Han’er also has Fei Rui.”

  “You want to be the vice-leader?” Yu Han interrupted the weird atmosphere.

  “Yes!” Huang Niuniu puffed up her chest.

  “Why—”

  “I object,” Fang Zhao said. “I can beat you in a fight with my eyes closed.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Huang Niuniu said. “And you can’t!”

  “I’m the strongest. If the leader is the face of our courtyard, then the vice-leader is the fist. I can be that,” Fang Zhao said.

  “You can be the foot!” Huang Niuniu said. “A stinky, infected foot. Besides, a vice-leader has to be about trust. Trust, get it? Who does Han’er trust the most here? Obviously me.”

  Li Yao coughed into his fist. “Fei Rui.”

  “Huh?” Huang Niuniu’s head snapped in his direction.

  “Tubs trusts Fei Rui the most,” Li Yao said.

  The conversation stopped.

  The crab was outside, digging a hole. He was making another stash in Yu Han’s front yard.

  “Can you beat Fei Rui in a fight?” Li Yao asked Fang Zhao.

  The Red-Eyed boy paled.

  “Tubs trusts Fei Rui even more than he trusts you,” Li Yao said to Huang Niuniu.

  The girl received critical damage.

  “Fei Rui made friends with both Feral Spot and Mistress Miao,” Li Yao said. “If I’m a people person, then he’s a spirit beast spirit.”

  “…a-a crab can’t be vice-leader!” Huang Niuniu shouted.

  “We can all be,” Li Yao said. “I don’t think there’s a rule against three vice-leaders.”

  Yu Han went through his notes. “There isn’t.”

  Just like that, possible future backstabbing was resolved.

  Temporarily.

  Yu Han was worried about Huang Niuniu’s pettiness and Fang Zhao’s competitiveness.

  Why is she fixated on him, though. Wait, Yu Han felt his heartbeat drop. Does she like him—? No. Nope. Not going to jump to conclusions. I’ll ask her directly.

  “A courtyard is, in part, a business entity,” Yu Han said, forcefully pushing his distracted thoughts aside. “It needs a way to make money. I looked into it, and most courtyards rely on the Hidden Realm at first. They go with a good external mission, hunt a haul, and sell it to the sect.”

  “Makes sense,” Fang Zhao said. “The demand for Hidden Realm goods is virtually limitless, not only within the sect but across the outside world as well. Since the Inverted Mountains are so dense with ruins, disciples can scavenge for relics and artifacts alongside standard herbs and beasts. Countless smaller kingdoms, sects, and immortal clans lack access to their own Hidden Realms. They rely on a constant, never-ending supply of these cultivation resources. It is either that, or death.”

  Originally, Fang Zhao was a member of a courtyard. He was kicked out, because of orders from a Core Disciple, someone who knew of Fang Zhao’s past and had a dislike for the boy. Fang Zhao then approached Yu Han because as a member of the Night Alchemists’ Yard, Yu Han could also get mission passes.

  “Most courtyards sell their haul to the sect. The sect will always buy, but at a lower price,” Yu Han continued. “Half with spirit stones, the rest with contribution points. This goes for most harvested treasures like spiritual herbs, plants, fruits, beast cores, meat, and ores too. Treasures from ruins like artefacts, relics, and ruin trinkets sell for higher, though ruin trinkets might be treated as trash depending on what it is.”

  Yu Han stopped, scanned his friends. “We could also sell to the disciples and foreign merchants directly.”

  ! It's a barren world right now, and I want to populate it with a first wave of colonists.