To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Moreover, the local Immortal Sect, Qing Mountain Pavilion, which sheltered this place, also took nearly one-fifth of the income as taxes every year, another huge burden.

In the previous ten years, they also faced penalties, with another ten percent added to their taxes.

The City Lord’s mansion over there also collected one-fifth of the taxes.

When all was distributed down the line, the local common people had to hand over more than eighty percent of their annual income.

What they could keep for themselves was less than twenty percent.

How could this possibly be enough to live on?

Therefore, for the past ten years, the local populace had lived in extreme hardship, their faces pale and malnourished, where not having enough to eat was the norm, and it was not uncommon for people to starve to death.

Everyone was already hovering on the brink of starvation.

It was precisely because of this.

That the people of No Water City saw the selection of the Immortal Species this time as their only chance for a better life.

Only if more Immortal Species were chosen would the Immortal Sect waive the taxes they had to pay and provide them with subsidies.

The locals might then have the opportunity to produce an Immortal Master.

After producing an Immortal Master, they wouldn’t have to spend so much money to hire another Immortal Master to summon rain, and No Water City’s expenses could be significantly reduced.

At that time, the burden pressing down on everyone would vanish in a puff of smoke.

Even the taxes to be paid to the City Lord’s mansion could be subsidized and offset by other cities.

Like Red Soil City had been doing for the past ten years.

All the harvests of the local common people could stay in their own homes.

This would truly benefit the entire city and was also the driving force behind their eager preparation for the selection of Immortals.

Because it represented hope for a better life.

Listening to the whispers and discussions around him, Lu Yuan of Yi Dancheng took a sip of the locally famous bitter bamboo liquor and showed a thoughtful look on his face.

"Immortal Sects directly governing mortals, delineating them into cities, and harvesting resources through the collection of taxes.

By adjusting the tax rates, they select their own talents, making everyone within their rule serve their purposes.

Is this the Immortal Sect’s means of control in Qingyang Country?"

He pondered inwardly, gaining a deeper understanding of the management philosophy of the Immortal Sects here.

To sum it up, there’s one word — ruthless.

Yes, ruthless.

The Immortal Sect here treated nearly everyone like cash crops, harvesting them almost mercilessly, without leaving any leeway.

The life of the common people under such rule was comparable to the time when Lu Yuan had just started out in the Nine Provinces, amidst the chaos of war and turmoil.

It was even worse than those commoners.

Because back then in the Nine Provinces, even if the countries exploited their people, they would at most take three-fifths or two-thirds of the harvest, still leaving enough food for survival.

After all, wars were fought with populations and grain.

In the chaotic world of the Nine Provinces, any ruler with a bit of foresight understood the importance of laying a solid foundation.

They would not really push their own people toward death.

Those who were so muddled in their thinking to do so all perished in the end.

Like the former Wei Country.

Yet in Qingyang Country, in the Immortal Realm, the rules that once applied in the Nine Provinces no longer held true.

In the Immortal Realm, the true foundation for the Immortal Sects did not lie with those great masses of mortals, which seemed vast and inexhaustible, but with the strong cultivators whose Cultivation had reached Five Qi Towards Primordial, or even Immortals themselves.

One with the possibility of becoming immortal, and one who had already become an Immortal — only such cultivators were valued by the Immortal Sects and represented their strongest force.

In comparison, even those cultivators within the Immortal Sect who had Cultivation below Five Qi Towards Primordial seemed relatively insignificant.

The reason is simple.

A cultivator of Five Qi Towards Primordial could defeat more than a dozen at Gathering Four Qi, and hundreds at Gathering Three Qi.

And those even lower than Gathering Three Qi, mere fledglings and miscellaneous cultivators, posed no threat at all to one of Five Qi Towards Primordial.

What an enormous disparity in power?

In an Immortal Realm where mighty power was concentrated in individuals, it truly was a case where one person could oppose a nation or a domain.

And when this power was coupled with the exceedingly long lifespans, reaching hundreds or even thousands of years, it created an even more fearful exponential effect.

Because of their protracted lifespans, those powerful cultivators deemed the lower-tier cultivators, in essence, no different from cash crops and not very valuable.

If disciples perished within a century, though distressing, it wasn’t considered a big deal.

As long as one was still alive, as long as the sect’s territories remained, and the mortals were still there, they could simply choose another batch of disciples and train them for another century. The framework of a sect would be constructed once again.

A century, for an Immortal, was merely the duration of a meditation retreat.

For a cultivator of Five Qi Towards Primordial, it just meant a few more periods of seclusion.

With their lifespans of eight hundred or three thousand years, a century did indeed seem fleeting and not at all significant.

As a result.

Even those disciples below Five Qi Towards Primordial became replaceable cash crops, and the standing of mere mortals, who weren’t even cultivators, goes without saying.

Not treating humans as humans is not just an adjective here, but an ongoing reality.

The lords of the Nine Provinces, when they pushed people to desperation, at least knew and had the capacity to rise up and fight to the death.

But in the Immortal Realm, when the Immortal Sect pushed mortals to desperation, it truly meant that they neither had the strength nor even the thought to rebel would arise.

The gap was just too large.

Against someone intent on grinding you to dust, what could a mere ant do?