Empire's Deep-Seated Ills
What I just described was the general framework of the Three Kingdoms period. Now let's look at how these three empires operated from top to bottom.
Deep-seated problems don't accumulate overnight; every rule and every social class is the rust built up over tens of thousands of years.
Let's start with the rules of the Star Luo Empire, which, to put it bluntly, are "bloodline determines one's fate".
The Dai and Zhu families stand at the top of the pyramid, with generations of intermarriage ensuring the purity of the Martial Soul of the White Tiger and the Hell Spirit Cat. Off-line descendants are divided into different ranks according to their blood relation.
The direct descendants are born with Hundred-Year Soul Ring as a foundation, and before the age of ten, they are guaranteed to enter the Imperial Family's exclusive academy for cultivation, with resources readily available.
If the offshoot's Martial Soul is pure enough, they can also get a share of the profits.
If one's Martial Soul degenerates and they can't even reach the Soul Elder, they'll be removed from the family register, demoted to a commoner, and won't even be qualified to bear the surnames Dai or Zhu.
[Next to the next level are the hereditary nobles who fought alongside the Imperial Family to conquer the world. Each family has its own exclusive Soul Beast forest, mines, and private army of Soul Master.]
The relationship between noble titles and Soul Master levels is deeply intertwined: the heir of a duke's family must be at least Soul King; the heir of a marquis's family must be Soul Ancestor.
If you can't reach that level, then the title will be downgraded, with each generation becoming worse than the last, until you fall out of the nobility altogether.
This system of rules forced a frenzied internal competition among the nobility, who spared no expense in accumulating resources for their descendants to maintain their status, thus completely blocking the upward mobility of commoners.
The worst off are commoner Soul Master. All the Soul Beast Forest within the Star Luo Empire Realm are private property. Without a token issued by a noble, you can't even get close to the edge of the forest. Anyone who dares to trespass will be executed as a poacher.
It's already difficult for an ordinary family to produce a Soul Master. After finally awakening their Martial Soul, they can only save up money to buy the lowest-level Ten-Year Soul Ring.
To obtain a hundred-year-old Soul Ring, one must sign a contract of servitude to a nobleman, fighting to the death in exchange for one. As for Thousand-Year Soul Ring? That's standard equipment for noble children; commoner Soul Master might never even see one in their lifetime.
The entire path to advancement for Soul Master in the Star Luo Empire was sealed off from the day they were born.
Even for someone of humble origins, reaching the Soul Emperor level at best requires risking their life; beyond that, it's simply impossible.
It's not that no one has thought about changing it.
In the past, there were precedents of commoner Soul Master being ennobled based on their military achievements. However, as soon as one was ennobled as a viscount, he was suppressed by all the nobles, who fabricated charges against him and executed his entire family. After that, no one dared to mention it again.
The Imperial Family was happy to see this situation: the nobles controlled the resources, the common people hated the nobles, the Imperial Family acted as the referee in the middle, and their power remained as stable as Mount Tai.
As for Soul Guidance Technology? It's not that the Imperial Family doesn't know how powerful it is, it's that they dare not touch it.
Soul Tool could empower even an ordinary soldier to fight against Soul Master. If they became widespread, how would the privileges of nobles regarding their Martial Soul be maintained?
So Star Luo Empire wasn't stupid; he was just pretending to be ignorant, preferring to cling to old rules and wait to die rather than touch his own piece of the pie.
Shrek City, restaurant.
After reading Lin Ye's opinion, Xiao Xiao felt even more depressed.
She came from a small sect, so at least she had the sect's protection. But commoner Soul Master in the Star Luo Empire didn't even have a place to stay.
"Not even a chance to try... Just because you were born into a bad family, you don't even have the right to become stronger?"
She spoke softly, recalling the embarrassment she felt when she first entered school, and her nose tingled slightly.
Shrek City, the branch of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect School.
Ning Tian frowned slightly as he traced the rows of revenue figures in the ledger.
She used to think that Star Luo Empire's centralized power was efficient, but now she realizes that behind this efficiency lies the sacrifice of the future of countless people at the bottom.
"Blocking the path to advancement is tantamount to blocking the vitality of the nation."
She said softly, "No matter how strong an army is, its soldiers are all commoners. When it comes to a life-or-death situation, who would be willing to risk their life for a nobleman?"
Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, Goddess Dormitory.
Ju Zi paused with her pen and lightly drew an X next to the line "Star Luo Empire People's Loyalty".
"The people's hearts are already rotten."
She muttered to herself with a hint of sarcasm, "The nobles think that by controlling resources they control everything, but they forget that when the people at the bottom can't survive, no rules can stop them."
The Sun Moon Empire's Soul Guidance Cannon are just the trigger; if a real battle breaks out, their lowest-level defenses will be the first to collapse.
Looking at the Heavenly Soul Empire, it appears free and open, but in reality, it operates under a different set of cannibalistic rules.
The Star Luo Empire sect is a bloodline that welds the ceiling shut, while the Heaven Soul Empire sect is a high wall built by its sects.
Top-tier sects occupy the best resources, second-rate sects gnaw on bones, third-rate sects get scraps, and low-level rogue cultivators can't even get the scraps; they can only risk their lives.
Take the entrance to the Star Dou Forest, for example. It's the safest place with the most stable level of Soul Beast, but it's all been fenced off by top sects as their own training grounds. Outsiders who dare to enter are immediately killed or maimed.
The less desirable areas were monopolized by a dozen or so first- or second-rate sects. You had to pay a hefty entrance fee to get in, and once inside, you had to abide by their rules. High-level Soul Ring you obtained had to be sold to the sects first.
The most dangerous place is teeming with Soul Beast and frequent beast tides; it's reserved for rogue cultivators. If you manage to come out alive, that's a feat in itself; if you die in there, you deserve it.
The sect also oversees everything in the local area.
Larger sects have their own territories, and they have the final say in everything from tax collection and judgment to recruiting soldiers. The laws of the empire are no longer effective outside the city gates.
The Heaven Soul Imperial Family doesn't not want to intervene; they simply can't. The Soul Master in the Imperial Family's hands can't even defeat a top-tier sect, so they can only survive by stirring up conflicts between sects.
Today they support this one and suppress that one, tomorrow they offer some benefits to that one and undermine that one; they maintain a facade of unity by constantly shifting between these two positions.
Therefore, the sects of the Heaven Soul Empire can never unite as one.
Today you seize my territory, tomorrow I'll poach your disciples; internal strife is far more ferocious than external conflict.
The Holy Spirit Cult was causing trouble within the Heaven Soul Empire Realm, but the major sects were only concerned with protecting their own territories and none of them were willing to step forward. In the end, it was Shrek Academy that intervened and suppressed the disturbance.
When the Sun and Sun Moon Empire Army truly arrives, the first thing each family will think about is not defending their homeland, but how to preserve their own strength and avoid squandering their entire fortune.
Anyway, whoever becomes emperor will still need to rely on sects. Life goes on even with a different master; it's only the common people and low-level Soul Master who suffer.
[There's also the trade route of the Heaven Soul Empire. It looks like it's a bustling and well-connected route, but in reality, every single trade route is controlled by the sect. You have to pay seven or eight layers of tolls to make a single trip, and in the end, all the costs are passed on to the common people.]
The major sects made a fortune through trade routes, while ordinary people were struggling to even afford food. Beneath the surface of this apparent prosperity lay a foundation of utter decay.
Tang Ya felt a mix of emotions. Back then, the Tang Sect was rooted in the Heaven Soul Empire Sect precisely because it refused to be affiliated with any other sect, which led to its constant exclusion and eventual loss of even its sect's headquarters.
"In places where powerful sects reign supreme, small sects without a strong backing struggle to even survive."
She spoke softly, her stubbornness even more pronounced. "The Tang Sect is determined to forge its own path, relying on no one."
Shrek Academy, Inner Court Office.
Zhang Lexuan sighed softly.
Shrek's ability to establish itself relies on absolute strength, but those small sects and independent cultivators don't have that kind of confidence.