Tang Feng had witnessed many simple yet solemn Martial Soul Awakening ceremonies in rural areas.
When the Spirit Hall's deacons come to the village for the annual free awakening ceremony, it's practically the village's grandest "festival."
Parents dressed their children in their best clothes, faded and patched, their eyes filled with a mixture of humble pleading and last hopes.
Those stewards from the lowest-ranking Spirit Hall Branch may not have high Soul Power, but they are mostly gentle and patient. They carefully test each anxious and expectant child. Occasionally, when they discover a child with Soul Power, they will be genuinely happy and carefully advise the parents on possible future paths.
The children were pushed forward by their parents, their little faces tense, their eyes filled with a mixture of innocent hope and fear.
The vast majority of children awaken only Trash Martial Soul without Soul Power, such as sickles, hoes, and Blue Silver Grass, and that hope recedes like the tide.
The light in the parents' eyes would soon be extinguished, and they would silently pull their children back to their fate of facing the yellow earth, their backs hunched over.
Occasionally, very occasionally, the crystal ball would emit a faint light, even if it was as faint as a candle in the wind, it would still cause a stir and amazement among the audience.
The lucky family was instantly surrounded by envious glances. The parents were so excited they didn't know what to do, while the steward patiently and meticulously gave them instructions: which junior Soul Master Academy in the city they could try, what they needed to prepare, how difficult the future might be, but there was still a glimmer of hope...
At that moment, what Tang Feng saw was the Spirit Hall's grassroots Soul Master fulfilling their duties and their simple hopes for the future; it was the last trace of warmth at the very end of the massive machine that was Spirit Hall, which had not yet completely cooled down.
This seems to be a world apart from the ambition and ruthlessness of those high-ranking officials sitting on their thrones in the Pope's Hall, and the power struggles of the Elder Hall.
However, this warmth was not enough to comfort the entire harsh winter.
As Tang Feng traveled further, entering towns and venturing into alleyways, what he saw became increasingly shocking.
On the outskirts of the mining area, filled with the smell of coal dust and sweat, an old miner with a broken leg, wrapped in a tattered blanket, stretches out his dirty, cracked hand to the occasional passerby from a corner, his eyes cloudy.
At the market in the early morning light, a vendor carrying fresh vegetables staggered in, pleading with the tax collector because the "stall fee" had increased by three Copper Soul Coin. In the end, he could only watch helplessly as his vegetables wilted and he lost everything.
In the dimly lit, cavern-like weaving workshop, the candlelight flickered, and the pale-faced female workers were like ghosts nailed to their looms. The monotonous sound of the shuttle weaving intertwined with coughs. They rarely looked up, as if they had become one with the endless threads before them. Their youth and health were silently slipping away, and all they received in return was a meager wage that barely kept them alive.
Their struggles are silent, like weeds, tenaciously striving to survive, yet easily crushed.
The root of all this suffering, though complex and intertwined, always points to those high-ranking nobles.
The exploitation by the nobility always disguises itself in a splendid guise.
In the estates that produced the most melons, the best fruit was called "tribute" and had to be delivered to the lord's manor by the cartload.
The rest were purchased by merchants designated by the lord at a "protected price," so low that farmers could barely make a profit.
Some daring farmers attempted to bypass merchants and sell directly, but were arrested on charges of "disrupting market order" and "violating manor traditions," and their land was confiscated.
In a small town adjacent to the Soul Beast Forest, the townspeople are required to provide "labor service" for the lord's hunting party every year, serving as guides, porters, and even driving away the beasts that disturb the herd at the forefront.
Deaths and injuries are common, but compensation is meager. The precious Soul Beast, fur, and even Soul Bone that lords hunt fetch astronomical prices at auctions.
"Local tax," "polder tax," "surplus tax," "donations"... a wide variety of taxes, like a net that tightens ever tighter.
The sons of nobles, dressed in fine clothes and riding spirited horses, galloped through the streets, overturning stalls and frightening passersby. The scales of justice, from their very inception, were never designed for the common people.
The inner workings of these two great empires are already rotten to the core. The Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire share a long border and have been locked in a constant standoff for years, with frequent conflicts along the border leading to widespread suffering among the people.
The armor of the border guards was rusty, their weapons were old, and their rations were mixed with sand and gravel. Pay delays were common, while the noble officers were mostly fat and bloated.
The prosperity of the Heaven Dou City of Tiandou was built upon the hunger, cold, and corpses of countless border guards.
Meanwhile, in the heart of the empire, nobles are spending lavishly on a novel performance, a dazzling piece of jewelry, or a catwoman.
They were obsessed with banquets, Soul Hunting, art collections, and power struggles.
The plight of the frontier and the resettlement of displaced people after the floods in the south often amounted to nothing more than months of wrangling in the imperial court, with little money left after layers of deductions.
In the Star Luo Empire, the law of competition runs deep. While this has created a powerful military, it has also led to extreme internal exploitation. In the wealthy southern provinces, the bureaucratic system and local sects are deeply intertwined, resulting in severe land annexation.
Peasants who lost their land were reduced to tenant farmers or slave laborers, and their plight was even more miserable than that of the peasants who fought against the Heaven Dou.
Imperial law explicitly stipulates that nobles and Soul Master enjoy numerous privileges, making it virtually impossible for commoners to succeed in suing Soul Master.
The emperor and the Dai Family family were focused on cultivating a more powerful successor, suppressing the unruly nobles and sects within the country, and gaining an advantage in the competition with the Heaven Dou Empire. They turned a blind eye to the escalating land annexation within the country and the tragic plight of displaced peasants reduced to indentured laborers.
The groans of the lower classes could not reach the high palace walls, drowned out by the grand narrative of "imperial glory" and "might makes right".
What is most despairing is the "rules" of this world itself.
Martial Soul and Soul Power are like innate imprints on one's bloodline, determining the beginning and end of a person's life.
Among commoners, only one in ten thousand can awaken Martial Soul with Soul Power.
Even if they awaken, they mostly have low-quality Martial Soul, their cultivation is slow, they lack resources and guidance, and they may only reach the level of Soul Master or Soul Grandmaster in their lifetime.
Their fates seemed to have been predetermined from the moment they were born.
The best outcome is to become cannon fodder in the imperial army, or to become dependent on minor sects or nobles.
Nobles and members of clans, with their bloodline advantages, abundant resources, and systematic inheritance, can easily reach peaks that are unattainable for commoners.
Soul Saint, Soul Douluo, Titled Douluo... these titles, which symbolize power and status, are almost monopolized by specific social classes.
Tang Feng himself is one of the beneficiaries of this rule, inheriting a powerful Martial Soul and enjoying the sect's meticulous guidance, resources, and comprehensive protection.
Even more terrifying is the iron curtain of ideology. High-level Soul Master and nobles regard commoners as "resources," "labor," or even "talking livestock," believing that their privileges are a matter of course.
Many ordinary people, under the oppression passed down through generations, have gradually become numb, placing their slim hope of changing their fate on the Martial Soul Awakening; otherwise, they can only look forward to the next reincarnation.
Society as a whole is like a pyramid with an incredibly stable structure that makes it difficult for people to move between levels. The bottom level is vast and filled with despair, the top level is stable and indifferent, and in the middle is an invisible yet indestructible barrier of Soul Power.