The upper level talks and laughs, while the lower level lives and dies.
Taoist Master Qingxiao and Taoist Taixu are too far away from the lower-level monks, and their unrecorded negotiation has become a secret that is difficult for others to explore.
No one knows what they said. Everyone only knows that from that day on, a war began that seemed to never end.
The chilling atmosphere can be felt throughout Qingxiao Road.
War is too far away from ordinary monks, but the impact of war is indeed real.
For example, the taxes collected by the government have become heavier.
A war consumes an astronomical amount of resources and money. Naturally, these costs will not just be borne by Qingxiao Daocheng.
And Daocheng can't afford it either.
Obviously, it is impossible for Fang Chang, the Taoist Master of Qingxiao, to use his own private treasury to supplement war expenses.
He is opening up territory for the country, so what's the matter with collecting more taxes on the territory?
At the same time, this tax is mainly targeted at monks, and ordinary mortals who want to pay taxes have no chance.
To be honest, the Taoist Master looks down on the three melons and two dates in the hands of ordinary people.
In contrast, it is more important for them to have more children and then send them to lecture halls in the city to test their cultivation qualifications and become monk seeds.
After all, as the population increases, more people will practice and can better serve the Taoist Master.
As a result, mortals were spared from the disaster. Instead, monks had to collect commercial taxes when opening shops, agricultural taxes when cultivating spiritual fields, weapon taxes when refining weapons, and alchemy taxes when refining elixirs...
Unless they truly live in seclusion in the mountains and forests, do not communicate with the outside world, and obtain all their own resources, no one can escape the taxation stick established by Qingxiao Daocheng.
However, there were policies from above and countermeasures from below. Suddenly, the scale of the black market that emerged on Qingxiao Road for tax avoidance suddenly expanded hundreds of times.
If there is no black market with a solid reputation in a city, it will be abandoned by all the monks.
Of course, it is not that no monks have confronted taxation head-on, and even killed tax officials who came to collect taxes in public.
The result of this is that the perpetrator's family will be implicated. It can be said that if one person resists tax, the whole family will suffer.
Under the overwhelming strength of Qingxiao Daocheng, no one can resist this method that can be called tyranny.
The Taxation Department, which was independent from the Qingyi Guards, became something that the monks would turn to with dismay in the future.
When a speck of dust of the times falls on ordinary beings, it becomes an unshakable mountain.
The previous relaxed cultivation environment was no longer available, and the competition among lower-level monks became more intense. In the end, everyone discovered that the best way out for ordinary monks was to join the army.
"One person resists taxes, and the whole family suffers" and "One person joins the army, and the whole family is tax-free." Both have become popular slogans in Qingxiao Road for many years to come.
…
Too virtual line of defense.
This is the tenth year of official war between Taixu Sect and Qingxiao Legion.
The first line of defense originally created by Taixu Daozi integrating a group of bereaved sects was shattered two years ago.
But all this was within Taixu Daozi's expectation.
As early as the frontline resistance, he ordered all the formation masters, weapon refiners, rune masters and other life professional masters from the Taixu Sect and the vassal sects of the Taixu Sect to stay 300,000 miles behind, and the plan came out A solid Great Wall defense line 300,000 miles long.
In eight years, the Taixu Sect spent countless resources, and with the addition of dozens of God Transformation Masters, thousands of Nascent Soul monks, and countless ordinary monks as workers, they finally built the prototype of this Taixu defense line.
Two years ago, the Taixu Sect was defeated and retreated to the Taixu defense line. They used their home field advantage to successfully block the Qingxiao Legion's offensive.
The two have been in a stalemate here for two years. As the Taixu Sect continues to build the defense line, the possibility of the Qingxiao Legion to break through the Taixu defense line becomes increasingly weak.
It's not like the Qingxiao Legion has never thought about bypassing the turtle shell of the Taixu Defense Line, but after actually implementing it, they discovered that there are many difficulties.
Marching hundreds of thousands of miles is no big deal.
But Taixu Daozi dared to choose this place for defense, so it was certainly not without purpose.
The first one is the terrain limitation. On one side of the Taixu Defense Line is a vast swamp jungle called the Beast Swamp, which stretches nearly a million miles.
There is a group of ferocious beasts that have merged into an unknown secret world.
Just like the world of food back then, it was a small world developed by a certain great master to raise food for ferocious beasts, and there were even peerless ferocious beasts like the Yingying beast that were comparable to transformed gods.
The ferocious beasts that live in this swamp forest are at a higher level than the world of food, and have been integrated with the main world for many years. With the help of the unique environment of the main world, there are not a few fifth-level ferocious beasts in the swamp forest that have been promoted.
Although these ferocious beasts are intellectually ignorant and have lower IQs than ordinary people, and their strength is slightly lower than that of normal gods, they can't stand it because of their terrain advantages, rough skin and thick flesh, and they can still run away if they can't beat them.
Several followers of the Qingxiao Legion who were in the realm of gods fought against the ferocious beasts in the swamp forest. Although they all won, they could only gain very little, so they had to give up the idea of crossing the swamp.
As for flying over, high-level monks still have some chance, while ordinary monks are targets in the air.
On the other side of the Taixu defense line is the territory of the Lord of All Spirits.
This former ancient powerful man who was almost killed by Fang Chang left the Tang Dynasty after his defeat and escaped from the Immortal Alliance. However, he did not join the Immortal Alliance. Instead, after he broke through the Dongxu realm, he occupied a piece of territory and became the boss.
The territory is not large, with a radius of several hundred thousand miles, which is only four or five times larger than Xiaojunshan.
Therefore, the Immortal Alliance unilaterally gave Lord Wanling the title of honorary elder, and then acquiesced in his act of occupying the land and becoming king.
A great master of the Cave Void Realm has this qualification.
So it's okay if the Qingxiao Army doesn't attack them. Once they provoke them, if they dare to say anything to find a way out, there's no guarantee that the other party won't end up in person, and the old and new grudges will be settled together.
Nowadays, the Qingxiao Army seems to be a powerful force, sweeping across the wilderness with no rivals. In fact, they are only attacking Taixu Sect's territory, bullying Taojun Taixu, a bad old man.
Others are not within Fang Chang's provocation range.
From the perspective of the entire Fairy and Demon Continent, this grand war that mobilized hundreds of millions of troops and cost a lot of money was actually just a one-on-one fight between two branches of the giant group to grab territory.
Whoever wins or loses does not actually affect the strength of the group.
Therefore, other branches naturally watched the fire from afar, just watching the show, so as not to get angry.
exactly.
The Taixu defense line built under the personal supervision of Taixu Daozi successfully gave Taixu Sect a big breath of fresh air, allowing them to breathe in this sudden all-out war.
And this war is not without benefits for Taixu Sect.
Because of the organizational situation of the Immortal League, Taixu Sect, the main sect, was destined to have weak control over the sects that vassalized him.
After all, the idea of the Immortal Alliance is that the Immortal Sects in the world are one family, and everyone is an ally. The strong protect the weak, and the weak vassal the strong.
This is also the way for the Immortal Alliance to survive and grow: to have more friends and fewer enemies.
However, under the strong pressure of the legion, other sects that were unwilling to surrender to the legion had to unite closely around Taixu Sect and accept their leadership, so that they could gain a glimmer of hope under the Qingxiao legion's offensive.
In this way, Taixu Sect's control over the entire sect area has been greatly strengthened, and it can allocate resources more calmly. Resource points that were difficult to deal with before are now necessary for war needs, and support is necessary.
The result of this was that the two sides fought back and forth. Not only did the Taixu Sect not weaken at all, but most of the sects under his command were weakened. Many ancestors of the sects died in the battle, and the Ten Thousand Years of Taoist Unification was completely lost.
Only a few lucky ones received the support of Taixu Sect and soared to the sky, becoming the driving force for other sects to persist.
…
Qingxiao Legion Camp.
Develop the camp.
Xia Xiaofei was saying goodbye to the battalion commander.
"Battal Commander, thank you for your care over the years. Your subordinates will definitely remember it."
Xia Xiaofei's expression was sincere.
He was indeed very grateful to the battalion commander, not just because the battalion commander was a cultivator.
"Haha, Captain Xia Qianfu, I didn't expect you to be an undead human being. When I received the transfer order, I was still wondering if I had made a mistake."
The battalion commander is a middle-aged man who looks to be in his thirties. His name is Wei Qi. He comes from a small secret world with a lower level, probably about the same level as the Hundred Flowers World.
When he first arrived in Qingxiao Road, he accidentally heard the news about Qingxiao City's military recruitment. He wanted to find a place to stay first, so he joined the legion in a daze.
Unexpectedly, he was lucky enough to follow Fang Tiezhu, the commander of the army, into battle, and he survived every time.
You must know that Fang Tiezhu relies on her immortality and has always been desperate to fight, so the soldiers who follow her are replaced very quickly.
But equally, those who survived also gained a lot.
Moreover, Fang Tiezhu always acted fairly and rewarded his merits.
So Wei Qi made breakthroughs all the way, from a Yuanying monk to the realm of divine transformation in more than a hundred years.
He did not take the path of becoming a mortal, but swallowed the Qingling Immortality Pill to forcibly comprehend the power of the law, and his soul successfully pulled the sea of law.
The probability of breakthrough with this method is extremely low, but Wei Qi is obviously lucky.
As a direct descendant of Fang Tiezhu, Wei Qi naturally became the first battalion commander of the pioneering camp.
He looked at Xia Xiaofei with admiration.
"No wonder you have always taken the lead in these years and never lag behind others. I am always worried that if something happens to you, where will I find such useful subordinates in the future?
But I don't have to worry now.
Go ahead, this battalion commander is not the kind of person who blocks someone's future, but I only ask that if you go to the Immortal Camp, don't embarrass us in opening up the camp."
The Immortal Battalion is a new designation newly established by the legion.
The members of the camp are all members of a new blood race that has appeared on Qingxiao Road in recent decades, called the Undead Race.
The undead race is not afraid of death, because their bloodline talent is resurrection, but even they themselves are not sure of the time and place of resurrection.
Legend has it that the emergence of the undead race is related to the Taoist Lord, because the Third Legion used an undead puppet army to sweep across the invincible.
In particular, the undead people agreed to join the legion system, which further verified this statement.
Now the Taixu defense line cannot be attacked for a long time.
The legion specially mobilized the undead people in the army to form an undead camp, trying to use them as sharp knives to break through the defense line, disrupt the Taixu Sect's rear, and gain a fighting chance at once.
When Xia Xiaofei faced the praise from his boss, he modestly said:
"It's all because of the good leadership of the battalion commander. I just did what I should do."
Ten years ago, he succeeded in instigating a rebellion against the Zixia Sect and made great achievements. He was specially approved by the legion commander and rewarded with a prefecture-level military merit.
With such huge achievements, Xia Xiaofei originally wanted to hide in the background and rest on his laurels.
After all, he has a family now.
The front line is too dangerous, and his level has been raised to the full level. There is no way to go higher. He can only wait for the next game update.
But who would have thought that for the first time, the system would issue a second task before he completed one task.
[Ding! It has been detected that player Xia Xiaofei’s level has reached the system limit and the implicit requirements have been met. Now start the level mission "Breaking Limits". 】
[Task content: A true warrior dares to face the impossibility of life. As a player, it is your nature to seek death.
Please use up what you have learned throughout your life, face the horror of life and death, go beyond the limits, and become a player who breaks through the limitations of the system.】
[Mission time limit: one hundred years.]
[Task reward: Turn on the regular offline function, and you will have a chance to return to reality every ten years. 】
[Mission punishment: obliterate!]
See Erase again!
Xia Xiaofei could never forget the look of the players who were completely stunned after the first mission ended.
Even though he is now a master monk at the fifty-ninth level of Nascent Soul, he still has no limits when facing the power of the system.
In other words, after a hundred years, if you don’t break through, you will die!
If he thought before that he would make a lot of money even if he lived for a hundred years, but now he has advanced cultivation and is admired by countless people. He also has a woman who loves him and a father-in-law who trusts him.
He has a home in this world.
He doesn't want to die.
In order to be able to break through the limit, he, who was always frugal, even used his Xuan-level military merit to exchange a Dao-level Qingling Immortality Pill from the legion.
It is said that this Qingling Immortality Pill is made from the sacred fruit produced by the Qingxiao Sacred Tree and Dao-level spiritual grass, and is personally refined by the alchemy master.
Each Qingling Immortality Pill can help the peak Yuanying monks understand the wonders of the law, the difference is only the length of time.
Because of this, some people get involved in the power of laws for the first time and overcome a huge hurdle on the road to becoming gods.
Some people also get nothing.
But as long as you take the Qingling Immortality Pill, you will have the opportunity to be baptized by the power of the law. In the future, the chance of breaking through to become a god will increase by at least three points.
Well, the total score is one hundred.
However, compared to the gap between Huashen and Yuanying, it is not an exaggeration to say that one out of a hundred is enough. A Qingling Immortality Pill is enough to drive the Yuanying monk crazy.
But obviously, he is not the lucky one.
And Xia Xiaofei had a hunch that even if he used the rare prefecture-level military power on his body, he would most likely not be able to break through.
He remembered the mission introduction, which required a life-and-death experience to break through the limit.
So he decisively transferred back to the Kaifeng camp and fought with the army for ten years.
The battalion commander was wrong when he said something. He had died before, and more than once, but he returned in time every time.
But even so, he still has no hope of breaking through the limit.
This time when he transferred to the undead camp, he also wanted to experience the limits through communication with players and more intense battles.
After all, going deep into the rear is almost certain to result in death, so one can imagine the pressure they endure.
"Batalion Commander, please take care of yourself."
Xia Xiaofei said goodbye again, then exited the camp and walked towards the troop ship that came to pick him up.
