Douluo Continent: The Peerless Tang Sect - Sharingan Intercepts Tianmeng

Chapter 97 Shrek: You're criticizing Shrek just because awakening a martial soul costs money?

"You, a Title Douluo, are threatening a five-ring Soul King who can only fuse a thousand-year Soul Ring when he reaches his sixth Soul Ring. What, does slapping him only count as a threat when you sense something is wrong?"

Jing Hongchen said with a cold smile, he was now starting to doubt the intelligence of this Elder Xuan.

"What Elder Xuan said was not a threat, but a helpless choice made to prevent the resurgence of the Angelic Martial Soul. You are not from Douluo Continent and do not know what Douluo Continent was like ten thousand years ago. At that time, almost all the Soul Masters on Douluo Continent were slaves of the Spirit Hall. Elder Xuan just did not want the evil force of the Spirit Hall to reappear on Douluo Continent."

Knowing Xuan Lao's intelligence level, Yan Shaozhe quickly spoke up in front of Xuan Lao to explain, lest Xuan Lao accidentally say something extremely detrimental to Shrek Academy.

Hearing Yan Shaozhe's words, Xiao Qiang sneered. All Soul Masters are slaves of the Spirit Hall. Xiao Qiang first heard this statement when Tang Wulin said it in Douluo III. But judging from Yan Shaozhe's situation, it is clear that all the big shots who have controlled the discourse for the past ten thousand years have been brainwashing others in this way.

"You're saying that the Soul Masters of ten thousand years ago were all slaves of the Spirit Hall?" Xiao Qiang asked Yan Shaozhe.

Looking at Xiao Qiang, Yan Shaozhe really wanted to slap him to death, but the Unbreakable Douluo beside him, Jing Hongchen in the distance, and two other faint auras all told Yan Shaozhe that he had no way to slap Xiao Qiang to death. Under these circumstances, Yan Shaozhe could only treat Xiao Qiang as a little friend and speak to him normally.

"That's right. Ten thousand years ago, the Spirit Hall even forced those children who had not yet awakened their spirits to swear allegiance to the Spirit Hall, otherwise they would not be allowed to awaken their spirits."

"I'm not saying whether the people in power still possessed the Angelic Spirit when they were required to pledge allegiance to the Spirit Hall. I just want to ask one question: Did the Spirit Hall charge money for helping people awaken their Spirits back then?"

"What money is needed to awaken a martial soul?" Yan Shaozhe asked subconsciously. His father was a soul master, and when he needed to awaken a martial soul, he could simply ask his father to help him. Therefore, Yan Shaozhe did not have to pay any money when he awakened his martial soul. However, after he finished speaking, the entire venue fell silent.

Yan Shaozhe was completely bewildered by the sudden silence in the hall, not knowing what was going on.

In his mind, awakening a martial soul was indeed something that didn't cost money, but this strange silence seemed to be somewhat different from what he thought.

As the owner of a top-tier martial soul, Yan Shaozhe, and even his father, had never been to the grassroots level, so naturally they didn't know that the idea of ​​free martial soul awakening existed almost entirely in theory.

In theory, helping everyone on the continent awaken their martial spirit would be a good thing for the country, as it could genuinely enhance the country's combat power. However, such a thing only exists in theory.

The Spirit Hall ten thousand years ago was able to send its Spirit Masters to every remote village to help everyone awaken their Spirits because they themselves were Angel Spirits. They needed to control all the Spirit Masters' information to identify which Spirit Master might become an Evil Spirit Master.

Whether to guide it onto the right path or to kill it and transform it into the power of the Angelic Martial Soul to help everyone on the continent awaken their Martial Soul, it would be entirely beneficial to the owner of the Angelic Martial Soul.

Therefore, the Angelic Martial Soul requires everyone on the continent to awaken their Martial Soul for free. The Soul Masters they send out to awaken their Martial Souls are all commoners who joined the Spirit Hall. Su Yuntao, that Level 2 Wolf, is obviously from a commoner background. Only someone from a commoner background could travel to several villages every day to help a group of children awaken their Martial Souls.

Because those Soul Masters who awaken Martial Souls are themselves from commoner backgrounds, they are more likely to empathize with children from lower-class backgrounds. In addition, with the Spirit Hall's reward mechanism, as long as they awaken a good Martial Soul and are recommended to the Spirit Hall's academy, they will receive additional rewards.

The higher-ups need it, and the lower-ups need it too; the interests of both sides are aligned. That's why the Spirit Hall was able to achieve this, enabling all the children on the continent to awaken their spirits.

But with the Spirit Hall destroyed, the situation took a different turn when it fell to the royal family.

In theory, awakening a martial spirit does not require spending money, but the royal family cannot go to every place to awaken martial spirits for everyone themselves. Therefore, they need to assign the task of awakening martial spirits to the high nobles, who in turn assign it to the lower nobles. Ultimately, the task of awakening martial spirits is carried out by the retainers or servants of those lower nobles.

The only thing that retainers and servants need to do is to please their master!

How to please your master? The answer is that besides sweet talk, you also need to do a good job of handling the tasks assigned by your master.

But how can they carry out the tasks assigned by their master? Firstly, they need strength; secondly, they need money. Strength can only be improved with the help of funds. In other words, all those servants of minor nobles need is money.

Money is obviously not enough to rely solely on the tips and meager salaries. When money is insufficient, they must find ways to obtain more, whether for their own cultivation or for a better life. They need a lot of money, and when money is insufficient, they need to find new ways to make money.

Awakening a martial soul is obviously a good way to make money. They'll help you awaken it if you pay them, and they won't if you don't pay them. It's common to see people go to several villages and still not awaken a single person with soul power.

The servants of those minor nobles were ultimately Soul Masters, and the common people below generally didn't dare to cause trouble. Under these circumstances, awakening a Martial Soul became a stable and profitable way to make money.

In this situation, the Soul Masters responsible for awakening Martial Souls under the minor nobles are somewhat sensible. They only need to hand over the bulk of their income to the steward, who then uses the bulk of the income to curry favor with the master. The master then gives the bulk of the money to the greater nobles, who then use the money for cultivation or to give to the royal family. This creates a chain of interests where only the poorest people suffer while everyone else benefits.

From the royal family down to the servants of minor nobles, everyone received real money and real profits. The only problem was that the number of people who awakened their martial spirits was decreasing, which gave the royal family a headache. However, the people sent out to investigate would eventually become members of this interest group, so the matter could only be left unresolved.

As a top-tier innate martial soul and a representative of the elite noble families, Yan Shaozhe naturally couldn't know the hardships that soul masters who rose from the bottom up had endured. Therefore, he made no attempt to conceal the fact that the Spirit Hall had offered free martial soul awakenings ten thousand years ago.

However, the result was that he inadvertently incurred public wrath.

As Yan Shaozhe announced that awakening a martial soul in the Spirit Hall would not cost money, an eerie silence was followed by a chorus of curses and swears from the entire audience.

"What? Awakening a martial soul doesn't cost any money?"

"You've got it wrong, I spent a full ten gold soul coins!"

"I spent eight coins, so when you put it that way, my awakening wasn't that expensive."

"Damn! I spent twenty!"

"Shut up, I spent thirty!"

"I only spent five gold soul coins, but that was what my sister got after marrying a lousy old man! Why can the Spirit Hall awaken a spirit for free? If we had been born in that era, my sister wouldn't have had to suffer so much!" A Soul Master who had reached the Soul Venerable level cried as Yan Shaozhe's words shattered his previous positive impression of Shrek Academy.

Some wealthy families can manage to scrape together a dozen or twenty gold soul coins, but for those struggling to make ends meet, the only option is to sell their children to afford a martial soul awakening.

Yan Shaozhe: "..."

No, even if it costs money, why are you crying over ten or twenty gold soul coins? A decent meal at Shrek Academy's cafeteria isn't even worth that price.

(End of this chapter)