The gourd-shaped valley has a wall of mixed earth and wood built at the exit. There are four arrow towers on the wall that is three feet high, half a mile long, and more than one foot thick. Archers should be on duty on weekdays, and there are several strong bows and large piles of arrows piled inside.
There was a heavy downpour, but there was no one in the arrow tower on the wall today.
A door opened in the middle of the village wall. On the left and right of the narrow door, stood a dozen strong men wearing metal armor, with a faint spiritual light lingering behind their heads. These big men obviously practiced the same technique, and a fierce tiger could be seen dancing wildly in the sky in the aura behind their heads.
The heavy rain was raging, but the raindrops were still more than a foot away from these big men, and they were shaken by invisible energy into mist and scattered in the wind.
To the left and right of the village gate, there were several men standing guarding the village tremblingly. They wore simple clothes made of burlap, or simply had a piece of animal skin wrapped around them. They looked at these men in armor with awe, their stout waists were stooped, and their simple and honest faces were full of complex emotions, as if little animals were alert and frightened when they saw their natural enemies.
In the valley, thousands of large and small thatched houses extend along the valley bottom. At the end of the valley, there is a huge cave with altars, bonfires, tables and chairs made of logs and other items.
A middle-aged man who was plump and fat, with shrewd eyes, was dressed in Chinese clothes and sat quietly on a big chair at the entrance of the cave. He took a sip from a bowl of fragrant tea and slowly placed the tea bowl next to him. On the maid's tea tray.
Several old men in linen clothes stood tremblingly aside, letting the wind and rain hit them. Their wrinkled faces were full of numbness and dullness, and they all looked at the large group of villagers in front of the cave with expressionless expressions.
Thousands of men and women crowded into the square in front of the cave, and the pouring rain roared down, making their bodies crackle.
These raindrops will cause continuous damage to the protective magic weapons from the lower world. These men and women have only practiced some crude martial arts, but they were born in the void spiritual world, and their bodies are born with the Taoist aura of the void spiritual world. , these raindrops hitting them only made them unable to open their eyes, but did not cause any damage to their bodies like the protective clothing worn by Yin Xuege.
More than a hundred children who could not walk were just abandoned in front of the crowd, left to be beaten by the wind and rain.
Hundreds of children under the age of ten stood aside tremblingly, looking at the strong men in armor standing on both sides of the cave with different expressions.
Several well-maintained middle-aged men in long robes with strange smiles held strange long needles and gently pricked the fingers of the children who could not walk. There were various colors on the surface of the long needles. The light flickered.
Suddenly, a dazzling fire light shot up from a long needle, one foot or two inches high, and there was a faint trace of fire dragon-like lines flickering in the fire light. The middle-aged man holding the long needle was suddenly startled, then laughed and saluted the obese man sitting at the entrance of the cave.
"Sir, this child is actually the best innate fire spirit, and it seems that there is a trace of dragon blood essence in his blood?"
The obese man squinted his eyes and snorted softly at the old men standing at the entrance of the cave.
An old man who looked to be the oldest, at least ninety years old, fell to his knees and kowtowed to the obese man.
"This is a doll from Gou Si'er's family. When Gou Si'er's wife was pregnant with this baby, she found a red fruit on the mountain. She was so hungry that she couldn't stand it. After eating it, she fell asleep for seven days and nights before waking up."
The obese man said "Oh" as if he suddenly understood, and pointed to the crowd.
The crowd parted with a roar, revealing a tall woman with a face that could only be described as being three-quarters delicate and half-dignified. Two soldiers strode forward, dragged the frightened woman out, and pressed her heavily in front of the fat man, forcing her to kneel on the ground.
A middle-aged man holding a long needle smiled and took a few steps forward. He casually pierced the woman's shoulder with the long needle, and more than half of the one-foot-long needle went in. The surface of the long needle was immediately covered with a layer of faint red, and then a ray of light erupted, turning into a small curtain of light, with a few lines of text revealed.
"Well, a middle-grade dragon power fruit? A fruit watered by the essence of the dragon's intercourse in three thousand years of climate? It's essentially just a wild hawthorn tree, but it got the dragon's essence, so it gave birth to the dragon power fruit?"
The text in the light curtain told in detail the ins and outs of the dragon power fruit that the woman had taken.
The fat man waved his hand and snorted softly.
"A dragon with only three thousand years of climate? It's not worth harvesting yet. When the climate passes ten thousand years and the dragon transforms into a dragon, the pair of dragon horns will still be interesting. It seems that it is a dragon with the attribute of fire?"
"Send a few people out tomorrow to find this guy and put a restraint on him. Being able to hide in our Panling Guard territory for three thousand years without being known to anyone is a very cautious thing. But since there are no clues, he is doomed. It’s the material in our Panling Guard’s warehouse, and we’ll have to wait for another seven thousand years to harvest it.”
"Hehe" laughed a few times, and the fat man shook the muscles on his face towards the old people.
"A few immortals, congratulations to your village. This boy's qualifications are not bad. Come on, he will be our reserve soldier of Panling Guard from now on. He will follow us back to Panling Guard tomorrow. From today on, he will rise to the top in one step. , from being a bitch like a pig or a dog, to being a superior person."
"Well, this doll is from your village, so your village must prepare all the food and drink expenses for him, as well as all the materials needed for weapons and armor. From today on, until this doll has cultivated enough OK, let’s tentatively set it for thirty years. Your village will have to pay at least thirty thousand square meters of ore to go up there, do you understand?”
Several old people trembled and hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed to the fat man.
Both these old people and the men and women standing in the square had a trace of helplessness and extreme sadness on their faces.
Human-level ore, this is the material Panling Guard needs to build armor and weapons for low-level warriors. The void spiritual world is rich in products, and human-level ore is not difficult to find. Just outside their village, there are several veins of high-grade human-level or even low-grade earth-level ore.
But the ore that can be used to forge monks' armor and weapons is much harder than ordinary gold, silver, copper and iron ore. Basically, a strong adult man can barely extract one-tenth of a cubic meter of ore from the veins after working day and night for a month.
Thirty thousand cubic meters of ore would require 300,000 adults to work continuously for a month.
But in their village, the total number of strong men who have the strength to mine human-scale ore is just over a thousand. If they work hard for a month, they can mine 100 cubic meters of ore, which is 1,200 cubic meters a year.
The obese man asked them to pay 30,000 square meters of ore within thirty years. These strong laborers in their village would basically have no free time to do other things in the next thirty years. They can no longer be counted on for plowing, hunting, fishing, cutting firewood, driving away harmful beasts, etc.
Needless to say, in the next thirty years, because of this child with an innate fire spirit body, the living standard of the entire village will drop a lot.
This is the so-called "child tax" in the void spiritual world.
People from the Most Holy Dharma Sect go to the villages to select children with potential for cultivation and train them to become cannon fodder for the Most Holy Dharma Sect's wars. But the food, drink, clothing and clothing of these children, as well as all the raw materials needed to refine the armor and weapons they need, require tribute from the villages to which they belong.
This is the 'child tax'.
If a village suddenly has a large number of children with cultivation potential within a period of time, the village is likely to be heavily in debt, and it is not impossible that it will eventually collapse completely.
Just three months old, the child of Gou Si'er's family was picked up by a maid, carried into the cave, wiped clean, and wrapped in a relatively clean cotton cloth. From today on, this child's fate will be completely different from that of other children in this village.
If he succeeds in his cultivation in the future, survives the battle against the invasion of the Holy Spirit Realm, and makes some achievements, he may be able to obtain a small and insignificant position in the Panling Guard in the future. The man he was born at that time Only then can the village get the slightest benefit from him.
The woman kneeling at the entrance of the cave stared blankly at her child being taken away. She wanted to open her mouth and scream, but several women on the side came up, covered her mouth, and dragged her back to the crowd. middle.
After the tests on children under one year old on the ground were completed, no other children were able to make the long needle light up.
The fat man frowned in dissatisfaction and cursed in a low voice.
Middle-aged men holding long needles came to the other children under ten years old, used long needles to take their blood for testing, and at the same time kneaded their joints and muscles vigorously.
Some children who are suitable for cultivation will have their qualifications revealed when they grow up, so in any village, children under the age of ten must be tested every year. Even if some of these children are not suitable for cultivation, as long as their muscles and bones are stronger than ordinary children, they will be selected and sent to Panling Guards to receive other special training.
Soon, among this group of children, fifteen children who were tall, strong and even as strong as adults were selected and were also sent into the cave.
The fat man nodded contentedly and pointed to a few old men kneeling on the ground.
"For these dolls, each person can send three thousand cubic meters of ordinary gold, silver, copper, iron, jade, crystal and other ores. They are not worth wasting those genius treasures. I will not force you to find the materials needed for these dolls. , it’s okay if you give me a little more time.”
"But, of course..."
The obese man smiled strangely and spoke slowly.
(End of chapter)