“In short, in my opinion, this world is full of exploitation. The fox exploited the rabbit, the rabbit exploited the plants, the plants exploited the soil… Unless we stand at the very top, otherwise, we must contribute some things. Similar to taxation, inevitably, when we talk about the world’s fools, their contribution can also be called as IQ tax. Rather than giving this tax to Seven Stars Sect, this kind of despicable gang of swindlers, they might as well give it to me.”
In the main room, Wang Lu sat upright on the main couch, speaking those words with poise.
Before him sat four people.
One of them was Lady Boss. The girl crossed her hands on her chest, and she had a disapproving look but also somewhat uneasy look on her face.
Next to her was the dirty old man He Yun. This Seven Stars Sect’s Elder at this time has been freed from the rope and was given a seat, enjoying a distinguished guest treatment. It was just that sitting beside little Ling’Er, this dirty old man always felt uneasy, as if he had a hemorrhoid attack.
The next one after that was the charming and enchanting, hour-glass figured female cultivator, the double cultivation companion of the dirty old man. She was also the contact person stationed in the Marquis County, Wu Feihua. This woman was a natural seductress; she also happened to practice the fornication method of cultivation. Each and every movement of her exuded seductive temptations. Unfortunately, at this moment, her cheeks were swollen, and there were many internal injuries in her body. Originally, she was almost able to break through the level one Qi Cultivating Stage. However, she was thwarted by punches from a certain someone. Thus, her distress was too difficult to say, much less her look has been greatly compromised. Similar to He Yun, sharing a room with Little Ling’Er, this female cultivator was also nervous and cold sweat unceasingly poured down.
Next to Wu Feihua was the totally bewildered Wen Bao. He was originally guarding outside the courtyard, and not long ago, the guard, holding Wang Lu’s letter, called out to him to come in. The sight before him was completely incomprehensible, and he also heard some inexplicable theory.
“Senior Brother, what… what’s going on here?”
Wang Lu smiled. “As I said earlier, the heaven’s law foreordained that all the ignorant fools in the world have to pay an IQ tax. And in order to effectively implement this heaven’s law, I decided to set up a sect.”
“What?” Wen Bao’s fat chin decidedly fell on the floor.
Wang Lu continued, “The objective of this sect is to collect, manage, and use the world’s fools’ IQ tax well, and to earnestly maintain the interest of these fools.”
The Lady Boss raised her hand. “What’s maintaining their interest have anything to do with you?”
“Of course there are.” Wang Lu lightly said, “It is better to be exploited by me than be exploited by the Seven Stars Sect.”
“Ha! What’s the difference?”
“If you were to be raped, do you want to be raped by a prince charming or by a mountain’s wild monster?”
“... What’s with this bullsh*t analogy!? I don’t want all the options!”
Wang Lu laughed. “The old maiden’s thought is not everyone’s thought. In short, that is the truth. As long as my sect can do better than the Seven Stars Sect, in those fools’ eyes, I’ve already earned their IQ tax. However, no matter how low the Seven Stars Sect is, they are still a sect with more than a hundred years of history, so it’s not easy to do better than them. Fortunately, we have a few advantages.”
“The first one is the theoretical advantage. Although the Seven Stars Sect knows many tricks to deceive the masses, they lack a consistent set of core theory; they can’t really answer why do we have to do Immortal Cultivation? Why can we do Immortal Cultivation? How to respond when we encounter a setback? We can answer all of these questions because we have a complete set of theoretical system.”
The Lady Boss once again raised her hand. “When did we have this theoretical system.”
Wang Lu, with an indifferent look, said, “I just thought about it half an hour ago.”
“…”
“The second one is institutional superiority. As a trash level sect, the Seven Stars Sect’s management is loose, their system chaotic, and their efficiency in doing things is extremely low. However, we are different. We come from the Five Unique with an advance system of management, which can effectively improve the operational efficiency of the sect and minimize risks.”
“Haha…” The Lady Boss feebly laughed.
“The third is personnel dominance. The Seven Stars Sect is composed mostly of unwanted loser cultivators as well as the ignorant cheated disciples. Both lack of belief and the will to move forward. Their personnel is of extremely low quality, but we are different. Just take me for example. Not only I have the best spirit root in the entire Immortal Cultivation World, which is the Void Spirit Root, I also accepted a complete set of advance Immortal Cultivation Method. Even though my cultivation stage is not that high at the moment, but I have amazing growth and a very solid foundation… This means that we have an overwhelming advantage in the quality of personnel.
“Hahaha.”
“The fourth is…”
The Lady Boss raised her hand to interrupt him. “That’s enough, stop spouting out this useless nonsense, just tell us what you want?”
“Simply speaking, I want the few of us to band up to form a sect. Just now, I made a pep rally to inspire confidence.”
The Lady Boss scoffed. “You can do whatever you want, but don’t draw me into this unreasonable thing. I’m not interested in being a cult member.”
With that, she got up and was about to leave.
Wang Lu exaggeratedly sighed. “But in accordance with my plan, this sect needs an ambassador. This ambassador not only needs to be devastatingly beautiful in the look department, but also need to be pure and holy, and no shortage of unique personality. From all the people that I know, except for you, there’s no one else qualified for this.”
With an indifferent look, the Lady Boss uttered an “oh?”, and then obediently sat down.
Then, a fatty timidly raised his hand. “Senior Brother, I still don’t understand exactly what is going on…”
Wang Lu flatly replied, “You don’t need to know so much!”
“Oh…” The fatty embarrassedly pulled down his hand.
“In short, since no one has a different opinion, then our sect is officially established.”
The Lady Boss raised her hand. “You’ve talked about this for quite a while, but do you even have a name for this sect?”
“Of course there is a name. Given the fact that our sect objectives are to manage and use the ignorant masses’ IQ tax…”
“Then our sect’s name is Nine Regions Intelligence Revenue Service.”
“What the! What kind of name is that!?”
“It can be shortened to IRS or Intelligence Revenue Service. It’s awe-inspiring, isn’t it?”
“Awe-inspiring your ass! It’s an embarrassment!
“Of course, this Intelligence Revenue Service name is too avant-garde in nature. Therefore, we would limit it to high-level internal use. Any other than that, we will use the name Wisdom Sect.”
“It still feels strange!?”
“Tch, you’re the one with unclear IQ. Why don’t you all applaud first.”
Clap-clap, the room was filled with awkward applause.
After a moment, the Lady Boss sighed. “Congratulations on braving the risk of being killed by the Disciplinary Elder for setting up a cult right after you descended the mountain. And then what? How are we supposed to deal with these two?”
With that, the girl lifted out her hand and pointed at the two prisoners of war from the Seven Stars Sect. The two people immediately quivered, and cold sweat began to pour out like waterfalls. They were afraid that they would be killed to prevent them from divulging any secret.
Fortunately, Wang Lu had no intention to kill them; instead, he laughed. “The next step is to further enrich our talent team.”
While saying that, he looked at the dirty old man and Wu Feihua.
The Lady Boss gawked and incredulously asked, “Wang Lu, you mean, you want to…?”
The dirty old man and Wu Feihua were also surprised. Their eyes widened as they stared at him—although they knew that Wang Lu had no intention to kill them, they always thought that they would never get away from being punished, but now it seemed… as if he was trying to recruit them?
“Ah, although these two Seven Stars Sect people don’t have solid cultivation foundation, still, they are Immortal Cultivators, so we can use them as labor forces.”
“Hmph, suit yourself.” The Lady Boss was clearly not interested in how Wang Lu manage things.
After listening to these few exchanges, several thoughts flashed through the dirty old man and Wu Feihua’s minds. However, no one dared to speak up, for fear that it would arouse the opposite party’s anger and they would end up getting beheaded.
Wang Lu laughed. “Hehe, no need to be afraid, you two. Although I am the enemy of the Seven Stars Sect, as long as you change your heart, leaving the dark for the light, I’ll let bygones be bygones. In the future, you will be my sect’s backbone. If you do your best, all kinds of benefits that you will reap would be much better than that of the Seven Stars Sect.”
Accompanied with forced laughter, the two people very stiffly nodded while they quickly calculated the pros and cons of this arrangement inwardly. However, right now, it was still unclear… But, in any case, now they were still prisoners; even if Wang Lu said that the sun rose from the west, they could only nod.
Seeing the attitude of these two, Wang Lu faintly smiled, thinking that the new recruits’ didn’t seem to have enough loyalty… However, it didn’t matter.
Being a leader, especially a team leader, the most important thing was to build a good team, and the way to build a good team...
That same evening, when they were preparing to depart the County Magistrate’s Guest House, Wang Lu separately found the dirty old man and Wu Feihua and had a one on one conversation with each of them to improve their morale.
He cited three benefits for the dirty old man, which instantly penetrated the dirty old man’s heart and turned him into a loyal dog.
“First, although my cultivation is not high, you can’t compare my background with yours. Even if I only started cultivating around two years ago, the knowledge that I obtained from one of the Five Unique could never be matched by your one hundred years of effort.”
The dirty old man said with a rueful smile, “Indeed so… I have cultivated for a hundred years, but my core cultivation method is just a patchwork of methods combined with the one from the Seven Stars Sect. I rarely saw even a middle-rank method. However, for a disciple of one of the top sects, thumbing through top-rank methods is probably just a normal thing. Really...”
“Don’t envy the top-rate Immortal Cultivation Methods; even if you learn them, based on your intelligence and hybrid spirit root, you won’t be able to cultivate it… Even if it’s low-rank methods, some of them will suit you, but some of them would not. Originally, you’re a disciple of a sect in the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals, so your spirit root and Cultivation Method should be compatible with each other, and this is not bad. However, after you were expelled by your sect, you don’t have the suitable Cultivation Method for your Foundation Establishment Stage forward. As such, you improvised by using the Seven Stars Method. The compatibility thus took a nosedive, and your road ahead is full of thistles and thorns; you even abandoned many of your original foundation, right?”
The dirty old man became silent.
“However, I just happen to have the cultivation method for the hybrid spirit root. I can’t promise how much high your cultivation stage would be if you practice it, but ultimately, it’s better than this half-dead-half-alive current state of yours. As long as you do your job well, I will impart this cultivation method to you.”
The dirty old man became excited.
“Second, in the Seven Stars Sect, you are nothing but a six stars Elder; your power is limited. However, right now, I need someone to manage the sect, so you will be this Intelligence Revenue Service’s Deputy Director; i.e., the Wisdom Sect’s Vice Sect Leader.”
“Oh, this position is too high, I do not deserve it.”
“There’s nothing undeserving about it. For a newly established sect, there’s a lot of things to do, and you and your wife have the necessary experience to do those things. If I rely on that lame Lady Boss, who can’t even manage her own Inn, and that obese youth, this sect is finished.”
Upon hearing Wang Lu’s remark about the Lady Boss, the dirty old man trembled in fear; he didn’t dare to make any kind of response to that.
“Moreover, we, few people, are not going to stay here forever. We only came here because of the experiential learning, and this sect, to a certain extent… Hah, there’s nothing strange in appointing you to be the sect’s vice sect leader.”
Although the concept of the so-called deputy director or vice sect leader was still strange to him, he vaguely felt the meaning of this; his heart was moved.
“Third, your Seven Stars Sect, this kind of classless small sect, at most, can only stir up trouble in the middle of nowhere. If it’s a place with a genuine precious Feng Shui, like the several affluent and populous prefectural cities in the Great Ming Country, or even the capital itself, does your sect dare to penetrate those places? Is it even possible for your sect to penetrate those places? If you dare to appear, there would be a sect from the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals to crush you! However, my origin is the Spirit Sword Sect; is there any common sect who dares to mess with me? At least in the Blue River Region, the Spirit Sword Sect has the absolute strength!”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Director, will Spirit Sword Sect… allow you to use their name?”
“Nonsense, of course, they won’t allow it. If the Disciplinary Elder knows about this, the divine tribulation punishment will strike down. Nothing will happen to me, but you will certainly vanish in a puff of smoke!”
“What!? No!”
“Therefore, we can’t blatantly use this card; we still need to be low-key. The Spirit Sword Sect is only a card in our hands, but with or without a card, your confidence in doing your task is definitely different, yes? The Wang Family Village is only the beginning, Marquis County is just an insignificant jumping point, and even the prefectural capital is not our end point. You need to broaden your vision. In the Blue River Region, countries that are stronger and more prosperous than Great Ming Country are many!”
After hearing these words, the dirty old man was not only excited; it even made his blood boil.
He has never felt this emotionally-moving reaching-for-the-dream experience for so long! Since he was expelled from his original sect, wandering around destitute in the Nine Regions, the dirty old man mostly just muddled through, without any ambitions at all. However, today, after hearing Wang Lu’s rousing remarks, he suddenly found a new meaning of life.
Not with his double cultivation pair, that woman with relatively large chest and charming face, yet completely devoid of lofty and unsullied temperament… There were many noble females that could be his double cultivation pair! Previously, he was just an insignificant lowest rung cultivator in the Immortal Cultivation World; to use the Director’s words, he was a trash. However, now it was not the same! If he was successful in the future, hah, perhaps those outstandingly beautiful cultivators would form a line waiting for him to copulate with them!
Wang Lu had used these three advantages to impress the dirty old man He Yun. He then used a similar theory to arouse the dirty old man’s double cultivation companion, Wu Feihua. Feihua soon realized that if she followed Mr. Director and worked well, when he succeeded, hehe, those handsome male cultivators would be hers! Hahaha!
Alas, to her, actually Mr. Director wasn’t bad. He was still young, in the intersection between adolescent and young adult, with a handsome face and good temperament—when he didn’t speak. The most important thing was that he had a great future. Moreover, his body possessed “yang” essence!
Unfortunately, there was that ferocious flat chested woman. Probably, it was not her turn yet to taste this meat.
But so what? Wu Feihua has already been extremely satisfied with her future!
And so it went, the Nine Regions Intelligence Revenue Service’s structure was basically formed.