Nine forms were sent in duplicate to the office of the undersecretary of the Treasury. Six forms were created for the blue coats office of the Exchequer. Three forms were stamped by a government official and sent to the Cultivators local administrative union. But they were all useless for one form needed to be stamped by a justice of the courts and that one would hold up the entire mess.

If nothing else, I was going to get the government to do its job on my behalf. If there was a program where I got a bounty for each demonic cultivator I took out of circulation, then I was definitely going to claim those on my taxes. If I had to file taxes, that was. I was still completely unclear on the particulars in a deja vu way that was unsettlingly close to home. If the government knew how much I made then they should just send me a bill or what I owe or don't and not make it a series of forms that would give Hobbits pause.

Come to think of it, Egiya had mentioned that she was paying some sort of value added tax on the building her family owned. If I needed to pay someone taxes, I probably should figure that out. I didn't want to ask her about her finances though, as that seemed a bit personal. I hoped that hadn't been summoned to this world to raise taxes for some blue coats pet project, but with how ineffective they seemed at rooting out the demonic influence in their midst, it probably was going to be something like that. And I had a semi legal criminal enterprise to fund.

Well if I was going to pax taxes I damn well was going to get the government to work for it like a dolly parton song. The faces of the officials who were handed the eighteen forms was probably going to be one of alarm as not a single letter was out of place.

I just had to figure out what the government here was supposed to do but that was a job for future Joe. I could enmesh myself in the local politics scene once I had the cash to rise above petty bribery.

It was time for me to talk to the guy with all of the connections. I said my goodbyes to Egiya and said that I would talk to Ellen later, and departed for the seedier, more commercial part of town. It was already late afternoon so Moon Xiru would be wrapping up with any luck and I could pick his brain. If that luck held, the prices would be reasonable.

If my luck didn't hold then I would be paying put the nose.

"How do taxes work here?" I asked the elder information broker.

"This one expresses his gratitude that you came with such a request, but if you want that kind of information you probably want to speak to a member of the bankers guild. One can give you the broad strokes if you will help unload this shipment," he said, his eyes watching my every move. His posture was one of a man who worked a lot, but enjoyed a little break as well as a long lunch and an early dismissal.

"What shipment? I don't-did you ask them to save it until I arrived?"

Two strong men pulling a rickshaw stopped in front of us. The cart was packed with tea in large canvas bags. What looked like fumes came up from a mesh vent on the top of each bag and I could smell each earthy aroma as I was used to move bags one by one. They had clearly been circling around either to infuriate me since I had been seen, or to find the right spot to park it.

The rhythm of the chain of bags being placed one at a time was meditative as Moon Xiru directed my efforts wordlessly. He held my walking stick and used it to point to where each bag would go by some heuristic that had to have been proprietary.

"This is a good shipment. The Za family really outdid themselves this time," he said as I placed the second to last bag.

"What would you do if I hadn't shown up to help unload?" I asked.

"Oh this one would have tipped them to do this," he waved to the two men sheepishly. "A long time ago, a great hero did a fantastic thing taking down the demonic patriarch. He was even recognized by the Mandarin. But today he needs to help an old man sort his stock if he wants the information he seeks."

Moon Xiru took out a brush and began to give his luxurious beard the attention that it so needed. As a man, I can appreciate these things. Just trust me when I say that if I had such a manly beard, I too would keep it in a pristine fashionable state. I was certain that there was a barbers union or a beard oil peddlers union. Based off of the amount of men that spent upwards of an hour daily prepping their skin care routine there had to be a robust economy to support such an action.

I complied with his request. He was an old man. It didn't hurt me to be helpful to those that helped me. Once everything was in the right place, he gave me the honor of preparing the tea.

"What one has to understand is that the government requires cultivators to do their part. At a certain level, we would not exist without powerful cultivators carving out large sections of the world for us to exist in. There are tales of larger continents having vast open plains that generations of cultivators have cleared. Our own city is now attempting to increase its size. The government could either ask more advanced cultivators to do their part, tell them to do their part or pay them to do it. Which option do you think most cultivators will choose?"

"They are asking sect leaders to decide if it's worth their time to send their juniors to do a project that could benefit all of us," I said.

"Precisely. So what they do in practice is take a quota. From each clan, they will ask for an appropriate amount of work. If the clan is unable to supply an appropriate amount of work, instead they are able to pay for the work in kind. This would pay for outside cultivators to come in and do the job that they cannot."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"So the clans are the tax base. But also the customer. And the beneficiary of what the government does? They also have to pay blue robe salaries I presume and all those other important functions of government like health care, public works, and everything that keeps the city of the size running. That can't be a small feat. Especially if there are services that are ancillary to those things that clearly are in a growth status. Do you do more business every year?"

Moon Xiru paused.

"It's pretty steady. This one had never thought of it in terms of years but it makes sense."

"If you weren't thinking in terms of years how do you know if you're thinking of profit or anything like that?"

"If this one has more money."

"Then you have more problems?"

"No. That's not. How money works. That's not how any of this works. Does the cultivator understand anything spoken to him today or does this one need to refresh his memory ?"

"I'm just fine. Thank you very much. It would be great if somebody wrote down ‘have this all worked so I can just read it’ but I don't think that's something that has been done."

"You are correct in this assertion. There is no one who's written such a scroll and that gleam in your eye is very telling. There is no market for such a thing."

"Just like there was no market for the tea shop? Yet we had to investigate them anyway to see how their business worked?"

"There is a market for their services. It's just an untapped potential. We are in the beginning of negotiations to bring them under our banner. A merger of sorts. A business that doesn't change with the times doesn't make it long."

"Now you sound like my father."

"Your father understood business?"

"He was an agent to several prominent rap- not a word for it here but the closest approximation is a spoken word poet. Like a singer, but slightly different. A performer to be certain."

"We have moved everything that needed to be moved. Did you want to help close up? There is precious little to do except for one client that must be steeped and cared for."

I wafted a bit of the tea, savoring the aroma briefly before I considered my next move.

"Taxes."

"Ah yes. There are two broad types that are levied. Land use or value tax which is what the Clan or family that owns the house pays and then there is the fee paid when one parts up a spiritual beast. All you need to know is that when one has a butcher take apart one's claims, the government gets a cut."

"People where I come from often say that to tax something, it means that the government wants it to be done less. Is this the case here?"

Moon Xiru strokes his beard like he was about to unlock the secrets of the universe to me.

"Yes and no. They want it to be done less by lower tier cultivators, but they want more from the higher tier. Bigger cuts from better jobs."

"At least the tax code is progressive. I couldn't imagine having to deal with all of this bullshit and the guys at the top are getting the same deal as the Sect oligarch."

"Hm. Oligarch is a word unknown to me, but the meaning is clear. The tax collector will make his appearance at which point one can argue about the value of ones holdings, but once it is set, you pay the price."

The special beard brush made an appearance and he gave himself a touch up. He didn't need it and I wondered if he was subtly telling me that I needed a beard. I definitely wanted one now, but for how scraggly and curly it would be. If everyone had a man bun and a beard then who was I to argue?

Come to think of it if there was no tax on sales then? I probably should just drop the whole idea. The fact is that I expect the government to do something for whatever taxes I am paying into it. If the main thing they did was just to defend the people from a threat that was very visceral and close by that might be enough. Speaking of which, I should probably ask him about how the defense of Western jewel actually worked. It seemed like this would be a very public problem with a very socialized solution. Something like a town militia or a aristocratic army that someone funds out of the goodness of their heart because otherwise society wouldn't function. It probably wasn't that bad, though. That would put whoever owned the army in a position of strength.

But the real problem is that the power curve was so drastic. A first realm cultivator could not hope to match a second or third realm without a heavy serving of tricks. In the same way that I got absolutely smashed by a fifth realm when I was at fourth. There just wasn't a contest. Sure the entire point of what I was doing was supposed to be a diversion but even my brain didn't comprehend the the vast gap between us. My diversion lasted all of these minutes for the sheer fact that I pulled him into dreamscape Los Angeles traffic jam hell.

The fact was that whoever was the government's figurehead was also able to destroy whoever they wanted. That was something. It was like a benevolent dictator who was also an army. There might be other fifth or higher realm cultivators in the city. Surely some of the elders were. And I was certain that none of them were called Shirley.

Moon Xiru looked at me blankly in his 'I know you have been mulling over something crucial so I'm going to give you the time to do so, but you are going to hear about it' face.

"Apologies. My mind went elsewhere. Did you have dinner plans?"

"Yes. And if it pleases the cultivator, tell this one what a spoken word poet would do with music. This idea is intriguing."

We closed up shop and found an extra good dimsum. The spice made me wish that my water glass was three times as large. I had to explain what blues, soul and rock and roll were without the ability to just put a record on. That would have been clutch. As I was explaining the beef between east coast and west coast rappers, a glint of something caught my eye.

A shiny tooth tattoo was clearly visible as a man walked by the shop and I jumped up with a start.

Moon Xiru looked shaken as I quickly jumped over the table. I ran to the door, stopped myself, and memorized the woman's description. Then I immediately turned back and tossed ten Waan onto the table, dodging around a customer that had attempted to get between me and my quarry.