Chapter 560
Chapter 560 - 540: New Era
1,240 words
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7 min read
"Heh, times have changed, huh?"
Lu Ping’an couldn’t help but think of the past when he visited the Gourmet Church and experienced a series of cold treatment, and the reinforcements sent by Lin Nu’s Church who not only didn’t take the official special service team seriously but even wantonly killed the police... In the end, these churches were independent within themselves, not even having to give face to the official.
In a certain sense, the more they didn’t respect the authorities, the more it was a manifestation of their "loyalty" within the church.
But now, if you try to act recklessly, the government can completely abandon your church, give the deity quota to another church since there are plenty of Gods to choose from.
The act of the "Righteous God and government jointly issuing credit-coins" is a financial kidnapping, but it is also an exchange of interests and a combination of offense and defense.
With the business of space pirates, the explorers bring back a lot of assets and wealth from the Foreign Domain, which will naturally be converted into credit-coins. This will be an immeasurable continuous profit.
When a country’s GDP/growth and robbery are almost equal, their currency is also strong, and simply holding it is a form of hedging or even net profit.
"You can reject the jurisdiction of the authorities, but from now on, you can’t reject the authorities’ money."
Indeed, you may not like being suppressed by the authorities, but do you want to get rich, do you want to go further? Even if you don’t want to, your deity wants to move forward, right? To gain more divine positions and paths?
At this moment, even the slightly slower Xia Qin’s face was full of joy.
In the eyes of special agents like her, churches and large corporations have always been destabilizing factors in society. Many cases, when investigated to the end, point to those churches and large corporations like the "Golden Apple Case" that Team 3 had investigated before, which was an experimental product made by a large corporation with a church background.
In the end, even if the investigation was thorough, only a few scapegoats could be sent to prison, and ultimately, nothing would change.
Apologize, find a scapegoat, stay quiet for a while/change of location, continue next time... such a process was nauseatingly familiar.
But now, times have truly changed...
"We can investigate many cases thoroughly now." Xia Qin was quite happy since she had had enough of this frustration.
Hearing this, Lu Ping’an shook his head.
"Many cases won’t even happen anymore."
That’s the power of circumstance. Before, even if the people of the church disrespected the authorities and you had amazing strength and beat them up, it still wouldn’t solve any problems... They might have some admiration for your strength but would still lack respect for you and the social Order and official authority that you represented.
Afterward, they would continue to do whatever they wanted to do as long as they avoided you.
But now, any Proper God Church that dares to act wantonly has to consider the consequences... the higher-ups in the various churches must restrain the scoundrels below.
It’s not that the high level of the church isn’t evil, but there are more lower-level scoundrels who commit more reckless and brazen acts with greater harm.
Perhaps their "small experiment" could directly or indirectly ruin the future of dozens of families.
In the past, as long as they were still valuable, the church would help when they got into trouble. But now, the church itself must weigh its options.
Crime and illegal dealings won’t vanish, but they will absolutely be greatly reduced.
The fear of the law and punishment is the cornerstone of social stability.
"Heh, really incredible..." With these changes, Lu Ping’an, who already had an official background, was naturally pleased.
He just wondered if the existing "special service team" system would change and what role his team would play in this new era.
"The key point is... how are salary and benefits calculated?!"
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𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
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The expected three-day wait didn’t run out, and by the afternoon of the second day, Lu Ping’an and his team were greeted with an inspection.
But before that, most of the procedures, including quarantine, reporting, and written reports, were already completed by Lu Ping’an and his party.
They waited so long just for a ten-minute affair...
"...You’re good to go. You have a promising future, young man."
A middle-aged man with a smile, accompanied by four or five people, came in and took a look around, glanced at the displayed spoils of war, and passed the inspection.
The leader, with sword-like eyebrows and long hair, was wearing Hanfu and looked like someone from ancient times.
Within Lu Ping’an’s perception, he was like a mountain range, an immovable set of peaks.
"Rule-level, huh?"
The visitors took a quick look around and left immediately.
But this was necessary, as only on-site observation could reveal certain issues... This also made Lu Ping’an breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that, theoretically, the courtyard wouldn’t be discovered. However, with so many chaotic people and Taboo items, no one can guarantee that it’ll always be safe.
As they left, the Rule-level man patted Lu Ping’an on the shoulder as a sign of encouragement.
It was evident that he approved of Lu Ping’an’s gains and performance... This made Lu Ping’an curious about the harvests of other explorers since all he got on the surface was a Truth-level item while at the same time, some Silver-tier spoils of war.
"Oh, perhaps the mother and daughter Catherine are bonus points."
Lu Ping’an couldn’t issue registration cards for most of the courtyard smugglers, but he would naturally arrange an identity for Catherine and her daughter as his future employees if there were enough slots available.
Other people weren’t in a hurry, as Lu Ping’an had already found out that it wasn’t difficult for contemporary society to obtain an alien identity card given the vague relationship with "smugglers."
After all, the "passengers" brought back by explorers were not the only source of outsiders...
"Wow, how come there’s a dragon?"
As they walked out of the building, they were startled by a huge dragon gliding overhead.
It had only been a few days, and the world had changed too fast.
"The Sun God, the Sun God who is also the Dragon God, joined the earth Gods. Those are its descendants..."
The visitors were not just New Gods, but also the clans and disciples of the Gods... It was mentioned earlier that some high-ranking members of various churches who had made a run for it earlier had already calculated their moves carefully.
Their Divine Kingdom was not at the same level as Lu Ping’an’s. They could even bring along a city or a small country.
These incoming people were bound to integrate into the New World, so it’s only natural to grant them legal identities.
"...Times have changed too quickly."
But seeing the huge dragon landing in front of them, putting up a sign that read "flying, starting at 300, 100 coins per kilometer, minimum five kilometers," Lu Ping’an felt a rather subtle sense of change.
— End of Chapter 560 —