Chapter 710: A different democracy
Sam and the group just walked on the road in one direction and on their way, they were passed by some carriages dragged by various beasts and most of them are horse-type beasts.
The carriages are completely closed and they couldn't see who is inside. But most of the drivers are humans. But there is one carriage that is too eye-catching. Because it is being dragged by a centaur.
The male centaur wore armor that covered his chest and there is even a barding that covered his body as he held a spear in his hands. There are leather straps connected to his armor and the barding that are connected to the carriage on the other end.
The carriage has an entourage of centaurs, humans. The person seemed to be a VIP.
Sam is really fascinated with the Centaurs, they are similar creatures to Minotaurs in some aspects, for example, they are natural warriors and they make great archers. Just like how Minotaurs have the normal skin tone of pale green, the Centaurs have a pale brown skin tone and they also have different skin tones if they have an affinity with elements.
But Centaurs have more affinity with different elements than the Minotaurs.
The carriage is actually being dragged by a centaur that has a dark brown color which is an indication that he can control the earth element.
No matter how many carriages that are going through the route, nobody bothered with the group. They just asked them to stay to the side with gestures until they left. Except for that, there is no interruption, inspection, or any action taken by the people in the carriage or their servants.
They just walked for another half-an-hour and they finally saw a town nearby. There are many carriages and people entering and exiting the town, the town is relatively busy.
The town is surrounded by many fields and Sam could see some familiar crops. Most of them are paddy fields, but they are nothing like the fields on modern earth. These fields are far larger and bigger than the ones on the earth. Even though the grain size is only a few millimeters longer and thicker, the crop itself grew extremely large and the yield is unbelievably good.
There are many humans working in the fields actively and there are guards standing on different spots as they oversaw the whole process. They are harvesting the fields.
Sam felt that there is a market for the agricultural machines, but from the looks of it, there is no problem of manpower here like there was in the Banished realm.
They walked to the entrance of the town and there is a toll station there. The toll is not much though, it is just a few dozen spirit stones, they paid the toll and entered the town. The first thing they encountered after entering the town was the market.
There are many shops and hawkers selling things at expense of the spirit stones. There are all kinds of products here, but most of them are agricultural products or the by-products of agricultural products.
Sam is most shocked when he saw cotton and Jute. These are something he didn't find anywhere in this world, in fact, plant-based products are very few. These cotton and Jute are also special spirit crops that have different levels of strength and resistance to attacks.
The clothes made by them are clearly going to be some sort of armor to the body.
From the looks of it, most of these people are clearly not from this area, the fields for paddy are not suitable for the growth of cotton.
Apart from these, there are shops for food. There are many types of food items, cooked, raw, fruits, vegetables so many of them.
Then came the medicine and herbs.
They looked at the sky and could say it is noon by now.
Many people are going to restaurants to eat.
Sam couldn't understand this aspect. Most of the time the cultivators wouldn't worry about the food. They can survive with spiritual energy and they would spend most of the time cultivating and gaining experience.
At least the Banished realm's residents have a curse placed on them and they couldn't take the spiritual energy from the spirit stones and the food is the only way for them.
But the CharBhum realm doesn't have any restrictions.
So the aspect of these people spending so much time on food is something confusing. To clear that confusion, they directly went into a restaurant and ordered something to eat.
There are many dishes, but the group is not familiar with them. There is only one item they clearly understood what it is from the name and they ordered it.
It is just steamed rice with some fried meat and vegetables.
Only after they ate it did they understand. The dish cost a few hundred spirit stones which isn't much to them and after they ate they understood why they are focused on the food.
The food they ate has enough spiritual energy to compensate for the spirit stones they paid. And just like any food that has spiritual energy, this can also be easily digested.
Cultivation is a boring thing no matter how power-hungry a person is. Particularly cultivating with the spirit stones is something completely boring and time taking. If they exchanged it with food like this, it is indeed timesaving and pleasurable as the taste is also good.
And if someone managed to maintain a routine like this, they would also have a standard growth pattern as long as they managed to keep their comprehension up with the energy consumption.
At Sam's level, they would have to consume millions of spirit stones worth of spiritual energy to break through a single level and one could guess how boring it would be.
But the current meal is not of much help as it is more suitable for Nascent stage cultivators and most of them are the ones eating in this place.
They roamed around the town for a while and checked in the inn while Sam sent the shadow mice to gather information on what are the happenings of the town and how the world works.
Old Beast did say that Sam would feel nostalgic, but he didn't explain how. Sam is already feeling nostalgic with the market and the crops, but he is sure that this world has more than that to offer, so he is waiting for the news.
They stayed for the night and waited for the shadow mice to get the required news and the mice only came back the next morning with a lot of information.
They seemed to have infiltrated some special places as they brought some really great information to them. One of the shadow mice even stole a book on the law of this world. This surprised Sam a lot. If there is a book for laws specifically then the society must be extremely civilized since there are so many laws and this book is a common commodity for all the officials.
Sam went through the information brought by the mice and the information from the book and learned a good deal of the situation here and he also understood why he would feel nostalgic.
Because the government here is no formed by the nobility or the royalty, rather it is created by democracy.
That is right, the whole world runs of democracy, and the people can elect their leaders.
There are also bureaucrats called the Elders that oversee the election and the departments and under the ministers and the local governments. Except for the major core leader who has the highest power in any place, the rest of the employees under the government has to study in the school of bureaucracy to gain employment in any governing body.
Except for some normal jobs like attendants, gatekeepers, guards, and physical labor, the remaining governing and administrative jobs will all be taken by the examinations conducted to the school of bureaucracy.
This is something Sam didn't see coming at all. He thought this realm will also be something similar to the rest of the realms he visited, with the royalty and imperials ruling all over the common public and such. Things like Slavery and forced prostitution would be common here too.
But things are different in the book of laws, there is a strict law against slavery and even though there is prostitution, a prostitute must be registered with the government before she or he could earn money in such a way.
The registration process will only be approved once they verified that the person in question is not being forced by any external parties.
Due to this process, Prostitution is actually a kind of high-end profession in the world.
This is even more enlightening.
But it is not some kind of saintly planet. The elections might help the people choose their leader, but not every species has the same treatment.
There are two types of residents in this realm. One of them is a citizen and the other is a civilian. These two words mean extremely different in this world.
The Citizens are common people who generally live in this world under the protection of normal laws with no special privileges. They can be humans and centaurs, but they don't have the right to vote. But Civilians are the residents that have the right to vote.
Elves who are the superior and ruling race here are all civilians since birth and the only requirement for their voting right is that they should reach their awakening age.
As for the remaining two races, the Centaurs and humans, they are born citizens, and to become civilians there are specific requirements like their work experiences, agricultural land, their soldier duties, or paying a certain amount of tax, there are many alternative routes where citizens can become civilians and currently this is a time where most people change their statuses because the elections are going.
Sam couldn't help but smile at the timing they arrived.