Douluo Continent: This Tang San is different

Chapter 255 Conversation with Bibi Dong

After settling the women in, Tang San followed Hu Liena toward the Papal Palace. Gu Yuena wanted to follow, but Xiao Wu pulled her back, saying in a dowdy tone, "Don't cause trouble for your third brother, you little rascal."

"What do you mean by causing trouble? I just wanted to see what the Pope looks like!" Gu Yuena snorted coldly, cursing the Soft Bone Rabbit inwardly as a fool who didn't know any better and dared to lecture her, the ruler of all soul beasts!

When she grows up, I'll make sure she sees how powerful the Silver Dragon King is!

Upon arriving at the Papal Palace, the "Douluo Continent" area had been restored and even expanded.

"Last time, when you fought with the teacher here, the aftershocks of the clash of your auras almost destroyed this place. It took a lot of effort to repair it." Hu Liena sighed. "To fight against a Title Douluo as a Soul King, especially one who stands at the very top of the entire continent, is absolutely unprecedented and will never be repeated."

"That's not necessarily true. Maybe someone's name is Title Douluo," Tang San said with a dry joke.

"This humor is a bit lame."

Hu Liena led Tang San to the front of the Papal Palace, with Xie Yue and Yan following closely behind.

Upon entering the hall for the first time, Tang San noticed its spaciousness and brightness. On both sides stood stone pillars supporting the dome, which were carved with various powerful soul beasts and even soul masters.

In addition, there were four titled Douluo standing around.

Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan, Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, as well as Demon Bear Douluo and Ghost Leopard Douluo.

In addition, there is another woman, Ling Yuan. Although she is only at the Soul Douluo level, perhaps because of her extraordinary talent, or perhaps because Bibi Dong treats women more favorably, she is qualified to stand in the ranks of Title Douluo ahead of time.

When Ling Yuan saw Tang San, her eyes lit up, a faint smile appeared on her lips, and she nodded slightly as a greeting to Tang San.

After all, Bibi Dong, who was sitting high in the hall, had not yet spoken.

"Your Holiness, Tang San has arrived." In such a formal setting, even though Hu Liena is Bibi Dong's disciple, she still needs to address him as "Your Holiness."

"Greetings, Your Holiness the Pope." Tang San bowed to show his respect.

Ordinary people would kneel and kowtow when meeting the Pope to show the utmost respect. Only powerful individuals at the Title Douluo level are exempt from kneeling and can bow instead.

However, none of the four Title Douluos and one Soul Douluo present reprimanded Tang San; in fact, they all felt that Tang San's actions were perfectly reasonable.

Because their strength is undeniable, they can rival His Holiness the Pope!

Even without using his improved Fusion Ring skill, he could still contend with these Title Douluo and Soul Douluo, and had already earned their respect.

In the world of Soul Masters, strength has always been revered.

If you are strong enough, you can transcend all rules, and even change the rules.

"Na'er, you may all leave now." The Pope nodded slightly, dismissing Hu Liena, Xie Yue, Yan, and the others. He then turned his gaze to Tang San and said, "I won't mince words. I want to know, have you already guessed the Spirit Hall's future plans?"

Immediately, the eyes of the other five people, including Ling Yuan, sharpened slightly.

"I've guessed a bit," Tang San admitted.

"Oh? Then tell me, what are the Spirit Hall's future plans?" Bibi Dong asked calmly.

"Launch an attack on the two great empires, and then unify them."

Bibi Dong was unsure whether Tang San's calmness or indifference was in agreement or disagreement. She frowned slightly and said, "Three hundred years ago, the two great empires were constantly at war, causing great hardship and loss to the people. It was only with the intervention of the Spirit Hall that the continent gradually became more stable. However, the small frictions between the two great empires continued, and they even had their eyes on the Spirit Hall."

"Therefore, our Spirit Hall wants to unify the continent and provide the people with an absolutely stable environment, so that everyone can live and work in peace and contentment."

Tang San nodded repeatedly: "His Holiness the Pope's ideals are truly noble!"

However, Bibi Dong frowned even more, because she could hear a hint of disbelief and teasing in Tang San's tone.

It's not surprising that Tang San acted this way. After all, even Earth in his previous life couldn't achieve absolute stability, let alone the Douluo Continent, which possesses a world of extraordinary beings.

More importantly, the Spirit Hall has virtually no management talent. Although it is called a church, it is essentially a gang. The reason why it can have branches all over the continent without chaos is because those branches have autonomous management rights and the Spirit Hall's essential way of governance is "might makes right," which is in line with the current concept of people on the Douluo Continent. Otherwise, Spirit City and the Papal Palace would not be able to manage so many branches.

If Douluo Continent were at the beginning of a chaotic era, then a force like the Spirit Hall would be equivalent to the Yellow Turban Rebellion at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period—it had dreams, but was only comparable.

At least Zhang Jiao's dream was relatively pure: to create a peaceful and prosperous world. Even if he ultimately failed, he was still worthy of praise.

Bibi Dong's "dream" is a bit of a mixed bag.

If this world didn't possess extraordinary power, and if powerful individual Title Douluos couldn't play a significant role in winning a war, the Spirit Hall would have collapsed shortly after its founding.

After all, Tian Dou and Xing Luo Zai La were quite good in terms of internal military governance, public opinion guidance, and the high degree of centralization of the emperor's power.

What about the Spirit Hall?

Aside from having a large number of Soul Masters, they don't have much of an advantage.

Moreover, the Spirit Hall dared to establish a nation before even resolving its internal conflicts... Hmm, this does indeed have the flavor of a "peasant uprising"—before achieving its grand goals, it created internal divisions, or even from the very beginning, it was divided.

This is why none of the "peasant uprisings" in history have ever truly succeeded. As for Zhu Yuanzhang... that was not a peasant uprising in the full sense.

"Do you think the Spirit Hall won't succeed?" Bibi Dong's tone became more serious.

"If His Holiness the Pope becomes a god and uses his power to suppress others, the two great empires will naturally be able to submit." Tang San stated a fact, after all, the power of a god is difficult for mortals to match.

"Isn't the Spirit Hall the people's choice?" Although Tang San was telling the truth, Bibi Dong was not very happy, because Tang San seemed to think that the Spirit Hall could only rule the continent by force.

Now, as the soul within the Soul-Devouring Spider King is gradually refined, her spiritual power has greatly increased, and the madness deep within her heart has gradually dissipated, thus giving rise to different thoughts.

At least, she's serious about unifying the continent now.

"Actually, the vast majority of people on the continent don't care who rules them," Tang San said, revealing a fact that Bibi Dong found unbelievable. "They just want to live their own lives well, nothing more. Moreover, there's another fact facing the Spirit Hall: over ninety percent of the continent's population are ordinary people."

"The Spirit Hall, on the other hand, only recruits Spirit Masters."

"This means that even if the Spirit Hall successfully conquers two great empires, it will not know how to manage the conquered lands and populations."

"Members of the Spirit Hall value strength above all else. The lower-level members may be able to enforce the law in their respective cities, such as arresting criminals and assisting the local city lord in maintaining order, because they don't need to think too much about it. As long as they have the strength, they can deal with criminals. But governing a country is not like that."

"The Spirit Hall is far too lacking in basic skills."

To be honest, in Tang San's opinion, the Spirit Hall's model is more like an organization that combines the professions of police, security guards, and urban management officers, and it is currently only suitable for doing this kind of work.

Bibi Dong remained silent for a while, unsure whether Tang San's words were correct. After all, she was a Soul Master and had been influenced by the Spirit Hall's education since childhood, believing that as long as one was strong enough, one could solve all problems.

"Ordinary people have great respect for Soul Masters. If the Spirit Hall provides them with a stable life after unification, will they rebel? Are they capable of rebelling?" Bibi Dong asked in a deep voice, which was also what puzzled her.

"respect?"

Tang San sighed, "Perhaps there is, but His Holiness the Pope sits high in his palace and rarely goes out to see the world, does he? I think there's a word more appropriate than 'respect'—"

"Reverence."

"There was both respect and fear, but the latter was more prevalent."

"Secondly, while the Spirit Hall's unification would indeed provide the continent with a stable environment, how long could that last? Ordinary people currently lack the ability to resist Spirit Masters, but after conquering two great empires, the Spirit Hall can't possibly distribute all its wealth to them, can it?"

"At the very least, we have to take care of their basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, and transportation."

Bibi Dong, puzzled, posed a wise question: "Does an empire need to manage the basic needs of ordinary people? They can farm and earn money on their own..."

"It needs to be taken care of." Tang San said decisively. "There are many people in the world who work diligently their whole lives, but still have to worry about three meals a day, or even just one meal a day."

"Then what should we do?" Bibi Dong knew these things too. After all, there were natural disasters and man-made calamities every year, and there were many disaster victims and tens of thousands of people who starved to death.

"Learn from the management methods of the two great empires." Tang San understood deeply that jumping directly to a modern system was completely inappropriate for this era; it was even more absurd than DYJ!

"Isn't this making the Spirit Hall just like the two great empires?" Bibi Dong frowned.

"Therefore, we should take the essence and discard the dross," Tang San said calmly. "This is the principle of 'taking what is useful'. It is not about directly seizing other people's good things, but about learning from others' effective methods and imitating them. Then, based on our own situation, we should gradually make appropriate changes. These changes should not be one-time, but should be continuously modified over time. If they become unsuitable one day, they can be discarded and new rules can be created."

Everyone was stunned, feeling that these words were so blasphemous.

But strangely enough, it makes some sense.

"If His Holiness the Pope only wants to create an empire that lasts for about a thousand years, conquering two great empires with his strength, and then cultivating some peerless Douluo before ascending, that would be enough."

Tang San's expression turned serious as he continued, "But if you want to create an eternal and immortal kingdom, strength alone is not enough. People will always have ambitions, unless you don't ascend after becoming a god... But that requires you to have strength that rivals the entire God Realm. Unfortunately, even if you achieve godhood, you will only be a first-level god in the God Realm. The five God Kings of the God Realm do not allow those who have become gods from the lower realms to linger in the mortal world for too long. The Asura God King, who wields the power of slaughter, can kill a Rakshasa with just one move."

During the final battle, before Bibi Dong became a god, she was defeated and seriously injured. The people of the Hall of Worship jumped out and directly seized command from Bibi Dong, even giving her orders.

Even without mentioning the two "regimes" within the Spirit Hall, there are still a lot of problems at the grassroots level. Most of the civilian spirit masters recruited by the Spirit Hall may be decent in terms of combat power, but they lack the corresponding military skills and management talent.

If it weren't for the two gods, the original protagonist group probably wouldn't even be needed. If the two empires could just stall for a while, the Spirit Hall army would fall into disarray.

The Spirit Hall's current model is only suitable for blitzkrieg tactics, but after launching a blitzkrieg, a whole host of problems will arise in the later stages. If the fundamental productivity issues of its own people are not resolved, there is no point in talking about domination.

As for the small countries that submitted to the Spirit Hall in the original work, they were basically opportunists. Whoever won, they would switch sides. It was that simple. They could never be wholeheartedly devoted to the Spirit Hall because they understood that their small countries needed them, these small kings, to lead them. At most, they would abdicate afterward and let their sons take over, giving an explanation.

(End of this chapter)