Chapter 18 - Charters & Contracts

Alex is excited to login into for the day. After playing the game for five months, he will finally break through to the second major realm. Waking up from his meditative state, he can feel the significant surge in strength affirming his promotion to the rank of an apprentice mage. He has to thank his latest breakthrough to an auxiliary skill a player has invented shortly after Sect Leader Maximus latest major announcement. Since Dan successfully made a fully functioning and commercially viable spirit energy battery, Alex has been cutting down on his cultivation time to keep up with the family's flourishing business. If not for the fact that his mortal shell still needs a good night sleep to fully recharge, he would have probably skip it altogether. So, he will goes into a meditative state at the end of each day to rest and progress his cultivation at the same time. As a matter of fact, almost all players' cultivating progress has been affected since the advent of spirit energy battery. Who would want to be stuck in a meditative state when there are better things to do out there. They are after all playing a game. 

The auxiliary skill, Sleep Is Great! was a total lifesaver but none of the players have a clue have a clue who they should thank for coming up with this wonderful solution. Prior to the invention of this auxiliary skill, all players' body will go into a dormant vegetative state the moment they logout of . Now, all players who have learned the auxiliary skill can continue to cultivate despite being away from the game. It has became one of those "compulsory" skill that all players must learn if they don't want to be left in the dust.

Unknown to all players, the auxiliary skill was actually invented by a doctor out of personal desire to cultivate in the laziest way possible. Despite being the first batch of beta players joining , she has disregarded her cultivation to a point that even most beta players in the second batch have also surpassed her cultivation progress. Being a first-year houseman, her real life is already stressful and hectic enough. Her only goal inside is living an idyllic life, recharge fully so that she can saves more life the next day back in the real world. Being in the limelight will only ruin her goal.

Today will be another busy day in . Ever since the latest major announcement, those wealthy players are splurging even more generously than ever. With the solution to the shortage of manpower on the horizon, they can soon fulfil some of their more ambitious dreams. Before Alex logs off yesterday, he has already heard of four settlements being planned in the yellow zone surrounding Oryn alone. He can only wonder how many more new settlements have already been planned across the whole of Eldorin with more to come down the road. Among the four new settlements planned near Oryn, three are backed by guilds while the last one is backed by a single player. Rumor has it, the player's family net worth is in the billions.

The founding of settlements and guilds are all made possible by the game's charter feature. For the right fees, the sect with notarized (provided it is not downright dubious) whatever legal framework a player can ever imagine. Even if a player only has a vague idea, he or she only needs to spend some time in the sect's library to fill in all the blanks. Before Alex setup the family's workshop, he had spent hours himself going through the sect's library. The diversity alone is mind-blowing with some framework being outright bizarre from an Earthling perspective while some others seem so familiar that he half-suspected either Earth took inspiration from it or the other world copied the idea from Earth. Ultimately, he still went with a standard charter other players will find familiar registering his workshop under Smith Magical & Precision Machineries Incorporated. The sect has repeatedly warned players that they should always read through the charter of any other entities when doing business with them. Humans are ultimately creature of habit. If given an option, players will rather do business with known entities instead of going into uncharted territories. Thus, it will be bad business sense if other players are dissuaded simply because he wanted something exotic or novel.

Contracts in carries a vastly different meaning compared to Earth. Alex once wondered how the sect can adopt such a liberal stance allowing players the flexibility to customized a charter however they deemed fit. Enforcement in the real world is a constant challenge even when the law and regulation are way more structured. Without even going into the public side of the law, just the commercial side is a nightmare to enforce. The government has the Internal Revenue Service, Food And Drug Administration, Securities Exchange Commission and a whole slew of other agencies and yet they are always those who will try to beat the system and succeeded in some cases. It was total fiasco whenever such scandal made headlines. The manager who notarized Alex's business charter provided an answer that he half expected and also instill a much deeper sense of wariness when signing contracts in the future.

The contacts in the cultivation world are drafted on specialized contract mediums and has true binding powers. Signees will be compelled to abide by the terms of the contract once it has been notarized. There might still be some wiggle room when the contract is drafted on a contract medium made using inferior materials but when the contract medium reached a certain quality, it will compel all signees to abide by both the letter and spirit of the contract. Off course, even contracts in the cultivation world are not infallible. Just like back on Earth, there are always way to circumvent a contract if one is willing to pay the price. Immortal Ascension Pavillion current precarious circumstance is a result of the breach in the oath of loyalty pledged by its disciples. In any cases, circumventing a contract is costly especially when the best contract medium also comes with defensive measure. At the very least, such contract medium will issue a warning when tampering is detected or in extreme cases retaliated with deadly curses.

To top it all, legal disputes are presided over by a powerful cultivator specializing in contracts, an Arbiter. Unlike Earth, there is no separation of power and Arbiters fulfils every single role needed in a court room. The best among the Arbiters come from Covenant Arbiter pathway. Their dedication to preserving the spirit and sanctity of a contract made them some the best lie detectors when presiding over legal disputes and in possession of a unique power to nullify duplicitous contracts. With the existence of truth potions, spells and in extreme cases mind domination skills at their disposal, an Arbiter never has to rely on the integrity of a witness in legal disputes. A good Arbiter will always be able to get all the facts right before announcing a verdict. 

Due to the power and potential threat of malfeasance contracts, powerful sects will have at least a branch specializing in contracts for protection. It is just like how all large corporations will always have their own inhouse lawyers. Additionally, this specialized branch also serve to resolve a disciple caught in an exploitative or sinister contract when venturing outside. Such occurrences are unavoidable and are part and parcel of the learning curve for inexperience disciples to reach greater heights. 

As an insurance, all sects will form a close relationship with at least one sect specializing in contracts to deal with any contractual matters they can't handle internally. At the top of this field is the Sacred Concord Sect, an entity the equivalent of the being the largest and most powerful law firm on Earth.