Chương 42: The Sopher’s Ledger

The automated sector alarm triggered at the exact moment Ethan's thousandth Keli Cheresh jar cleared the charcoal ash pits. A deep, resonant system chime vibrated through his haptic visor, pulsing with a heavy bureaucratic amber text row that cut through the cave's damp silence. [Palace Administrative Alert: Regional Production Anomaly] Sector: Hazor Lower Ward Slums (Drainage Culvert Zone). Trigger: Unlogged commodity manufacturing volume has exceeded local F2P caps.

Status: Royal Auditor Dispatched for Ilku Assessment. Ethan dropped into a motionless crouch behind a limestone ledge, his Wilderness Camouflage pulling the shadows of the cavern deep over his burlap apron. He did not call his constructs back. His massive Perception metric, now scaled to a staggering fifty-four points by his recent level milestones, allowed him to see the raw data streams pulsing through the cave entrance as clear as day.

Descending into the narrow mud lane came Yakin-Ilu, a senior NPC Royal Scribe (Sopher) wearing the pleated, starch-white linen mantle of the palace elite. Flanking him was the junior Pixel Rex compliance manager, his digital eyes bloodshot as he dragged a physical jar of expensive, imported Syrian wine and a heavy silver ring from his inventory cache, attempting to catch the auditor's attention.

"Look at the ledger discrepancies, master," the corporate manager urged, pushing the wine jar forward as a bribe to bypass a manual reading.

"The potter in this ditch is draining thousands of kilograms of raw copper nodules out of our leased sector. He owes the crown three shekels of silver per continuous shift under the labor quota." Yakin-Ilu completely ignored the gesture. His artificial intelligence engine remained locked in a rigid, law-bound alignment. He did not look at the silver ring or the wine jar; his cold, grey eyes remained fixed entirely on the unbaked clay ledger tablet held in his left palm.

The palace scribes had arrived to enforce the Ilku tax—the crushing, state-mandated tribute paid in physical labor or silver weight that kept the F2P player base permanently dependent on the corporate syndicates. They are hunting for a warehouse inventory loop, Ethan calculated, his thoughts running through the hard-coded administrative algorithms of the server.

If they log my three-golem assembly line as a taxable commercial asset, the system will slap an automated back-tax penalty on my account that will wipe out my entire silver hoard. Ethan stepped out from the camouflage shadows, his bare feet meeting the unpaved red silt floor. He held his oxidised bronze trowel loosely in his right hand.

"The workshop is exempt from the Ilku, Sopher Yakin-Ilu," Ethan said, his voice flat and clinical. The royal scribe stopped, his reed pen hovering over his clay tablet as he raked his eyes over Ethan's filthy, soot-stained apron.

"Every tool that strikes the earth owes a day of service to the king's granary, beggar. Your output skews the municipal distribution logs." Ethan did not open an options menu, nor did he pull any physical paperwork from his burlap kilt. Instead, he raised his oxidised bronze trowel, drove the sharp, green-patina edge directly into the wet red dirt at the scribe's feet, and manually traced the three core characters of the server's flesh directory: אָ-דָ-ם.

"Read the underlying text rows of your own ledger, Sopher," Ethan said, his fifty-four points of Perception tracking the microscopic cuneiform wedges shifting on Yakin-Ilu's tablet.

"Clause 3. 2 of the municipal boundary charter. The crown collects the mandatory Ilku labor tax strictly on the yields of living souls (Adam) and registered slave retinues who consume royal water rations." He pointed the trowel back into the pitch-black cavern mouth, where his three automated constructs stood frozen in a silent, synchronized line.

"Those frames carry no biological flesh files," Ethan demonstrated, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.

"They are hard-coded under the א-מ-ת (Emet) reality script as non-living domestic implements—the same as a common stone hand-mill or a wooden ox-plow. Under the ancient Customary Right of the Tool, a landless artisan cannot be assessed for individual labor tribute on the passive output of an independent household appliance. My tools as an extension of the soil, not a living tax bracket." Silence hit the narrow lane like a heavy stone.

Yakin-Ilu stepped closer, his ink-stained fingers running across the clay tablet as his AI engine processed the structural legal link. He compared the hard-coded environmental parameters of the Adama root against the corporate guild's piracy complaint. The server's foundational municipal law overrode the player-created metrics. The royal scribe stopped his assistants from reaching for the stacked pottery. He turned back to his ledger, his reed pen striking his own tablet with a clean, sharp click.

"No living soul consumes the bread of the palace here," Yakin-Ilu declared, his voice carrying the absolute, chilling authority of the royal court.

"The transaction weight balances at absolute zero. The inventory is Zaku." Zaku. Clean. Exempt. The corporate compliance manager let out a muffled roar of frustration, his digital terminal flickering as the system violently rejected his piracy claim. [Municipal Charter Exemption Finalized] Auditor Determination: Zaku (Clean / Exempt Profile). Workshop Classification: Independent Landless Artisan (Automated Tool Exemption). Tax Rating Permanently Set: 0. 00% (Customary Right of the Tool Waiver Active).

Industrial Processing Volume Multiplier Applied: +145, 000 XP Cumulative. Current Status: Level 33 Reached (38% toward Level 34). The royal scribe turned on his heel, marching back up the ravine path with his assistants, completely ignoring the manager's frantic appeals. The corporate enforcer was left standing in the red mud, staring at a system-enforced legal shield that completely blocked Pixel Rex from touching Ethan's manufacturing yields.

Ethan slid his bronze trowel back into his burlap apron, a sharp, cynical smile cutting through the soot on his face as his experience bar crawled smoothly past the level barrier. He had legalized his factory floor, secured an iron-clad tax shield from the palace court, and his private hoard was ready for the upcoming market stranglehold.