The southern continent, in general, is very rural; the only big city is the capital. The summer capital and winter capitals are, at best, two mid-sized cities with populations of less than one million each. Compared to the entire population, one or two million is nothing; the only city with stone buildings is the capital; the winter and summer capitals only have wood houses, and most of the population there won't even wear clothes.
The capital, with a population of millions of people, is the only place that has a 'civilized' population base, as defined by modern humans.
Despite being so isolated, hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of intelligent beings live across the vast expanses of the southern continent. Still, even with so many people, the overwhelming majority of the land is utterly uninhabited by intelligent species and is dominated by dangerous beasts.
Laws passed by the government are mostly ineffective for the far-away settlements; there is no hard enforcement mechanism outside the big cities close to the capital, meaning the central government can only rely on soft power; in essence, it would be an exaggeration even to call it a federal country; at best, the central government is a confederation of countless small settlements and tribes.
The whole idea of setting up a government came from Master Green, a Soul Nucleus realm spiritual master. It is said that he wrote the constitution of the government by his own hand, singlehandedly built the Wide Forest city, and literally bribed a few tribes with a lot of money to relocate to it.
Unfortunately for the constitution, Master Green, as a spiritual master, has inherited the bad habits often attributed to spiritual masters. When he wrote the Constitution, he tried setting up many checks and balances and various complicated systems to the point of absurdity. Spiritual masters, as a whole, are infamous for taking things too seriously; even the simplest thing, in the eyes of many spiritual masters, appears highly complex and complicated.
But the government set up by Master Green is not all bad. It has done a lot of good, such as establishing support systems, basically state-owned insurance companies, to help those in trouble during hard times. Even though population growth is extremely slow or nonexistent, there are still occasional droughts, fires, etc.; not everyone is wise enough to save up for the times of crisis.
Before the government existed, those groups that lost their supplies or failed to grow enough crops could only endure. But nowadays, the government immediately sends help using flying ships. Of course, this system, called disaster insurance, is not free; if one wants support in times of need, they have to pay an annual fee. Most were wise enough to participate in the insurance program.
Over the years, the insurance programs expanded. Services such as life insurance, health insurance, fire insurance, earthquake insurance, etc., all became available not only to tribes as a whole but also to individual tribal members in many far-away settlements. Overall, wood elves were the most open to it, while the lizardmen were the most resistant. Nowadays, nearly all elves at least have health insurance, but nearly no lizardmen have any insurance besides disaster insurance.
Master Green was not good at writing laws and constitutions, but he was still very wise. By setting up the insurance system, he made various tribes throughout the world rely on the government. Using this reliance, he began setting conditions for participation in the program. For example, to participate in the disaster insurance program, a tribe must recognize the authority of the central government and the Ministry of the Interior. At first, some tribes protested, but in the end, they agreed.
The central government, for its part, wasn't heavy-handed. They only set out some minimal guidelines, such as regulations for impartial judges and fair punishments. Nearly all participants in the disaster insurance program adopted these changes. In any case, they were reasonable and not intrusive.
Nowadays, the central government is entirely gridlocked; therefore, there have been no new attempts to increase its power. However, there are rumours that Master Green is finally thinking about a new constitutional convention to amend and simplify the Constitution. Master Green is recognized as the spiritual leader and is the only person who can propose constitutional amendments.
The main source of income for the central government is not taxes but profits from a monopoly on all insurance services. No matter where or who, everyone uses RM as currency, and everyone, even most rural tribes, has access to payment portals. Queen Lana personally set up a worldwide system for a unified currency.
The RM portals have abilities besides just transferring money; they can be used as a means of communication, which is why Master Green was able to communicate with so many rural settlements seamlessly. With the unified money, payment portals, and the ability to communicate, selling so many insurance plans to millions of people was not difficult. The profits were great, far more than enough to support the capital.
At present, nearly everyone in the capital works for the government, most of them as insurance claim inspectors. Once someone claims harm and requests an insurance payment, the government wouldn't just agree; they would send an inspector to determine authenticity. Many larger settlements have permanent agents residing; however, smaller cities still require an agent inspection sent from the capital.
This insurance-based government system is based on the same principle as many other forms of government: the central government provides something that the local governments cannot turn down, whether it's money, insurance, protection, etc.
Usually, once an alliance or federation forms, it expands and takes power from members. However, there are also times when the federation fails and disbands. The most crucial distinction between a failed federation and a successful one is the value it provides to its members.
If a federation provides value, such as protection against other states or a single market to ease trade, it would most likely survive and prosper and eventually become a federal country. However, once a federation fails to provide value, it runs a significant risk of being abandoned. The federation created by Master Green provides genuine, substantial value in the form of disaster insurance and other insurance. However, insurance alone may not be enough to propel the confederation into becoming a unified country. Its future is uncertain; it may continue to prosper, or it may fail.
But no matter what happens, it won't be any time soon.
Even though the confederation government is not popular among the people, possibly due to rising insurance costs, the popularity of a government among the people never has, and will never, be required for the survival of a government—let alone one with a Soul-Nucleus spiritual master in charge.
...
At first, Mike was astonished at how such a system could survive. However, as he inquired more and more, he realized that the bureaucracy thrived only because of the massive income from the insurance. Without such a flow of free money, the expansive forest city and the other two capitals would have gone bankrupt. The core was Master Green; as long as he remained, the government would remain stable.
"I should find a way to earn money!" he thought. Even with a red card, he wouldn't be rich enough to buy resources for the Martial God realm. The prices of cultivation resources are very different; resources needed up to the Martial Domain are far cheaper than those for up to Martial Saint. For example, for Mike, it took less than a billion to buy pills and elixirs from the Body Training to the Martial Domain realms. The rest of the money, 29 billion, was spent on resources required to go from the early Martial Domain to the early Martial Saint realm.
The resources needed to reach Martial God are in the hundreds of billions or trillions of RM range. Mike doubts Master Silver would give him that kind of loan.
...
Nearly all of the city's population was employed by the government. Most were wood elves, though the wood elves in the city mostly wore clothes. Aside from wood elves, there were also goblins, green men, and very few lizardmen. There were also other species and even some monsters.
Such a city, with so many different species living in it, would, in most situations, have issues keeping order. After all, in most places, interspecies conflict is not uncommon. But in this city, and specifically on the southern continent, where there is minimal conflict in general, people of different species can live together without any issues.
Mike still wondered why someone like Lana would create such a peaceful place; it didn't align with her personality.
"Maybe she has a good side to her?" he thought. Mike certainly hopes that Lana also has a soft and peaceful side. If that is the case, he would have a chance for freedom.
"I have no idea!" he thought again. He simply knew very little about Lana and certainly didn't know enough to judge her actions.
Looking at the building in front of him, Mike didn't hesitate and went in.
The building is the headquarters of the spiritual branch of the government. The chief of this branch is none other than the man himself, Master Green. He usually stays in the building and is actually not hard to meet.
Mike plans to show his red card and ask for a loan. If Master Green accepts, he will happily take a loan and reach Martial God. If not, he would ask for tasks to earn money. After all, even though Mike's body is unimaginably talented for martial arts, without resources, it would take an extremely long time to reach the Martial God realm. Mike has infinite time, but he prefers not to wait for tens of thousands of years to reach the next realm.
The southern continent is very peaceful, so Mike would most likely not encounter any dangerous tasks. He would make money, make connections, and speed up his cultivation speed. There is no loss to it.
The spiritual headquarters building was vast. Many servants were moving around, transporting valuable goods and items, and cleaning the building. Technically speaking, there was no need to hire anyone to do these tasks; one magic formation could do these easy tasks much better than mortals. But Master Green didn't do that. He had money and didn't mind hiring mortals to create jobs and employment.
There were a few people in the library cleaning the bookshelves. Mike approached one of them, intending to ask how to find Master Green.
"Hello, how can I find Master Green?" Mike asked a man with a short beard and glasses. He looked about 50, with some gray hair.
The man turned and looked at Mike, smiling, and said, "You are looking at him. How can I help you?"
Mike looked at the man and was a bit surprised. The man in front of him didn't have the slight arrogance and pride he expected from someone far above mortals. Instead, he was cleaning books alongside pure mortals. Mike had lived for millions of years but had never seen anything like this.