Adrian turned to Damian, "Go bring Cassius to me. I’ll be in my study."

"As you wish, my lord." Damian bowed and walked out.

Adrian just turned around and headed straight for his study. Once inside, he got onto this chair and let out a long breath.

He tossed the sealed envelope right onto the table. Just looking at it felt annoying to him.

A few minutes passed in total silence until a sharp knock came from the door.

"Come in." Adrian said as he turned to face the door.

Cassius walked in and gave a slight bow before standing straight. "Lord Adrian. I heard you needed me."

Adrian just nodded. He waved his hand toward the empty chair across the desk and Cassius sat down.

"Yeah, I did." Adrian sighed. "And I really need your help. Though, I need to tell you what happened at the capital first." Adrian said, rubbing his eyes. He had gotten distracted and had been so focused on other things that he completely forgot to brief his Chief Financial Manager on the taxing problem.

He quickly summarized the entire political trap. The trial, the dumb bidding war, the alliances with Silas and Draven, and lastly, the massive tax that was smacked on his face. He also gave Cassius the official documents he had received from the Arbiter.

"Fifty percent." Adrian said flatly. "The Emperor is taxing me fifty percent."

Cassius just sat there. He didn’t look panicked at all and instead, he actually looked mildly amused.

"So," Cassius asked calmly. "What is the plan, my lord?"

"I don’t know." Adrian admitted. "Honestly speaking, I don’t know the first thing about how taxes actually work in this empire. I was the son of a duke, sure... but I never really focused much on anything related to taxes and that is why I called you here. I need your advice."

Cassius nodded.

"Well, firstly," he began. "You need to understand how the other territories operate. Normally, a Lord takes money directly from his people. They impose land taxes, income taxes, and trade taxes on their citizens. The Lord keeps a percentage of that collected wealth, and then hands the rest of the tax revenue over to the Emperor."

Adrian nodded. "Okay."

The taxes on earth were far worse but he listened.

"But you do not do that." Cassius grinned. "You do not tax your people with money. I mean you do, but people don’t really need to pay taxes. This is because you are directly buying raw materials from them. The citizens go into the dungeon, they bring out iron and steel, and you buy it from them using bronze and silver coins."

Cassius leaned forward.

"You are not taxing their goods. You only tax the merchants if they try to export those goods outside the territory. When your own people sell iron directly to you, that is a business transaction and not tax. You are paying them money and taking iron. You’re not taking items or money and not giving anything back."

Adrian stared at him, slowly realizing where this was going.

"The Emperor’s ruling stated that he is taxing Oresfall’s official tax revenue." Cassius explained as he looked at the documents that Adrian had given him. "The Emperor is not taxing your private income, and because you completely refuse to collect official taxes from the peasants, your actual tax revenue is zero. So you technically have absolutely nothing to give him."

Adrian just stared at the merchant in silence.

"Furthermore," Cassius continued. "You sell that massive stockpile of iron and steel to neighboring territories and generate massive profits. That is your private business income, not tax revenue. Then, you use that private money to buy food. You bring that food back here, and you either give it to the workers for free, or you sell it directly to the citizens in the markets."

Cassius tapped the desk.

"None of these operations are legally classified as taxes." Cassius smirked. "So basically, you are generating zero tax income. And while you possess the legal authority to collect taxes, you are just choosing not to. Because your people are not engaged in activities that require them to pay taxes."

Adrian was absolutely stunned.

"Wow." Adrian breathed out. "This is actually fucking genius. I did not even think of this."

"It is a massive legal loophole in the laws of this empire," Cassius nodded. "So we just have to use it. If we do not exploit it, the Emperor will exploit us."

Cassius leaned back in his chair.

"Other Lords use the exact opposite strategy." Cassius explained. "They tax their people ruthlessly. They stack multiple taxes on top of each other and that is exactly why the peasants in other territories never have enough money to actually improve their lives. Most of them just rot in the slums. They break their backs all day just to barely scrape together one or two cheap meals for their kids. Many of them starve to death because of those exorbitant taxes. When a bad harvest hits, they have zero savings to fall back on and when they have good harvests, whatever they have left after taxes is barely enough to keep their family going."

Cassius gestured toward the window.

"That is the difference between the rest of the empire and Oresfall." Cassius said proudly. "The people here actually have savings. They spend their money whenever they feel like it. They buy better food if they want and the rest goes to rent. But they actually save money, and that saved wealth is not being stolen by their Lord."

Cassius smiled genuinely. "That is exactly why no one in this territory even thinks about leaving. Everyone is extremely happy with how things are being run."

Adrian just sat there.

He didn’t say it out loud, but he felt a little guilty.

’I didn’t even think about it this way.’ Adrian thought to himself. ’I just wanted to farm mana from them. I did not really care about money because if things go wrong, I can just sell mana crystals but yeah, it’s not a bad thing to see them happy.’

Even though he didn’t really think of things from this perspective, it was working out perfectly for him.

"Okay then." Adrian said with a smirk, "We’ll use the loophole."