Chapter 1355 - 30% Tax Rate.

"With that Death Pathway of his, he would be able to kill them anytime. With the Curse Pathway, he could curse them anytime. And with his Enslavement Pathway, he would be able to weaken and enslave any of them."

"Hmmm, I could try to remove the mark, but it would cost a lot of energy. The best solution is to remove the problem at the source. Just get rid of Black Chain," he thought, nodding in satisfaction.

After he made enough plans to solve that issue, he turned his attention back to the Dao Fetus. This time, he mentally visualized its capabilities and simulated how it would grow from Rank 1 to Rank 5.

In his mind, he saw his disciples hunting the disciples of other pathways for lifespan. Then they would use the lifespan to grow.

When he was done with the simulation, he said, "This is not bad. It is not bad at all. I just need to make a few more tweaks."

"Like here with the lifespan devouring. They are using my Supreme Metac for this, so they should pay me for it."

"Hmmm. I’ll scrap the contribution system for devouring. In exchange, let me add a 30% tax to it. That way, I will earn a kickback without waiting for them to die."

With the current Root of Power, he would gain lifespan from his disciples when they die. But now that he had made it possible to burn their lifespan to accelerate their cultivation, he was unlikely to keep earning lifespan that way.

After all, no disciple who was about to die wouldn’t do everything in their power to save themselves. So if they were weaker than their enemy, it made sense to consume their lifespan to increase their cultivation so they could fend off the enemy.

Actually, it was already difficult to earn lifespan from his disciples’ deaths after he gave them the Domain Power Metac. The Domain Power Metac was a game changer, and it reduced his disciples’ mortality rate, making it hard to gain lifespan from their deaths.

Now the problem became worse when he wanted his disciples to cultivate quickly and allowed them to use their lifespan to achieve that goal. His solution was to remove the need for contribution points to use the Devour Ability and instead earn tax from it.

Nodding, he said, "As long as the amount of lifespan I earn from lending them the Devouring Ability is more than what I spend activating it, there should be no problem."

"Since that is done, I need to make the Dao Status impossible for other Dao Lords to copy. At least, it must be very difficult, and they must pay a price that makes it not worth the effort."

Actually, most functions in the Dao Fetuses were already impossible to copy because they relied heavily on Fenrir to work. In a way, the Dao Fetuses are outlets of his power in the lower realm and wouldn’t work without the Devouring Supreme Metac.

The Dao Fetuses could live without the Devouring Supreme Metac, but they wouldn’t grow without it. So without his help, they would essentially turn into worse Core Metacs.

But now that he wanted to prevent other Dao Lords from stealing his intellectual property and making their own copies, he made modifications that required the Supreme Metac’s permission to do anything, including staying alive.

For one, the Supreme Metac would constantly monitor its status, and when it sensed that the Dao Fetus had been removed from its host, it would send instructions to kill it.

This way, no Dao Lord could take out the Dao Fetus to study it. But after simulating its capabilities, he found a shortcoming very quickly. He discovered that extraordinary power could keep the Dao Fetus alive.

"No, this won’t do. What if they block the instructions?" he said, shaking his head.

So he made it so that the Dao Fetus would need constant permission to remain alive. That way, if the connection with the Supreme Metac was disconnected, it would die on its own.

He set the interval to once every second. So once every second, the Supreme Metac would send the permission to live. Any interruption would lead to death. Now, no Dao Lord could keep the Dao Fetus alive by disrupting its connection to the Devouring Supreme Metac.

Of course, this meant that if something happened to him and he died, his disciples would also die with him. But he didn’t care about this.

In fact, he felt it was a good idea for his disciples to follow their master in death. However, he soon considered a scenario that worried him.

"What if they tamper with the transmission of instructions on purpose? What if my Supreme Metac was briefly removed from the Divine Constellation?"

Apparently, his anti-piracy system had become a fatal weakness that could be used to wipe out his disciples en masse. He had a problem with this because even though he didn’t care much about his disciples’ lives, he was only comfortable with them dying after he died, not before.

He needed them alive while he was alive to make use of them. If Dao Lords find out that they can kill his disciples by blocking the transmissions they needed to live for a single second, and they would, his disciples would no longer be useful to him while he was alive.

"I can’t allow this kind of weakness to exist, so I have to find another way to prevent them from copying it. It should be something less deadly," he said, chuckling.

"I could use the Root of Life to encrypt its functions. If I pass the Dao Fetus through the Gemini Supreme Metac first, then it would be essentially impossible to copy."

But as good as the idea was, he entertained it only briefly. He didn’t dare to use it.

He didn’t allow the Gemini Supreme Metac because he didn’t trust it. It went without saying that anything that goes through it will be exposed to the god king and the Gemini race.