Author’s Note: Hi all! This is gonna be a short volume, around 25 chapters or so. Mainly focusing on improving the strength of the party, well mainly the three in the soul foundation realm. Probably looking to have MC be enter late stage soul foundation around the beginning of the next volume. 

MC will eventually have his own sect/family/land when he grows strong enough and this volume does prepare for that in terms of world building and also giving MC stronger bonds/connections with other people than his harem members.

Bai Jia’s romance is technically unfinished so look forward to that. Also, here the map of the world:

Also, I've changed a bit about the continent names. The Central Continent now includes the Dark Empire and Central Union. The Abyss Realm was previously the Holy Continent but it became inhabitable due to the plague. 

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Volume 4 - Beginning of the Chaotic Times

A few weeks passed since the announcement of the war as the countries began preparing. The Xia and Jiang Empire were two countries bordering each other in the middle of the continent. East of the Xia Empire was the Chen Empire and west of the Jiang Empire was the Yuan Empire.

As such, the war was only on the eastern border of the country against the Chen Empire. For the Ice Arts Sect, which was located near the northern border of the country, their disciples would be in the northernmost part of the country.

While the Ice Arts Sect was a major sect in the country due to their cultivation technique, it was a small sect. Even then, it had sent out a couple hundred inner court disciples, mainly at the soul foundation level, and a few thousand outer court disciples. Of course, other sects and some nobles were sent to help and manage the war effort as well.

Now, after these weeks of preparation, the sect finally started sending out their disciples. Their destination was the largest city in the northeastern part of the empire, True Ice City.

As for Qian Yu and the four girls, they had stayed in the Xia Capital the whole time and only after hearing that did they start travelling towards True Ice City.

“Master! I-I’m a middle stage soul foundation cultivator now! I broke through last night!” A large shout woke up everyone from their rest.

“Huh?” Qian Yu opened his eyes as he saw Zhen Yue burst into his tent.

“Wait what? Congratulations!” Qian Yu gave Zhen Yue a hug.

“Hehe, I could barely sleep since I was so excited!” Zhen Yue strongly hugged him back.

“Well, anyways, let’s go out,” Qian Yu grabbed her hand.  

“Good morning,” three different voices greeted the two as Qian Yu stepped out of the tent.

“Mmm, good morning,” Qian Yu stretched and smiled back.

“I’m sure you all heard Zhen Yue earlier,” Qian Yu walked away.

“Let’s see what it is this time,” Qian Yu said as he sat down with the other three by one side of the cave.

“Yes!” Zhen Yue said as she closed her eyes.

An aura emitted from her as she channeled her cultivation technique in an attempt to perform the new martial technique. From this close, he could feel the aura had indeed become a little stronger than what she normally emitted.

*Shua!* A few seconds later, Zhen Yue’s eyes quickly opened as a soft and weak glowing glint could be seen for a quick second before disappearing.

“Did something happen?” Qian Yu looked around, wondering what it was.

“I-I’m not completely sure what it is but I have some sort of idea,” Zhen Yue replied.

“Should we go grab a spiritual beast or something?” Qian Yu asked.

“No, it’s fine,” Zhen Yue shook her head.

“Master, could you come closer?” Zhen Yue asked.

“Alright,” Qian Yu nodded and walked up until he was a few feet away from her.

“This should be fine,” Zhen Yue nodded and closed her eyes once more. Taking a deep breath, she started performing the technique once more.

*Shua!* Again, her eyes opened and unlike before, her eyes seemed to glow white as Qian Yu looked at them.

‘What?’ Qian Yu felt muddleheaded as he found it hard to come up with a single concrete thought.

Yet a few seconds later, Qian Yu snapped out of it and shook his head, “What happened? I could barely think and perform an action.”

“Hmm… it is likely a supportive type of martial technique. There are many types of martial techniques and there are some with rare effects such as creating illusions, sealing, and stuff like that. Sister Zhen’s new martial technique is probably as such,” Bai Jia said.

“Ah… that makes sense,” Qian Yu said. It wasn’t his first time seeing something like this. Back in the Soba Empire, Wang Meilin had a snake spiritual beast that was able to alter memories or something like that. Still, he had forgotten about these rare types of martial techniques since he had never seen one since then.

“I agree with sister Bai. From your words Master, it seems like my technique can interfere with a person’s thought process or something like that,” Zhen Yue inferred.

“How long was I like that?” Qian Yu asked.

“About 2 seconds,” Zhen Yue replied.

“Not too long and not too short. It’s definitely useful though. Two seconds can easily mean life or death in a battle,” Sun Hong added her criticism.

“I agree. By the looks of it, you also need to be pretty close for the skill to work right?” Qian Yu asked. Before, when he was sitting with the other three girls, nothing had happened and it was only after he moved closer did it work.

“I believe so as well. Should we test the distance?” Zhen Yue nodded.

“Of course, let’s see then,” Qian Yu started adjusting the distance between the two.

*Shua!* *Shua!* *Shua!* about a quarter of an hour later, Qian Yu and Zhen Yue finally finished their testing.

“10 feet seems to be the max,” Qian Yu said.

“Yes, but also, after the first time, it seemed that the duration you were muddle headed decreased?” Zhen Yue asked.

“Yes, it seems to have the biggest effect when the other person doesn’t know,” Qian Yu answered.

“By the way, you should also test it on sister Zhao and either me or sister Bai. It may work on Qian Yu who is weaker than you but what about those at your realm or stronger than you?” Sun Hong voiced out.

“Alright then, I’ll go first,” Zhao Xieren said as she exchanged places with Qian Yu.

*Shua!* Zhen Yue’s eyes glowed as she started counting.

Like Qian Yu, Zhao Xieren fell into a short trance before quickly snapping out of it.

“About 1 second,” Zhen Yue said, a little disappointed by the fact the duration had been cut in half.

“Still, 1 second is fine. You just have to make good use of the opportunity it brings,” Sun Hong encouraged.

“Well, I’ll go give it a shot now,” Bai Jia volunteered to be Zhen Yue’s test subject.

*Shua!* Zhen Yue performed the new technique once more.

Yet Bai Jia just blinked her eyes as she realized nothing had happened.

“… well, it was kind of expected,” Zhen Yue sighed.

“Ahem, it’s fine. Who knows? If your mastery of the technique increases, it may change one of the weaknesses of the technique,” Bai Jia gave Zhen Yue a pat on the shoulder.  

“Mm.. you’re right, that’s true!” Zhen Yue smiled.

 “What about a name? Did you think of one yet?” Qian Yu said.

“Mmm… Trance Gaze works,” Zhen Yue put her hand on her chin for a few seconds before answering.

“Alright, that works. Anyways, we should probably start travelling,” Qian Yu said.

The route to True Ice City was much longer than the Ice Arts Sect to the Xia Capital, taking over a week. Still, the trip was relatively peaceful as they travelled across the snowy white landscape.

It was only until they reached the city did it start getting busier. More and more disciples, with all sorts of robes had naturally arrived at the city as well. Beyond that though, the amount of cultivators in armor were higher than ever.

Normal cultivators from sects like Qian Yu, mainly wore their robes as a form of identification. Soldiers, who were cultivators of course, usually belonged to a city’s forces or a family’s power. Instead of robes, they naturally wore armor on the outside instead. With these two types of clothing, it allowed for more variation and better distinction on the battlefield.

Of course, sect disciples could wear armor as well and this was done usually below their robes. As for the type of armor, it depended on preference and varied greatly from simple chest plates to a full body suit.