Snowfall Village wasn’t far off from the large city, taking about a day. Compared to the millions of inhabitants in True Ice City, Snowfall Village was just one of the many villages in the country.

Despite that though, it was also one of the larger villages, having a couple tens of thousand inhabitants normally. Yet as Qian Yu and the two girls arrived, they quickly discovered that the place was overcrowded. The area east of True Ice City had long become controlled by the military forces and currently, many tents were seen camping outside the village.

War between sects or families were straightforward, involving killing off the main forces and taking over the territory. However, wars between countries were of a larger scale. Becoming more complex, they required a more methodical and slow approach.

Cultivators weren’t immortal and still required basic necessities for life. As such, mortals at the bottom of the power chain were nonetheless important for a variety of reasons and larger wars tended to focus on the smallest and weakest parts of a country. Slowly withering down a country’s resources through villages, it became easier to target larger cities and objectives afterwards. Resulting from this, larger wars tended to involve guerrilla warfare and small battles in various areas. 

“Please show your military papers if you want to enter the camp,” a soldier blocked their way as they approached the village and tents. 

“Alright,” Qian Yu nodded and handed him the three identity papers. 

Taking a few minutes to check their authenticity, he returned the papers, “Follow me, I’ll lead you to the Captain in charge.” 

“Thank you,” the three nodded and followed the man. 

Moving through the hundreds of small tents, they saw a large pavilion in the middle of the camp. 

“The Captain is in there,” the guard opened the door to the pavilion.

The smell of wood was still in the air as Qian Yu and the two girls entered the pavilion. A man sat in the middle of the pavilion with dozens of scrolls by his side. 

“Good, about time you three came,” the man looked at the three and stood up, “Let’s do a quick debrief.”

“Thank you sir!” the three cupped their hands and bowed. 

“First about me. As you can tell, I am the Captain in charge of the Snowfall Village area. Captains responsible for leading the protection of these villages are usually Martial Fighters or Martial Lords. As for me, I am a Martial Lord,” the Captain explained his strength first.

Snowfall Village is one of the many villages surrounding True Ice City. Along with the other nearby villages a few hours or a day away, we have been sectioned off into an area called zone 8. All of us Captains in this zone report to the Martial Saint responsible for our area. As for the Martial Saints, they are directly managed by Martial Emperor True Ice himself who is responsible for protecting the northern part of the eastern border,” the Captain said.

“In total, there are about 1500 cultivators here. Pretty much all of them are qi gathering cultivators and then we have a dozen or so at the soul foundation realm. As your papers have said, you three at the soul foundation realm or squad leaders. Each squad will be made up of about 100 men,” he said.

“100?!” Zhao Xieren was shocked. This was no small number for her and previously she had never gone close to leading this many people. 

“What?” Beads of sweat had appeared on Zhen Yue. Of the three, she was the one with the least amount of leadership skills. 

“Are you really that unconfident? Have more faith in yourselves. Besides, the forces of the Chen Empire are much like yourselves. For many, it will be their first time on the battlefield and for others, it will be their first time commanding such a force like this,” the Captain assured them. 

“Very well, thank you for your advice,” Qian Yu cupped his hands and bowed. If that was the case, it didn’t seem like a bad way to gain some leadership and fighting experience.

“That said, we are in charge of one of the most important locations in the war. As the villages in the northern part of the continent, it is the warmest and thus, we are responsible for supplying the country with most of the food aside from imports from other continents,” he explained. 

“Good. Anyways, there’s a surplus of qi gathering cultivators. Go outside, turn left and head straight. Most of the qi gathering cultivators that recently arrived are stationed there. Make up your teams and send me a report so I can document it,” he pointed outside the tent.

“Yes sir!” the three bowed and retreated from the pavilion. 

As he got out of the pavilion, Qian Yu looked around. Seeing past the army of tents, he indeed saw large patches of specific vegetation that could be grown in this climate. 

‘If the enemy is trying to attack our resources, they can do it from afar. There isn’t a need to directly come in contact with the vegetation. Simply shooting a fireball from afar is sufficient…’ Qian Yu started thinking about the scenario at hand.

Before long, the three arrived at the area the Captain had told them about. Hundreds of qi gathering cultivators had been gathered at a clearing in the military camp. 

“Is that senior brother Qian!?” Their arrival had attracted the attention of the cultivators there and with Qian Yu and Zhao Xieren wearing the Ice Arts Sect robes, a mass of Ice Arts disciples surrounded them.

“Ah? Uh, hello…” Qian Yu was a little taken back as he suddenly became the center of attention. 

“Hehe, it seems you have become popular recently,” Zhao Xieren let out a little chuckle as she saw what happened. 

“Yes… they are most likely outer court disciples that were spectating in the tourney,” Qian Yu had to guess as he saw their outer court robes.

“Senior brother! Your fights were amazing to watch!”

“Yeah! You were so cool!” 

“Thank you, thank you, calm down, let’s calm down,” Qian Yu put his hands up. Looking around, he saw that there were about 100 disciples from the Ice Arts Sect. Most of them were 2 or 3 years younger than him and a few were of the same age as him. Additionally, a smile crept up on his face as he recognized a familiar face among the crowd.

“Senior brother, are you a squad leader?” someone voiced out, interrupting his thoughts. 

“Yes, I have just arrived and will be recruiting soldiers now,” Qian Yu nodded.

“Ooh! Pick me!”

“No no, I want to be on senior brother’s team!”

“Alright, alright… unfortunately, I won’t be able to take up all of you guys,” Qian Yu shook his head. 

“Instead, I would like you guys to give your support to them,” Qian Yu moved aside.

“This is inner court disciple Zhao Xieren from the Zhao Family and this here is Zhen Yue… our friend,” Qian Yu pointed at the two girls.

“Greetings senior sister Zhao! Greetings lady Zhen Yue!” the disciples shouted and bowed respectfully. 

“Hello,” “Hi!” the two waved their hands. 

“Did you decide what type of qi gathering fighters you want?” Zhao Xieren whispered to Qian Yu. 

“I think I have a good idea of what I’m looking for,” Qian Yu nodded. Taking 100 disciples with Spears of Ice was simply out of the question, making their teamwork actually static. As such, Qian Yu needed a team that had some flexibility in it but not too much. As the leader of the team, he needed to make sure he could micromanage them in the first place and having too much diversity would only make it more challenging.

“What about you?” Qian Yu looked back at Zhao Xieren and Zhen Yue. 

“Well, I have a lot of experience with the cultivation techniques from the three major sects in the country so I will pick from them,” Zhao Xieren said. 

“I’m still not sure,” Zhen Yue sighed. 

“Well, whatever you pick, keep in mind your own strengths as a cultivator. You have Silver Claws for melee fighting situations, can support from afar with Fox Spirits, and Trance Gaze will be deadly to anyone weaker than you,” Qian Yu suggested.

“Hmm, thank you then,” Zhen Yue nodded and started thinking of the soldiers to pick. 

“Alright, it’ll take a while to look around and pick the soldiers so we should start,” Qian Yu said.

A few hours later, Qian Yu had gone through a couple hundred qi gathering fighters before being satisfied with the 100 fighters he picked out. 

He was pretty comfortable with the Ice Arts Sect disciples and he had a good understanding of the applications for the Spears of Ice. In the end, there were 25 of them. 

Another 25 were soldiers from True Ice City and practiced a generic fire based cultivation technique which allowed them to create walls of fire. 

The third quadrant of soldiers were from a popular but weak sect in the country. The sect offered  a sky grade martial technique and accepted any disciples who came to them. As for their martial technique, it was an earth based one that involved creating stone pillars from the ground. 

The rest of the soldiers were from another smaller sect, focusing on a wind attributed cultivation technique. For those in the qi gathering realm, they could call forth strong gusts of wind.