“A dozen of knights when led wisely will beat a hundred of cultivators without a head.”

Apparently, Qai was once again challenging the conventional wisdom of the cultivation world.

‘My father once said that knights generally win battles but the nobles get credit for them.’

At present, he wanted to practically form a group of cultivators on whom he would employ his knowledge and assemble them to fight in an army formation.

‘I will try to differ since there is no nobility here. I will form my army of knights obviously to defend me but, at the same time, win battles in the name of the Saints Hall.’

Eventually, it didn't take long for both the Crag brothers to arrive back in the mountain peak bringing in their completed tasks.

Teng Gui brought a fist-sized stone treasure that can detect Spirit Roots which was the cheapest device available that he could find—and since it was cheap, it had low accuracy rate.

But it did not matter to Qai, for him it would certainly do the job.

On the other hand, Teng Hu brought around 300 or so children aging from 4 to 6 as per instruction—and they were all orphans.

In Qai’s plan, he would first personally instruct them to train their bodies to become Gold rank Knights in the shortest amount possible before teaching them the cultivation technique he chose for them.

‘Perhaps in less than 3 years, I can turn all of them into Gold rank Knights.’

His theory was that if he let them simultaneously cultivate and train physically, it would take long for them to achieve Gold rank Knights—that was because as he observed, the effects of spiritual Qi energy from Spirit Beasts’ meat would not all proceed to their physiques but directly to their meridians instead.

And he didn't want that to happen.

He already considered the formula of training based on his own personal experience and observations so he was confident that he could achieve his goal.

Next, he also theorized, or at least hoped, that—with respect to the ‘Purple Blood Cultivation’ technique—the ranked knights’ physiques would offset the blood essence that would be sacrificed.

Apparently, the reason why the cultivation technique offered a fast cultivation method was precisely because of the use of blood essence.

Apparently in such cultivation technique, one’s blood essence would serve as the channel to bolster the presence of spiritual Qi energy within the cultivator.

In return, everytime the cultivator would unleash the ‘Bloodlust’ ability, he or she would pay a minimum of 1 year from his lifespan.

In some sense, the purpose of having long life in the path of the immortal Dao was defeated in such cultivation method.

‘No wonder this cultivation technique was found in the Devil Dao cultivator’s storage pouch. The method is sinister in itself. Well, I could just call my army as Blood Knights then.’

But in Qai’s mind, since the Knight training also allowed one to extend his lifespan some dozens of years, he was hoping that it would cover the losses.

‘Besides, I would not order them to whimsically use ‘Bloodlust’ if not really necessary.’

At any rate, Qai wanted to personally see the selection of the his ‘candidates’ so he took the stone device from Teng Gui and ask the Crag Brothers to send the 3 Fang cultivators to hunt Spirit Beasts and bring back the beast meat while the two brothers would stand as their Dao protectors in the shadows.

And so after a day of selection—which saw Qai tested the children’s Spirit Roots multiples times—only 33 out of the more than 300 orphans had actually Spirit Roots.

It wasn't a disappointment for him.

From the number of children who did not qualify, he also picked 2 dozens of them who had the best physical potential.

In his mind, he would train those 24 children as Gold rank Knights to serve as Saints Hall squire-servants and teach them his own knight skills—apparently to him, even ‘servants’ must possess some ability to fight and to fend for themselves.

‘This is not a lot but this should be enough to constitute my first army of knights.’

Thereafter, Qai told Ji Wuheng to give the children who did not meet the qualifications some compensation and send them back to the city or their villages.

Of course, the compensation was in terms of the currencies among the mortals. Fortunately, Ji Wuheng was smart enough not to dispose of the coins they found in many of the storage pouches from the city guards they killed.

And while Qai had a bit of compassion for the orphaned children, he knew he wouldn't be able to afford to keep everyone.

He had no choice but to send them back. Besides, he had already granted each of them a fair chance to change their fate during selection process.

But the cultuvation world was evidently a dog-eat-dog world. And those destined to become mortals forever should stay with their fellow mortals in order to survive.

Meanwhile, Qai did not dilly dally and immediately went to work with the recruits.

The first in the routine was to daily hike up and down the mountain with weights hanging on their bodies plus weapon training according to the moves from Fundamentals of Spearmanship on top of the proper diet of Spirit Beast meat.

Apparently, such a regime was doubly intense than the one Qai employed to himself. He was definitely not holding back since no one would question his methods.

Of course, Qai also prepared low-grade healing pills to relieve the children from fatigue.

His goal was to turn them into knights in the shortest amount possible—and whether the children would be able to develop Spear Intent in the future would depend on their personal achievements.

Although Qai was not hopeful in such an outcome, he would definitely love if one or two of them would attain such heights.

After a month of training, he could already tell who among the children had the best potential—in fact, some had already brokenthrough to become Iron rank Knights.

From among the children with Spirit Roots, a 6-year-old boy whose name was Lin Ming stood out the most. While from the squires, a 5-year-old girl named Zhao Fei appeared to have the best potential.

Therefore, Qai immediately singled out the 2 to become the leaders of their groups. And all of his instructions from then on were coursed through them.

“The 2 of you shall be the commanders of your groups. And any mistake on your group shall be your responsibility. So you both will have to see to it that all instructions are properly coordinated.”

This early, he obviously wanted to impart among them the necessity of chain of command.

After another month, Qai found that all of them had already become Iron rank Knights—so he decided to level up the intensity of their training in order for all of them to become Bronze rank Knights soon.

Seeing that all of them were now full pledged knights, Qai thought to further divide his army of Blood Knights into 2 smaller squads of 16 children with one of them acting as captain—thus, leaving 15 of them as regular members of a squad.

But as for the squire-servants, he no longer saw the need to divide them and simply made all 23 other children answerable to Zhao Fei. Instead, he picked another child to act as Zhao Fei’s deputy.

Qai pondered on his work and found it satisfactory.

Meanwhile, within that short amount of time, the 3 Fang young cultivators once again made some progress in their cultivation—and Qai felt the pressure to provide Foundation Establishment Pills for each of them within the next couple of years.

However, he also knew that the Saints Hall did not possess much opportunity for them to widen their horizon.

And so, he thought of sending them somewhere that would help them grow.

“Here, bring this Jade slip to a branch family of the Mo Clan in the northern region. Find a woman named Mo Shui and give her my message. And she’ll know what to do. Then come back here in 2 years. But before that, go to the Treasury Hall and see if there is anything you might need.”