I ran my hand through my hair and observed off the deck of the ship. It was much more impressive than the one I built with limited resources. This baby is capable of flight and the speed is astonishing. The best part is the cannons.

Mm, the front cannon is capable of an attack at the peak stage of the Martial Emperor with a foot into the Mortal Shedding realm. This isn’t all that big a deal since most martial Emperors possessed at most one or two principles.

“Weak shits,” I muttered.

Anything abstract that requires belief and understanding the linkage between these elementals that exist only in thoughts alone, is quite hard to accomplish. That could be seen by the fact that many of my palaces have at most four and that’s the common of the star palace concepts.

Things such as shockwave, vibrations, sound, light, spatial, time, gravity, solar, moon, but when you get into things like the rotations of planets. The process of black holes, creation of planets, vacuums caused by a lack of something..

Well these are things that can be built up from foundational stuff like shockwave, gravity, pressure.. Things like this can lead up to principles which evolve into things like moving giant rocks into a pattern that establish a solar system. I think this is where my earth education comes into benefit. I don’t need to have belief because it is common knowledge and this common knowledge is already a belief that is solid and unshakable to people of earth.

To these guys, if they believed the world is flat then if someone powerful agrees. Then it’s undeniable, hard to shake but with things in the sky being round like the moon and sun. It just is.

Anyway, I got sidetracked in my thoughts.

“City lord, we are coming onto a fort. I heard rumors that forts such as this one have some kind of treasures that can help one comprehend. Should we go down?” Elder Xue said after a moment of thought.

I looked down and there is indeed a fort resting on the side of a mountain. Almost perfectly defendable as there is only one route up and it's a winding road that doesn’t have a lot of room for three or more troops. The other sides were almost sheer face cliffs.

“Let’s go down. Save the cannons, spirit crystals aren’t cheap resources after all.” I ordered.

I threw a look at Long Yun who was chatting with her friend, Jingyi before sighing. She really took my public declaration as a chance to pout. I guess she didn’t know me enough.

If she didn’t want to entertain me, there are many other women who would.

The ramp lowered and we walked off. The ten strongest stood in a line in their dark black armor that flickered with golden runes here and there. Their hands rested upon hilts of swords.

This made me realize that I should start recruiting soon. More and more people flooded into the cities and the main roads were pretty much safe with only a few weak void transformation soldiers patrolling.

A head poked over the wall but I didn’t wait for his declaration of whatever.

With a wave of my cane, the wall exploded inward. Blowing huge stones into houses and shops in the way.

I stepped over the rubble and looked at the line of soldiers running up. I tapped the ground and the rubble rose up and orbited above me before shooting out like comets.

“Check the houses. They may have something inside.” I floated up after giving an order.

As the City Lord, I had to have the appearance of an unrivaled God or else.

I might end up being betrayed. I read that in some cultivation journals. Interesting guy though.

More than twenty Monarchs came flying from the center of the fort. This is more than enough men to crush any of our fledgling forces. Definitely since only so few were peak void realm. Ignoring being at the peak, they didn’t even have strong enough domains to be at an unrivaled stage above.

I clicked my tongue and more rubble rose up, they turned into the image of planets beginning revolving around me. I popped a pill and allowed my sun to send forth rays and rays of swords.

My eyes widened as they spread their qi together to form a shield that managed to block the sun swords.

I waved my hand and the comet streaked out from the asteroid belt and tore through their line. I chuckled at the fear that crossed their faces right then. But that did not at all stop me from sending more to chest them.

How dare they rise up to fight against me?

But this makes me wonder, are these people? Like a specific race that has the ability to mate and produce offspring? Because my elders brought out women and kids. They probably killed the men, we are bandits after all.

I better come up with some kind of righteous line like in other movies when someone commits evil. They turned the public opinion.

I glanced to the north where the castle stood and six martials Emperors walked out. They were indeed impressive but..

Popping another pill, I sent a gravity bomb. They didn’t even notice it until it exploded and the air around them distorted. Followed by several more explosions and the air around them get sucked into one point like it was a fat guy devouring hotdogs for a competition.

Their first reaction was correct, they shielded themselves and attempted to escape from the singularity forming. However, they ignored the bomb probably thinking it didn’t cause them any danger.

I knew from testing that unless you saw what happened once, you wouldn’t feel any life threatening feeling. These guys were prime examples. The initial shockwaves were just like being on a rollercoaster but held down by the safety bar. The following explosions were going through a loop and then the real threatening problem occurred.

They were being pulled into a black dot and the pull was irresistible. The first to be pulled in, didn’t even scream.

I popped another pill when my qi reserves hit sixty percent of full. I couldn’t help seeing the anguish on the leader of the six as his men died one by one. When he was the only one left, I released the technique and watched as it slowly dropped its terrifying suction.

The man immediately flew at me as I popped another pill into my mouth. He rammed right into the comet and was knocked down to the street where Butler Su and Maid Shuren placed a blade at his throat.

I floated down to him, my star robe dancing behind me and I felt kind of awesome. These martial Emperors are strong, invincible to others? So what? Don’t I just need to utilize a formation that boosts my abilities and then I can fight them on the same plane?

Isn’t there only an advantage to the amount of qi they have? How is that an advantage when facing an alchemist?

“Do you think you will be able to get away with this? There will be stronger people who come and avenge us. Then I will want to see what kind of smirk you will have when you're in the underworld next to me.” the Emperor spat out his dislike of me.

I merely shrugged and grabbed his head. Not like before where fire seeps into his soul and burns it for me to read his memories. Haha, I improved a lot since then. Well, I improve a bit.

I clicked my tongue after realizing how evil those God’s who turned this world into a training ground are. Relics? Haha, it is these people that created such sites. They have just been sequestered to one side of the planet and forced to offer up a certain amount of people to this place.

Ironic that we treat these people as less than human but they don’t have it all hard. They died, yes, but it isn’t true death. The reincarnation system here is completely different. The rules that establish death are broken and they can come back as long as they are these training continents but back in their own homeland. Death is normal.

It’s interesting.

It also explains why void transformation realm soldiers always go to the main road. Killing us grants them a type of reprieve but the higher ups have more morale breeding than the younger ones.

Also explains why the bandits are crueler and stronger than before. Who will let you kill them when they can kill you and enjoy life?

I tapped my cane and looked around before shrugging. Not my people.

With a wave of my hand, his body exploded and we moved on. Killing all men, subjugating all women. I decided to return to the ship, there is no need for me to guide them now that all the strongest cultivators were taken care of.

I landed before Jingyi and Yun who were stretched out on lawn chairs, looking like they were enjoying the sun and calm winds. I dropped down on the edge of the chair and began massaging Yun’s thighs.

She gave me this funny look but didn’t stop me, this time. Instead of continuing whatever conversation they had, they both were silent even though I could tell that Jingyi wanted to talk.

So I broached the silence first as the bigger man.

“How is your brother doing? Still okay in that relic, right?”

Li Jingyi nodded as she rested a hand on her slightly round tummy.

“Yep. Told me that the soldiers don’t come near it but they can’t escape either. Just waiting for us to arrive.”

I nodded, “nice. We should be heading there on another day.”

“Since I have you here. How about you answer some questions about cultivation for me. How come I can’t form that Principle thing you speak of? Like, all I have are the concept of water and ice at an intermediate level.”

I chuckled and moved my hand up Yun’s thigh but she smacked it back down and I retreated to her calves.

“Well, ice is just a property of water. So if you want to say form a principle of Snow. Then you need the building blocks which are water concepts and cold concepts. Snow is just a crystalline form of water drops. However, this isn’t a very strong concept by itself. Say what is your favorite weapon?” I lectured while stealing advances.

Jingyi head nodded along and she pointed at ribbon,

“I prefer using the ribbon as it’s elegant and I was forced to learn how to play music and dance. So it was easy to pick up techniques involving the ribbon.”

“Well, if you wanted to turn the principal snow into an attack. You should learn the concepts soft and hard. After all, if water is cold enough it can turn to ice but water that is just cold can also be soft. Same for snow, compact enough, it can be hard. Otherwise it's soft. Anyway, utilizing the Principle of Snow and concept of hard or soft with ribbon flexibility. You have a low grade heaven technique which is called a one layer Principle. Do you understand so far?” I ask in a soft voice while glance at Yun out the corner of my eye.

Sadly, she was staring at me with that standard lip tuck and furrow over her left eye. That ‘I am pissed at you’ face really is too cruel. I could only sigh in disappointment.

Jingyi sat up with a look of enlightenment on her face.

“How do I form more than two layer principles then?”

“Same way as one layer. You take the building blocks and put them together until they mimic natural phenomena of the world. So to keep going with water and ice. Cold concept, water concept, wind concept, and day or night concept can form together to form the principle for blizzard. Well, it can form the aspect for a very cold winter day or night. Cold and water for snow. Cold and wind for the direction. These two together are already two principal layers. Add in day or night and you are nearly mimicking a law and can form a domain.”

I noticed that Jingyi had slipped off into an enlightened state so I stopped talking and turned to my wife with a greedy smile. I gestured for us to move away after laying my Star Robe over Jingyi shoulders.

As I walked away, Long Yun followed but I could feel the unwillingness in her steps. I led her back to our room and dropped down on a couch and faced her, who stood at the edge staring down at me.

“If you want to be this angry at me, then at least be reasonable about it.” I started the reconciliation.

Yun just started but I knew her impulsive ass couldn’t stop from rebuking me if I mentioned her flaws, so I did.

“To be fair, I knew you sneaked away. I didn’t immediately bring you back because as you said, you need to experience things on your own. However, the overall result was failure. Failure comes with consequences and you earned that on your own. I don’t see why you are upset with me?”

Yun lips twitched back into a snarl, as I said. She couldn’t resist fighting back even if she was wrong.

“So you had to humiliate me like that in public? Even if I was wrong, you should have at least told me in private but to take away all my authority because of one failure? And you call yourself my husband.”

I raised an eyebrow, “One failure? You had two and many minor incidents leading up to that. Besides, what reason could you not wait for this ship to have been done? Look how easy it was for us to cross thousands of miles before sundown? Yet, you took our men across bandit territory all because you wanted to earn some merits but it hasn’t even been a month yet and you died once. Almost a second time if I hadn’t prepared for such emergencies in advance.”

Yun lips twitched and she wanted to rebuke. She wanted to say how things could have turned out differently but facts were facts. And she endangered not only her life but others as well.

“So if you are wrong, why are you mad at me? I did what I had to as City Lord. I allowed you to face the consequences of failure like you had asked. If you had succeeded, you would have faced the rewards all on your own as well. I didn’t interfere in your decision. So how is this fair to me that you are throwing a tantrum like a spoiled child?”

Yun eyes narrowed and I held out a hand and patted the couch cushion beside me. She gritted her teeth and her cheeks were a little flushed but she still sat down but not close enough that I could breath on her like we used to.

“I made a mistake but we didn’t lose anyone's life and decisions were made to keep our subordinates' lives intact. So why did I lose all authority?” She still had her lips tuck in as if she was pouting.

I scooted close and grabbed her hand.

“Because it is my force and not yours. If you want to open up a division inside of my palace, I’ll give you authority over those disciples you recruit. But not over disciples and elders that I have to look after, I won’t allow you to place them in jeopardy to prove some point.”

Princess Yun raised her chin, “People die in conflicts and wars. It is inevitable. I don’t see why you should baby them from facing it when they will end up dying in some conflict anyway.”

I shook my head. “You never fought in a war and thus don’t understand what it means for a soldier to die in battle. If a soldier dies to enemy soldiers, it not only neglects the superior but also the fault of the upper echelon. It not only means that you did not train that soldier well but that you didn’t plan well to begin with. When going into war, your mindset should be on overwhelming victory with minimum to no losses. If you have some at that point, it is understandable. Accidents on the battlefield happen, even I slipped on the blood of the enemies I slain.

“However, if you go into a fight with expectation that your troops will die. What reason are you fighting to begin with? Might as well stay at home and let someone better trained, better suited, and greater character go to war. At that point, an undefeatable legend might actually come about.”

I dropped her hands and walked off to the showers.

“I hope you can stop this silent treatment and come to bed with me but if you can’t, we can discuss a divorce. Your father probably still proclaims me as his son-in-law. With his shameless character, he would bestow one of your sisters if not all of them if I ask.”