“Son I believe we have something to discuss” sir Eric said while looking James in the eyes “first of all how was your journey the bandit infestation lately has been more rampant and they have been very insidious as of late that the units to capture and wiped them out hadn’t been able to do anything them at all am happy you made it in one piece”

“Yes father I was also surprised to see many rogue cultivator’s in this region I didn’t know we even have that much rogue cultivator and that the three major gang has that many xiantian experts is highly surprising because they wouldn’t get much resources as they would need in their cultivation as most people will travel along this region were ordinary mortal merchants and houtian cultivators which wouldn’t have the necessary resources for a xiantian expert and they would really gain almost nothing for their troubles the only thing they achieved was causing chaos in this region which I think was their original purpose am I right father” James said with a thoughtful look in his eyes as they were on their way here he had been forming some theories about what was happening here

But there was too many missing pieces and he had not been here too long and the memory he got because didn’t have enough status lacked some critical information some pieces purely did not make any sense such as the inaction of the emperor and ancestors of the sky empire and the actions of the three major clan the azure clan, the solewind clan and the raindragon clans were weird especially the raindragon as this was their territory but they allowed themselves to lose such large swathes of land without doing anything viscount Carey was the only major figure of the raindragon clan to be sent to the war and the imperial clan just sent three earth realm experts to fight in such a major war and even though they are going to hold the enemy at mount turtle snake they would have lost three counties which was a huge loss to the empire since they had only eight counties and that was not a worthwhile trade and senseless to James.

“son this war is chaotic to me too as the four empires during the era of the seven empire and the rise of the snow empire when they saw the snow empire defeat the other two empires so quickly they signed a pact for mutual defense and even swore an oath to the heavens to help each other as well as they can and now when the snow empire is attacking us they didn’t send reinforcement to us just sent us some provision which protect them from the effect of the oath but if we lose the war they would also be attacked and conquered in which their inaction makes no sense and also the inaction of the upper tier individuals from the empire is also surprising but this is not our problem to worry about as we can’t do much all we can do is try to gain the maximum benefit for us and our loved ones okay” sir Eric said with a twinkle in his eyes he had no choice but to participate in this war as only very important and talented members of the raindragon clan and duchy were exempted even viscounts in this region were forced to join the war as viscounts were just not that important in the grand scheme of thing ,

Except if you were a viscount with the same level of power as viscount Carey although a person who is as talented as viscount Carey would be sent to the divine continent, viscount Carey was preparing to go the divine continent after the crown prince struggle when this war happened and he decided to participate but other viscounts and those below them weren’t given that choice so as sir Eric had to fight this war he decided to the gain maximum benefit for fighting that was why he tried so hard and put his life on the line so many times but it all paid off as he was on a fast track in his military career and had already been promoted to captain

” So I want to ask you an important question how did you cultivate the art of refining that fast I thought it will take you at least give or take three year in refining your marrow and you just took six months to reach that level which is astounding as the fastest person to cultivate the art of refining was the seventh prince three hundred years ago who refined his marrow in a year and half who cultivated it for its body strengthening effects and it is publicly acknowledged that the only reason he could cultivate it that fast was because he was already a xiantian expert and he could use his powerful seed of consciousness to control the medicinal aura in his body so how did you do it”

“Well father I don’t really know how it happened I just started practicing it and the control of the medicinal aura came very easily to me I also asked Mr. Bernard and he said it might be because of the level of control I possess over my body or just an innate constitution which made me highly suitable for martial arts” James couldn’t help but mumble in his heart that the reason he was practicing this fast was because of the pure fourth dimensional energy he was taping into and his powerful soul he wasn’t even at the refining narrow level but because of the pureness of his body refined by unadulterated fourth dimensional energy he had the same strength as a person who refined his marrow.

His strength was even a little higher than that and he hadn’t even finished refining in his marrow yet he was just eighty percent complete once he was done he will be comparable to late stage houtian level cultivators and hold his own even against peak houtian experts which cannot be said for ordinary cultivators as peak houtian expert were cultivators who has completely transformed their energy to xiantian energy thereby making their attacks vastly more powerful than late stage houtian and below experts most late stage houtian experts couldn’t fight them at all unless they possess truly high class techniques or some unique constitution which provide them with a profound advantage against those in their level.

“Hmmm well it is very likely as one of the greatest impediment in cultivation or martial art is control you have over your body which is caused by how powerful your soul is whether in refining your body or energy a powerful soul can help you increase your speed in it and your control of your body is at the early xiantian stage before you started practicing martial arts I am that by now by your soul strength must have increased which in turn increases your control over your body and thereby your speed of cultivation well done this is your hard work paying off if you didn’t work hard and get such control over your body you ” sir Eric said with thoughtfulness in his eyes “ how are the this situation at home”

“Everything has been great kip has been taking good care of the manor so it is in tiptop shape and the serfs produced a good harvest which might be the last harvest we will have if this war continues in the general direction that it is going while about the barony although the people in the barony are scared they still have a lot of faith in viscount Carey and they believe that he would win the war the rest concern the whole region is what you already know the bandit infestation the rest are not worth worrying about or doesn’t have any direct effect on us”

“I knew kip would do well that chap has a proper head on his head and nothing will go wrong on his watch” sir Eric said with the utmost confidence in the decisions he made

“Well you can sleep in my quarters tonight and I will arrange somewhere for Bernard and the guards to bunk tonight tomorrow the guards and Bernard will be enlisted under my unit you however can’t join the army because of your cultivation but you can follow me as my squire “after that they had a bout of inane conversations and drinking then they both went to sleep James had decided that he would not tell his father about the nihility drug he would first check the way war is going to and see how it would best benefit before talking to his father about it .

The next day sir Eric, James , Bernard and the guards went to the quartermaster and got them enlisted into his unit and also James listed as his squire which was done pretty quickly because he was a captain under viscount Carey after that they went to the cafeteria to eat their breakfast as they were eating their breakfast they had a bugle which signified an enemy attack so they dropped what they were doing and rushed to the castle wall with his father’s men and manned their station in one of the formation which was mostly used by the empire known as the sky-turtle formation this was a formation which all nobles in the empire are expected to train their force in so that when they are called up with little practice they can join their forces seamlessly and defend the place they were defending because the sky turtle formation was mostly a defensive formation.

Although it had some attack powers it is mostly used to defend a fort so Bernard and the guards could join seamlessly into the formations even though they had not practiced with the company before and James couldn’t join the formation as he was not yet a peak houtian expert as that was the minimum level required to connect into a formation James knew even if he reached the refining bone level he knew couldn’t use things like formation and long distance magic treasures because most of his fourth dimensional energy where saturated in his flesh to strength it instead of his dantian so he couldn’t use his energy out of his flesh and use it to power formation and magic treasures so he could just watch as they joined into a formation and seemed to turned into a turtle with prickly shell.

As James turned to look at the attackers over the wall he saw that the enemy was also in a formation of their own which took the form of a snow bear James couldn’t help but sigh about how mythical this world is and also wonder how this was possible because as he was looking at the formation it looked readily like a bear although it was still blurry it was still more realistic than the sky turtle manifested by the sky empire which showed it was a more powerful James couldn’t help but marvel at marvelousness of the fourth dimensional energy by combining the energy of a group of cultivators the power that was released was so wondrous he couldn’t help but sigh about how diametrically different the technology of this world was because of the existence of fourth dimensional energy here they built wondrous thing such as this formation and also found a way to rapidly evolve themselves.