Flying Clouds in Another World

Chapter 138: Night Talk in the Study (Part )

A huge sand table, nearly ten feet long and eight feet wide, was placed in the middle of Liu Shihao's study. Liu Shihao frowned and looked at the sand table, not knowing what he was thinking.

Liu Feiyun came to the sand table and waited quietly.

"Do you recognize this?"

"I recognize it. This is a sand table, which is mostly used for construction projects and commanding operations! My father once told me about it when I was a child. Later, when I arrived at the Miyun Sect, I learned more about it in the Kuitian Pavilion!"

"Then can you tell which terrain this sand table shows?"

"Hmm... This should be the terrain around this county, except that it seems to have many more mountains, rivers and valleys from the Yannan Mountains in the north!"

"Yes! This is the terrain sand table of our Anping County. I heard from your mother that you wanted a piece of land to train your own people, so tell me, how many people do you plan to train? How will you train them? What are your plans for going to the imperial capital next year?" Liu Shihao withdrew his gaze from the sand table, stared at his son and asked a series of questions.

Liu Feiyun had been thinking about these things for the past few days, and now he had already made a preliminary plan. He answered without hesitation: "I plan to train a few hundred people before going to the imperial capital, and no more than a thousand at most. The vast majority of them will be trained to be useful people in business and miscellaneous studies, and only a small number will be trained to be martial artists! As for when I go to the imperial capital next year, I will practice both civil and martial arts, and become famous for my literature. I will study for a year or so before joining the court."

Liu Shihao didn't comment, but asked another question: "Yun'er, you have been in the Miyun Sect for so many years, and have been practicing martial arts for nearly ten years! What do you think of martial artists now? In other words, how much influence do you think martial artists will have in troubled times?"

Liu Feiyun didn't expect his father to ask such a question. He was stunned at first, but then he began to think deeply:

Yes! The biggest difference between this different world and the ancient world I lived in before is the existence of martial artists and crystals.

Martial artists rely on crystals to speed up their training, improve their cultivation, and make some of their body functions surpass those of ordinary people. At the same time, these martial artists use appropriate combat skills and cultivation techniques to assist them, making the gap between their combat power and that of ordinary people even greater.

However, this other world is not a fairy or magical world after all, and the cultivation and combat power of martial artists have a limit. Moreover, even if most ordinary people have enough crystals to cultivate and improve their cultivation, they can only stop at the third level of the human level. Only a very small number of people with extraordinary talents or who can cultivate with top-quality crystals can enter the earth level. As for the third level of the heaven level, it is not something that can be built up by talent and crystals alone, but also requires opportunity and luck.

Moreover, ordinary people can also improve their combat power to compete with martial artists at the third level of the human level through the blessing of equipment. The most obvious example is that an ordinary soldier who has only undergone a few months of simple combat training can fight a martial artist at the apprentice level without armor by wearing a set of armor with even the worst protection. Generally speaking, it takes several years to train a martial artist at the apprentice level.

Liu Feiyun thought about this and replied, "Father! Although the combat power of martial artists is higher than that of ordinary people, it is difficult for one person to fight against many people if they are not in the Earth Rank. And how many Earth Rank martial artists are there in this world! So I think that if martial artists only use martial arts to defend themselves, or to protect others, or suddenly assassinate their enemies, it is still appropriate. But if they are in a battle formation with thousands of troops, unless they are peerless masters of the Heaven Rank, they will not have much impact on the battle situation. When the world is in chaos, having a large number of strong soldiers is the foundation, and it is difficult to raise these soldiers without strong financial and material resources. Finally, the training time of soldiers is much shorter than that of martial artists, and there is not so much time to train martial artists in troubled times! Therefore, I don't plan to focus on training the strength of martial artists."

Liu Shihao listened silently to Liu Feiyun's story, and at some point, Chu Bihe, who was startled by the conversation between father and son, also came into the room.

After Liu Feiyun finished speaking, Liu Shihao nodded first, but then shook his head and said slowly: "It seems that you have grown up a lot in these years! What you said does make some sense, but you underestimate the influence of martial artists on the current situation. Putting aside other things, do you know how many martial artists there are in the world today?"

Liu Feiyun was surprised, but still said: "How many martial artists are there? I'm afraid no one can tell for sure! I've heard and seen no less than six or seven different opinions in the Miyun Sect alone! But the most widely circulated opinion is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of martial artists in the empire, and there should be tens of thousands in the countries surrounding the empire!"

"Hundreds of thousands! Tens of thousands! Haha! Tonight, I will tell you about the current situation of the world, this empire, and the wealth of martial artists in our Anping Liu family!"

"There are five continents in the world, separated by the vast ocean, and communication between them is difficult. Even the vast majority of people only think that the continent they are on is the entire world."

"Because the journey is too far, I only know that there are human kingdoms and martial artists in the other four continents, and there are even some heavenly masters among them, but I don't know the details!"

"The Northern Continent we are in is the largest continent in the world, tens of thousands of miles long from east to west, and more than ten thousand miles from north to south. The entire Northern Continent is divided into three major regions: the East, the Middle, and the Far West. Each of these major regions has tens of millions of people, and the world that most people refer to is actually the East. The Far West and the Middle are now in a situation where many powerful countries are competing for supremacy, but the East is the only one that dominates. This dominant country is naturally our Tianyou Empire, our Dachen Dynasty."

"There are currently 70 million registered civilian households in the 36 states of the empire. If you add in slaves, hidden households, and escaped households, the total population is approximately between 500 million and 600 million. The population of all other countries in the Eastern Region combined would not exceed half of the empire's population."

"In the entire empire, there are probably hundreds of thousands of martial artists above the entry level!"

When Liu Feiyun heard the number of hundreds of thousands, he could not help but be shocked. He had never imagined that there would be so many martial artists in the empire!

Seeing his surprised expression, Liu Shihao chuckled and continued, "Hundreds of thousands of martial artists! This doesn't even include those who have just started their cultivation journey! However, at least most of these people have neither crystals to cultivate with nor the skills passed down from their masters to further improve their realm nor the guidance of their predecessors. Some of them even have difficulty getting enough food to eat, and can only stay at the disciple level for the rest of their lives. In most cases, their actual combat power will not be very high."

"The hundreds of thousands of martial artists that people often talk about actually only refer to those who have crystals for cultivation. Crystals are very valuable, and not everyone can get them. Besides the imperial court, the only forces that have crystals are the various martial arts sects and the aristocratic families. The imperial court, the martial arts sects, and the aristocratic families are all closely intertwined."

"However, the martial artists among the three are all different!"