750 Support from Everywhere Part 2 (2/2)

The basic unit of Qin was a battalion which was made up of ten-thousand main soldiers and between five-thousand to ten-thousand with five-hundred auxiliary soldiers. During battles on open plains, auxiliary soldiers would not be deployed. Only battles that involved the defending or attacking of cities would use the auxiliary soldiers. A newly formed large-scale corp would consist of thirty-thousand men without differentiating between main and auxiliary soldiers.

This decision encouraged even more soldiers to come forth and pledge their allegiances. Lex already possessed enough money, equipment, and most importantly, sufficient grain to support armies. These soldiers that had come forth to pledge their allegiances were mainly from Luolan.

The situation in Luolan was complicated. There were many small troops of soldiers that every country was trying to recruit.

Saleen and Lex never imagined that taking in the Dragon-slaughtering mercenary group would have such a great effect. Daliang City already had ninety-thousand elite soldiers, seventy-thousand auxiliary soldiers, and new recruits. After taking in the Dragon-slaughtering mercenary group, they had close to two-hundred-thousand men. Subsequently, close to a total of one-hundred-thousand soldiers came forth to pledge their allegiances. That was even after selections. Now, the population in the city, including craftsmen and soldiers and citizens, were close to four-hundred-thousand. At the rate that they were recruiting soldiers, it would not be a problem reaching five-hundred-thousand.

What assured the both of them the most was that the number of low-level mages in the city had increased drastically. Most of the low-level mages were groomed by Lex. After leaving Bitter Water Prefecture and splitting up to different places in Qin, they had ended up back in Bitter Water Prefecture along with some middle-level mages that were in Alchemy City previously.

Aside from Lex, Saleen had mages coming forth to pledge allegiance to him. News had arrived from Metatrin City that more than two-hundred death mages had fled from Tanggulasi Empire, Cloudflow Empire, and Sikeqinya Empire and arrived at the city to lend their services.

These death mages knew that there were many spirits of the dead in Metatrin City, so they could roam around the city with their own spirits of the dead.

Now that the Tanggulasi Empire was openly hunting down death mages and the people of the Holy See were infiltrating different empires to assassinate them, these mages had all fled to Metatrin. They heard that the King was fighting in Bitter Water Prefecture, so many of them quickly rushed over.

This was because Sika had set very favorable conditions. If the death mages were to perform meritorious deeds in the battle at Daliang City, their death flames would be given another chance to be cleansed.

Most death mages did not possess death flames of high quality, so it would be difficult to advance. If they were given another chance to cleanse their death flames, the death mages would have an easier time advancing. As for how to cleanse the death flames, that was a problem for the winged skeleton to solve. In any case, he had already absorbed the soul flames of the death kings so this should not be too difficult for him.

These death mages were very trusting because the latest that they had heard a death sorcerer had appeared beside the King of Metatrin. As a result, they completely believed Sika's words.

Mu En had no idea that he had been used in that way. Every day, he would be in the bone castle being guided by Isabella and the winged skeleton in learning death magic and swordsmanship.

Learning these two skills was more difficult than learning elemental magic and swordsmanship at the same time. Fortunately, the winged skeleton had a death flame that was very suitable for Mu En, so he became a grade-1 death mage very quickly.

What Isabella was teaching Mu En was how to merge the two skills together without them coming into conflict. Since Mu En was already a high-level swordmaster, he would need to slow down the progress of his swordsmanship to allow his death magic abilities to catch up.

There were too many resources from Qin and at least half of them would have to be retained by Bitter Water Prefecture. The gifts from the noble families shocked the officials in Daliang City. These noble families were not so enthusiastic even when the Prince left on an expedition with his army.

There was sorrow in Lex's heart. Her father did not only resort to brute force to establish good relationships with noble families. After his death, there were still many people that thought fondly of him.

The noble families that were closest to Grand Emperor Chanake were those that sent the most gifts. On the gift list were cipher texts that only Lex could understand. Some key resources could not be written directly on the list.

Lex also understood that these people were betting on her. Once she expanded her lands into an empire their future generations would have another path to advance on after all. Nevertheless, the risk was high, so they must have chosen to do so largely because of her father. These noble families were taking a gamble. Even if they lost, at least they had not let the dead Emperor down.

Once she had the numbers, Lex immediately built a small town that was to the east of Daliang City. The small town was only fifteen miles away from Daliang City and was near the mountains. There were two small paths leading to Bitter Water Prefecture through the mountains that connected the Prefecture to Daliang City.

It was because of these paths that Lex was able to take over the fertile lands of Luolan so quickly and build up Daliang City. The expansion of Daliang City utilized resources transported from Bitter Water Prefecture. The straight-line distance was only over four-hundred miles. If one took the road through the mountains, it was only just over six-hundred miles.

The only troublesome thing now was that too many people had come forth to pledge their services, so they were beginning to face some problems managing them. The new recruits were not of good quality so fighting incidents were common. Fortunately, Lex had many mages, so things were still under control.

A magic apprentice was repairing the sewer when he discovered that a tunnel had been created underneath the city wall. Lex was immediately on high alert.