Chapter 143

After realizing Mu Yi was a blank sheet untouched by knowledge, Bai Qi felt a headache and also understood why Sun Wu had fled—laying foundations really is troublesome.

Their level is too high; sometimes it's actually unsuitable for laying foundations for someone like Mu Yi who's a blank slate, as it easily affects his future path.

Those who learn from me live; those who imitate me die—that's not just empty talk.

Bai Qi waved his hand and put away the Sea of Blood.

At this moment, in the venue, the remaining Hundred Schools disciples had vanished, as if only Bai Qi and Mu Yi were left.

Come on, I'll take you somewhere!

Bai Qi said, stretched out his hand to tear open the space before him, then grabbed Mu Yi and walked inside.

The simple, brutal method left Mu Yi dizzy, and Bai Qi's teleportation was clearly not gentle; even though Bai Qi protected his body, Mu Yi still felt the world spinning.

"The body also needs intensive training!" Bai Qi sighed as he looked at the unconscious Mu Yi lying on the ground.

It also made Mu Yi notice many flaws in his army formation arrangements; before this, he rarely changed formations, essentially just nesting a Yuan Yang Formation within a high‑level formation to counter opponents.

"You know many things in theory, but you don't understand the reasons behind them."

The whole world reduced to his own sensations, a strange feeling, especially when he couldn't even perceive the flow of time; Mu Yi could only sit down to study Military Strategist texts, the only thing he could do at that moment.

These Military Strategist texts were the product of the first grand meeting of the Military Strategist war gods, summoned by the Heavenly Court.

The pure white space indeed helped Mu Yi greatly; with nothing present, it forced him to focus on reading, contemplate theoretical issues, and his concentration improved dramatically.

"You don't need to worry about time; one year here equals one day outside, so you have plenty of time to study!"

One could say that after mastering this set, you have learned all the essence of the Military Strategist, and by grasping its true meaning, you can forge your own path.

The key from a dead formation to a living one is flexibility, and the basic army formation is the key to that flexibility—what is called the foundation.

"Read the books!" Bai Qi pointed at the hundreds of catalogues on the ground.

"These are all Military Strategist texts selected by the war gods; once you have read and mastered them, the foundation will naturally be solidified!"

"These are just catalogues!" Bai Qi's next words made Mu Yi gasp sharply.

"What should I do?"

This answer is also the method of turning a dead formation into a living one: extracting the soldiers' will, using that will to shape the formation, shifting the formation's carrier from the soldiers' bodies to their will.

"Your next task is to fully master all these things!" Bai Qi said calmly.

"For you now, the most important thing is to build a solid foundation! Only a stable foundation lets you go farther."

Like a sudden rebuke, Bai Qi's words jolted Mu Yi awake.

Unlike the inheritance items that could be mastered after reading, the Military Strategist texts he now flips through are all ordinary books, transcribed by common people.

If it were the former Mu Yi, three years might not even suffice to finish these books; fortunately, he acquired the Scholar background specialization at the Hundred Schools conference, and his learning ability increased dramatically.

"Military Strategist, Buddhist… Blade Intent, Elite Talent, divine abilities, barriers…" Bai Qi shook his head.

These texts are the product of the earlier exchanges among the war gods, and can be said to cover every aspect of the Military Strategist.

It sounds simple, but the actual practice is extremely difficult.

Not only are there representative works of each war god, but also study notes from outstanding Military Strategist disciples, and research notes on Military Strategist divine abilities, Elite Talent, troop deployment, and other key components.

Mu Yi asked, a bit bewildered, that he had always grown wildly and freely, and now, being told to solidify his foundation, he truly didn't know what to do.

It was only at this moment that Mu Yi realized the function of the basic army formation; its enhancement effect is indeed weak, not even a fraction of a high‑level formation, but the basic formation is like lubricant that lets a machine run at high speed.

"What you currently grasp… is too scattered. Even though they are manifestations of essence, spirit, and qi, you still cannot reach their true essence."

Mu Yi found an answer in the military texts, which was also the most suitable answer for him.

Although ninety‑nine percent of the time was indeed spent in chaotic battles, they also produced some new things.

The Military Strategist is, after all, one of the original Hundred Schools, and the meeting could not have been just a war‑god brawl from dawn to dusk; they still did some proper business.

The long study gradually replenished the foundation Mu Yi originally lacked.

When Mu Yi still tried to struggle, Bai Qi tossed a line and vanished.

"Is that all?"

Thus, even if a soldier falls, his will merges into the whole, ensuring his comrades' combat power does not sharply decline for a time.

In a daze, Bai Qi appeared opposite Mu Yi, dumping a heap of items onto the ground.

Soldiers forming a formation cannot constantly maintain the original pattern, so in battle, under Mu Yi's command it often happens that when one soldier falls, the enhancements of a dozen comrades in the same group sharply diminish.

Bai Qi, expressionless, uttered a chilling remark.

"Work hard; in three days I will come to assess you."

However, this is the wrong approach for many reasons, the most fatal being that a formation is not static.

Mu Yi glanced at the nearly hundred books, and his intuition told him the matter was far from simple.

Realizing this, Mu Yi poured all the Universal Experience he had previously gained onto the basic army formation, helping himself grasp its subtleties more quickly.

A pallid void, no sky or earth, nothing at all, not even a sense of time passing; Mu Yi stared at the blank whiteness, his heart suddenly tightening for no apparent reason.

When Mu Yi regained consciousness, he found himself inside a pure white space.

During the long stretch, Mu Yi's only way to pass the time was to read books.

There are ten basic army formations: Square Formation, Circular Formation, Sparse Formation, Numerical Formation, Cone Formation, Wild Goose Formation, Hook Formation, Xuan Xiang Formation, Fire Formation, Water Formation.

When Mu Yi raised all the basic army formations to level five, many of his previous misunderstandings instantly became clear and integrated.

Before this, Mu Yi could at most unleash about eighty percent of the power of formations like the Yuan Yang Formation and the Four Spirit Formation; now he can unleash one hundred twenty percent, and this gap and achievement allow Mu Yi to settle down and plunge into the sea of knowledge.

The previously lacking Military Strategist divine abilities were also completed; tactics like 'paper warfare' and 'illusory‑real interleaving' became Mu Yi's new favorites.

There is a divine ability called 'Feigning Strength', which, combined with the basic formation's arrangement, perfectly creates the effect of false troops—turning ten thousand into one hundred thousand—exactly confirming its name, Feign Strength.

Among them, Mu Yi devoted the most effort to researching Elite Talent, which, as a benefit of the comprehensive network profession, still interests him greatly.

Many special‑effect talents are recorded in the register, giving Mu Yi a clear path to upgrade his talents.

Before this, aside from the Ten‑Skill set, which had an obvious upgrade method, the other Elite Talents were of the 'blind‑guess' kind.

Now, he sees the direction forward.

The way to advance the Blazing Ash is simple: visualize fire in your mind, and the form and type of fire you visualize will become the future form of the Blazing Ash fire.

It's best to be in a region where the fire element is active, so that reality and will can be linked, achieving twice the result with half the effort.

Its essence is similar to the totem Mu Yi and the others created in the simulated world; this talent of Blazing Ash mentioned in the book itself comes from the worship of fire, which thus determines the talent's path of advancement.

Corresponding to this are aptitude-type talents, such as the Power Burst talent; they need repeated use, letting the body memorize the form after the burst, and advance in this way.

Mu Yi read frantically, like a dried sponge absorbing water; the rich Military Strategist classics opened a door to a new world for him, and beyond that door lay an endless road.

……

"You seem to be living a fulfilling life!"

Three years passed in the blink of an eye, and Bai Qi appeared on time in the pure white world.

"Yeah! Very fulfilling!" Mu Yi turned his head to stare at Bai Qi; the bloodshot in his eyes told Bai Qi just how poor Mu Yi's mental state was.

"If I didn't still have things to do, I would surely have gone mad!" Mu Yi's gaze was full of indifference and emptiness.

In such a pallid world, one will eventually fall into the torment of emptiness.

During this final period, Mu Yi barely managed to keep his mind clear and avoid madness by relying on the method of visualizing fire.

Even so, he almost couldn't suppress the rising irritation and madness within; the tedious study and maddening environment were enough to drive a person to complete collapse.

If it weren't for Mu Yi's relatively firm will, who knows what he would have become.

But it's finally over.

"So, how were the gains!"

Mu Yi laughed, extended his palm, spread his five fingers, and displayed his achievement.

——Paper Talks about Soldiers

At the instant the divine ability was unleashed, a vast battlefield seemed to appear on Mu Yi's hand, with countless soldiers fighting on it.

Bai Qi nodded, able to see the cooperation displayed among those soldiers, as well as Mu Yi's command thinking when directing friendly and enemy forces in battle.

These soldiers are Mu Yi's marionettes in his hands; they appear as two forces exchanging moves, but in reality Mu Yi is fighting with both hands.

"Not bad!" Bai Qi nodded; this is exactly what he wanted to see.

"There's even better!" Mu Yi wore a strange smile on his face.

"Oh?" Bai Qi's eyebrow twitched, his little finger flicked, and a battlefield instantly formed between them.

On the battlefield, a blood sea surged forth, occupying half of the battlefield.

Within the blood sea, a thin, blood-red soldier slowly emerged, with tattered armor and a broken weapon in hand, looking as fragile as could be.

"Let's take this as an exam!" Bai Qi said with a light smile.

Mu Yi understood Bai Qi's meaning; on the other half of the battlefield, the Reincarnation Barrier of the Six Paths appeared, the gate of the Asura Path slowly opened, and amidst the surge of violent will, an Asura drenched in blood walked out.

The Asura warrior, focused on slaughter and carrying violent killing intent, at the moment of appearance immediately sought an enemy to kill; upon seeing an enemy, he charged straight at the frail soldier without hesitation.

The Asura warrior easily chopped his opponent into pieces, but the next moment more soldiers surged up from the blood.

The battle between the two sides kept escalating, from a melee of a few people to dozens, hundreds, then thousands, and finally tens of thousands.

When it reached tens of thousands, Bai Qi stretched out his hand; the previously chaotic blood-sea soldiers instantly formed an orderly formation, and the blood-red cloud energy rose into the sky in an instant.

Mu Yi made the same decision; although his Six Paths Barrier had only eight hundred eighty-eight Asura warriors, in the world of Paper Talks about Soldiers he could have countless Asura warriors.

Everything constructed by Paper Talks about Soldiers requires the user's deep understanding of it; without deep understanding, it cannot take shape.

So when Bai Qi saw Mu Yi able to orderly arrange tens of thousands of Asura warriors into a battle formation at that moment, he knew this lesson was effective.

It was also not a waste of the resources they invested; to protect Mu Yi, this space was not just a simple temporal dislocation, but a place they had the Zhongshan God specially create for teaching, and also preparation for the later grand plan.

And now it looks effective; at least in Bai Qi's eyes, everything Mu Yi has displayed so far can already be called qualified.

However, seeing Mu Yi's relaxed expression, Bai Qi couldn't help but add more force, wanting to see Mu Yi's current limit.

The soldiers of both sides mingled together; under Bai Qi's deliberate maintenance, the soldiers emerging from the blood sea and Mu Yi's Asura warriors were basically equal in strength.

"Interesting!"

Bai Qi half-narrowed his eyes, not being overwhelmed in an instant, proving that Mu Yi's understanding of battle formations had already reached the level of mastery, achieving the first step of turning a dead formation into a living one.

"Then... how about this!"

Bai Qi half-narrowed his eyes, quickly consolidating local forces, and directly compressed Mu Yi's battle formation from the front.

The battle formation began to be squeezed, the Blood Sea army advanced rapidly, but Mu Yi's line did not collapse as Bai Qi had expected; instead it even started to counter-attack and strangle the Blood Sea army's momentum.

Bai Qi nodded satisfiedly, then decisively withdrew, retracted his forces, and planned to test Mu Yi's command in another way.

"Now!"

At the moment he sensed the frontal pressure weakening, Mu Yi directly ordered a full-force advance.

Crimson flames burned on the Asura great army; the Asura warriors' bodies instantly swelled, they began a frenzied attack, and like a tiger leaping from its cage they bombarded the retreating army heading forward.

The Blood Sea army instantly sank inward, as if its formation were about to be pierced in an instant.

Mu Yi saw the dawn of victory; as long as he could break through, he could directly cause the Blood Sea army's organization to collapse and thus win.