Chapter 769: Development

Over the course of half a year, the treasure ship of the Profound Heaven Sect, along with its supplies and personnel, had all been fully prepared.

A full five hundred thousand cultivators boarded this Tier 5 treasure ship. As the treasure ship set sail, it seemed to blot out the sky and cover the sun.

This time, the Profound Heaven Sect had truly bled heavily: three Nascent Soul stage cultivators were dispatched, twenty Golden Core stage cultivators, one hundred Purple Mansion stage cultivators, three thousand Foundation Establishment stage cultivators, and fifty thousand Qi Refining stage cultivators.

As vassals of the Profound Heaven Sect, they also dispatched ten Golden Core stage cultivators, three hundred Purple Mansion stage cultivators, three thousand Foundation Establishment stage cultivators, and one hundred thousand Qi Refining stage cultivators. The remaining forces were from the various major powers of the Southern Six Kingdoms, all of whom also boarded Tier 5 treasure ships.

In reality, the number of personnel dispatched by the Southern Six Kingdoms was not just five hundred thousand, but seven hundred thousand; it was just that the treasure ships could not carry so many, so they had to go to other powers to board treasure ships.

This time, the Southern Six Kingdoms had dispatched almost half of their cultivators. While not quite "the entire nest," they had certainly exhausted their strength.

There was no help for it; many powers did not have enough spirit stone quotas, so they could only use people as substitutes.

Top-tier sects did not want to lose manpower, especially high-level cultivators, but for smaller powers, they cared more about resources. As for manpower, most of them had an excess of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators.

This led to the major powers scrambling to pull out the cultivators under their command when the Profound Heaven Sect issued the Immortal Alliance summons.

Of course, a large portion of them were also loose cultivators they had recruited.

In any case, they were acting as cannon fodder. Were these loose cultivators not better cannon fodder? Recruiting loose cultivators at only half the spirit stone quota required by the Immortal Alliance summons to replace them was not a bad strategy.

Surrounding the Profound Heaven Sect's treasure ship were several Tier 4 and Tier 3 treasure ships; these were treasure ships built by the surrounding major Golden Core powers.

Golden Core level powers also understood that they had to respond to the Immortal Alliance's summons, so many had prepared in advance.

Some were even left over from the previous battlefield.

One Tier 5, seven Tier 4, and over a dozen Tier 3 treasure ships. As for those below Tier 3, they were useless—slow and unable to carry many personnel.

When Su Fan led the Tier 5 Red Dragon treasure ship toward the Shangyuan Shanmai in the Wu State, the major powers of the Southern Huang Ye Continent had already fully assembled.

Of course, besides the treasure ships of the major powers of the Southern Huang Ye Continent, there were also two Immortal Alliance war treasure ships in the Shangyuan Shanmai.

These two Immortal Alliance war treasure ships were specifically here to pick up the cultivators of the Southern Huang Ye Continent.

The Immortal Alliance's war treasure ships were standard-issue warships; one was enough to carry 1.5 million people, and two could carry nearly 3 million cultivators.

The Southern Huang Ye Continent had about that many people.

The Southern Six Kingdoms dispatched about 700,000 cultivators, while the Northern Four Kingdoms were larger and naturally required more personnel—over 2 million.

Among them, the Origin Cauldron Sect and its vassals had dispatched nearly 1.5 million.

Next were the joint forces of Nascent Soul level sects like the Pill Cauldron Sect and the Green Wood Sect.

The two opposing factions each occupied one of the Immortal Alliance's Tier 5 treasure ships.

It was precisely because of the Immortal Alliance's two Tier 5 treasure ships that the major powers of the Southern Huang Ye Continent had not gone to build their own Tier 5 treasure ships.

The Immortal Alliance was truly wealthy and imposing, directly allocating two Tier 5 warships to act as transport ships.

One must know that among the Four Regions, the Southern Huang Ye Continent was only the smallest continent in the Nanyu. Most of the thirty-eight continents in the Nanyu were several times larger than the Southern Huang Ye Continent.

Since the Southern Huang Ye Continent had two ships, one could imagine that other continents must require even more Immortal Alliance warships.

Of course, in reality, many continents had Nascent Soul level sects that possessed their own Tier 5 warships.

After all, not everyone was as resource-poor as the Southern Huang Ye Continent.

When the warships built by those powers themselves reached the battlefield, they were their own, making them easier to use. Otherwise, if they had to accept Immortal Alliance warships, having to familiarize themselves with them first would be a problem.

After all, once on the battlefield, there was no time to let you coordinate.

After the Profound Heaven Sect's Tier 5 Red Dragon warship was refined, disciples of the sect were already sent up to practice with it.

The targets for practice were, naturally, the Demon Race.

Within a short ten years, the Demon Race territory within a hundred thousand miles of the Tianyu Mountain had been turned upside down.

In any case, there were no longer any demon beasts above Tier 3; they were either blasted to death or had fled into the deeper, more remote mountains and forests.

Theoretically, the territory of the Zheng State had expanded significantly once again.

This was indeed the case; in just a few decades, the land area of the Zheng State had expanded by more than ten times.

Of course, it was only the territory that had expanded; in reality, the range of human activity in the Zheng State was still very small, likely not even reaching ten percent development.

Since the establishment of the Profound Heaven Sect several hundred years ago, because of Su Fan's philosophy, the disciples of the Profound Heaven Sect had indeed placed increasing importance on mortals.

For the survival of mortals, many cultivators had racked their brains.

One must know that for this reason, the Profound Heaven Sect had specifically issued a merit task: population growth.

In the mortal towns under the Profound Heaven Sect's jurisdiction, besides being governed by the mortals themselves, there were also specialized cultivators serving as town guards.

Of course, these cultivators not only had the duty of protecting mortals from wild beasts, ferocious beasts, and even demon beasts, but also the duty of governing the towns.

Generally speaking, cultivators automatically served as town mayors.

The merit task was aimed at these cultivators; as long as the population growth of the mortals in these towns reached a certain level, they would receive certain merit rewards.

The more prosperous the mortal town, the more merit they would obtain.

Therefore, over these past few hundred years, the mortal population of the Zheng State had grown extremely rapidly.

Back when Su Fan had first reincarnated here, the mortal population of the Zheng State was less than one hundred million, only several tens of millions, and there were only one or two hundred thousand cultivators.

Several hundred years had passed, and now the territory of the Zheng State had expanded by no less than thirty times. In terms of population, the mortal population, according to rough statistics, had already reached over twenty billion.

As for the number of cultivators, it was over one million; this was the number of native cultivators, not counting those from outside.

The mortal population had increased significantly. As for why the number of cultivators had not exploded like the mortals, it was naturally because cultivators were not like mortals.

After all, the birth of a spirit root was one in ten thousand.

Only the descendants of those cultivators had a high probability of being born with spirit roots; for ordinary mortals, the chance of being born with a spirit root was simply too low.

However, even though the mortal population had reached over ten billion, it still only occupied a little over ten percent of the current territory of the Zheng State.

Ninety percent of the area belonged to the wilderness.

And wilderness meant danger.

Especially for mortals, the wilderness was dangerous; even for cultivators, it was extremely dangerous.

The next step for the Profound Heaven Sect was to prepare to develop these wilderness areas.

A truly deep-rooted power generally utilized about fifty percent of the territory under its command.

The Profound Heaven Sect had been established for too short a time, which was why the current situation existed.

However, in recent years, the Profound Heaven Sect's strength had exploded, which had also driven the surrounding areas. As time slowly passed, it would become even more terrifying. ===== CHAPTER 770 =====