Practical Application

Li Qi won, and won decisively.

The battle lasted only a Chen, and even the initial troop deployment was useless.

Yes, troop deployment, including ambushes and reconnaissance of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, are all useless.

Li Qi simply led his men in a charge.

Li Lieqi it hard to understand.

How did you do that?

Li Lieqi mobilized the entire military force of the Northern Kingdom, which can be described as a reckless and aggressive military campaign.

The troop strength and available combat power are at least 30% higher than the troops under Li Qi's command. This is because Li Qi a flexible approach to reduce losses and was able to maintain more troops.

If calculated normally, Li Lieqi would have more than twice the strength of Li Qi's!

When the quality of soldiers, equipment, and Cultivation Method levels are similar, having more than double the number of soldiers represents an absolute advantage!

However, this absolute advantage was crushed by Li Qi's all-out attack.

Before either side could deploy their troops, employ their respective military strategies, or even conduct pre-battle mobilization, Li Qi led his army in a direct assault, breaking through an enemy force that outnumbered him by 30%. This resulted in an uncontrollable rout for Li Lieqi, with countless fleeing soldiers causing the entire battle formation to collapse!

There weren't even many casualties.

Because they didn't directly enter the meat grinder, it only resulted in a massive rout.

"Impossible!" Li Lieqi exclaimed, his eyes wide.

Without the slightest hesitation, after realizing that there was no way to turn the tide, she got up without hesitation, abandoned the personal guards who were still surrounding her, and left the cave directly.

She wants to see the replay!

How exactly did she lose? The entire battle didn't even last a Chen. Her soldiers couldn't be that weak; these were all ninth-rank regular soldiers!

After leaving the cave, she rushed to the teacher who was taking notes and said urgently, "Sir, I need to see the recap, I need to see what happened to Li Qi!"

The Ranger General, who had always been calm and rarely showed any emotional fluctuations, simply nodded silently as always, then took out a Jade Slip. One could vaguely see the demonic Yao Qi leaping and thrashing within the Jade Slip, as if a tiny person was peeking out from inside.

The Jade Slip possesses Literary Qi, Literary Qi can record information, while the source of the Yao Qi comes from the book demon.

This is a minor demon that uses books as a means of cultivation. It usually resides in Jade Slip, bamboo slips, or books, where it helps record information.

This is also part of the book Demon Cultivator. The more things it records and the higher the level of its records, the more benefits the book demon will receive.

There was once a book demon who often followed a powerful being, copying books, recording messages, and so on. When the powerful being finally attained enlightenment, the book demon also ascended to the fourth rank.

Therefore, the position of book demon at the Imperial Academy is quite sought after, and many book demons will rush to sign up to record documents or course materials at the Imperial Academy, which is the case at this moment.

Putting these trivial matters aside, Li Lieqi grabbed the Jade Slip, and with a surge of Sha Qi within him, a small book demon resembling a butterfly was flung out, crashing heavily onto the table. It coughed several times, appearing quite weak.

Li Lieqi thought the Book Demon was in the way, so she wanted to look through the records herself.

Most of the other students didn't come out this early, so the classroom now only contains the teacher and Li Qi and Li Lieqi, who just finished their battle.

The Ranger General glanced at them but said nothing, remaining as still as a stone statue, quietly waiting for the students to do their own thing.

Except for essential matters, this Ranger General never uttered a single extra word.

Li Qi, who had just emerged, frowned, gently flicked out a finger of wood energy, lifted the little book demon, and stimulated its vitality to prevent it from developing any lasting illness.

Being blasted away by the Sha Qi of an eighth-rank cultivator could be fatal for these unranked book demons if they were unlucky.

She hurriedly opened the Jade Slip, immersed herself in it, and began to savor the detailed information recorded inside.

The scene shifts back to a Chen earlier.

Li Lieqi marching triumphantly among the three armies.

Li Qi, on the other hand, said nothing. He simply ordered each soldier to stand in their assigned position according to his plan, with each position responsible for a specific area.

Unlike Li Lieqi's passionate and domineering style of leading troops, Li Qi was just as polite as he usually was, but he had his own set of plans, and everything was in good order.

Then came the part that Li Lieqi couldn't understand the most.

Both sides had already reached the front lines. At this point, they should have been investigating each other's strengths and weaknesses, assessing the situation, and making appropriate campsites and battle formations.

This is especially true for Li Qi, who is on the defensive.

But at that moment, Li Qi led his army in a full-scale attack, and the chaotic mass of troops charged out.

Li Lieqi overjoyed at the sight, thinking that Li Qi had lost his mind, and immediately set up his formation to meet the attack.

However, the well-prepared formation crumbled at the first touch, directly breached by Li Qi's soldiers.

"Yes, this is it! What's going on?! Why did my front line collapse so quickly?!" Li Lieqi clenched his fist and slammed it on the table.

Then, she kept looking back and forth, from various directions.

No matter how I look at it, I can't understand it.

Finally, she put down the Jade Slip, walked up to Li Qi, clasped her hands in a fist and bowed, and asked, "Student Li, may I ask where I lost?"

Li Qi pondered for a moment after hearing the question.

He was considering how to say it.

Because they were afraid of offending people.

To be honest, Li Qi didn't have a good impression of this woman.

From initially picking fights for no reason to later getting angry at will, I initially thought it was just a childish temperament, but then I looked at her tactics...

They recklessly treat human lives as mere commodities, wage endless wars for the sake of victory, and now they're being so disrespectful to a mere book demon that keeps records...

Well, Li Qi doesn't usually comment too much on other people's behavior, but Li Lieqi's many actions clearly show that she is a woman who is easily angered and easily offended.

At this point, he still needed to carefully consider his words, after all, Li Qi did not want to offend anyone casually.

So he said, "I was just trying it out, and I don't know why the results were so good. Please explain, teacher."

He simply passed the trouble to the teacher.

Li Lieqi had no doubts and looked at the Ranger General again. "Teacher, could you please enlighten me?"

"As a teacher, it is my duty to enlighten you. Actually, there's nothing special about it. You only looked at his battle formation, arrangement, and military strategy, so you think there's nothing special about it. Now take a look at Li Qi's Soldier's Qi, what do you think?"

"Soldier's Qi?" Li Lieqi frowned, then picked up the Jade Slip and unfolded it again.

With a goal in mind, she examined things carefully, bit by bit, and finally discovered a clue.

Although Li Qi's military bearing was not significantly different from hers, he possessed a different kind of charisma in terms of Soldier's Qi.

His troop deployment, military training, and the arrangement of both unorthodox and conventional forces are all inferior to Li Lieqi's.

Not to mention, his choice was to temporarily disregard these things and launch a forced assault, which caused the originally orderly military formation to be scattered and turned into a mess.

However, despite the chaos, the Soldier's Qi of Li Qi's soldiers remained strong, even growing stronger!

"How could this be? This is impossible... No, it's not impossible." Li Lieqi rubbed his face, giving up on saying it was impossible.

This is not impossible; it is a reality that has already occurred. To say it is impossible is simply escaping reality. We cannot do such self-deception.

Since it has already happened, there must be a reason.

How did Li Qi manage to do something so extraordinary?

Li Lieqi forced himself to calm down and think, recalling what he had seen.

As is well known, Soldier's Qi is a collective force formed by soldiers coming together as a whole. It can gather the strength of countless soldiers, unite them as one, and exert greater power.

Therefore, a group of ninth-rank soldiers can usually suppress or even kill eighth-rank cultivators.

This is the meaning of the army's existence: to enable lower-level cultivators to fight against higher-level cultivators, and to make human superiority an advantage, rather than allowing others to kill them indiscriminately based on their cultivation level.

The difference between a rabble and an elite force lies in this.

Therefore, the key to Soldier's Qi lies in the ability to integrate the power of these rabble into a cohesive entity and use it to fight against the enemy. This is the hallmark of Human Path Military School and their signature skill.

Despite all the variations, the fundamental principle remains the same. No matter what strange and unusual tactics Li Qi employs behind his Soldier's Qi, they cannot deviate from this basic principle, which is the foundation of Military School.

If Li Qi can break through this point, then he will have established his own school of thought and achieved the same level of skill as the Military School.

In the Human Path, this would be considered the level of establishing a sect or school, something Li Qi could never have accomplished.

Therefore, the Soldier's Qi must be based on the principles of Human Path Military School. The key lies in how to maintain a strong Soldier's Qi even when the formation is not in order.

Human Path values rules above all else. Without rules, the strength of the masses cannot be united. Ordinary Soldier's Qi depends on formation. If the formation is not orderly, the Soldier's Qi will naturally be scattered.

The secret to Li Qi's ability to maintain the high morale and discipline of his Soldier's Qi amidst the chaos of a full-scale attack, even surpassing that of Li Lieqi, must lie in his actions.

She continued to scrutinize the few minutes that the army had collapsed.

However, although she had realized where the problem lay, she couldn't figure out what was going on.

There is nothing more agonizing than this.

Even though you already know where you went wrong, and I've already told you that the question is wrong, the key point is here, but you still can't understand it.

This made Li Lieqi feel a sense of humiliation, as if he had been insulted.

Fortunately, although she has a volatile and easily angered personality, she is not a fool after cultivating to the eighth rank.

So she suppressed her anger for the time being and took a deep breath.

Then, she simply put away the Jade Slip, walked to Li Qi's side, and raised her hand. "I am completely baffled. May I ask you, Li Qi, to enlighten me?"

Li Qi couldn't remain silent, after all... it concerned his next plan.

Li Lieqi the initiative so that he won't be suspected of having ulterior motives.

So Li Qi sat down on the desk and said to Li Lieqi, "Of course, we agreed to share what we have, how could we keep our own secrets to ourselves? Li Lieqi, let me explain in detail."

Then, with a wave of his hand, the wood energy combined with the mountain energy, producing small wood shavings.

But these small wood shavings, combined with moisture, gradually grew into a thumb-sized model. Although it might not be lifelike, it at least resembled a person.

"The Soldier's Qi comes from the combined efforts of everyone. So, what exactly is combined effort, and what are the boundaries of combined effort?" Li Qi asked Li Lieqi.

However, he only asked the question and did not expect the woman to answer it, because he knew that Li Lieqi would most likely not be able to answer it.

So in reality, Li Qi's culture was helping him to clarify his thoughts.

What is the combined force?

Li Qi had studied physics, and his perspective from another world helped him broaden his thinking in this area.

In physics, any force is essentially a resultant force composed of countless component forces.

In other words, if everyone's efforts are not directed in one direction, then the collective strength cannot be utilized and will conflict with each other.

This is the function of Human Path rules; they define the direction of collective effort, so that everyone's strength can be used together.

So here's the question.

What is the 'boundary' between resultant force and component force?

Or to put it another way, since Soldier's Qi cannot be possessed by an individual but must be possessed by a group, how many people constitute a group?

One person is certainly not a group.

Are those two people? Or three people?

How many people are there before it becomes a collective?

This is the question Li Qi has been pondering these past few days.

Although he didn't discover the essence of the matter, Li Qi still gained something from all those experiments.

This is the tactic he used today.

He continued, "Since we can't distinguish between the individual and the collective, can we take advantage of this?"

Li Qi arranged the models into small groups.

"Each of these teams can generate Soldier's Qi," Li Qi said, pointing to the models divided into small groups.

Then he connected all the smaller groups together. "From the perspective of this larger group, these smaller groups can be regarded as an individual."

Li Qi found this easy to understand.

What are humans made of? If you cut a piece of flesh from a human body, why can't that piece of flesh possess human qualities? It's clearly part of a human being, so why is it that bones, flesh, blood, skin, brain, spirit, and soul, when combined, make a human being, but when separated, they don't?

The same applies to the Soldier's Qi of the legion.

If an individual cannot form a group, can they?

If we can ensure that small groups can form Soldier's Qi, then if we treat these small groups as individuals and use these 'individuals' to form other groups, wouldn't there be a similar Soldier's Qi?

So, if we expand this further, can we abandon the most basic order of individuals and only establish an order of small groups? Would the overall collective force still maintain its original form?

In other words, as long as small groups maintain order, the orderly ranks of large armies are not required to restore the Soldier's Qi.

In this way, the scattered and disorderly troops can charge forward with complete, or even stronger, Soldier's Qi!

This is a practical application of the concept of boundaries, and it is Li Qi's latest achievement!

Not understanding the principles doesn't mean you can't apply them to a certain extent!