After becoming the martial alliance leader, Bai Xiaowen presided over the blood-oath ceremony.
The assembled martial artists drank the blood wine and swore together to destroy the Black Heaven Cult.
Bai Xiaowen then divided the five hundred martial artists on Ironblood Cliff into teams.
He knew these unruly fighters could not be trained into a disciplined army overnight.
Instead, he had to work with their strengths. He organized them into small teams, relaying orders to their captains, who would lead their teams in carrying them out.
The teams were formed around personal ties. People who were close and trusted one another went together. At the very least, he could not put people who disliked each other—or were outright enemies—on the same team.
He also considered each fighter's martial arts style, grouping those with similar strengths together. Some were strong and excelled at defensive techniques; some were light on their feet and adept at scaling walls and leaping across rooftops; others were skilled with hidden weapons.
Putting fighters with similar strengths together would let those strengths shine.
It was no easy task. Fortunately, Bai Xiaowen's Super Brain could read everyone's expressions and infer their inclinations from subtle changes in their faces. He also had the Eye of Evolution, which let him scan and analyze the flow of their Astral Qi to make reasonably sound groupings.
Before long, the five hundred fighters had been divided into ten teams, known as the "Ten Banners" and named for the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.
The six sect leaders from the two mountains and four islands naturally had to be given banner commands. Their prestige had fallen, but they still had their strength and years of connections. It would have been hard to justify passing them over.
The leaders of the remaining four banners, from