The Army Sets Out

Fang Yun felt slightly reassured, while inwardly feeling boundless gratitude for those Military Texts in the Strange Book World.

Had he not possessed a vast treasury of Military Texts, along with true history and countless battle examples, he would surely have been like ordinary readers of the School of War, spending vast amounts of time learning basic military arts such as Thunderous and Swift or Striking with the First Drumbeat. Only upon becoming a Grand Academician could one learn relatively advanced military arts, and only after reaching Great Scholar or Half-Sage could one study the most profound of them.

Deceiving Heaven to Cross the Sea was not an especially powerful military art, but its realm far surpassed similar illusion-based arts. For instance, Flowers Seen Through Mist, commonly used by School of War cultivators, was likewise an illusion art, yet it could only create thick fog to obstruct the enemy. It could not make one's own side vanish completely, much less transform their forms.

There were military arts capable of making one's own side disappear completely, but only a tiny number of School of War Grand Academicians and ordinary School of War Great Scholars could accomplish that. Yet Deceiving Heaven to Cross the Sea could do it now!

Powerful military arts such as Borrowing the Knife to Kill, which borrowed the enemy's strength, likewise required at least a Great Scholar to wield.

The military arts Fang Yun possessed were in no way inferior to those of Great Scholars in nature and realm. They merely fell far short in the quantitative aspects—such as range, number of people affected, and duration.

If a Great Scholar used Mistaking a Bow's Reflection for a Snake, he could create false soldiers numbering more than a hundred thousand. A Half-Sage could turn those phantoms from void into