Personally Leading the Team!

Looking down from the tower, the training grounds were enormous, three or four times larger than the Academy's martial practice field. Several platforms had been set up across the grounds. Some were already taking shape, with wooden boards raised high and flagpoles standing at the four corners, though no flags had been hung yet. Others were still under construction, workers crawling up and down the frames like ants. The training grounds were enclosed by wooden fencing, and rows upon rows of stands had been built outside it. The stands were new as well, the wood still pale in color.

"How many people can it hold?" Lu Chi asked.

"At least two or three thousand," Deacon Gu said. "In the busiest years, more than five thousand people came. It was packed so tightly you could barely move."

Lu Chi imagined five thousand people sitting together. The image in his mind was crammed full, without even enough space to turn around.

After coming down from Wondrous Cloud Tower, they wandered around the market in the southern part of the city. It truly was larger than the eastern market, with so many stalls that they stretched beyond sight, and the goods were equally varied. One entire stall sold nothing but knives—long, short, curved, straight—arranged on wooden racks like rows of teeth. Another sold talisman paper and cinnabar. Its owner was a gaunt old man who sat with his eyes closed as if asleep, but whenever someone passed by, he would suddenly open his eyes and call out, "Come take a look, it's cheap!" Yet another stall sold living creatures. Cages held all sorts of small beasts, including rabbits and squirrels Lu Chi recognized, as well as things he did not—

Their fur was strangely colored, their eyes red, and they crouched motionlessly in