"I was thinking about something that day."
On the great river, a small square-bowed boat with its mast lowered drifted forward through the morning mist. Sitting cross-legged at the bow, Zhang Xing gazed into the fog ahead and suddenly spoke. "Tell me, roughly how many cultivators does our Exorcising the Dragon Gang have?"
"Must be... two or three hundred?" Xu Dalang, standing behind him to one side, answered immediately.
"About that." Zhang Xing looked thoughtful. "A hundred thousand cultivators under heaven, ten thousand at the Extraordinary Meridian stage, a thousand at Condensing the Core, and several dozen Grandmasters... spread them out locally, and Great Wei has three hundred prefectures and commanderies. Reckoning four hundred across the whole world, each should have two or three hundred cultivators..."
"Eastern Commandery and Jiyin don't have that many..." Xu Dalang interjected.
"I know," Zhang Xing continued. "Around Guanlong and the Eastern Capital, for instance, the powerful and privileged congregate. They do no productive work, so naturally they can cultivate without worry. That means cultivators gather there too. Even Dou Bing's wife, that daughter of the Bai Clan, turned out to be a cultivator at the Extraordinary Meridian stage. But what use was it?"
"Not just Guanlong and the Eastern Capital." Xu Shiying nodded, then added earnestly, "I don't know if I'm imagining things, but I always feel there seem to be more cultivators in Dongyi, the northern lands, among the Wu Clan in the Northwest, and on the Demon Race's two southeastern islands..."
"You probably aren't imagining it." Zhang Xing nodded. "However small a place is, as long as it has military, government, and religious institutions, forming a center for all three, talent in letters and arms will naturally collect there like water pooling in a hollow... or rather, maintaining that military and political