Standing above the mountain ranges with his wings flapping gently in the dead of night, Dyon decided that the only way to move forward was to finish his second task for the night: Completely understanding and planning for the surroundings of the Angel Clan.
The moment Dyon began thinking of battle plans, he immediately realized the greatest flaw of most of his battle formations: Martial Warriors could fly. This fact alone crumbled many of his seemingly ingenious innovations to dust.
There was a simple reason he hadn't bothered to consider this before. The Earth Gate, although it had a cap of essence gatherer cultivation, was a mostly forgotten gate at the time, and as such, was mostly populated by meridian formation experts who couldn't fly. As for the few essence gatherers there were, there weren't enough of them to make a large difference. The variable they provided would be easily handled by Dyon.
However, Dyon was stepping into an all new world now. Many of his coming opponents would be in the saint realm, with quite a few celestial level opponents. Luckily for him, when it came to dao formation enemies, his Angel Clan had enough to offset them even when all four clans were taken into account. Such was the talent of the Angel Clan.
As a result, Dyon understood that those dao formation experts wouldn't attack unless those experts of the Angel Clan came out. The reason for this was simple logic. Why would they place their lives on the line when they could simply use their numbers to overwhelm? Although Dyon thought of using his dao formation experts to force them to act, this would gain him nothing.
So, Dyon decided to build up his new military strategy from scratch. That said, he had two very solid starting points.
The first was a formation he had already implemented with his demon generals. His efficiency formation.
Because of Dyon's foresight, he had long since realized the foremost problem of chaotic martial world wars: the strong killing the weak.
In the long-lost mortal world, there was strategic organization, even in ancient times. The weakest and youngest of warriors would be used as vanguard. This was in order to train them up to become elites in the quickest fashion possible. However, this was also decidedly brutal, yet, effective.
This was not the only reason for such an arrangement. It also allowed those elites to rest for decisive strikes.
One might wonder just how effective such a scheme was. Well, the Roman Empire was quite an overbearing presence for a very long time, no?
As a result of this arrangement, it was very rare for number losses to be sustained because of elites taking out the weak. Unfortunately, the martial world didn't have such a thing. This resulted, of times, in the more powerful and talented warriors weaving their way through the battle field and picking off the weak. It was only after many deaths that an equivalent warrior might realize the mess being stirred up and go to stop this person.
Dyon, however, didn't want this. Whether other overlords viewed their army as cannon fodder or not, Dyon would never do such a thing. His goal was to always enter and leave battle with the fewest amounts of casualties possible. As such, the efficiency formation was born. The solution itself was quite simple.
Squads of 5 would be formed, perfectly balanced with those of various cultivation levels. For example, in this coming war, Dyon's army was only 50, 000, and that was made entirely of saints and celestials. With the talent of the Angel Clan, Dyon deemed essence gatherers much too young to participate in such a battle. They would often times be younger than 10 years old! How could Dyon send them to battle?
Interestingly enough, the ratio was a perfect 1:4, with 10, 000 celestials and 40, 000 saints. As such, the squads would be balanced using the same ratio.
There would be one lower saint. Two middle saints. And one high to peak level saint. They would them be coupled with one celestial. Unfortunately, the only flaw was that these celestials would be wide ranging and could be anywhere from lower levels of the realm, to higher.
That said, Dyon of course saw through this flaw immediately. To combat this, he created something called areas of attack. Squads of 5 wouldn't be allowed to leave a certain radius and cardinal direction from a central hub which would, of course, contain Dyon, or someone he appointed the roll to.
Essentially, the battle field would be viewed as a giant illusory circle. At the very center of this circle, there would be Dyon or whoever was currently in control of the central hub. The squads would be given coordinates within this giant illusory circle, coordinates they would not be allowed to leave.
This sounds overly complicated and unnecessary. However, the truth of the matter was that this was yet another ingenious idea.
What would happen if a peak celestial suddenly attacks a squad led by a lower celestial? Wouldn't death of that squad be near immediate?
However, what if the area of attack of that squad was overlapped by another squad that happened to be led by another peak celestial? With Dyon's communication devices, they would be able to relay this immediately and call for help, thus preventing any losses.
To ensure the smooth nature of this transition, Dyon incorporated two types of communication arrays. One would be connected to him or the central hub. The second would connect each squad to the other four squads surrounding it.
Any squad led by a lower celestial, would always be near another squad with a higher-level celestial. Their areas of attack would overlap just enough to allow aid, thus resulting in smooth transitions.
The second starting point Dyon had were his bread and butter: Formations.
Formations were the reason Dyon was currently zipping through the air. After his few moments with the clan's formation experts, Dyon learned of how "array alchemy" functioned before his grand teacher created the aurora. He immediately noticed the similarity between array plates and formation flags, and he also made, and was currently making, great use the aurora flames stones.
That said, his greatest idea from that interaction was the possible benefits of combination ancient formation technology and modern refinements of it. What would happen if he combined the natural energies of the environment with perfected arrays? Wouldn't the benefits exceed anything ever created before?
Unknowingly, Dyon had stepped onto a path no one had ever stepped on before. Much like his grand teacher's first disciple, he was about to improve of the uses of the Aurora again.
However, Dyon understood how difficult this would be. In fact, he had already understood that he was missing a very large piece of the puzzle. And surprisingly, when he figured out what it was, he couldn't help but shake his head in amusement. It seemed the heavens were really shining down on him.
The concept behind using the energies of the world around you to improve formations had long been lost, but Dyon now had the books on the topic at his finger tips. Unfortunately, he couldn't use his speed-reading technique to go through them because his ability to use wills was locked, but that didn't stop him from reading them normally. With his robust memory, he wouldn't forget a word. Such was the benefit of having such a talented soul alter the abilities of his mind.
After Dyon finished going through the first book, he immediately thought of a mortal world comparison. Wasn't this exactly like feng shui?
From what Dyon understood of the concept, it took decades of learning to comprehend such a thing. Even worse, that was when you were looking at the simplistic nature of the mortal world. After all, Dyon's home world had a severe lack of energy, as such, the patterns were much easier to read. The martial world, however, was a completely different beast entirely.
So, why did Dyon smile? Because of the people he brought into the Epistemic Tower with him, there was one little genius beauty that just so happened to specialize in this rare will: Bai Meiying!
Dyon still remembered the first time he had seen Meiying's feng shui compass will at Focus Academy's opening ceremony. Little did he know that it would be the key to building his empire. With Meiying's help, the formations they'd be able to create would be nearly impenetrable.
Unfortunately, although Dyon had invited Meiying to the tower, she hadn't come. Meiying wanted to stay behind to try and repair her familial ties. After being shipped off by her father into a forced marriage, one could understand just how strained such a relationship was. Dyon could only hope that she would eventually come and see the world with them.
As much as Dyon wanted to just learn this feng shui compass will himself, this was a very special kind of will. He still remembered the words of the Elders to this day. They said, very specifically, that Meiying was "competing" for her space in will mastery of the feng shui compass.
Before, Dyon hadn't fully understood what these words meant, but not he did. Wills could be seen as being finite, however, there were a collection of wills that were so scarce that there was only a limited number of individuals who could comprehend it at a given time. Unless Dyon killed one of them, it would be impossible for him to grab a hold of his place with this particular will.
Dyon didn't know what this meant for Meiying's past, and maybe that had something to do with why she decided to stay home even in the face of a brighter future. What he did know was that if his theory was correct, her value was immeasurable.
There was one obvious problem with all of this right now, though. Meiying wasn't here… Knowing this, Dyon had no choice but to push forward and see what results he could gain on his own, that meant he had to simplify things.
For now, Dyon focused on learning to find and sense the simplest of elements. Earth, water, metal, wood, wind, and fire. As expected, lightning wasn't considered by these ancients as a simple element. In fact, there were major warnings to avoid such signs, especially for beginners.
Dyon would obviously not ignore this. He understood how dangerous playing with lightning was… There was a reason it was the weapon of the heavens. He wouldn't allow himself to get in his own way.
Right now, his only goal was victory.
