17 Importing Talents?

Like this, another year had passed quickly. Feng did not receive any big updates from his sect stationed in the city, but he currently made quite a few leaps in these lands.

Within this single year, Feng's disciples were able to take out over fifty bandit camps around the area. Due to them doing this with brute force, the bandits in those camps all surrendered and chose to join Feng's sect.

Now with the population of ex bandits now officially accepted into his sect, the Dual Cultivation Sect now numbered over four hundred members. This was partially due to the fact that some of the bandits were of the fourth cultivation rank which allowed them to take up to ten personal disciples from within the townships.

Also, due to the bandit camps publicly surrendering to Feng's sect, two nearby townships who did not have any cultivators over the third cultivation rank protecting them, successfully surrendered to Feng and his sect.

Like this, several townships started to ally themselves with one another to protect themselves from Feng deciding to take them over with brute force. Now surrounding the townships under Feng's control were now two alliances which were formed.

These alliances both consisted of three townships, but at least ten bandit camps joined each township as well. This made it so that both the townships and the bandits could work together to subdue Feng and his townships.

However, what these newly formed alliances did not know, was that within this year, Feng sparred with several of the bandits and was able to break into the fifth cultivation rank.

As it currently stood, Feng was able to crush an army of level three cultivators all by himself using an earth ranked sword which was sent to him by Violet from the city.

Due to controlling the underground market of a city and all of its townships in another area, this allowed the Dual Cultivation Sect to afford purchasing these highly desired weapons for themselves at auctions.

One month had gone by and Feng decided to finally make a move to build his first city. He sent three disciples back to the city to ask the two independent guilds to relocate themselves to his location.

The two guilds who were publicly "independent" made a deal with Feng long ago. In order to continue growing themselves, they would not openly join the Dual Cultivation Sect.

This was so that both guilds could continue building their foundations using income earned from sects and schools not affiliated with Feng's sect.

Two months later, Feng finally had enough cultivators in order to finally build himself his first city. Both guilds, officially relocated to Feng's new headquarters and both had over six hundred cultivators; including four other fifth ranked cultivators.

Now eager to finally begin his conquest, Feng gave the order and both guilds accompanied by his personal small army, had made their move against both alliances at the same time.

The battles were won rather quickly, and many of their enemies surrendered almost immediately. The strongest cultivators within these alliances were only of the fourth cultivation rank, and seeing so many stronger enemies rushing them, made them unable to resist.

Not just that, but how could a small group of fourth ranked cultivators hope to defeat a fifth ranked cultivator without exhausting themselves and using forbidden techniques?

After two weeks of battles, Feng was finally able to unite this area into his own and publicly established his first city.

For a random cultivator to establish a city within these lands was not very news worthy and did not raise any eyebrows. However, with a whole city now under their control, this allowed the Dual Cultivation Sect to boost their rank within the world and in turn grew to the ninth ranked sect within their city!

This however, was extremely short lived. Now with their power at a threatening level for the top ten sects within the city, those sects all allied themselves together and drove out Feng's sect from their city.

Being driven out, Feng's sect lost all of their "hired" elders and many of their top cultivators. It could be said that their combat strength as a sect dropped by over sixty percent in one fell swoop!

This was all part of Feng's plan though. This allowed him to finally take in everyone from that city and in a sense, import everyone into his newly established city.

Like this, Feng would not feel threatened by a city so far away, and at the same time, it allowed him to consolidate appropriately.

Currently, Feng's main goal was taking over these lands for himself. The only way that Feng could accomplish these goals, was to eventually move everyone to his location and to slowly take over more land.

After spending over six months distributing many techniques, setting up battalions, and placing several generals in charge of his new forces, it was time for Feng to begin his conquest against a nearby city.