In the dark night, there was a row of fire torches in the valley moving like a slithering fire snake. Using the light, Yi Yun could see the troops were made up of huge beasts marching through the mountains. Atop the beasts were people holding torches.
“It’s the Jin Long Wei’s beasts, it’s the Jin Long Wei army!”
With a glance, Yi Yun could see about eighty behemoths; one wouldn’t need to go into detail about such a troop’s battle prowess!
Among them, the behemoth leading the pack flew a flag banner on his back.
That flag was golden yellow in color, and on it was a beautiful dragon (Jin Long).
This was the flag of the Jin Long Wei!
When he had parted with Lin Xintong and old man Su, Yi Yun had asked regarding the Kingdom’s selection. He also knew that the Jin Long Wei had purposely created an extremely detailed map of the Cloud Wilderness.
Of course, old man Su did not tell Yi Yun anything about the two occurrences of the purple cloud phenomenon that happened in the past few months. If he did, Yi Yun’s thoughts would run wild.
“They are finally here. For this troop to enter the Cloud Wilderness, it has be for the Kingdom’s selection! I guess it’s about time!”
The Cloud Wilderness was extremely broad, and the small tribes were numerous. To organize the Kingdom’s selection, they could not go to every tribe to hold the examination. Hence, they would gather all of the candidates in one of the large tribes, set a particular standard and collectively assess them.
The destination for the Jin Long Wei was the Tao tribal clan. They had decided on the Tao tribal clan’s land as the examination center for the Kingdom’s selection. The Tao tribal clan controlled an area that spanned several miles in diameter. The biggest tribes had hundreds of thousands of households, which was equal to a million people.
In the Cloud Wilderness, the population census was based on the number of able-bodied men, as this number was most meaningful. Able-bodied men were the main labor force, and also the leading warriors in battle. To reflect a tribe’s real strength, including the old and sick would make it meaningless.
An able-bodied man had a wife, parents and a few children. As for the families without able-bodied men, like Yi Yun and Jiang Xiaorou, they wouldn’t even be considered a “household”, so when a population census is made, Jiang Xiaorou will not be included in it.
For a large tribe, a “household” was about six to seven people, so with hundreds of thousands of households, it would be about a million people.
In the Cloud Wilderness, to have a tribe consisting of a million people was quite amazing.
…
Cloud Wilderness, Tao tribal clan—
The Tao tribal clan had survived in the Cloud Wilderness for more than a thousand years. As they had a long history, they were able to form a martial art heritage they could call their own.
As for a small tribe like the Lian tribal clan, they had no fences surrounding them, but for the Tao tribal clan, strong sturdy fences circled them..
These wooden fences were made of thick circular logs placed side by side. Each was over ten meters high. These logs were obtained from a particular tree in the vast wilderness. Its body was extremely dense and solid and wouldn’t rot even after a few hundred years of experiencing the elements.
For the Tao tribal clan to able to last all these years, the key reason was due to the tribe’s wonderland—Tao mountain. Desolate beasts avoided wonderlands, and only live in the ‘Desolate Lands’; hence under the Tao mountain’s protection, few desolate beasts appeared in the area controlled by the Tao tribal clan.
Also, the Tao tribal clan had no lack of Purple Blood warriors or warriors at the peak of the Purple Blood realm. Not only that, the Tao tribal clan had a precious ancestor weapon, even if a strong desolate beast mounted an attack, with the ancestor weapon as the core, the numerous Purple Blood warriors could create an array, giving them the power to battle.