With all those military planets I had created, there was a problem: there was no military. Often, people from level 25-50 would be rank-and-file troops. Sure, some people more advanced in silver section would hold leader positions, but generally, gold-sections were higher ranks, and diamond-sections were generals. Obviously, the Sasomac Empire didn't have enough diamond-sections to be generals, so I would make do.

Bronze-sections would be troops, and weaker bronze-sections would be cannon fodder-yes, in other empires, bronze-sections in the military were cannon fodder.

Silver-sections would lead squads of 5-15, depending on where they were in silver section. Those silver-section idiots really shouldn't have been leaders, but I had no better option.

Silver-sections were also allowed to guard our flanks, spy on other empires, or attack as shock troops.

There would be few gold-sections in the military, but each noble was required to serve in the military.

They lead entrie military classes, which were tank, mage, archer, spy, shock troop, melee fighter, and staff.

I would make all decisions, though. There were two formations I decided to train my troops on, offence and defense. However, I would train my nobles on thousands of formations, as they were powerful enough.

Defense formation had spies listening to all the decision makers on the other side, with shock troops stopping people from killing them while causing mayhem from within the enemy's ranks. Spies would send information back to the silver-sections and gold-sections, and of course, me, their great emperor. Tanks would guard the part of the Empire that the other empire was attacking. They'd lock shields together, making it impossible for the other empire to get in without breaking the shields. Mages could cast spells to double as anything, really. Behind all the tanks would be melee fighters, who a force of mages was dedicated to levitating, still behind the shield, but enough so that they could attack. They'd pound the near enemies to their deaths. The archers would lessen their burden, and shoot the enemies that were farther out to stop them from reaching the tanks. Staff would do everything else, like heal, repair weapons, armors, and shields, and make enough food for the army to sustain.

So basically, for defense formation, spies and shock troops would be behind enemy lines, tanks would be at the line between us and them, melee fighters behind them, mages behind them, archers behind them, and staff behind them. I and the nobles would make decisions when free, but we'd mostly deal with gold-categories and diamond-categories.

Offence formation was similar, with spies and shock troops behind enemy lines, but instead of holding the line, tanks would surround the thing we were attacking, with the same layering of personnel, but it would be in the shape of an outward circle, not a line.

I called all my nobles. I gave them that information, and I also told them how I was going to make commoners join.

"Nobles. I am creating an army of the Empire, which all nobles are required to join."

I gave that information.

I felt a ripple in my spiritual sense.

I always felt ripples in my spiritual sense, but this was big.

I decided to lower the required level to become a noble to just gold-section, because my noble slots were filling up too slowly.

Every time someone broke through in sections in my spiritual sense, I'd feel a ripple, However, this was someone breaking through to gold section.

Perfect. A jack for my military.

I, and all the nobles, surrounded the gold-section. I sensed something odd with my spiritual sense. I was in the general's territory, and the planet had an unhealthy sense of dread coming upon it.

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"Great Emperor, what shall I do for you," he asked fearfully.

I caught something in his voice. A slight Cancall accent. I knew no one in the Empire could fake the Cancall accent. Hell, I had listened to it for centuries, yet I still couldn't do it without changing my voice box. It was hidden well enough that the spy seemed to have practiced the Sasomac accent a lot. But I could still hear it.

Game over.

I summoned my hammer as I put my hands in strike position. I swung down quickly, as I said "Cancall spy. I hear it. Die now." The spy barely had time to raise his hand, to block and to get me to stop, before my hammer was upon his head.

Within a quarter of a second, all that was left was a gory mass in space. Yes, I hit so hard I had blasted a hole through that planet. I flew back to my nobles.

"That was a spy from Cancall. Unless we get our act together, we're dead. I'm going have to stop with this coddling shit and show you what real life actually is like. So far, I've been shielding the Empire, but I can't let that go on forever. I've realized my mistake. I clipped your wings before you learned to fly.

"Next cultivation session, I'm going to bring you. You'll see the real world.

"Anyways, in your provinces, I want signs in every major city that we're recruiting for the military. I also want you to train some teachers on those formations. I'm going to do the same in my province. Let's go now."

I left, and then started posting those signs. In about ten minutes, I was done. I went to the outskirts of Venus, and then spoke to the nobles.

"For this cultivation session, I will let you into Venus. However, do not interfere with my fight, or you will die." There was a grim collective nod. The situation was grim. Cancall knew of our existence. I had to stop letting them mess around. I had to get them to get serious.

I dove into Venus. My nobles followed.

I instantly found a level 78 monster. As these nobles had been coddled, they didn't know about the power of diamond-sections.

I noticed it was a basic fire elemental. Good enough as a warning. They were weak to water, but moved fast.

I said "These are weak to water, but fast. Get your water-aspected weapons and armor."

The nobles shuffled around their equipment as they tried to find an optimized build, as I moved my hammer around to prevent it from attacking. Once they were ready, I teleported out of the way.

The elemental charged at them, spewing firebolts. The nobles panicked, trying to find cover. One stood alone, charred, but holding a sword, and slashing at the elemental, like it was some sort of namuh. Once the noble was about to die, I cast the capstone of that healing spell, healing the noble, and then teleporting right into the fight. I took a glancing blow from the noble's sword, but it didn't even pierce my skin. I just pulled out slab of freezite double the size of the elemental, and hurled it at the elemental. It almost instantly died. I turned to my nobles.

"Idiotic plays. Had I not stepped in, all of you would have been dead by now."

I let the reality sink in. On a battlefield, they wouldn't have me to protect them. I needed to train them beforehand.

After a minute or two was done, I started to speak again.

"Look. I just killed it by throwing a slab of metal at it. You don't win in a fight by cowering and slashing at the enemy like an idiot."

A herd of level 75 fire horses, lead by a level 79 giant fire horse charged at me. I started teleporting backwards, as there was a cliff that would kill me if I jumped off it a few hundred miles behind me.

I was there within a few seconds. The nobles were still watching.

Once the horses could see the cliff, they were moving too fast to stop. They tried stopping, but all the level 76 horses couldn't stop, and jumped off the cliff.

After that, it was a much more manageable load. I took out my throwing axes, and cut off all four of the horse's legs. Now, it was no longer a threat, and I just slammed it in the head with my hammer a few times, and it died.

"Okay. Look, that's how you fight. Be resourceful. In wars, you will often have to fight against multiple diamond-sections, without help. I'm going to train you to do that. I need you to train the rest of the Empire on how to fight up sections. Everyone will need to.

"I don't think you're ready to fight yet. Until you can damage me, you're going to practice your technique with base attributes. I'll restrict you to base attributes, and then you'll practice technique and base strength. I'll give you ten years to practice."

Ten years was necessary, as they had risen to power so fast that they needed a lot of time to correct their techniques. I had put them in my house in the training dummy room. I had gotten to power over hundreds of billions of years-enough time to get perfect foundations, absorb knowledge, perfect my techniques, and do all that stuff. The nobles, however, were lacking in a ton of stuff. By Holthar standards, they were some of the crappiest gold-sections ever. An average level 45 would probably be able to kill at least two of them. My goal was to make them at least decent in a millenia, and make them good enough to fight diamond-sections in ten millennia. Yes, letting the elemental almost kill them was on purpose, as that was how they would learn.

I would wait the ten years. But not just idle around.

In the meanwhile, I would try at the seed of eternal truth again.