The troop traveled for another three days and two nights before finally reaching the border pass of the Northern Territory.

Here, there were no solitary, majestic fortresses as Zhou Ming had imagined, but rather massive cities lined up along the border.

The distance between the cities was no more than fifty li, with some built against steep mountain terrain, their walls rising directly from precipitous cliffs.

Others were adjacent to wide rivers, where the moats served as natural barriers.

The gaps between each city were connected by signal towers and garrison outposts, forming a tight defensive line.

Every time they passed a city along the way, the commanding officer would personally open the gates and lead their troops to welcome them.

However, Empress Su Mingyue never lingered; she would only exchange a few brief words with the commander from horseback, glance through the military reports presented to her, and continue riding forward.

While passing a border city built against a mountain, she turned back to look at Zhou Ming behind her as they went through the gate tunnel.

Zhou Ming was swaying on his horse, rubbing his waist; caught by her gaze, he quickly straightened up and lowered his hand.

After traveling northwest for another day and night, the troop finally arrived at a massive city, far larger in scale than any they had passed along the way.

Its walls were about three zhang high, constructed entirely of massive, blue-gray stone blocks, and the surface was covered in mottled marks from blades, axes, and arrows.

Signal towers, arrow towers, and barbicans were all fully equipped, and the three characters engraved on the gate with powerful, elegant strokes read: Zhenbei City.

Of the two hundred thousand border troops stationed in the Northern Territory, a full eighty thousand were garrisoned here.

This was the core of the Northern Territory's defensive line and the location of the Commanders Residence, guarded by the Su Family for generations.

Seeing Empress Su Mingyue's banner from afar, the garrison inside the city threw open the gates, the drawbridge crashed down, and the soldiers atop the walls performed a synchronized salute with their spears.

Empress Su Mingyue rode into the city, and the commoners and soldiers lining the streets knelt and bowed, crying out, "Young Commander."

Hearing these words, Zhou Ming gained a deeper understanding of the Su Family's influence in You Province.

The commoners calling her "Young Commander" instead of "Young Miss" showed that in the eyes of the ordinary people, the heir to the Su Family was no longer the playboy Su Mingli.

Empress Su Mingyue did not rest for a moment, immediately ordering her men to summon the generals to the Commanders Residence for a council.

The Commanders Residence was located in the very center of the city; it was a massive complex serving as both an administrative office and a residence, with a strict layout of front offices and rear quarters.

The council hall was brightly lit, and on the front wall hung a massive map of the Northern Territory, marking all the passes, cities, troop deployment points, and supply routes across You Province and the southern border of the Great Yuan Dynasty.

Twenty or so generals sat on both sides; most had gray hair and beards, and even the youngest was over forty, their armor engraved with the designations of their respective units and camps.

Empress Su Mingyue sat in the main seat, first inquiring about the defensive deployment of the Northern Territory and the troop movements of the Great Yuan Dynasty along the border.

A veteran general in charge of Northern Territory military intelligence stood up to report, saying that the Great Yuan had not made any major moves yet, and border friction was actually less than in previous years.

At first glance, this sounded like good news, but the expressions of everyone present did not relax in the slightest.

The border was too quiet now, quiet enough to make one's skin crawl.

Then, Empress Su Mingyue brought out the tiger tally.

The candlelight in the council hall illuminated every detail of the half-piece bronze tiger tally in her hand, and all the generals stood up in unison, the sound of clashing armor echoing through the hall.

Empress Su Mingyue held the tiger tally up to her chest, her voice clear and resonant:

"My father has traveled south to support the Emperor, and the Northern Territory cannot be without a commander for a single day. From today on, I will temporarily oversee all military affairs in the Northern Territory. The commander's order is here; all units are to obey my commands."

Not one of those gray-haired veteran generals showed even a hint of resistance, and they all cupped their fists to accept the order.

In the Northern Territory, the Su Family's prestige was not maintained by imperial edicts; Empress Su Mingyue's grandfather, father, and several uncles had spent countless generations managing this bitterly cold land.

Those left behind to guard the rear were the Marquis's most trusted core forces.

After taking command of the troops, Empress Su Mingyue did not rest for a moment, immediately assigning the twenty thousand soldiers she had brought with her into the various units.

Their mission was not only to bolster the defensive line but, more importantly, to teach the Dushi Sutra.

Just as Empress Su Mingyue finished her arrangements and the generals were leaving the council hall, Zhou Ming suddenly felt streams of heat rising within his Dantian.

At first, they appeared intermittently in a few or dozens of streams; thinking it was another small-scale inheritance of death, he quietly moved back half a step, intending to deal with it after the people in the council hall had left.

But before the last few veteran generals could even walk out the door, the heat in his Dantian surged violently.

It was no longer a trickle but massive waves pouring in, as if someone had breached a dam inside his Dantian.

Zhou Ming hurriedly sank his consciousness into his brow, only to see the Causal Chains on the Causality Web beginning to snap in large numbers.

They were not breaking sporadically but extinguishing in large swaths, like entire sections of stars in the night sky being blown out at once by something from behind.

The area where the snapping was most dense was the region where the earliest batch and the subsequent phantoms from the fall of Cang Prefecture had emerged.

The gaps left behind after the snapping had not yet been filled by newly born phantoms before another large batch of Causal Chains snapped simultaneously, one after another, leaving Zhou Ming shocked.

Seeing this, Zhou Ming knew immediately that the Zongsheng Sect had begun attacking An Province.

Calculating the time, it had already been over ten days.

If he were the leader of the Zongsheng Sect, he wouldn't give An Province too much time to prepare either.

Once the army supporting the Emperor converged, trying to attack An Province, would be a pipe dream, so they had to take it as early as possible to avoid complications later.

Feeling the surging mana rising within his body, Zhou Ming dared not stay in the council hall any longer.

After excusing himself to Empress Su Mingyue, Zhou Ming, guided by the guards of the Commanders Residence, walked quickly to an unoccupied room in the rear courtyard of the Commanders Residence.

This was a guest room, and it was kept extremely clean.

Zhou Ming couldn't care about anything else; he bolted the door behind him, sat cross-legged on the low couch, calmed his mind, and carefully felt the changes within his body.

The heat rising within his Dantian was rapidly absorbed by his twelve-inch Dao Platform like a giant whale drinking water.

As a massive amount of mana poured continuously into the Dao Platform, the Dao Platform began to undergo a subtle transformation.

A tiny vortex appeared in the very center of the Dao Platform, pulling all the incoming mana into it; the vortex spun faster and denser, and a purple-gold light could be faintly seen flickering deep within it.

At the same time, a cool sensation came from his brow, as if icy spring water were flowing into the depths of his Divine Soul, and the range covered by his Divine Sense was silently expanding.

The heat flow continued for a full day and night.

The people at the Commanders Residence probably thought Steward Zhou had fallen ill from exhaustion on the road.

In the middle, Dongmei came to knock on the door once, and Zhou Ming shouted through the door, "My stomach is upset, I'm resting."

Dongmei muttered outside the door, "A grown man, not even as good as us women," and left; a while later, she came back and placed a bowl of hot porridge at the door.

When the heat flow finally began to subside, the twelve-inch Dao Platform inside Zhou Ming's body began to change.

As the Dao Platform absorbed more and more heat, it began to gradually shrink.

At a certain moment, the purple-gold vortex above the Dao Platform, like a gluttonous beast, suddenly opened its mouth and swallowed the Dao Platform in one gulp.

Immediately after, the purple-gold vortex condensed into a perfectly round purple-gold pill.

The pill was about the size of a pigeon's egg, purple-gold all over, as warm and moist as jade yet as hard as iron, and covered with dense, pale golden Dao patterns.

Those Dao patterns were profound and complex, each one containing some kind of Law of Heaven and Earth that he could not yet fully comprehend.

The heat in his Dantian began to pour into this purple-gold pill, which then flowed out as pure mana; the purple-gold pill seemed to be breathing.

With each breath, the heat flowing into his Dantian turned into pure mana.

As the Dao Platform in his Dantian turned into a purple-gold pill, Zhou Ming's Divine Sense also changed.

The Divine Sense, which could originally only probe a radius of forty or fifty meters, could now perceive everything within a radius of a thousand meters.

Zhou Ming carefully extended his Divine Sense.

He "saw" Empress Su Mingyue in the front office of the Commanders Residence, discussing matters in low voices with several veteran generals.

He "saw" Dongmei in the rear courtyard of the Commanders Residence, leaning against the well rim, polishing her silver spear.

He could "see" the sentries on the city wall, looking at the northern sky while silently chewing on dry rations.

Everything was clearly reflected in Zhou Ming's mind.

Without needing to deliberately scan, every detail within a radius of a thousand meters was within his range of perception.