Large-scale battles among cultivators followed a specific order, be it out of tradition, secondary goals, or sheer logistics.
While the fights among the leaders were the true deciding factor, the underlings always stepped onto the battlefield first, and for several reasons.
First and foremost, the underlings were relatively expendable. They weren't exactly cannon fodder, but that made them even more suited to probe an enemy's strength and defenses.
Moreover, the underlings were a reflection of their forces. Their performance in battle would vouch for an organization's strength or reveal its weakness. News of those outcomes would also spread far, affecting political environments beyond a mere neighborhood.
Battles even acted as a culling of sorts. They eliminated weak underlings while providing the most promising ones meaningful experience, giving their respective forces a better idea of who deserved resource-wise investments.
