Even after the conquest of the surrounding provinces of Dagonfall, Moowind, Mournfall, Dragonscape and Morningwish, there was still a much to be taken care of, and people needed to hold their own against the Dragons, animals and rival humans factions more than ever, and a single army leadership center wasn't enough to hold it's own throughout several fronts against those powerful foes, so naturally a lot of things needed to change and adapt.
The very first change, now the legions were separated by Provinces, each province was it's own kingdom with it's respective King, Commander and Temple master. Sometimes those roles were converged into one person, sometimes even split among more than three people, the Nokhians were wise to be adaptable to each region's necessity, situation and context. But in a general rule, the commander was responsible to recruit, gather, organize, train and prepare the army as also protecting the province. The temple master took care of spiritual and temple affairs and also serving as a Tribunal's will and voice. And the King the more economic and citizenship-related affairs, but also serving as a bridge between the commander and the temple master.
And these ranks where always chosen from the noble houses, families and clans, sometimes you could have entire families dedicated to serve one or two aspects of the empire and becoming experts at it.
But suddenly, independent fighters and researchers start appearing all over the place as certain retired warriors and priests started teaching younglings their skills and knowledges, and these students later teaching even more students, giving ordinary people a more fair chance at combat, martial arts competence, knowledge and perhaps even a way to greatness. And before you know it, several independent clans, mercenary warbands, freelancer warriors, schools, sorceress, entertainers, teachers, adventurers, engineers and martial artists were born all over the empire's kingdoms. And although sometimes they presented insubordination or disrespect of the authorities, they ended up being very useful, as the Temple, the Kingdom, the Army or the Noble houses could hire, recruit or persuade them into working for them without having to worry about where they'll sleep or what weapons or equipment they'll use as they were independent and just needed to be directly paid in coins or benefits.
But in special was the new martial arts and fighters clans and guilds that had their martial artists schools in the cities and villages, and they forged their own weapons, gathered their own foods, and earned money by selling their excess weapons to whoever had the money to buy, and also offering the village protection by being paid monthly donations.
The Empire were pretty tolerant of them due to how they naturally solved a lot of the empire's problems. But they still had to obey the empire's laws, never refuse to fight the Empires foes, one way or the other, but most importantly, recognize the Temple tribunal authority.
It's important to say that, the head of the Empire was the Temple Tribunal, the commanders, kings and noble houses were merely vassals of the divine authority if it's Grand masters and High priestess.
And of course, in the middle of all these new clans and guilds, there were some that stood above the others, some even to permanently change how the Empire works, and expand their martial arts much further, and two of the first and most important independent clans were the Ahujas and the Hajids.
Both of them started as old retired veterans teaching younglings wisdom of war and their techniques, just like many others, but something along the way, or from the very beginning, would made them terrifyingly dangerous and mysterious clans as they'd come forward with skills and knowledge never heard before.