The Rise of the Black Plain

While Minos and Ruth were traveling through the Cromwell Kingdom, the group from Stone Island had already left Dry City after receiving a few of the Black Plain orders from Butler Dillian.

The butler had ordered 100 high-level grade-1 spiritual weapons and a low-level grade-2 spiritual gathering array.

These requests were made for making more weapons available to the soldiers in the Black Plain Army as it would soon increase in number after the new recruitment was initiated. As for the spiritual gathering array, it would allow more citizens of the city to enjoy a greater spiritual concentration.

After all, with each day that passed, more families were coming from Yellow City, leading to a great demand for new homes in Dry City, and with that, the need for new buildings to be built in places that were not yet affected by the old spiritual arrays was also rising.

Thus, in about two weeks, when these new items arrived in Minos' territory, the city would make improvements regarding this issue, thus enhancing the local quality of life.

Simultaneously, the two alchemists of Dry City had also started receiving their ingredients regularly and had already begun delivering the several pills ordered by the local population!

Due to the cultivation level of both Davis and Edric being at level 39, the two were only able to refine 120 pills together each month. However, there was not much to do for the time being, and the population of Dry City was not much concerned about the delivery rate of these two alchemists.

After all, it was only a few days back until they couldn't even dream of paying for pills!

Nevertheless, by the time Minos had departed Dry City for the Spiritual Tournament, the two alchemists had already delivered over 100 pills, which had already greatly aided numerous city residents in overcoming their bottlenecks!

As for the people who received these first pills, their lot was very pleased, and it was extremely true for some who were in their last years of life and were not brimming with vitality.

In fact, they had even gone back to work since they just couldn't stay leisurely!

As a result, the city's atmosphere was delightful. At the same time, almost everyone felt hopeful for an even better future ahead!

...

Meanwhile, Dillian had sent a small group from the Black Plain Army to the City of Waters to conduct a local survey to infiltrate and establish a covert presence there.

The group's main objective was to discover all the crucial information about the City of Waters, such as the family that was behind that region and the few influential families in the region.

This mission would take slightly over a month and after which they would finally return home to report their findings.

With this, Butler Dillian hoped to devise a plan so that after the Black Plain Army recruited more members, they could send a few more teams to that city to attract more workers.

...

Anyway, a few days passed since Minos and Ruth had encountered Abby's group. Right now, the two youths were on their way to the capital of the Cromwell Kingdom as they flew on Ruth's great white eagle.

And soon enough, the two soon spotted the silhouette of Capital City over the horizon while White began descending steadily. At first glance, this city didn't appear much different in size than Old Stone, the capital of Stone Island.

However, upon a closer inspection, the duo found that this city was still a little smaller, with just over 5.5 million inhabitants, losing to Old Stone.

However, despite having a slightly smaller population, due to its proximity to the Flaming Empire, this Capital City was much more developed than the capital of Stone Island.

After all, even if some of Stone Island's powers were due to its relations with various empires, their territory was still quite long from any great power!

To imply, even the closest empire to Stone Island was the Flaming Empire itself, which was only a few weeks away. However, if the inhabitants of the island wanted to reach the Western Empire, the trip would take almost ten months, even with the help of a 6th stage spiritual beast!

The Spiritual World was vast, resulting in the absurd distance between the extreme points of the Central Continent!

As they approached the city, Ruth said, turning to Minos with a provocative smile on her face. "There are some interesting things going on here. Maybe you might regret not coming here earlier..."

Minos extended his hand towards her waist and embraced her from behind while his mouth was at the height of the young woman's neck and then asked curiously while touching her sensitive areas, "Oh? Is that so? Why would I regret it?"

Feeling the movement of his warm fingertips, Ruth blushed while her heartbeat turned faster, but she responded as her chest heaved up and down, "Before the Spiritual Tournament is going to take place in a certain location, a group from the empire is sent to build some competition related structures a few months beforehand."

"For example, for helping the many competitors who arrive before the tournament, there are a few ways to strengthen themselves even more, which don't require them to take many risks."

Ruth breathed in and then continued further.

"There is a structure that they always bring to this competition, it rewards the ones who have the highest cultivation speed. For simplicity, this structure has an array that measures the speed of cultivation of those who train within it.

Along with that, there is also an almost high-level of spiritual concentration there, helping in the speed of cultivation of the cultivators. Finally, this array ranks those cultivators on the basis of their cultivation speeds, and also offers specific prizes for each position.

Oh! It's really interesting. But this alone is not enough to make me regret it as I don't have any interest in exposing my cultivation speed to so many strangers," Minos said, releasing Ruth from his grasp.

Until now, only those very close to him knew how good his cultivation speed was. Therefore, it had never caused problems for Minos before.

However, suppose so many members of influential families in the north of the Central Continent were to discover this fact, Minos and his forces could get in extreme danger!

After all, only high-level techniques could increase someone's cultivation to such a degree!

And that was something that everyone was aware of.

Ruth then continued, "But there's more to it. The event organizers also set up a fighting arena in which killing and maiming are prohibited. This arena also offers a reward for the best cultivators.

And so, those who have talent, but don't come from large families or don't have a good background, can improve their strength and make the competition more interesting."

"Hmm, I understand. That is a good initiative. Maybe I will copy something like this to my Dry City," Minos said with a smile on his face.

This trip was also helping Minos understand various methods that could be implemented to strengthen the population. After all, Minos' knowledge was primarily related to cultivation and essential details of the Spiritual World, but he didn't know or hadn't seen these ingenious ideas for improving a city!

"This may indeed be a good idea. Are you also thinking about organizing your own tournament?" Ruth asked with a curious smile on her face.

She liked how Minos was always concerned about the well-being of his subordinates and the city. And that was also why she had attended almost all of Minos' meetings in Dry City while she was there.

"I can do that in the future, yes. But I was specifically referring to building specialized structures like these events.

So, fixedly, it would provide the people of Dry City a place to compete and improve their cultivation speed," Minos calmly explained while the white eagle landed on the ground.

"Ahh, I get it..."

After their small exchange, the two left White in a place for tall beasts while they headed toward the central region of the Capital City.

The moment the duo entered the place, Minos could immediately sense how exciting the atmosphere of this place was. There were numerous young people like him and Ruth bustling with smiles on their faces, while there were also some who had an arrogant look as they walked through the streets.

Many people arrived here to participate in the Spiritual Tournament. However, there were even more who had come here just to watch the event!

After all, the future specialists from the northern region of the Central Continent would be introduced to the world in just a few days!

For some, the Spiritual Tournament was akin to a lottery ticket, which would offer them and their families a chance to rise to a new level!

As Minos and Ruth moved through the city's outskirts, they soon arrived in a district which had numerous tall and glass-clad buildings, where beautiful Ruth had indicated a good hotel.

The night was approaching now, and the two youths had already decided to go out and explore the next day after they had some rest and a lot of fun tonight...

And it was not long before Minos and Ruth had arrived at the reception of a very fancy hotel, which was bustling with many people.

The entrance hall boasted a spacious marble floor, and the decorated walls were showcased with several high-quality paintings.

Ruth then confidently took the lead and pulled Minos straight to the receptionist.

She had made a reservation at this place in advance, and she simply needed to check in.

But there was a slight blunder here, as she had booked two rooms which was quiet reasonable considering the two before. Nevertheless, that was not much of an issue, all she had to do was to cancel the reservation for one of them, and things would be alright...