The Rise of the Black Plain

The day dawned sunny in Capital City.

Early in the morning, this large city was already bustling with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets and squares.

That was the most important and the most anticipated day of the Spiritual Tournament, the grand final!

And because of its significance, the entirety of today's event would be broadcasted on giant screens in the various squares of this city so that the whole population could see an event as important as this one.

At this point, the tickets to the fighting arena were already sold out, and thousands of people were already heading towards the venue. The battle for third place was scheduled to take place just before the sunrise, and would soon be followed by the final match!

And to witness these two last fights of the tournament, even the king of the Cromwell Kingdom, along with the several Spiritual Kings in the city would be present. After all, many families from the northern regions of the Central Continent were observing this tournament.

And thus, the morning of this day began Minos was getting ready for his last fight in the Spiritual Tournament.

As the two finished dressing, the duo also carried out the necessary preparations for getting everything ready for their departure later.

Minos then turned to the beautiful young woman beside him and said, "Come on, Ruth."

"Hmm."

After that, the two set off towards the direction of the arena.

...

As they entered the entrance specified for the participants, Minos and Ruth suddenly came across some of the youths they had met during the competition.

They were Abby, Mona, Peter, Maxwell, and the Carline siblings.

Luke was not here since he was not close to Minos, and had already left the city. After all, the young master of the Nash family had only been here to make it into the top 10.

And since he had made it to the quarterfinals, his rank would undoubtedly be within the requirement determined by his father. With all that, there was no longer any need for young Luke to stay in the Cromwell Kingdom and he also had no interest in the Flaming Empire.

Anyway, Minos looked at the people in front of him and greeted them.

"Good fight for you. I hope you defeat that guy," The beautiful young ginger said with a smile on her face. She had lost to Troy just a day before, so the young woman still had some resentment against him.

"Well, I also came to wish you luck..."

After exchanging greetings, everyone else spoke to Minos for a while before finally allowing him to enter the participants' area.

Mona and Kara also followed along since their fight would be the first of the day. But neither of them particularly cared about the battle for third place.

Knowing that Mona had much lower cultivation than Kara, the result was inevitable. She would only fight to show her resolve as a cultivator.

As for Kara, such a fight was nothing but a formality before she was finally accepted by one of the sects.

Anyway, time passed, and it was almost the moment for the fights to commence.

However, since the king had come to watch the match in person, there was a whole official ceremony before the competition could actually start.

At this moment, about 2 meters tall and adorned in a golden tunic, an elderly man appeared on the balcony of the main VIP room of the arena. He had long white hair and had a clean-shaven face.

This elderly man was none other than the current king of the Cromwell Kingdom, James Cromwell, who had a Black talent, was over 700 years old and was at level 59!

He could be considered as one of the 20 strongest cultivators in the northern region of the Central Continent, being one of the few who had reached the pinnacle of the Spiritual King stage!

Next to this elderly man, four other figures emerged.

The weakest among them had reached level 55. These were the most prestigious generals in this kingdom and were present here to accompany the king for this event.

Meanwhile, the eight experts from the Flaming Empire stood on the adjacent side terrace, exchanging greetings with the king and his generals.

"Your majesty, today we will see a great fight," one of them commented, with a friendly smile on his face.

Although they were more talented than the king, they had no reason to look down on such a person. In addition to being at a very high level for the region, he had opened the doors of his kingdom to receive them.

Of course, both sides benefited from this arrangement. Still, there was no reason for these experts from the sects to be disrespectful to the locals of this place, especially to someone who was stronger than them.

"Hahaha, I also hope so. It's been a few decades since I attended the last Spiritual Tournament, so I'm curious to see how this new generation will fare!" the king replied as he smiled.

The last time he had attended the Spiritual Tournament was more than 40 years ago when the tournament of that time was hosted in his kingdom.

"I heard about these two young men who are going to compete in the final..." one of the generals started to speak while curiously looking at the experts. He was curious and wanted to know if the rumors he had heard were indeed true.

Thus, soon, they were engaged in an active conversation. Meanwhile, the envoys from the empire also praised the young participants of this edition of the tournament.

They were genuinely impressed. The level and abilities of the competitors during this edition of the competition were so good that none of these people could stop talking about it.

It must be noted that such an instance was not typically seen in previous editions of the Spiritual Tournament!

"By the way, do you know where this Minos comes from?" some of them inquired. It was unusual for someone without a last name to reach the final of this competition, leading them to think that Minos might have hidden his surname on purpose.

Upon hearing this, all seven people turned in Sally's direction, as she was the only one who could know the answer.

"I do not know either," she responded quickly.

And indeed, this was a fact. She wasn't even aware that Minos had started cultivating less than two years ago...

And as a result, his mother had no obligation to reveal all of his information to the young woman who was only tasked with examining the final test of this Spiritual Tournament.

Thus, Sally knew only of some basic information, such as Minos being raised by his father without any help from the sect.

"Oh! What a pity, then. But it doesn't matter. With such a talent, I am sure that he will not want to waste his time in a backward place like ours..." the king sighed deeply.

If this young man did not have a family, it would be worth it for the Cromwell family to nurture him. However, he was without a doubt that the young man would go to the Flaming Empire in the next few days...

'What a pity...' one of the generals thought. Any family that had nourished young Stuart would have gained immense benefits with him going to the empire...

...

Time flew by, and finally, the two girls had already taken the stage set for the anticipated battle for third place.

Mona was wearing blue armor which resembled a dress and her beautiful hair was tied up in a ponytail.

The beautiful young ginger on the other hand was wearing black armor, which greatly accentuated her beautiful body.

And it wasn't long before the fight came near a conclusion. The cultivation difference between the two was quite a lot, so Kara had easily dominated her opponent from the beginning, defeating her just after a few blows.

In the end, Kara won third place in this edition of the Spiritual Tournament, while Mona had to settle for the fourth position.

Anyway, this was the result that everyone was expecting. But what truly mattered now was the long-awaited confrontation between Minos and Troy.

On the one side was the competitor with the most extraordinary cultivation in the competition and since the beginning had been dominating his opponents in all the previous stages of the competition. On the other side was the indecipherable monster, whose true strength still remained quite a mystery to everyone.

And as they took over the stage, the two stopped in front of each other and then waited for the match to start. Minos wore his standard set of fighting attire, without any armor and was holding his elegant low-level grade-2 spiritual sword.

On the other side, Troy wore light armor in black, covering only the torso of the young man's body. Other than that, he didn't carry any weapon in his hands since he did not use techniques that required the use of spiritual weapons.

As they saw this, the audience present throughout the arena halted their conversations while anxiously waiting for the referee's signal. This would probably be a battle to forever be etched in the mind and also mark the beginning of the journey of these future legends from the Central Continent!

Therefore, no one wanted to miss even a movement during the battle between these two youths. Who knew how long it might take before they had another chance of witnessing geniuses of such level fight again? Nobody could surely answer that...

'Oh! So, it's these two. This young man from the Newman family is amazing to have reached that level so soon...' King James Cromwell thought while looking at Troy.

He still wasn't paying attention to Minos. After all, this young man was only at level 39. And even if it was incredible for him to reach the final and even with the rumors that the king had heard, he still couldn't see Minos in the same light as he saw Troy!

Finally, the referee approached the two competitors and inquired, "Are you ready?"

Both of them nodded in agreement, making a similar sound. "Hmm."

"If that's the case, you can start!"

With that, the referee declared the beginning of the fight.