The Rise of the Black Plain

While Minos and his group were returning to his domain, another harvest was already carried out in Dry City and even sent to the Black Plain Army base on the territory's coast.

This time, Minos' territory had planted an area of approximately 200 hectares of land, yielding around 800 tons of goods. Out of which, about 500 tons would be sent to Stone Island, where Elen Nash would sell them in her family's markets.

This amount was about 250% of the initial amount of produce that the Black Plain had exported to Stone Island during their first deal. With the business this time, Butler Dillian hoped to collect roughly 5 million low-grade spiritual crystals, which would give way to massive developments to take place in Minos' territory.

But they still had to wait a few days until the goods were delivered to the Nash family and the Minos administration received the payment. However, Dillian was sure that he would already be with the crystals in hand as soon as Minos reached Dry City.

However, they would still have to invest in local agriculture for the time being so that they would still be able to generate even more wealth in the future and also in the Black Plain Army, which was the only force that could protect these businesses.

As for the remaining crystals, the butler had decided to wait until Minos returned before thinking about what to do with them.

After all, the young Stuart was not far away, and could be having some plans in his mind after traveling for so long!

As for the result of the Spiritual Tournament, well, although there were several newspapers in the Spiritual World, it would still take a while before the news of this event could spread.

The press in this world was not well-developed, so it took some time for the most relevant information to reach the entire northern region of the Central Continent.

As for how these newspapers were, it was quite simple, they resembled large leaflets with texts on some subjects that were relevant to the general population. Sometimes, they were accompanied by drawings of the individuals mentioned.

However, those drawings were not perfect depictions, in fact, it was even possible for someone to easily confuse the drawing with someone else. After all, this would not be a perfect image of the person being portrayed in the news...

Anyway, even if the news had already started to spread, it would undoubtedly take longer for it to reach the Black Plain since this region did not receive these journals frequently.

However, Minos' subordinates were already certain of the result of their young master. After all, this was a competition for the younger generation and was not so dangerous...

Anyway, things were progressing very well for Dry City, which continued to grow every day and had already opened the Cohen family store in the city. And as a result, several soldiers, who now had better salaries, had already begun placing their orders in this new store.

The most common items being sold were the low-level grade-1 arrays, which could enhance one's quality of life. For example, the lighting array was in pretty high demand in the Black Plain, as there were still many homes without such items.

After all, even if the quality of life of the inhabitants of Dry City had improved, the overwhelming majority of them could not afford to pay for such arrays. To give you an idea, a lighting array set that could illuminate ten rooms would easily cost 5,000 crystals!

Therefore, it would still take some time before even the most humble families were able to collect the required amount of crystals. As for the soldiers, they divided the expenses among themselves, as these items were usually sold in sets.

But for soldiers in the rank of Sergeants, who earned 800 crystals every month, this was not such a hefty expense since it would considerably improve the quality of their life.

Anyway, as the days passed, the city had been getting more and more illuminated, while the enthusiasm among the population had also increased almost to the same extent.

...

A few weeks prior...

In a large city, in the Cromwell Kingdom, the city had a large population of a few thousand people with a distinct mark on their forehead. This mark looked like a star with a skin-colored circumference at the center of the star.

This was a mark given to slaves belonging to a particular family in the Cromwell Kingdom!

At times, in this city, one could hear the screams of men and women who were being mercilessly beaten, their suffering hidden behind the cover of reasons that no one knew...

These slaves worked in the numerous cultures planted in this region, receiving nothing other than meager rations of water and food.

After working all day like some animals, many of these people could still be beaten or even forced to witness their daughters and women being raped by the lords of this land.

That was the cruel reality of those who lived in such conditions, not only in this particular place but in any part of the Spiritual World!

Anyway, within a palace located at the heart of the city, there was a room with dozens of illuminated lamps as two elderly men continuously observed the place.

This room was vast and almost looked like an extensive library, but all that was here were these lamps.

If someone passed by this room, they could see the name inscribed above the entrance door: Soul Room.

As to what that meant, it became pretty apparent after one entered the room, this was where the soul signs of all the relevant members of this family were kept. Every single one of these lamps represented a life. That is, if one of these lamps went out, it indicated that the person whose name was on that lamp had died!

At this moment, one of the lamps that were placed in one of the best positions in this place suddenly flickered before completely going out.

Seeing this, the old man responsible for watching this side of the room suddenly rose up and hurriedly approached the now-darkened lamp. 'It looks like someone important died...' The old man sighed as he walked over to the shelf.

On this first shelf were the signs of the souls of the most important members of this family, these members were either Spiritual Kings or were children and close relatives of these individuals.

Upon arriving in front of the spot where the lamp had gone out, the old man reached at the token that was below the lamp, which contained the information about the owner of the corresponding soul sign.

However, upon looking at the token, the old man's face instantly turned pale, feeling a cold chill running down his spine. In shock, he accidentally dropped the thing on the floor, his expression turning even more grave. 'Shit, the Supreme Elder's son has died!'

'Why did this have to happen right during my shift? I hope that old devil doesn't take his anger upon me in the heat of the moment...' The old man then started to leave the room with a terrified look etched on his face.

At this point, there was not much to do. If he tried to delay the news, the result could be even worse for him.

All he could do was pray that the supreme elder was not in a bad mood today, or else...

Meanwhile, seeing that his colleague on duty had hurriedly left the place, the other old man suddenly turned his head and looked in the direction where he could see a token on the floor.

He then got up and went to the spot while muttering to himself. "Eh? What happened to old Glen? Did he become senile and could not even keep things in order here?"

He then reached to the side of the spot where there was a darkened lamp, with no token. He noticed that the missing token was just a few steps away, and was turned upside down on the floor.

'Who is it that made old Glen so nervous that he didn't even return the token to its place?' the old man wondered.

However, as his eyes saw the name written on that token, the old man's body suddenly shuddered as he thought while breathing out a big sigh of relief, 'Ahh, how lucky that I wasn't the one who saw this... I hope old Glen won't be killed just for telling the bad news...'

After thinking about this, the old man put the token back in its place before going back to observe the area.

If someone came into this room right now and looked at that token, they would see the name that was written in red.

"Leroy Chambers."

...

Time quickly passed, and it had been about three weeks since Minos and his group had already left the capital of the Cromwell Kingdom. During this time, Maxwell had said goodbye to them in the first week of their trip and continued the rest of his journey to the Snow Kingdom.

After that, Minos, Ruth, and Peter made their way towards the Black Plain, flying quickly, stopping only to rest in the cities they passed along the way.

There were certain days when they could not even find a city to rest for the night, after all, there were some vast regions of forest that dominated the northern part of the Cromwell Kingdom. Thus, they could only sleep in shifts and returned to travel as soon as the dawn broke.

In the meantime, Minos also learned a little about Peter's past. Despite being the son of parents with Blue talent, Peter had been born with a Black talent. But even then, for some reason that he didn't say, had not been taken by any of the noble families in the Kingdom of Waves.

However, Peter had met an old man in his hometown who decided to help the young man by teaching him two Black-grade techniques, one of which was a cultivation technique while the other being an attack type. And because of the old man's guidance, young Peter had managed to advance to his current level, even without the support of any of the large families.

He had also trained himself hard to fight against spiritual beasts.

He then traveled alone to the Cromwell Kingdom to participate in the Spiritual Tournament, traveling for months while constantly fighting and at the same time, improving his cultivation speed!!

Anyway, time ran out, and the trio had finally arrived at the Black Plain!