The Rise of the Black Plain

The day dawned sunny in Capital City.

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

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

For this reason, the entire event would be broadcast on giant screens in the squares of this city so that the population could see an event as important as this one.

At this point, tickets to watch the fight in the arena were over, and thousands of people were already heading towards that place. The dispute for third place was scheduled to happen just before the sun was up, and soon after that, the final would happen!

And for these last fights, even the king of the Cromwell Kingdom would come to watch, in addition to the many Spiritual Kings who were in the city at this time. After all, many families from the north of the Central Continent were watching this event.

And so, the morning of this day started to pass while Minos was in the room where he and Ruth were staying, preparing for his last fight in the Spiritual Tournament.

The two were finishing dressing up at this point while also preparing to get everything ready for their departure later.

He then looked at the beautiful young woman beside him and said. "Come on, Ruth."

"Hmm."

After that, the two left towards the arena where the fight would occur.

...

As they entered the entrance to the participants, Minos and Ruth suddenly came across some of the youths that they had met during these days of competition.

There were Abby, Mona, Peter, Maxwell, and the two Carline siblings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As for Kara, such a thing was just a formality before she was finally accepted by one of the sects.

Anyway, the time has passed, and it was almost time for the fights to begin.

However, this time the king had come to watch the match in person, so there was a whole official ceremony for the competition to begin.

At this point, an old man about 2 meters tall, wearing a golden tunic, appeared on the balcony of the main VIP room of this arena. He had long white hair and no beard on his face.

That was the current king of the Cromwell Kingdom, James Cromwell, who had a Black talent, level 59 and over 700-years-old!

He could be considered one of the 20 strongest cultivators in the north of the Central Continent, being one of the few who had reached the peak of the Spiritual King stage!

Next to this old man, four other figures appeared.

The weakest of them was at level 55. These were the most prestigious generals in this kingdom and were here to accompany the king in this event.

Meanwhile, the eight experts from the Flaming Empire were already on the terrace next door, greeting the king and his generals.

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

Although they were much more talented than this king, they have no reason to despise such a person. In addition to being at a very high level for the region, he still opened the doors of his kingdom to receive them.

Of course, both sides had their benefits. Still, there was no reason for these experts from the sects to be disrespectful to the inhabitants of this place, especially someone stronger than them.

"Hahaha, I 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 said as he smiled.

The last edition of this competition that he had attended 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 fight in the final..." One of the generals started to speak while curiously looking at these specialists. He wanted to know if the rumors he had heard were indeed true.

And so, soon, they began to talk actively. At the same time, envoys from the empire praised the young people who had participated in this edition of the tournament.

They were genuinely impressed. There were so many good competitors in this edition that none of these people could stop talking about it.

It must be said that such a thing was not typical in previous editions of the Spiritual Tournament!

"By the way, do you know where this Minos comes from?" Some of them asked. It was uncommon for someone without a last name to reach the final of this competition. So, they thought that Minos might have hidden his surname on purpose.

Upon hearing this, all seven people looked in the direction of Sally, who was the only one who could know the answer.

"I do not know either." She said quickly.

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

As a result, his mother had no obligation to reveal all of his information to the young woman tasked with examining the final test of this edition of the Spiritual Tournament.

So, Sally knew only some basic information, like Minos was raised by his father without help from the sect.

"Oh! What a pity, then. But it doesn't matter. With such talent, he will not 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 worthwhile for the Cromwell family to nurture him. However, he would undoubtedly 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 immensely with his going to the empire...

...

Time passed quickly, and finally, the two girls had already taken the stage to decide the third place.

Mona was wearing blue armor, which resembled a dress, while she had her beautiful hair tied in a ponytail.

The beautiful young ginger was already wearing black armor, which greatly accentuated the beautiful body of Kara.

And it wasn't long before the fight was decided. The cultivation of the two was very different, so Kara had dominated her opponent from the beginning, winning her 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 expected. But what truly mattered was that now it was the turn of the long-awaited confrontation between Minos and Troy.

On the one hand was the competitor with the most extraordinary cultivation in the competition since the beginning, dominating his opponents for all previous parts. On the other was the indecipherable monster, which no one understood from where all his strength came.

And as they took 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 clothes, without any armor and holding his elegant low-level grade-2 spiritual sword.

On the other side was Troy, who wore light armor in black, which covered only the torso of the young man's body. Other than that, he had no weapon in his hands since he did not use techniques that required spiritual weapons.

When they saw this, the whole audience stopped their conversations while waiting anxiously for the referee's signal. That would probably be a fight to keep in mind, which could mark the beginning of the journey of these future specialists from the Central Continent!

Therefore, no one wanted to miss any movement of these two youths. Who knows how long it could take before they had a chance to see geniuses of that level fighting? Nobody could answer that...

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

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

Finally, the referee approached the two young men and then asked. "Are you ready?"

The two nodded their heads in agreement while making a similar noise. "Hmm."

"Well, if that's the case, you can start!"