The Rise of the Black Plain

Ten days have passed since Minos's mother visited him. At this point, she was already gone back to the Flaming Empire, where her Gray Cloud Sect was located.

In those days that passed, Minos reached level 16 and had already trained his technique, Spatial Sword, thousands of times, and in a week or more, he would conclude the first phase of the technique.

He also had already separated a specialized defense technique for his advancement to Spiritual Beginner, which should also happen in the next two weeks.

It was a technique called Indestructible Body, Golden-grade classification, with 9 phases. When activated, it could make the user's body indestructible for 10 seconds for those who are up to 100% stronger than the user.

That meant that if the user of the technique were someone at level 20, he would have an indestructible body for 10 seconds, that not even someone at level 26 could hurt him within that time.

But against someone above that level, the defense would be less and less. At the higher levels, this ability to defend against those at the higher level would decrease as the difference in energy gets bigger and bigger through the ranks.

It begins with just the 10-second defense in the 1st phase that goes to the 9th phase. In this phase, the user would be able to use an insuperable defense and use his own body as a weapon.

Anyway, these days, Dillian had also managed to advance to level 46!!

After all, the butler still had a Black talent, and there were no bottlenecks within the steps. Even if they were in a low-density region, he would still advance to at least level 49, as long as he had time!

Of course, they would not wait that, when there were enough spiritual crystals, the cultivation speed of all Minos' subordinates would increase consistently.

...

A few kilometers from the Dry City, a merchant carriage with a large volume of items was approaching the region. In that carriage, there was a symbol of a silver ship.

That was the symbol of the Nash family from Stone Island!

"Hey, big brother, what are we doing, going to the Dry City? We usually don't come by when we are going to deliver resources to the Brown Kingdom." A muscular man asked.

"Hm, in fact, Ms. Elen made an accord with the new local sovereign of the Black Plain. So, we are going to leave these four spiritual gathering arrays here, before we go on, to continue our service in the Brown Kingdom." An older man who had a scar on his left eye responded.

...

A while passed, and soon the carriage reached Dry City.

"Young master, the spiritual arrays that Ms. Elen had promised have just arrived," Mia spoke after entering Minos' office.

"Oh! That was fast. Let's go get this, grandpa Dillian." Minos said as he had an animated expression on his face.

Soon after, the young man and the middle-aged man went to receive the arrays.

After walking for a few seconds, the two finally arrived at where the delivery men were. There were three people in the delivery group. One was a young man who didn't look much older than Minos, a muscular adult man, and a middle-aged man.

"Hello, friends from the Dry City, I'm Sarek, and these are Firrol and Rex Larson." Said the middle-aged man, who had a scar on his eye.

Then the young man in the group stepped forward and began to speak. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Rex. I'm here to inform you about some details about the function of these arrays..."

After that, Minos chose four local guards to learn the basic details of the arrays' operation from the young array master.

This was common in this world. Although the arrays work most of the time automatically, there was a need to follow specific processes when manipulating them. This was a job that was usually done by array masters, like the young Rex, a beginner.

However, in Dry City, there was no one like that...

So, this young man came with the group to teach the basics.

But it wasn't difficult. It was just something that most people didn't learn because they either didn't have crystals to buy an array, or they had someone to do these services for them.

After that, it didn't take long, and the arrays were installed in four points of the city.

The arrays would cover just over a third of the city's area, taking in the entire central section, the region with the highest population density.

And, according to the young Rex, these arrays could increase the spiritual density of the affected region by 15% if they were supplied with only free spiritual energy from the Black Plain region.

However, if up to 10,000 low-grade spiritual crystals were supplied each month, then the improvement would be at least 50%.

As for if they wanted more than that, they would have to buy a higher level array since these high-level grade-1 ones had a low efficiency, which limited any further development.

And so, the group said goodbye, going to the east of the Black Plain, heading towards other regions of the Brown Kingdom.

"For now, we will not be able to supply these four spiritual arrays with crystals since it would cost 40,000 crystals per month. But we are doing just fine with a 15% of improvement." Said the butler Dillian as he held his hands behind his back.

"Hmm, it should be at least six months before we can start supplying one of them monthly and one year for all four..." Minos said with a thoughtful countenance.

Pyke, who was also in the group, then said with a big smile on his face. "Haha, it doesn't matter. Even if it were two years or more, it wouldn't make a difference for us. Having any improvement in the spiritual concentration of the region is already beyond our dreams."

After that, other guards nodded their heads.

With a 15% improvement in spiritual concentration, they would already be able to cultivate much faster. This was already very good for the humble people of this city, who did not want to take chances in stronger places.

...

The night quickly fell, and the four arrays were already all in operation.

That night, many people noticed a sudden increase in spiritual concentration in some parts of the city.

...

Meanwhile, in several places in the city, people who were starting to cultivate realized that the time it took to gather spiritual energy around them was shorter!

"Huh? Why does it seem easier to gather spiritual energy?" An adult man thought while he cultivated.

...

Elsewhere in the central parts of the city, a small group of people was talking.

"I'm saying. The spiritual density is higher. When I cultivated today, it took me 20 minutes less to gather the surrounding energy." A young man said with a euphoric expression on his face.

"But that doesn't make sense. Why would spiritual concentration improve like that all of a sudden?" A middle-aged man asked in disbelief.

In this world, feeling the surrounding energy was something that everyone could do, but those who were weaker needed to cultivate to realize that.

However, when someone reached level 40, cultivators could use free energy in heaven and on earth. Consequently, they could feel the differences in spiritual density even without cultivating. But there weren't many at that level within the Dry City.

And it didn't take long, and a new rumor slowly began to spread throughout the city, saying that the spiritual energy was more concentrated than usual.

The population also realized that this was not happening across the city. Instead, it was something that was limited to the regions closest to the central part of the town, which covered just over a third of the entire Dry City.

...

Quickly five days passed in the Black Plain. In this period, many people were cultivating even faster than expected while the central region of the Dry City was getting busier and busier.

Some people were already struggling to get a place to live in that part of the town!

Minos had also increased his cultivation these days, reaching level 18. Thus, he was almost reaching the Spiritual Beginner!!

Not only was he improving, but Mia, Minos' young secretary, had already reached level 25 in the nearly two months since he arrived in the Dry City. She, like young Stuart's other subordinates, was also training Black-grade techniques. As a result, her cultivation speed has grown considerably!

In those days, the youths that Minos had brought into his forces also turned 10 and came to the mansion to receive their cultivation techniques.

Both Lee and Alison received the same cultivation technique of Black-grade passed on among Minos' subordinates and then began to cultivate. And as individuals with Black talent, they also had an excellent cultivation speed, having already reached level 2.

At that point, the wheat, corn, and rice crops were almost ready to be harvested, which would allow some more of Minos' plans for the city to be put into practice...