The Rise of the Black Plain

As soon as a bang sounded through that cultivation room, the spiritual energy in Minos' body immediately reached the beginning of level 44!

Upon feeling this, young Stuart's face began to relax, as did the rest of the muscles in his body. 'Ah, another level surpassed...'

And finally, the dense spiritual energy circling this young man's surroundings dissipated. In contrast, the spiritual crystals around him had already completely turned to ashes.

At this point, he finished his meditation with a slight smile of satisfaction on his face.

'At this cultivation speed, I believe I'll be at level 45 before we arrive at the Dry City…' So, he thought to himself before opening his eyes and looking straight ahead.

"Congratulations, Minos!" Abby ran and then hugged him, barely giving the young ruler of the Black Plain time to finish getting up from that place.

"Mmmm~"

After that, the two kissed for a few moments, hugging each other tightly. Abby was leaning against him by the neck of young Stuart while this young man felt the measurements of Abby's waist with his hands.

"Abby, let's take a walk around town. Maybe we can buy the techniques from those three associations."

Hearing this, the blue-haired girl nodded in agreement and then moved away from Minos' body, giving him room to dress.

"By the way, do you think this problem that happened recently will delay our trip?" Abby asked as she watched the young man in front of her change clothes.

And as he started to put on a shirt, Minos answered her in a calm tone. "I think not..."

"But we don't know the exact details of what happened. So, I may be ignoring something important. But I doubt that local doctors will take much longer to heal these forces that had recently fight."

Naturally, Abby and Minos were talking about a particular situation that had occurred just before the two arrived in this town. That had caused the best local doctors to go out to see several patients, thus leaving the affairs of the local medical association on hold.

From the information the two had obtained, two influential local organizations had collided in the vicinity of Athela. Still, neither had been successful in this endeavor. In fact, both had struggled and reached an impasse, in which neither side lost strength, but both were severely injured.

And because of the power of the organizations behind the people involved in this situation, neither side has spared efforts to heal its most wounded warriors. Consequently, grade-2 doctors of this region had been hired for the service, resulting in this situation preventing Minos from doing business with that medical association.

"This probably has to do with the royal succession…" Abby commented reflectively, remembering the history classes she had taken back in the spiritual academy.

Obviously, these classes and content were all designed to tell the story from the winners' point of view. However, this did not prevent this type of education from teaching young people important lessons about the local reality. After all, even if part of the story was embellished to emphasize the figure of the winners, it used to be done based on facts.

And based on that knowledge, Abby knew that battles were widespread in situations like this, which the Kingdom of the Waves was currently experiencing.

The dispute for the throne was always very fierce in any state in the region, and usually, the number of casualties was not low.

"Hmm, probably..." Minos agreed with her when he finally finished dressing. "Come on! If we're unlucky in either of these two organizations, let's go back to the hotel."

"OK."

...

While Minos and Abby were out to try to settle their affairs in Athela, a few hundred kilometers from the capital of this state, there was a medium to a large town.

This place wasn't much different from Portland in size, but it had a much more noble and sophisticated look. In fact, from the appearance of this city, it seemed to be governed by the efficiency of local services and accommodation, something that is not often seen in this region.

But such a thing did not happen because the rulers of that place were generous or something like that. No, such a place was like that because this was one of the cities directly governed by the royals of the Kingdom of the Waves.

Royal families also had territories directly managed by them. After all, only a fraction of the members of these powers could direct govern an entire state. However, the status of a royal, even those furthest from the position of the royal successor, would still be higher than that of ordinary nobles!

With this, each royal family would have a particular region, generally close to the capital, where its members would govern, without the need to use vassals for such.

Usually, these regions would be divided among the royalty, given a small area with at least one medium to a large city for the most important people.

As for the other territories, although these places officially belonged to the royal families, in practice, these organizations only collected taxes and imposed some of their laws. Other than that, in general, the vassal families ruled these places as sovereigns.

And as for the region under the royal family's control, this served to generate resources, as they were generally the wealthiest parts of the kingdom. They also have the role of protecting the capital!

That is because threats could appear at any time, and such things needed to be stopped before reaching the heart of the kingdom.

'It might not be easy to defeat an entire kingdom, but killing a few people might not be that difficult...' That was a local maxim.

And to prevent that an enemy battle from simply entering their capital, the cities around the capital, within this region ruled by royalty, had many military posts, with thousands of soldiers!

For example, there were more than 20 thousand soldiers in this town in question, being one of the eight cities with large bases of the Kingdom of the Waves Army!

But in addition to the importance of this town for the safety of the capital of the Kingdom of the Waves, this was one of the three cities ruled by the princes!

Because of this, this place naturally had a much higher standard than one would typically see in cities in this northern region of the Central Continent.

Anyway, in this city ruled by one of the princes, there was a castle in the central region of that place, where at this moment a group of people was actively talking.

That place looked like a meeting room, where there was a large table with many chairs lined up side by side. And while each of these places was occupied, there was a single chair at the end of the table, where a young man in silver clothes sat with a worried expression.

Beside him were two men standing, wearing armor with different symbols, watching everything happening without even blinking.

At the same time, the young man at the end of that table just heard and watched the people in those places; this young man's expression was gradually becoming darker and darker.

"Of the 8 Spiritual Kings involved in the trap of 10 days ago, 5 of them are already practically cured and possibly be back to activity soon, but..."

"These 3 that are left are in very different situations. According to the doctors, one of them may return to active, but we will be without his support for the next six months."

"Finally, of the 2 that were left, one lost an arm in the previous fight, and the other is unconscious. We don't know if he can be woken up..."

After that, another elder who was in that place took his turn and said. "We've also had many cultivators at levels 48 and 49 severely injured. Therefore, we may have to reduce our actions on short..."

Pa!

After hearing this, the prince finally reacted to the bad news when he slapped his hand hard on the table and said in a deep voice. "We lost a lot. I understand that. But what did that bastard lose?"

However, no one dared to answer this directly.

Pa!

"Speak!" That young man screamed in fury as he watched the faces of each of these people in front of him.

"Prince Wilfred, eh, I'm afraid the opposing side didn't have any losses. Prince Charles..."