The Rise of the Black Plain

"Oh? Tell me more about it." Abby said as she looked at that magnificent serpent, four times larger than Kyla.

"These last individuals who will be coming to Dry City are already making their preparations to leave the Flooded Valley when I came here. So, considering the orders of the tribe leader, they have probably already left that region and then coming here."

"What about your tribe members who are already here? How is their adaptation to Dry City?"

That giant Feathered Serpent lowered its big head and answered Abby. "Of the 300 or so tribe members who are already here, 100 are at the 3rd stage, 150 at the 4th, and the rest, apart from me, at the 5th stage."

"But the group that is coming last will have another Spiritual King, and the rest is all Spiritual Generals."

"Hmm, that's good."

"As for their adaptation, things are going well. The place that the Lack and Gaia prepared, along with the four juniors who stuck around this previous period, is pretty decent."

"Other than that, with the improvements made by the local humans, this place can comfortably house all of us, and there will still be room for more beasts to live with us here."

"I think there is enough room for up to 700 beasts of our size to live here, considering the current state of this place." The serpent said while having an expression that made it look like it was smiling.

The space of this place was indeed large enough for many beings like it to be able to live locally. Consequently, this serpent was delighted since space was of great importance for beasts like them.

Unlike humans, beasts didn't like to live in agglomerations, as in the example of cities, since this would mean that they would have to share their space with other beings. And with large bodies, something very normal for most beasts, living in human cities could be a problem for those of low level!

But Minos had helped to build a place spacious enough for these beings so that it wouldn't be so bad for them to have to live in a human city.

Of course, this was mainly for beasts like these serpents, which had no masters, the unrestricted ones. For those like White and Ebba, living in cities was already the natural thing to do since their masters would typically spend a lot of time in such places.

So, they were already accustomed to the small spaces of large human cities.

But of course, that didn't stop them from enjoying having a nice place to rest during their stays in Dry City!

"It's good that you are enjoying it. In the future, we will have more places like this around the Black Plain, not only here in Dry City, but scattered all over our territory."

"After all, we have a lot of free space, and there will certainly be a lot of beasts in our territory." Abby said in satisfaction, sharing some of Minos' planning.

In the future, Minos would create new cities in his territory, but he would also make places for beasts to live. According to his plans, some areas would be similar to the one Abby was in at the moment, which will be in the cities of the Black Plain.

But they planned to build places entirely for beasts to live on the Black Plain.

This territory could already be considered significant, but even at present, there were almost no suitable places for life to develop naturally.

After all, although the local spiritual root had stopped stealing the spiritual energy present in the local soil, the soil had long remained without any kind of life in it. Consequently, there was no way that it could recover, and plant life could develop without artificial aids in a short time.

Precisely because of this, Minos intended to use some of the areas less useful for agriculture or the construction of human cities to create artificial forests for beasts to live in!

But for now, this was only in this young man's planning for the Black Plain, something that would only begin to be done once this territory was established as an independent state.

Until then, the most he would do was share his ideas with some important people and his government to develop the plans necessary for this to happen.

So, Abby knew all this and talked about it with these beasts, who would undoubtedly be happy to hear about it.

"Oh? That's magnificent!"

"With something like that, the Black Plain may be able to increase in power even faster than we thought!"

"Huh? Why do you say that?" Kyla finally asked something while sitting in a behaved manner next to Abby.

On the other hand, Ebba was next to Abby, lying down while its master massaged one of its ears.

That Feathered Serpent, Hari, then answered that young Nine-tailed Fox's question. "Miss Kyla, although there are not as many 6th stage beasts in this region as there are humans of the same strength range, the number of these beasts is not small!"

"Obviously, there is no way for me to know the number of regional peak power beasts for sure since I don't know all of them. But I estimate that there are over 600 beasts at the 6th stage in this region of the Central Continent!"

"So, receiving these beasts on the Black Plain may be the fastest way for young Minos and his territory to reach peak regional power!"

"So, that's how it is!" Kyla said as her eyes sparkled. "Then brother must do it as soon as possible!"

"When will that happen, sister Abby? That could end the local problems quickly!"

Hearing this, Abby smiled at Kyla and said. "I think in about 2 or 3 years that will start... But by then, we'll still be short-handed, so it might take about 10 years for something like what Elder Hari said to happen."

"Ten years? But that's so long!" Kyla complained as her eyes lost their previous brightness and ducked in disappointment. "Then none of this will do any good!"

"Of course, it will, Miss Kyla. After all, there is not only the northern Central Continent in this great world..." That serpent said this deeply, as it recalled that there had always been enemies from the outside.

"Hmm, that's right. But anyway, elder Hari, besides talking about these things with you, also coming here to tell you the role of the 5th stage Feathered Serpents in the war."

"Oh? What will they do?"

"Well, Dry City and the local forces badly need the crystals generated by local food production. And since we need to export that through a seaport, we have to make trips with wagons to that location, transporting those resources overland."

"Before this period, that was good enough and worked very well for us. But with the more and more frequent arrival of enemies into our territory, doing that will be very dangerous in the future."

"Therefore, we don't want members of your tribe who are at the 5th stage to participate in battles. Instead, we want them to transport our resources from here in Dry City to our port on the coast." Abby said, explaining the reason for such a request.

These 5th stage Feathered Serpents could fly, and as such, they could avoid most enemies coming to the Black Plain in the future.

Consequently, despite losing the offensive power of these beings, with this action, Minos' group could significantly increase the security of the local resources during this turbulent period!

"So, that's it... I understand the reason for this, but how will we do this? We won't be able to carry the same amount of resources as your human means of transportation."

"Hmm, we understand that. But, for this very reason, I want to invite some of those serpents I spoke of to participate in the testing of storage items we are creating."

"We have already been developing these items for the past two months, but so far, we have only done tests with the 4th stage serpents. But the difference in size and strength from those to the 5th stage ones is quite large."

"So, we want to adjust our numbers for those who will actually be in charge of this," Abby said quickly.

With 5th stage beasts doing this delivery service, such a thing could happen at a much higher speed than it would happen with the 4th stage ones. After all, those cannot fly. In this way, they hoped to increase the efficiency of the transport.

On the other hand, even if there were problems, the Black Plains' chances of significant losses would be tiny with stronger beasts!

That was because most of the strongest beasts in the regional families were only at the 5th stage of cultivation!

And there were not a large number of flying beasts in these organizations. Hence, using these serpents to deliver resources from Dry City seemed to be the best way to use them at present.

"I see.... Let's do that then."