The Rise of the Black Plain

After returning to Dry City, Minos quickly made his way towards the local government mansion where he intended to return to command.

After months of putting aside the affairs of his city government, primarily in the hands of Dillian and Mia, young Stuart was prepared to return to command his city as the ruler.

Previously he had stepped away from his duties as a local leader to deal exclusively with the affairs of the Black Plain Army in the war of independence. But with the near end of that conflict, he felt free to resume those responsibilities without having to sacrifice his training time.

On the other hand, with the end of the war coming, the Black Plain was about to undergo a gigantic transformation process that went beyond what Mia and Dillian could do alone.

They were exceptional at what they had been doing for the last decade. Still, the scale of what was about to happen went a bit beyond their positions as Minos' right and left hands.

This young man also had many ideas to put into practice, which required him to return to a position of de facto command.

So, after saying goodbye to Ruth, he returned to his mansion at Dillian's side, eager to hear the latest news about his city, which he hadn't heard since the beginning of the war.

Thus, he, Dillian, and Mia were soon in that central office in the administrative part of the government mansion, sitting down as they updated the local sovereign.

...

"Well, young master, I guess I should start with the basics." Mia looked at Minos as she sat next to Dillian on the brown sofa in that office, face to face with this young man who was in an armchair of the same quality as the sofa.

"After about ten years since the young master's arrival in Dry City, the spiritual concentration around the local spiritual root has finally reached high levels for the region."

"Previously, we were supposed to be the most barren and spiritual energy-poor part of the entire region. However, now we already have a moderately high concentration, similar to that in the Red Valley region."

"Hmmm." Minos nodded in agreement, understanding that since anyone who paid attention to the local spiritual energy density could tell such a thing.

On the other hand, when he buried that Divide-grade medicine right after he arrived in this city, he already expected something like that to happen in about ten years.

In this way, he was not surprised.

Mia then continued. "Because of the increased density of spiritual energy, the local crystal mines have reached record values recently."

"Currently, we can produce about 80 million low-grade and 300 thousand medium-grade crystals in the Black Plain mines annually." She said with a wide smile on her face.

She remembered that when Minos arrived in this city, the local mines produced only 24 thousand low-grade crystals per year!

Considering this absurd difference, she could not help but smile in happiness, even more so considering that she had been part of the government of the person who had transformed this place so much.

She was genuinely proud to be Minos' secretary!

"Oh? 80 million, huh?" Minos said this, pleased.

That might not seem close to the fortunes accumulated from lootings during the war, but such kind of income was non-recurring!

Yet these mines generated recurring dividends for the Black Plain, which Minos valued, even more so considering that this would only get better over the next 20 years.

"That's especially good. How are the expenses for maintaining the operations at these mines?"

"We have improved efficiency with more high-level labor and new work artifacts."

"Previously, the materials used for mining were all old and frequently broke. But on the other hand, personnel were scarce and poorly trained. So, we had to spend about 25% of what we produced in the local mines just to sustain production."

"But currently, we only need to spend 18 crystals to mine 100 of the same," Mia explained briefly.

"I see..."

"Well, with those crystals generated by the local mines, how much are we producing annually in Dry City considering government business?"

Dillian then replied. "600 million low-grade crystals, young master."

"That's still a low amount considering we weren't that far off that two years ago. But because of the war and the difficulties in doing business on Stone Island, we had to slow down the growth of the plantation fields."

"Because of this, we currently employ only 300,000 farmers and generate about 400 million crystals from local food production."

"However, with the end of the war and the beginning of the migration to our territory, we will be able to increase these numbers considerably in a short time." This man with a prominent mustache said this in a confident tone. "The agriculture  department estimates that we can double our numbers in no more than four months after the migrations to here begin."

"Good." Minos did not think these results were bad, considering all the difficulties Dry City had faced in this war period.

They faced economic embargoes, had much of their territory taken over, experienced naval blockades, and even faced the trade war on Stone Island.

In the midst of all this, the death toll of the allied forces on the Black Plain came close to the 200 thousand mark, something problematic for any regional power.

But even so, his city still managed to grow during this period, reaching healthy post-war levels!

That was what made Minos pleased!

"Well, that's not bad. Considering how much our population suffered and barely grew in that period, that's kind of a good result."

"Hmm." Dillian nodded in agreement. "We lost a lot of people in the war, but because of the allies and subordinates who joined us in the middle of the conflict, we still managed to overcome the losses and reach the 620 thousand population mark."

"Due to that, we achieved these improvements during such a period."

Before the war, the Black Plain already had more than half a million inhabitants. But during that conflict, the Miller, Parkinson, and Austin families had joined Dry City.

Apart from them, small groups coming from cities under the war region, as in the case of the City of Waters, had come to Dry City during the latter part of the conflict.

Because of this, the city of Minos had overcome the losses of the war and managed to grow in population during this period.

On the other hand, this had also been a limiting factor for Dry City, as the population increase had been minimal. So this place had not taken off in that period.

"But apart from those figures regarding the small growth we had in that period, the quality of services improved greatly during the war, young master," Mia commented.

"Today, we have more than four times the number of grade-2 professionals we had before the war. The number of grade-1 professionals has also significantly increased, having experienced an increase of over 800%!"

"Because of this, the wealth of the local population has increased greatly in these more than two years of war, which also justifies the current wealth of the Black Plain sovereign fund."

"Oh? How much has my bank managed to collect in that period?" Minos asked about this data that he had been curious about for some time.

"1 billion low-grade crystals, young master."

'That's enough to build a few small cities...' Minos smiled upon hearing such information. "And how many crystals do we have available today to begin the development of the Black Plain?"

"3.87 billion."

"Hmm, very good."

"We still haven't accounted for the investments made by the allied and subordinate families who joined us during the war. So, those figures may increase quite a bit before long." Mia commented on this relevant fact.

"All right." Minos understood but got straight to the point. "In any case, that's enough for us to start building the satellite cities around Dry City and developing Naval City-1."

"At the same time, let's build the infrastructure of a proper city outside the local defensive dome."

"We can no longer keep these camps outside the local wall." He smiled, thinking it was finally time to provide adequate housing for those tens of thousands of people living outside the defensive dome.

"Sigh..."

"Well, now we just have to make the surrender of the Brown Kingdom official, and in a short time, we can have our independence made official."

"By the way, how long will I have to wait until the leaders of the Brown Kingdom arrive in our city?" Minos asked Dillian.

"Three days, young master."