The Rise of the Black Plain

Hearing Davy's question, Dillian replied. "For now, only the army and some special citizens can use the teleportation arrays since their cost is high and only worth it in a few cases."

"But when we have more powerful array masters on the Black Plain and get more powerful and efficient items, we will offer this service you are searching for."

The current teleportation arrays suffered from the problem of the low level of their developers and even regional spiritual poverty.

Arrays could convert the free energy in the atmosphere to use in their processes. However, since the Black Plain was still far behind the Flaming Empire, the government of Minos had to spend more medium-grade crystals on these items than organizations in that state would have when using identical arrays.

That made the process more expensive, making it impossible to offer this service to citizens.

On the other hand, low-level grade-3 teleportation arrays did not have a good range. So, it would be difficult for Minos to connect his cities to places outside the Black Plain by now.

"Until then, only cities in the Black Plain will have that option, and only important people will be able to use them." Dillian laughed, imagining Davy was interested in quickly getting back and forth from the Flaming Empire.

"I see... Makes sense." Davy said before saying goodbye and making his way back to his family in the southeastern part of this state.

As for Dillian, he soon returned to his affairs at the hospital.

...

At the same time that Davy had finished his business with Dillian, Minos and his wives were walking through the halls of the headquarters, following through with their appointments.

They had already sent Lizzie to take care of some business when they reached the area used by the blacksmiths in this building.

Arriving there, they promptly found Doug, level 58, one of the best blacksmiths in the army, someone who had come with Elena from Stone Island years ago.

"Your Graces, this way..." That elderly man showed the way for the three until they entered an area where a young Spiritual King was working.

This young woman was in a sizeable gray-walled room with many items stacked in a bucket. At the same time, several containers were spread out symmetrically, each of them with powders of different colors and properties inside.

Several old men were sitting at different points in that area while she was in the center, doing her work. Each time this young woman touched an item, and it turned into particles, the blacksmiths in the surrounding area used their energies to differentiate the particles, directing them to the appropriate containers.

"As you can see, young Alina has already become a level 51 Spiritual King and is currently disintegrating medium-level grade-2 artifacts."

"With her current capabilities, the army is already capable of supplying all of Dry City's demand for high-level grade-2 artifact materials, Your Grace." Doug excitedly said as, after years on the Black Plain, he finally had infinite resources to produce artifacts.

Previously it was difficult for high-level grade-2 blacksmiths like himself to produce artifacts of their same rank, given the regional poverty. But with Alina's level advancements and the many artifacts collected during the war, blacksmiths like him now had immense quantities of resources!

On the other hand, with the buy-back program for damaged items that the local government had for the entire region, resources for grade-2 and grade-1 blacksmiths were no longer a problem, even for those not affiliated with the army.

Because of this, many of the experts on the Black Plain currently had items of quality equivalent to their capabilities, which was rarely seen in this region for hundreds of thousands of years!

As for the low-level grade-3 artifacts, these were still in the early stages of production. The Black Plain had only one blacksmith at level 60; someone Minos had brought from Stone Island in those four years since his marriage.

In any case, such a man did not have that many resources due to the lack of them in this region and the high cost of importation. But on the other hand, the production capacity of just one blacksmith was not great, and it could take weeks to months to produce just one artifact.

Because of this, the Spiritual Emperors in this state mostly had to use high-level grade-2 items rather than those of quality equivalent to their levels.

Except for Minos, Ruth, and two army soldiers, no one else had low-level grade-3 items in this region.

Henricus Longus had not left many items of that quality, so for the time being, Minos and his forces had to hold out until more blacksmiths of that classification appeared.

That was also the situation, except for spiritual judges, for the other spiritual professions, who already had at least one person at level 60 in Dry City.

Minos then said. "High-level grade-3 items, huh? That's good!"

Ruth laughed and said. "With the current army capacity, with just a half dozen people, we would already be able to take all the regional powers, even considering their pre-war numbers."

"That's the force of high-level Spiritual Kings armed with high-level grade-2 artifacts!"

"Tsk!" Abby made a tongue-tied sound due to Ruth's comment. "You think of that when you hear about our capabilities? Poor regional leaders..."

"If they heard that, they'd be sleepless for months, afraid of the decisive Ruth from House Stuart."

Doug was silent as he listened to those two while Minos smiled.

He then said. "Alina is doing well, but keep training her vigorously. Now that she has already become a Spiritual King, it will take longer before her disintegration ability evolves again."

"However, level 60 is not that far away."

"I will give you a decade to raise her to that level."

"All right, Your Grace."

"On the other hand, how is the development of our future low-level grade-3 blacksmiths? Are any of them close to breaking through their bottlenecks?"

"Unfortunately, no, Your Grace. Besides myself, three other blacksmiths in the army are between levels 58 and 59."

"So, it will still take 1 to 3 years for a new low-level grade-3 spiritual blacksmiths to be born among the current army members."

"I see..."

"Well, keep working hard. I will go on a tour outside the region in the future and try to bring Silver-grade techniques for you."

"Oh?" That man's eyes sparkled in joy.

"In a year or two, I should leave this region for that, so don't be so anxious..." Minos waved one of his hands at that fellow, already walking with his wives toward another place.

As they did so, they came across Eduard, who seemed to have just returned to headquarters, still having a low-level grade-3 armor on his body.

Eduard had already reached level 60 and was currently the fourth strongest in terms of brute strength in the Black Plains Army, behind only Minos, Emlyn, and Ruth.

Emlyn was at level 61, the same level as the strongest human regional leaders, Lorelei Stone, Hadwin Hayes, and Vince Miller.

And as much as others in the army were already at the 7th stage, all the others were spirit professionals, like Regina, not warriors, like Minos. As such, he was the fourth strongest in that organization.

Anyway, seeing his leaders in his path, Eduard promptly greeted them, bowing his head to them.

"Your Grace, am I too late?"

Minos then said. "No. Actually, I'm getting ready to go to the Spatial Kingdom right now."

"You can accompany us. I'm about to start the military exercise with you all."

It was on this sovereign's agenda to fight with the highest ranking soldiers in the army today, something that even Eduard, Emlyn, Ruth, and Abby would participate in.

Previously Minos would have trouble facing all these people together, but now with his 7th technique, he felt relaxed about training his soldiers...

Hearing that, Eduard sighed, but no one there knew if it was out of relief or sadness at not having escaped fighting Minos.

"Come on! I haven't seen some of these soldiers in months. I'm curious to see their current strengths."

...