The Rise of the Black Plain

In the blink of an eye, the month-long expedition between the Spiritual World and The Adamant Land has ended. Minos and his group arrived on the planet currently ruled by the Black Plain Empire!",

The group left the quasi-Spatial Kingdom where they had arrived, encountering the outside world where their forces and tens of thousands of Spiritual World natives now lived.

In terms of available area, The Adamant Land was smaller than the Spiritual World. However, the difference was not so extreme that one could notice it without first exploring the place.

Even so, as soon as they arrived there, the group that had set off some 14 months ago to return to the Spiritual World couldn't help but notice many changes around.

The place they had arrived at, near the quasi-space kingdom of the universal wormholes, had left its previous state of ruins and been completely repaired.

It now looked like a metal city, very similar to what had existed there in the past, before Irpoll joined the War of the Worlds.

Relatively weaker inhabitants, Spiritual Sages, were on the outskirts, going about their business, going from one place to another. Besides the warriors who had come to this planet to protect it, there were many workers among these new inhabitants, as well as the families of many of these people.

Living away from family was always difficult. The conditions one would be in when taking part in the exploration and reconstruction of a planet like that were obviously stressful. Having a bit of their families and entertainment would be important for those first to come to The Adamant Land.

That's why the families of the workers and soldiers could accompany them, while the entry into this world of people like merchants and their families had already been allowed by the government.

Until six months ago, this place didn't seem so 'alive' and similar to the cities of the Spiritual World. But with over 300,000 beings currently living around, the city of 80,000 inhabitants already resembled what one would expect from ordinary cities.

Minos and his people made their way through it, with Kendrick and his sisters looking around curiously, realizing how much stronger this world was compared to their home.

"It's not for nothing that the aliens of the Mechanic Empire had so many Gods before the war. It is easier to cultivate here than on our planet," Callie said after she analyzed the local spirituality.

While in the Spiritual World it was even difficult for a God to recover their powers, in The Adamant Land a God could exhaust themselves and recover after about three days of meditation.

From this information alone, Callie could tell that nurturing Gods there would be much easier than in her home world!

For those below the 10th stage, the advantages of living there shouldn't be much greater than in the Spiritual World. A Demigod would cultivate faster in this world, but the difference could only really be felt if one cultivated from level 90 to level 99 in this world and compared it to those in the Spiritual World.

If one only stayed there for 10 years and returned to the Spiritual World or vice versa, the differences in cultivation would be small.

But if one wanted to become a God or even cultivate like a level 100 cultivator, leaving the Spiritual World and coming to The Adamant Land would be a must.

"The Adamant Land will become the empire's headquarters. We'll keep most of our high-level warriors here and only a fraction in our world," Minos said as his group flew through the place, making their way to the army headquarters there.

The others were not impressed, imagining that this was the future of all the 10th stage forces in the Spiritual World.

In the view of the strongest there, it was only a matter of time before their home world became a safe planet for weaker cultivators to live on, while The Adamant Land would be the most obvious destination for the strongest cultivators.

Anyway, as they saw the recovered structure of this planet, which had been rebuilt to 5% of what had previously existed, the group would enter the headquarters, where some 10th stage robots were standing guard on the outskirts.

There, some Generals of the Black Plain Army were standing by to receive them, with updates on the situation in The Adamant Land to pass on to their leaders.

"Your Majesty, welcome to the headquarters in The Adamant Land!"

Several of them said simultaneously, while making military gestures of respect for Minos and his companions.

"How is the current situation here?" Minos got straight to the point as he sat down at the head of a table in a meeting hall.

His group did the same, intending to stay in The Adamant Land for a couple of days to get an update on the local situation and give some orders before their departure from this world.

"Our plans are going smoothly, Your Majesty. We've rebuilt the entire former headquarters of the Mechanic Empire and we're learning a lot from the robots and information left behind by that civilization. In a decade or less, we can have this planet fully recovered. In that time, we should fully master the technologies of our former enemies."

"Keep up the good work. But get ready for my next moves. As soon as my group leaves the planet, we'll travel to the strongest civilization in this galaxy where we are. I'll leave the foundations so that one day you can ally yourselves with that civilization and expand your operations across the galaxy," Minos said, preparing his group for the second phase of his plans.

The first phase of Minos' plan was the current one, to recover the infrastructure of both The Adamant Land and the Spiritual World. In the meantime, they should try as much as possible to recover the lives lost through new births.

In the second phase of Minos' plans, something that should happen in a century or two, his empire should explore the galaxy where his planets were and ally itself with civilizations of a similar level. In the galaxy of The Adamant Land, Minos would leave someone to help them. But in the galaxy of his homeworld, his people would have to make contact on their own.

That would be the de facto start of the Stuart family's galactic empire!