The Rise of the Black Plain

Heat, thirst and loneliness. These were the feelings that Minos had experienced repeatedly over the last 11 months.",

His start in The Red Expanse didn't involve any combat against competitors. He honestly would have preferred to face enemies during this period rather than just walk towards the center of this territory.

The walking was difficult, slow, boring. The terrain was tough to move through, devoid of variations that would entertain a tired mind, with only the same landscapes repeating themselves every few days of travel.

Not to say that The Red Expanse was just one big repetition of similar areas, there were a few differences that would make one realize how unique the terrain of this plane was. But for most of Minos' journey here, he only saw small things that weren't worth investigating.

Apart from that, only the moments when he had cultivated had brought him any relief.

...

Today Minos was standing still, cultivating on top of a black rock, while he had an ugly expression on his face.

Cultivating in The Red Expanse when one wasn't in a state of exhaustion was extremely boring and difficult. The amount of mana he was absorbing now was several times less than he would have been able to cultivate in The Enchanted Realm in the same time.

For someone who had gotten used to cultivating by always improving his energy absorption speed, this was a sensation that made it feel like he was moving at a slow speed.

"Tsk! Fuck!" He muttered as he opened his mouth and eyes, feeling he had reached his cultivation goal.

Minos' goal these past few months had been to walk for 40% of his time, recover his energy from walking for 10% of his time, investigate 'flashy' areas for 10% and cultivate to become stronger for the rest of his time.

He wouldn't see the results of this cultivation in The Red Expanse, but it wasn't all about this place. This was just another stop on his journey. He had to get stronger when he returned to The Enchanted Realm, so he was believing in the Celestial being and cultivating, even though it was very boring to do so in this place.

Having finished his days of idle cultivation at this point, he now intended to walk for another 10 days before stopping to recuperate.

He moved towards the center of The Red Expanse, soon reaching his speed limit until he spotted something close to his position.

'Is that a person?' He saw a humanoid silhouette about 10 kilometers ahead, promptly becoming more attentive.

Even though he saw something strange, he continued at his previous speed, interested in what his first interaction with one competitor would be like.

But as soon as Minos was less than a kilometer away from that being, he understood why there was someone so close to him, even though he was at the beginning of his journey.

'This creature has tracking powers.' Minos realized as he sensed a bit of the future ahead with his sense related to his divine ability.

And indeed, the furry, humanoid creature in front of Minos was looking for something nearby.

He felt someone approaching him and looked back, seeing Minos' figure getting closer and closer to him. Stopping what it was doing, this three-meter-tall creature turned its attention to Minos with the same tension as the young man.

"Can you understand me?" He asked Minos.

Minos understood the being's words perfectly, even though he didn't recognize the language.

He nodded affirmatively as he kept his distance from the competitor in front of him. "Yes, I think we can all understand each other in this place. That must be one of the strange rules of the area, I suppose."

"Oh? That seems to be the case. Your language is quite peculiar, but I can understand you perfectly well," said the being about 1.1 meters taller than Minos.

After a moment of silence, the creature with three eyes on his head, a human-like mouth, but no nose in the middle of his face, asked Minos. "What do you think about allying ourselves? At the end of the selection of the Senior's heir, there will only be one of us. But we're a long way from that point. You and I don't need to be enemies today. There are 100 vacancies at the moment, while we only need 2 of them."

That really was the case. As well as there being more vacancies than they needed, even after winning this phase of the selection for an heir to the Celestial being, there was no guarantee that one of the 100 winners wouldn't die before the next test. And even then, the next test would still have 10 places for the winners.

Minos readily agreed. "We can make an alliance agreement. What do you think? I see that you have good tracking skills. I'm able to see into the future and strengthen those on my side. If we ally, we can more easily achieve good results in this test."

"It seems that you also understand the real purpose here." The alien smiled as he agreed to enter into a temporary pact with Minos.

'This test isn't about beating opponents. It's about enduring and using the opportunity to nurture our future second divine power!' This tall, furry being thought to himself.

Minos had already come to the same conclusion. Staying in place for a thousand years would be pointless if the test was only about defeating opponents. The point there was for the 100 future winners of the test to take advantage of the place to conquer things that would strengthen them outside of The Red Expanse and, possibly, nurture stronger and more special divine powers!

As Minos knew, Divine Journey cultivators gained new divine abilities with each stage they advanced.

"But of course. How about an agreement that prevents either of us from turning against the other until the end of the thousand-year period?" Minos smiled at the alien as he approached.

"That's good. Let's talk about our abilities to each other before we move on."

When they reached this consensus, the two of them would sign a pact to seal their millennium-long alliance before each of them talked about what they could currently do.

Soon after, the two would work together to find the item that Forfax was 'sniffing out.'