The Rise of the Black Plain

Hours passed quickly, and by this time, Minos had already returned from another cultivation session in the Spatial Kingdom to his office.

The sky over the Dry City was already beginning to darken when the young Stuart was comfortably seated in an armchair in his office, watching the city view through the window of that place.

He had a cup of spiritual tea in his right hand, and he drank it calmly as he waited for his next appointment.

The pleasant flavor of spiritual cinnamon tea was Minos' favorite, and he drank it whenever he could. In fact, this was the main drink served in his office when he was around.

Anyway, he watched the movement on the avenue in front of his mansion, when finally the secretary Mia entered that place and warned him of something. "Young master, there is a Sergeant from the headquarters' Intelligence Division here to see you. Can I let him in?"

"Hmm, please do this." He said quietly while still looking out the glass window in that room.

As for the headquarters' Intelligence Division, this is one of the Black Plain Army's sectors. For the time being, this division acted mainly to research the background of future soldiers and allow the enlistment of those able to do so.

But there were more critical functions than that. This division was responsible for the investigation and espionage of certain events and enemies of the Black Plain.

Of course, there was not much to investigate or spy on at present, as there was not enough staff to do so and not many problems to be solved.

Obviously, the Black Plain had many potential enemies. Still, it would not be possible for this organization to spy on them all, not even if the entire population of Dry City was soldiers...

So, because its main activity was still inactive, this army's department became more involved in selecting new soldiers than in espionage.

That is also one of the army's departments, where many of its members are not warriors but administrative soldiers. That is soldiers who stay inside the headquarters.

There were other sectors like this within the local army, as in the cases of the administrative division and the Reward's Hall.

Anyway, after waiting for a few seconds, the Sergeant from the Intelligence Division finally entered that office, carrying a stack of papers in one of his hands.

He wore a typical local army uniform, which looked like a simple gold and silver armor model, which had some symbols. One of them designated the soldier's rank, being on the left shoulder, another specified the division of which the soldier belonged, on the right shoulder, and finally, the symbol of the Black Plain, on the left chest.

He then greeted Minos quickly before finally starting to talk about the matters he was here to report.

"Young master, our division has already reviewed all the papers collected at the northwest base of the Chambers family." He promptly said as he passed the stack of papers to Minos.

"Oh? That's good." At the same time, Minos commented that while he was beginning to explore the papers delivered by this soldier.

"As the young master can see, we found a lot of relevant information about the Chambers family from documents coming from that base. However, not only did we get information from them but from other powers in the region." The soldier began to explain the main points to Minos.

"To begin with, we found that the Chambers family has a long-standing relationship with the group of assassins, Scourges of the Devil, an organization that is an enemy of the army. You can see this on page 12."

And on hearing that, Minos quickly flipped through the pages of that report while he had a solemn look on his face. 'Why am I not surprised?' He thought to himself, considering how little he already knew about the Chambers family.

"Three documents were found on that base about this organization of assassins. Two of them were letters sent between Spiritual Kings of the Chambers family, talking about the death of an individual named Jeff, who had betrayed that family and fled to the Scourges of the Devil."

"However, things didn't turn out well for him, as the Chambers family already had a long-standing partnership with that organization."

"Hmm..." Minos made a sound of agreement as he read the transcript of the letter that Jamie had received.

The sergeant then continued. "The other document was not a letter but an internal notification of the Chambers family. In which one of the elders of that organization gave the order for the Spiritual King, Jamie, to make a deal with a code-named assassin, 'Scythe.'"

"Apparently, as you can see on pages 13 and 14, they were trying to hire this assassin to do a job in the Snow Kingdom. As for the target of this contact, this had only been identified by the word, 'real.'"

"Hmm."

'Unfortunately, there isn't any information about the Scourges of the Devil in these obtained documents…' Minos thought a little disappointedly.

Knowing the location of the Scourge of the Devil's headquarters would be crucial for Minos's future revenge.

But such a thing was also expected. After all, even if this was a Chambers family's base, this place was still just a branch. It wouldn't store crucial information in a place like that!

"Maybe we can get more information about the Scourges of the Devil at the Chambers family's headquarters…" He muttered under his breath, still looking at the papers in front of him.

The soldier then went back to talking about the discoveries he had made. "Moving forward, the young master will see, on page 5, a transcript of an internal news item about the Chambers family."

"From what the document found at that base contained, one of the Chambers family's spies in the Kingdom of the Waves found out about anticipation of the crown prince's coronation ceremony. Such an event should take place in less than two years."

"What?" Minos exclaimed in surprise. He couldn't believe the Kingdom of the Waves would choose its successor anytime soon!

After all, the king of that state wasn't even 800-years-old, and the three princes were still only in the 5th stage of cultivation. So, Minos was surprised by this information.

He had learned about the royal family of the Kingdom of the Waves at the time of spiritual academy, so he knew about some things concerning that realm.

Apart from knowing the king's age and cultivation, level 59, Minos was also aware that this realm would choose the crown prince only when all competitors reached the sixth stage of cultivation!

Only from that point would the race for the king's successor begin in that state.

But that couldn't happen at this point. As the principal competitor, Peter's enemy, Charles Walker, was only 22-years-old and should have been at most in the middle of the 5th stage of cultivation.

And besides this possibility for the choice of the king's successor to happen in advance, it would be if something had happened to the king!

"Is the king very ill and has decided to advance the choice of his successor?" Minos wondered inwardly.

'It does not matter. Anyway, this is not very good news for us. If that guy, ehh, Charles Walker becomes king, it could get me into some trouble…'

After that, the soldier continued to make his presentation of what had been discovered. He had talked about a shipwreck that had occurred in the North Sea, but the intelligence division hadn't paid much attention to it...

On the other hand, the young Stuart was very curious about the infamous North Sea. For him, there were two contrasting pieces of information in his mind. On the one hand, the knowledge of the spiritual academy about the present told Minos how the North Sea, near the Kingdom of the End, was dangerous, even for Spiritual Saints.

However, the memories he had of this place, through the legacy left by Henricus Longus, told him that this place shouldn't be so dangerous.

In fact, there was a region of high spiritual concentration across that region. Still, the average strength of the sea beasts shouldn't be so frightening. In that God's time, this was a place that could at best be compared to the current Flaming Empire.

In other words, the North Sea was only as strong and dangerous as a second-rate empire a few million years ago!

'What happened in that region? I'm sure the sea beasts there didn't attack ships for free at the time of Henricus Longus. As for the weather, it shouldn't be so 'wild'...'