The Rise of the Black Plain

After some time, all those people from this last Gill family group had been subdued. At the same time, slowly, the soldiers from the local army began to carry them inside the dome.

The situation had been similar to what had happened previously to the Gill family first immigrants, despite the fact that that thousands of people from this family were already living in Dry City.

After all, even if Minos wanted to use these people to try to convince those last members of the Gill family to give up and subordinate themselves to him, it wouldn't work.

The idea might be attractive since it might make it less complicated for the local army to control these people. But the patriarch Gill would hardly accept such a thing, nor would he believe that his fellow family members would willingly make such a bad choice...

And since this young ruler of the Black Plain already knew about the difficulty of such a thing working out, he hadn't even tried to include those people in this action.

On the other hand, although difficulties created inevitable setbacks for his organization, they also created opportunities!

Many of the 5th stage soldiers in Dry City were people with less experience since the strongest ones were far away from this city at the moment. So, those people having chances to fight against teams like the 30 Gill family groups that had come here was an opportunity for them.

They could act in a more controlled territory where there would be strong individuals nearby, as in the cases of Minos and Abby, who could help them in times of need. With this, they could and had, in fact, already gained a lot because of these opportunities.

Hence, even if there had been options, Minos would still have acted in the same way.

Besides, it would never be bad to demonstrate his power to these people he had subdued!

Therefore, these fights did fulfill an important role.

Anyway, it didn't take long for the patriarch and his companions from this last group to go through the necessary procedures and then meet their old companions again.

They were directed to the place under army control, where they could live from now on!

...

Meanwhile, Minos and Abby returned to this young man's office while they had satisfied looks on their faces.

Times would get more tumultuous in the coming days. Still, they were satisfied that before they had to deal with the Brown family, all the members of House Gill had arrived with ease in Dry City.

Since this was a small goal for the army, the two of them couldn't help but be pleased that this had been completed.

On the other hand, Abby had reached level 49 earlier today,  and as such, the two had an extra reason to be happy!

But while both wanted to celebrate such things, it was still only the middle of the day, and both needed to work. After all, they both held critical positions in the local government and army.

Anyway, it wasn't long before Minos and Abby started to deal with some matters together in his office, while Mia and other people came and went from that place.

...

After a few hours since the last group of the Gill family arrived in this town, the sun was already setting on the horizon when one of the local government officials entered the sovereign's office.

Minos had just given Mia his orders to allow this person in. Soon after, they were both sitting there, drinking coffee and talking about the issues brought up by this official.

Other than that, Abby was no longer around, as she had returned to headquarters over an hour ago. However, Ruth was there with Minos, watching him work, as she did on many occasions.

"Mr. Tom, it is good to know that your family is well. But speaking of official business, what do you have for me today?" Minos asked as he saw over this man's left shoulder, his girlfriend sitting on a sofa, watching him.

Upon hearing this, Tom quickly removed a stack of documents from his spatial ring, placing them right in front of Minos. He then began to explain. "Young master, the results of the last census have just come out."

"Oh?"

"Hehe, let's see how our city has grown these past ten months." Minos said with a satisfied look on his face as he began to read the contents of those documents.

Meanwhile, Tom began to present that in a simpler way, helping the young sovereign in front of him to understand what was in those documents.

"Young master, since the last census about ten months ago, the city has grown steadily, and we recently reached the 240,000 population mark!"

"This population increase of over 60,000 is mainly due to the nearly 30,000 Gill family members who have arrived in our city in recent weeks. On the other hand, a group of over 17,000 people came from Maritime City, that city that was recently subdued by the army."

"As for the rest of these new residents, they came mainly from Stone Island, City of Waters, and Kingdom of the Waves. But we have a small group coming from the capital of the Brown Kingdom, the prisoners from the royal family."

"Oh?" Ruth exclaimed in surprise. '240,000 inhabitants... That's impressive! I hadn't thought this place had ever reached such numbers!' She thought to herself while holding a cup of coffee in her right hand.

Ruth didn't know the local data since the last census had taken place before she arrived in Dry City. Furthermore, she didn't pay much attention to the flow of people locally since all that interested her was the quality of local services and, of course, young Stuart.

Tom then continued to speak. "As for the number of Spiritual Generals among the common population, our city has 51,000 people at this stage, with the strongest of them already at level 46."

"That's good..." Minos commented, still looking at the data on the papers from before.

Many of these people would be future soldiers in the local army, so he was very interested in these numbers. It was just a pity that he couldn't afford to take some more of these individuals into his organization at the moment.

On the other hand, in this group of high-level citizens, there were professionals of the spiritual specializations, people who had not joined the army for various reasons of their own.

Such a group was essential for Dry City, as they basically defined the quality of the services offered locally.

So, knowing the numbers regarding this group was of great importance to a ruler like Minos, who needed to make policies geared to the reality of his population. And having professionals of higher classification would help him to get even more inhabitants!

Because of the importance of this, it didn't take long for Tom to explain all the numbers regarding this group.

"... Other than that, with the increase in the number of Spiritual Kings in the city and also the continued progress of our population, even with the recent population increase, we have managed to keep the average population level at level 40."

"I see..."

Minos was not disappointed by this information.

That was because even though the average level of the local population had not increased, that was still a good thing. After all, many people from outside had arrived in Dry City in the meantime, many of them being people of low talent.

Precisely because of this data, Minos was sure that Dry City's oldest inhabitants were progressing with some ease in the time that had passed since the last census!

Tom then continued with the agricultural data. "... Of the local population, we have reached the mark of 120,000 farmers, who can work on about 4,800 hectares."

"And due to this group, our annual revenue through trade with Stone Island has passed 185 million low-grade crystals per year...."