The Rise of the Black Plain

After a while, Minos finished his business with those soldiers from before and left his office next to Abby.

He wanted to take away the bitter taste that had been left in his mouth after receiving the news from those two royal families.

With that, he and his beautiful girlfriend went directly to the training area of the headquarters, where there were always people fighting or watching the fights.

The Black Plain might be in the middle of its war of independence, but more than half of the soldiers in the local army were not allowed to leave Dry City.

After all, most of them were below level 40 and were too weak to get involved in that conflict.

In any case, even if these people could not participate in the war now, in the future, some of them could. But, on the other hand, other threats would invariably arise in the path of any force that had existed long enough to be noticed in this vast Spiritual World.

Consequently, regardless of whether or not many of these people could influence this war, the Black Plain Army had to keep training new fighters, people capable of defending this territory.

Hence, part of the soldiers in this organization continued to live normally, with routines similar to pre-war ones.

But not only the soldiers below level 40 were doing this.

Since the army needed people to train these young soldiers or recruits, many of the strongest members of this organization could be seen constantly around here.

Not only were they in this city to protect the headquarters, but Minos had been employing a strategy to give his soldiers more time to grow stronger.

That consisted of making the soldiers who needed more advanced medical attention after battles stay longer than necessary for their recovery. That was not time off but an opportunity for these individuals to return to cultivate and train for at least a few days before returning to the battlefield.

With that, even during this chaotic period for the Black Plain, the army's soldiers continued to participate in military exercises from time to time.

Some of them served as the champion, as was Minos' role previously. In contrast, weaker soldiers below level 40 served as challengers.

On the other hand, some Spiritual Generals would form groups to challenge the Lieutenants of the army, those who were in Dry City, of course.

As for the Lieutenants, they only had the opportunity to challenge Minos.

However, besides not having that much time to do such a thing, young Stuart was powerful, and it would take all the Spiritual Kings in his army for him to be challenged fairly.

But that was obviously impossible to happen at the moment!

So, Minos did not usually participate in these high-level training of his organization.

In any case, right after he had reached level 51, Minos was still not as strong as he is now. At that time, he had had the first and only opportunity so far to face his strongest soldiers who were in Dry City.

Among them were Celeste, Angela, and those of lower levels, close to young Stuart's level at the time.

But as expected for someone with a technique capable of absorbing his opponents' energies, Minos had won.

The fight had even been quite challenging for him since Abby had also participated, helping her comrades a lot to get rid of that Minos' attacks.

In the end, the victory had gone to the one who had had the most energy on his side!

But winning or losing, all who had participated in that military exercise had gained from such experience, as each one of them had to face increasing numbers of opponents.

Minos may have been just one, but facing such pressure helped anyone get used to powerful and also numerous opponents.

As for Minos, that had been his opportunity to face a group strong enough to have to use everything of himself!

Anyway, while he had the memories of the many military exercises that had taken place during those months, Minos arrived at the fighting arena of that headquarters.

...

"Oh? It looks like Elena is fighting right now." Minos commented in surprise to his girlfriend as he watched that blonde running back and forth across the fighting platform.

On the other hand, a few dozen Sergeants were positioned around that area, jointly fighting their powerful opponent.

Seeing this, Abby nodded to Minos and said. "Looks like Grace is too."

"Check it out. She'll be next."

"Hmmm." Minos agreed right after noticing that beautiful lady.

But before they continued to observe what was happening there, a soft voice came from behind Minos.

"Minos?"

"Who would have thought that I would see such a busy person here watching the training of these soldiers..." Mendy Stokes commented as she walked toward that couple.

Upon hearing this, Minos turned around and saw that gorgeous woman, who had been introduced to him through Mirya and Viola.

"You hardly have time for your old friends, but you have time for this, eh?" She commented while having a dissatisfied smile on her face.

Abby then turned red with embarrassment as she understood Mendy's speech. This shameless woman had even tried to convince Minos to sleep with both of them at the same time!

"Hahaha, it's hard to have time to share with everyone in these difficult times..." Minos said in good humor, not bothered by Mendy's way of speaking.

He barely had time to maintain his responsibilities as Abby's boyfriend. So, those old friends of his were having an even harder time than the blue-haired woman next to him.

Therefore, Mendy had made such a joke.

And since Abby was more close to relationships of that kind, Mendy could only deal with her other options for the time being.

In any case, she understood the weight on Minos' shoulders as she had been fighting a lot in this war since she was a local ally.

"By the way, what are you doing here?" Minos asked as he looked directly into Mendy's beautiful eyes.

"I'm going to fight with Aunt Mirya later."

Just as Minos' soldiers trained constantly, the same was true for this sovereign's allies. Hence, the allied Spiritual Kings were allowed to enter this army fighting area to fight with the local soldiers.

At other times these allies would be using the Dry City fighting arena. But after the immigration of a large part of the inhabitants of the former Maritime City to here, that fighting place had become one of the main attractions of this city, crowded at almost all hours of the day.

And with so many fights going on between Spiritual Generals in that place, there was not much room left for busy people like the local Spiritual Kings to use that site to simulate high-level confrontations.

That was why they had Minos' permission to enter this headquarters arena, which was separate from the most important buildings in this complex.

Anyway, Minos soon understood the purpose of this woman being here. And it did not take long for him to sit down next to her and Abby, watching the end of Elena's fight and the beginning of Grace's.

"So Grace stayed here, huh..." Mendy commented in a low voice as she watched that woman who was at the same level as her, level 52.

"And why wouldn't she stay?" Abby asked.

"Well, she and Vivian are very close to each other. So, I had thought that they would return together to the Cromwell Kingdom."

Vivian and Grace were girlfriends, and the latter had joined Minos' army about a year ago when Minos had brought them to Dry City.

And precisely because she was a soldier of the army, she could not let go of her responsibilities and follow in the footsteps of her companion.

Minos then commented. "I believe time will pass pretty quickly, and Grace won't even notice Vivian's absence."

"Why?"

"The war already takes up a lot of our time, doesn't it? Well, that will only get worse, hehe."

"On the other hand, when the war is near its end, I'm sure Vivian will come back here."

"Before she left, she had asked me to take her when my army goes to destroy the Scourges of the Devil."

"It seems that she wants to take revenge on someone."

"Oh?" Mendy said in surprise. But soon, she remembered something related to that woman and said. "In fact, I think she will return here well before that."

"Hmm?"

"I heard that her brother, Davy, will be coming from the Flaming Empire to spend time with his family in a few months..."

"Don't you think he will want to see you?"