The Rise of the Black Plain

After leaving the building where the physical examination was performed, Minos and his group headed towards the Cultivation Tower, in the central region of the capital of the Cromwell Kingdom.

They had no reason to remain in that spiritual academy after their tests were completed, as it was unpleasant to observe other people's physical examinations.

Nobody in Minos' group was interested in knowing these details from other competitors. After all, it wouldn't make any difference to them!

For this first test of the Spiritual Tournament, the competition organization assumed it would last for two days. Therefore, the second test was scheduled to happen on the third day, counting from today.

That way, both Minos and the sibling couple wanted to spend their last few hours training before finally starting the competition for real!

...

As Minos' group leaves the building, suddenly the young Kara, who has been staring at him since his physical exam result was shown, said. "Minos, are you using any artifacts to prevent your talent from being seen by others?"

There were items in the Spiritual World that could protect this type of information from cultivators. After all, when someone very talented was born, preserving such information was crucial to their families or the powers behind that individual.

So, Kara had this theory that Minos was hiding his true talent.

Perhaps even the result of his Physique rating was false! She thought about it while trying to discover the mysteries behind him.

And since Minos was being accompanied by someone from one of the Flaming Empire sects, this hypothesis made more and more sense in Kara's mind.

Upon hearing this, both Ford and Ruth also began to pay attention. The two also had doubts, but the older brother did not dare to ask, while the beautiful young woman with black hair had left to ask about it later.

Minos then looked at the three people, who seemed interested in this matter, and laughed. There was no artifact with him that he was using.

The spiritual array just failed to ascertain Minos' talent since he had been mutated through the inheritance of the God Henricus Longus.

Minos then said vaguely. "Well, not exactly. But seeing it that way is not completely wrong."

Upon hearing this, the two youths sighed when they understood that Minos would not go into details. But this was not strange. This information was usually only given on two types of occasions.

One was at the time of a spiritual academy, just before the youth turned 10. And the other was at events like this, which demanded this type of information.

After that, the group continued talking about minor things until they finally arrived in front of the Cultivation Tower. And as usual, there was a lot of movement in this place since it was the best point to practice within this city.

After reaching the 11th floor of the large building, Kara suddenly said. "Well, it was nice to talk to you two, Minos and Ruth. My brother and I will train behind closed doors until the competition starts, so until then!"

"Hmm, until then. We may not meet before the second test, so I wish you luck in advance. But you have to be careful. Some participants may try to unite against people like you..."

In saying this, Minos was alerted both to the presence of scum as the young Leroy and as to those profiteers, who would hide, while waiting for other competitors to fight and be exhausted. Then they would steal the items of those people later...

"Hmm, for you too." Ford said before finally heading towards the training room that he and his sister were going to use.

At the same time, Ruth and Minos did the same, entering one of the rooms, precisely identical to the one they had stayed in the last time.

And when they were finally alone, Ruth asked Minos with a curious twinkle in her eyes. "Are you going to tell me what your talent and Physique rank is? I do not believe that your ability can be as incredible as you claim to be if you have just a Warrior-grade Physique."

Upon hearing this, Minos smiled and said. "Hehe, who knows... Does it make a difference to you?"

"Hmph, acting mysterious. Forget it. Sooner or later, I'll find out." Ruth murmured to herself in a low voice. She then said. "It does not matter. Okay, let's change clothes and start our fight."

"Hmm."

After that, the two quickly repeated the same deeds as their last time here. They started fighting and then trained their fighting techniques, left to cultivate last.

Minos and Ruth followed this routine for the two days they had. They then left that tower to go to the hotel and settle their 'business' before the Spiritual Tournament's second test began.

After all, this test would last a week, so the two would be without having fun with each other for this entire period...

Anyway, at this moment, Minos was almost reaching level 39, which should happen during this second test. These last few weeks of hard training at the Cultivation Tower had brought him close to this level, with just a little more to do.

...

It didn't take long, and Minos and Ruth were already walking through the streets of Capital City, heading towards the city's north side.

In that place, the organization of the Spiritual Tournament had set up a teleportation array, which took the competitors into a forest under the control of the Flaming Empire sects.

That was a low-level grade-3 array that could displace even 30,000 people at once, taking them over distances in the tens of thousands of kilometers!

It was something of a high standard, but that was not the only form of travel in the Spiritual World. There were also ways to travel through wormholes, which allowed for trips much longer than those of teleportation arrays.

After all, the Spiritual World was incredibly vast, so these arrays could not be used over very long distances!

As for wormholes, these were space tunnels where people could travel, 'shortening' the travel distance from one region to another.

Upon reaching level 80, cultivators could travel through space. And if several cultivators of this stage worked together, they could build a spatial tunnel between two regions!

But wormholes were very rare, and even the Flaming Empire did not have one!

It also needed constant maintenance from people in the 9th stage of cultivation to have no problems with travel.

As a result, empires and kingdoms without people at this stage of cultivation would be unable to travel in this manner. They could not afford to constantly pay for people at that level to maintain their wormholes.

Finally, Minos and Ruth arrived at a large square after touring the capital of the Cromwell Kingdom for some time.

In this place, thousands of people were scattered while waiting for the guidance of the evaluators of this test.

Minos didn't see any of the people he had met in the past few days, so he stood there, next to Ruth, while waiting for the test to start.

Finally, when the sun was up, a young woman, wearing a red dress, stood on a platform and then started talking about what would happen next.

"Ehh, welcome to all participants in this edition of the Spiritual Tournament. Well, for those of you who don't know about the exam details, I'm going to explain how this test will work."

"Those who want to participate in the test must stay in these areas marked in red." She said as she pointed to large circles drawn on the square's floor.

"After that, when we activate the teleportation array, everyone within those spaces will be teleported to the exam site."

She then stopped for a moment and then continued. "This place is one of the wild regions, which the organization of the event manages. Your mission will be to survive for seven days in that 'habitat' and to be able to bring at least three 4th stage spiritual beasts as proof that you managed to kill its."

"These are the only two requirements for this event. As for the rules, there is none in this test. That is a survival test, so if you are unable to survive or reach the minimum requirement, it means that you are not worth the investment of the tournament organization!" She said coldly.

That was not a kind world. And, as much as the Spiritual Tournament's organizers wished for these young people not to die so soon, there could be no assistance or rules limiting events like a survival test.

Since this was a simulation of what could happen in these cultivators' real lives, this exam simulated the law of the jungle, kill or die, just like what these people could find during their journeys!

After finishing speaking, the examiner waited for a while, while she saw the crowd start moving.

Minos then said goodbye to Ruth and asked. "Is that part of the competition broadcast?"

"Hmm, but not everything. There are some surveillance arrays in the chosen location, which send the images here."

"OK. Well, see you in a week then." He said before kissing Ruth's cherry lips.

After that, the examiner finally saw that there was no more movement in the square when she finally started the second test.

"The second test is officially initiated!"