The Rise of the Black Plain

As soon as Minos' group entered Examire, they headed toward the city center, where they would encounter a variety of living beings, businesses, and experts casually walking from one to the other.

Just as in the great, powerful cities of the Spiritual World, one could easily find Spiritual Sages walking the streets, one could easily find high-level Demigods and low-level Sovereigns circulating in the major areas of Examire.

The auras of some people at levels 109, 110, and even 111 could be noticed near some critical areas of the city, which was shocking to Minos' group.

They thought that when they arrived in Examire, they would encounter beings of levels close to that of the alien who had invited them to join a local force earlier. But the truth was that there were several beings in this city that were stronger than that level 106 being.

However, they didn't feel any aura stronger than that, and they didn't notice any beings in the areas they passed through at the end of the 11th stage or even at the beginning of the 12th stage.

Maybe there were no such beings in Examire, or maybe these were the strongest experts that could only be found in the headquarters of very powerful organizations.

The group didn't have access to any floating neighborhoods in this city, so they couldn't say for sure that the strongest people locally were people between levels 109 and 111.

In any case, that alone was many times stronger than they could handle, so the whole group became more cautious as they walked through the city center.

After a cursory observation of what Examire was like, the group soon began to visit some of the places where they could afford to spend their money and get a better understanding of the opportunities available locally.

...

After passing three shops that sold and bought resources, Minos' group learned a few important things in this place before moving on to their next stop.

There was no point in buying information about how cultivation worked in Zocarro and what they could expect from levels higher than the 10th stage. They could learn about it for free if they were willing to join a local organization.

That also applied to basic knowledge of resources, basic techniques of professions, and even warrior skills. All of this could be learned for free if they joined one of the various local forces.

As for special artifacts, they learned that Divine Journey cultivators did not normally use ordinary items but rather absorbable weapons such as the wings of Minos.

Using an ordinary weapon at the 11th stage was like being a Spiritual Sage in the Spiritual World and using a black-grade technique. There was such a thing, but the people who did it were among the weakest of their stage.

As for more in-depth information about this world and the place in the universe they were in, they could also learn about it for free from any local force they joined. However, certain shops in the city sold not only information but also resources from outside Zocarro.

Thus, the group entered a place that looked very much like the mercenary guilds of their world, where one could sell one's time or strength to carry out missions of all kinds.

As soon as they entered the huge building of this local organization, the group came across a giant entrance hall where several items with holograms showed different types of missions available.

These holograms did the job of presenting and explaining the missions. All one had to do there was look for what they were most interested in and then insert their ID into one of the holograms.

The group didn't understand some of the classifications of the missions they encountered along the way, but they did understand the purpose of some of them.

Some missions required a certain number of items to be collected. In contrast, others had posters of wanted people, alive or dead. Others were investigations, and there were even more specific missions to produce unique items.

Among these more specific missions, one in particular caught the attention of the group's alchemist, as it basically required the production of a special potion.

There was every kind of mission imaginable, from those asking for creatures to serve as guinea pigs in experiments to those asking for weaker cultivators to be instructed in something.

The group observed until they reached the information and registration area, where several holograms were available to serve groups like theirs.

"Welcome to Steelbeards. How can I help you?" An artificial voice asked from the hologram of a woman who looked very much like the women of the Minos race.

Everyone in the group looked at her with interest for a moment, some of them thinking there could be beings that looked like them.

But then the level 99 robot said. "Zocarro's level of technology is probably much higher than that of The Adamant Land. This hologram probably used the image of Ruth and Anne to create an appearance pleasing to most of our group."

Besides Ruth, there was only one other woman in the group, as the others who had come with them had died in the middle of their journey here.

They understood, and Minos quickly got to the point. "We're new to this place. What do we have to do to complete the missions here?"

The hologram looked at him and explained briefly. "Steelbeards doesn't have many requirements for registering new members. All you have to do is agree to our terms, and I'll give you your IDs.

Don't worry, you don't have to give me any information. These IDs are just for your mission registration and access to your possible rewards. All I need to do this is a drop of your blood.

With your IDs in hand, all you have to do is find a mission that interests you and sign up for it by placing your IDs on the holograms that speak about it.

An important point to note is that each mission has a main party and a reserve party. The main party is the one that has the chance to complete the mission first. However, if all of its members die or fail to complete the mission in time, the reserve team will become the main team, and someone else will get the chance to be on the reserve team... There are advantages to being the backup team, so don't give up on a mission just because there's already a main team.

Finally, mission payments will be credited to your ID as soon as our members meet the minimum requirements for their missions. You can collect your gains in the Prizes Hall."