The Rise of the Black Plain

A few days later...

After the visit of Warner's group, Minos settled with those representatives of the Flaming Empire, having agreed subsequently to negotiate in the future with the Spiritual King he had met that day.

With this, the Black Plain had gained a supplier of minerals from outside the region, something useful for the various professionals in this state.

Such a possibility also existed for the other states in this region. However, they could not make the most of this as Minos would for one simple reason. There were practically no high-level professionals in the most important professions in this region!

Cultivation became more difficult with each passing level, and for people who could not go to their limit, as in the case of warriors who constantly fought, it complicated their progress in terms of cultivation level.

For example, alchemists could even go to their limit by producing their products, in this case, pills. That was similar to a warrior fighting. However, while a warrior would simply have to engage in a conflict against people of the same level or stronger than him to stimulate that, the situation was much more complicated for alchemists.

Alchemists depended on their own understanding of the Natural Laws, as well as on the quality of their techniques, to be able to push their abilities to the limit. In this case, it was pretty complicated to reach their limits for people without good techniques in a poor region with low-level resources.

Hence, there were few individuals with high-level classification regarding spiritual professions in this region!

As for the resources imported from the Flaming Empire, they were not cheap. So, even with the possibility, most local organizations would not get much even if they had enough professionals.

On the other hand, importing such artifacts from outside the region was much easier than minerals!

After learning the reality of the local powers' relationship with the empire and the circumstances of his current subordinates, Minos understood why there were so few high-level resources in the region, despite the possibility.

However, he was not worried about these problems faced by others since the professionals in his territory would soon outnumber those in the region!

With that, he returned to his local development business, leaving the previous meeting behind in his mind.

...

While Minos and his staff were working, several new services in Dry City were starting to become successful among the local inhabitants.

After months since independence and Minos' permission for the Stone Island powers to enter the Black Plain, several of that state's organizations already had branches in that territory.

In addition to the Stone and Nash families, with their posts already set up outside the local defensive dome, the Barbecue Temple and the Hotel Olson had arrived in Dry City!

The Olson family had invested heavily in Dry City and built a mega hotel outside the local dome with more than 500 rooms that could accommodate up to 2,000 people. At the same time, this place had a magnificent water park mixed with a green area of more than 500 square meters.

Such a place was not yet making much success in this city, but this was to be expected since this was a project for the future. Not only would Dry City soon be the new center of this region, but it also had an architectural design utterly different from other regional capitals.

The consequence of this? Well, sooner or later, this city would become a tourist center.

That was precisely why the Olson family invested so heavily in this city and would invest in other luxury hotels around future cities of the Black Plain in the future.

Their goal was to absorb the high-end customers that would surely start visiting Dry City and the Black Plain after the first stage of local development.

Obviously, it would take some time before the high-level services, and local differentials became known throughout the region. Everyone knew Minos' forces had a lot of power, but what about the local professionals and products?

Few knew about what was being developed by Minos, so for the time being, few would look to this place for spiritual experts.

But House Olson, the Barbecue Temple, and other Stone Island organizations knew of the local potential.

Dillian's case was one example. Only they knew the real identity of the best doctor in the region!

But what about when this information spreads? Well, many millionaires would certainly seek that fellow's help.

As such, the Hotel Olson was already marking its place in Dry City with a hotel with many potentials to compete with the Four Seasons Hotel, the local hotel chain.

As for the Barbecue Temple, this organization, without many local competitors, had already built a grand temple in one of the new areas of Dry City.

In that place, similar to the temple in the capital of Stone Island that Minos visited on his first passage through Old Stone, there was already enough space for more than 300 people to visit it at the same time.

And unlike the Hotel Olson, which would only have its most significant customers in the future, the Barbecue Temple had already gained many local customers!

In fact, this restaurant was already the most popular in Dry City and even had appointment lists already, since otherwise, many citizens would be unhappy that they did not get a chance to eat there.

Many people in Dry City could afford to go there daily. Thus, even the restaurant's 30 grade-2 and 100 grade-1 cooks were not keeping up with demand!

Hence, lines could be seen in that area at any time of the day, where many other local or Stone Island stores were already emerging under the influence of that restaurant.

The Barbecue Temple could not keep all the citizens, so soon, a small gastronomic center had already formed there, where even with the surrounding construction fields, thousands of people were already circulating there at all times of the day.

But the Stone Island investments on the Black Plain had not stopped there!

No, in addition to the hundreds of millions of low-grade crystals invested in the Bank of the Black Plain, several powers of that state's shipping industry were already in the coastal areas of this state.

In particular, the New Maritime City already had half a dozen naval development areas, where the nascent naval industry in the Black Plain was developing.

Because of this, that city was growing by leaps and bounds, absorbing investment from many organizations on Stone Island. At the same time, hundreds of people from that state moved there every day.

The local government was controlling the migration to the Black Plain. But this control was only over people with no affiliations to large organizations. For those members of families allied to Minos, like Elena's House Neel, they could send people into this territory without worrying about the numbers of the local migration policy.

But this was for a good reason. After all, these people would not need to be hired by the local government since they were moving for the sake of their own business. And this did not create a burden for the local government. On the contrary, it generated taxes for further investment.

With this, families such as House Neel, Robin's family, and several other Stone Island organizations already had branches in the New Maritime City and were rapidly developing in such a place.

Due to the high demand for minerals, food, and other resources that a productive center requires and will require in the foreseeable future, other business powers were already relocating there.

Anyway, amid all this, the families allied and subordinate to Minos, who was based in this new territory of the Black Plain, were also making their local investments.

In addition to the cities built by the local workforce during Minos and Abby's travel period, the Gill, Miller, Parkinson, and Austin families had already moved into their new territories.

Some of them were practically empty places, like the Miller family's, which had had to be built entirely from the start. But others, on the other hand, were places already with infrastructure, those localities taken over by the Black Plain from neighboring states.

The Gill, Austin, and Parkinson families were taking care of places inherited from the Brown Kingdom, among them the Red Valley. At the same time, House Miller was in a newly built place on the northernmost coast of the Black Plain.

In such a place previously dominated by pirates and criminals, now soldiers of the Black Plain Army were landing in the newly built harbor, happy with life for having completed the task passed down from their King...