The Rise of the Black Plain

A whole month passed in the blink of an eye...

After leaving the headquarters city of the Pantheon Of Honor, Minos reached the border of that empire with Grinia Empire in just four days of travel. Then he ran for almost two weeks through the great forest where the former headquarters of the Longus family was.

But Minos had no idea where that place was where he had fought against the former Longus patriarch. His map didn't have that kind of information, so he didn't try to look for that place and then follow the same route he had taken weeks ago.

Upon arriving in Grinia Empire, Minos moved cautiously through that great forest, avoiding fighting or even training in this area where even vegetables could endanger people of his level traveling alone.

But finally, after a few days of crossing such an area, Minos arrived this morning at the first human city of the Grinia Empire by the route he had chosen to take, coming from the east.

...

Upon arriving in a medium-sized city in the far east of the Grinia Empire, Minos immediately looked for a local wormhole port to continue his journey westward.

More than a month had passed since he had said goodbye to Starclaw's group, so that group was probably already waiting for him on the coast where his ship was.

Minos still wasn't close enough to Starclaw to use the Divine Seal on her to communicate with that bird, so he still had to keep traveling west as fast as he could!

"Hello, I would like to know if this city has a wormhole port. Would you know how to inform me?" Minos asked a level 64 young man, an attendant at the restaurant where he had stopped for lunch.

Seeing the 10 high-grade crystals, Minos gave him, that young Spiritual Emperor smiled and said. "Senior, there is such a place in our city. You must go to..."

Minos listened for a full minute to that young man giving him directions to the only local wormhole port.

With this information, he paid for his meal and set off without delay, heading toward such a place.

After a few minutes of walking, he arrived at an estate that appeared to be a grand plaza.

But this was not a square, but rather where the local wormhole harbor was!

Ports like these were similar all over the Spiritual World.

Every port of this type had numerous circular platforms, which looked like small fighting or dancing stages. In these places, there would usually be two large arches that, if looked at from the wrong direction, looked like just strange decorations.

But looking from the proper direction, one would see dark portals that gave access to two ends of different wormholes.

One end was the end or destination of a wormhole. The other was the beginning or starting point of another wormhole.

Wormholes were simple and usually only connected one starting point and one destination. So ports that connected several different locations would have several platforms with those arches.

Seeing that location, Minos immediately made his way to the entrance.

"Gentlemen, we are under maintenance today. Please return in 3 days to use our wormhole network." An employee of that place said to the people arriving there.

Minos heard this and immediately frowned, not liking this at all.

"Are they under maintenance?" He asked while making an ugly expression. "Just now?"

Looking at that Spiritual Sage, that official said. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, senior. If you are in a hurry, we have the teleportation service running. Unfortunately, we only have one such array, and it takes you to the empire's capital. So its operating cost is 5,000 high-grade crystals."

That was a salty cost. Most Spiritual Sages lived on less than 400 high-grade crystals monthly...

But Minos was in a hurry and surprised that young man. "Very well, where is that array? I'm interested in using it to get to the empire's capital."

The capital of Grinia was in a more central part of the state, closer to the coast than this city further east.

That young man looked at Minos and smiled, seeing that this was a young expert from a good background.

"This way, sir."

He quickly led the way for Minos, leading him to one of the smaller platforms on that large estate.

After making payment, Minos immediately entered the array area and waited.

A second later, the space in his surroundings distorted, and a large amount of spiritual energy covered his body.

Then, while he ignored the effects of arrays of this kind on living beings, Minos saw the surroundings of that square disappearing, with the change in his surroundings showing him a totally different place.

One moment Minos was in a not-so-great city in the eastern part of the empire, and then he appeared in one of the suburbs of a great city, from which he could see a building that was so tall that the clouds covered its top.

When he appeared at this other teleportation port of the same organization behind the other city's port, Minos was immediately met by the officials of that place, who told him about the problem of that other outpost.

"Senior, we are also under maintenance. Our entire network is. So we cannot provide you with our services for the next few days."

In the capital of Grinia, Minos was not so bothered to hear this.

In that city, there was certainly another network of wormhole ports willing to sell their services!

With that in mind, he left the estate where he had arrived.

But as he walked through the streets of Grinia's largest city, suddenly Minos felt a familiar sensation and looked west.

'Starclaw? Starclaw, can you hear me?' He asked in his mental connection with this beast, already within range of his 9th technique.

'Minos? Where are you? I don't see you.' Starclaw replied as she looked at the surroundings in a sea place.

Minos laughed and said. 'I'm still not near you. I'm in the capital of Grinia. What about you?'

'Our group is already on the coast. We'll reach your yacht in two days at the most.' She answered him, feeling relieved that nothing terrible had happened to Minos.

'That's good. I'll try to get there in the next few days as well, but if I'm delayed because of any problems, don't leave. I will get to you as soon as I can.'

'OK. See you in a few days.'

'See you.'