The Rise of the Black Plain

"Your Majesty, the empire's underwater expansion has been developing quickly and efficiently.

We currently have three underwater cities made for humans and one small city for sea beasts. Between the various species in our marine territory, we have reached a population of 5 million.

Most of them are humans, but we already have 100,000 low-level sea beasts that have joined us in the last 2 years." Elena said, explaining the situation in that area in more detail to Minos and the others there in the imperial throne room.

In those more than two years that had passed since Minos' return to Dry City, a lot had happened in that underwater area of the empire.

While the army's soldiers expanded their operations to all sides, increasing the area under observation, some groups of beasts had been found further south of that area.

These were not powerful sea beasts but mid-level beings living at the edges of what the Ancestral Sea as a whole thought was the boundary of the safe area of its territory with the North Sea.

Having encountered these creatures, the shark, currently at level 86, one of the strongest beings under Minos' command in that area, had managed to lure some tribesmen from the area to join the empire's group.

From there, several beasts of different tribes from the vicinity of that region began to migrate to the empire's marine territory, creating the need to build a city for them.

As it was a good thing to have beings of these races in the empire's group, Elena and the rest of the personnel taking care of that area had skillfully merged their forces with those of these beast groups, arriving at the current numbers.

"Due to the addition of these beasts, we were able to increase our underwater movement capacity by 10 times, but we also improved the number of ores mined by 4 times in the last few years." Elena said, smiling as she presented this magnificent data.

These minerals were being used throughout the empire to develop arrays, pills, and artifacts of various kinds, which already helped the army forces and were also sold in the big cities of the empire.

The investment made in that area had been high until then, but recently the local production had reached such a point that in another 3 years or so, the amount invested in that area would be recovered through the resources extracted there!

But in addition to these resources, with such a significant population already living in the empire's undersea cities, the state had also been recovering part of its investments with taxes.

In that area, those who moved there had various benefits of tax exemptions. But while they lived there and grew strong in that area that had almost the same spiritual concentration as the core of the empire, those people grew stronger and returned to the mainland from time to time to consume local resources.

At times like these, they generated taxes and helped circulate the crystals they saved by living in that area!

Elena presented all this data to the people in that hall, making several people open their mouths in surprise to hear such positive data coming from an area with so little development time.

Also, with a population dozens of times smaller than any of the local assembly representatives, this area was already producing an economy close to that of the Brown area!

"... Currently, our average level is around level 59, but that should advance soon." Elena reached the final part of her speech. "As for the observation of the North Sea, we are just about to reach the border of the Ancestral Sea and the North Sea, Your Highness. But we haven't had any problems with our observation network yet."

Minos heard that and narrowed his eyes since that was one of the most important pieces of information about this area.

He then advised. "I want you to slow down the advancement of your observation network. Focus on increasing the number of undersea cities and the high-level population of the area in the coming years.

I want us to have at least one Spiritual Demigod there before we move into the North Sea."

Several people swallowed their saliva upon hearing this, but considering the dangers that should exist in that area, this would indeed be necessary before they ventured into such a maritime region.

"OK," Elena said before sitting down.

Her area already had high-level Sages taking care of the observation and security of the area. So following the imperial family's planned shift changes, it shouldn't take long for some of them to approach that level.

After she sat down, Lee stood up, the first of the empire's core to come forward to talk about their results.

Now that everyone from the areas farthest from the empire's core had presented their results, it was time for the nobles with domains within the area that was under direct effect of the spiritual root of the Dry City.

This was the most densely populated and strongest area in the entire empire but also the richest, where practically half of the high-grade crystal production was concentrated.

The average level of this area was currently at level 59, something impressive, considering that a few decades ago, this was a territory with less than 300,000 inhabitants, with an average level at the time of only level 40.

Lee finished speaking his data, exposing his territory's enviable average of level 61!

'That's impressive! One of the Brown family entourage members thought to himself, seeing how good it felt to be close to the emperor.

Lee and Alison were just two young people with Black talent, but besides having already become Spiritual Saints, they had control over an important territory in the empire's core.

Even the members of the Gill family, who also had a piece of land in this area, could not help but look at Lee with looks of recognition but also a little regret.

Lee and Alison had almost become his subordinates at that time!

After Lee, other nobles from the empire's core presented data from their areas, highlighting the level of crystal mining their families had recently achieved, as well as agriculture.

Part of the empire's spiritual energy-rich food production still depended heavily on the empire's core, so any positive result from them was important news.

But with the state having already reclaimed all areas of the former Black Plain, none of these improvements had been impressive enough to turn the world upside down.

When everyone had finished speaking, someone helping Julian's envoys stood up to speak of their results.

...