The Rise of the Black Plain

As a new day dawned, Minos' party departed Payton, leaving the area through a local wormhole port.

Minos, Abby, Ruth, Gloria, Isabella, and Harold soon traveled through thousands of miles of space in a matter of moments, arriving in the city closest to where the portals of the Ancient Dragon Spatial Kingdom had stabilized the day before.

Forrest had already left for the area to wait for Minos' party, so no one from the Church except Gloria was at the party that arrived in this other city.

Leaving the local wormhole port, the people next to Minos soon noticed the number of experts in the area, noticing with their spiritual perceptions the number of Sages and even Demigods in the city.

"Wow... So many experts came here just to watch the entrance and the end of the event?" Isabella commented to her group as she looked around, not expecting to feel such spiritual fluctuations in her homeland.

"This is normal," Minos commented. "These people are mostly merchants. They are here to sell their services to the groups that have come to enter the Spatial Kingdom.

Only the young talents of each group are expected to enter such a place. Many of their bodyguards or elders are in the area to await their return and keep their forces up to date.

These specialists consume quite unique services and do not care about the cost as long as it has quality.

This is the opportunity for significant profit for these merchants."

Isabella noticed several Demigods standing around the merchants' makeshift tents nearby.

Not every expert can afford some expenses. A Demigod would certainly be much wealthier than an ordinary Spiritual Sage and would probably be able to afford grade-3 or lower-level items with ease.

However, they would have the same difficulties as everyone else when it came to what they needed for their cultivation.

After all, as the level increased, the rarity of resources that could help them increased, but the price of the services of professionals also increased. As a result, one's financial life did not necessarily improve as one's cultivation level increased.

That was why people generally took so long to cultivate their strength to the peak!

Not everyone could be a king, emperor, prince, princess, or even a member of the nobility!

Therefore, these people had no way to take their own belongings on a journey to live better while they waited for their young people.

Some of them simply used the services of people who worked by renting out their belongings, training places, etc.

Temporary renting was always cheaper than buying!

Isabella looked at these Demigods and sighed as she saw some of her old fantasies fall to the ground.

She had grown up thinking that 10th-stage experts were superior beings, rich, wise, etc. But the truth was that such people only had higher powers than those of lower levels.

The women of Minos also watched these creatures, especially the great dragon beside the city, looking like a mountain of flesh and scales.

Abby looked at it and commented. "Is that a dragon? I didn't think they were that big!"

She thought Emlyn was huge, but seeing this creature, she couldn't help but rethink her idea of size.

Minos looked at the creature and thought of the Fah'um od Dunov. "Perhaps they are the closest descendants of the beings behind those giant skeletons."

"Oh?"

Minos explained his theory, something even Henricus Longus had not thought of in his time, for he had not had the chance to find where the body of the Fah'um of Dunov lay. "There are huge skeletons that are not humanoid in shape. I believe they belonged to one of the 101 races. Perhaps the beasts we know, or at least some of the greatest creatures of our world, are descended from one of these races."

"If that's the case, it explains the size of the sky whales and dragons," Ruth commented, also looking at the creature that had eyes as big as human houses.

At that moment, he looked in the direction of their group.

'Humans? Tsk, someone at your level dares to enter our Spatial Kingdom!' This gigantic creature did not like the strength of this group and felt that it was a great pity that low-level creatures dared to enter his ancient home.

However, the Ancient Dragon Spatial Kingdom was full of dangers, even for the strongest cultivators, so he did not stop them and just kept watching them.

'You will die in the Spatial Kingdom. This place is not for weaklings like you.'

After a moment, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep, as no one else around seemed to want to enter any of the portals in the area.

A total of 6 portals were open in a mountainous area of this part of the Flaming Empire, each on top of mountains in the area.

Each portal was supposed to lead to a different part of the Ancient Dragon Spatial Kingdom. Still, according to ancient reports, there were other portals within that region of space that either led out or to other unstable areas.

Thus, the place one entered did not guarantee that one would be confined to one area, and there was a high chance that beings who entered different portals would meet in the middle of their journey.

Minos and his group knew this, but still, they would soon head to the portal that no member of the western region had entered.

Oswald and one of the level 89 Sages of the Black Plain Army were there to guide them and tell them who had entered where so they would not be traveling in the dark.

When they met Forrest's group waiting for them next to the portal, they just greeted each other and walked through the portal!

With Forrest's 4 companions, the level 89 Sage of the Longus Family joined Minos' group, leaving Oswald behind to observe the area with the other men of the army and the Gray Clouds Sect.

Seeing them all disappear into that portal, the white-haired and white-bearded man sighed, but he did not stay there for long and soon returned to his people's observation post.

'Good luck. I hope you will achieve good things in the coming months!'

...