The Rise of the Black Plain

A month earlier...

The alchemist Davis, who had come from Stone Island with the group of Minos, was getting to know the Dry City. After the group arrived at the mansion in the central part of the city, Davis was accommodated in the local government officials' visiting area.

After resting from the trip for a while, Davis finally decided to see the city. He had previously seen the landscape around the town and some fields of culture not far from the city while traveling with the group of Minos.

The town itself did not attract Davis's attention. After all, he did not know the Dry City before that. So, he didn't know if this place was more or less good than it had been before Minos arrived.

All he knew was that it was impossible to grow any type of plant on the Black Plain!

So, he was genuinely impressed with that. Even though Minos said that this problem had already been solved, it was not easy to believe.

There are certain things that a person could only believe seeing!

He had also noticed that the spiritual concentration in the Dry City was much less than in the city of Portland. He realized this after he started cultivating in the town since he was only at level 38, and he could not feel the free energy in heaven and on earth without him starting to cultivate.

'Let me see what life is like in this place.'

Davis started walking the city streets, watching all the details carefully. He saw that the city's infrastructure was very well-prepared, with the capacity to receive several dozen carriages simultaneously. Still, he had seen none after he left Minos' mansion.

'Mm, there aren't many spiritual beasts either, and the few that I saw were all low-level.' So, he thought to himself as he watched the movement of the street that he was on.

Shortly after that, Davis arrived at a bustling place.

In that place, there was a plaque with the name Central Market.

That was a huge building, with three floors and a large entrance. Due to the great movement, Davis decided to enter to see the place.

However, as soon as he got inside the building, Davis frowned and muttered to himself. "So much movement just to buy apples?"

In one of the many stalls on the first floor of the Central Market building, the one with the most movement, there was a large pile of apples and a plaque with the price tag. '20 crystals per kilo.'

Several people were huddled together in this tent, yelling as much as they wanted to the three attendants.

"I want 2 kilos."

"And I, half a kilo."

While watching this, Davis was perplexed.

He has never seen people buying fruit in such a lively way. 'I don't understand, they act as if they are competing for a product on sale, but the price is just a little lower than in Portland.'

He then approached a woman who was waiting in line and asked. "Madam, I'm sorry to bother you, but can you tell me why people are so excited to buy these apples?"

The woman then looked at Davis with a strange look and said. "You do not know? That must be your first time here. I don't blame you. That is the last batch of apples planted in the Black Plain. The next will only come in 3 months. So, everyone is excited to be able to buy some."

"If I were you, I wouldn't miss this opportunity. It won't be long until it's over." The woman said before placing her order with one of the attendants.

After hearing this, Davis was very curious and decided to get in line. He was here to get to know the city, so understanding why the inhabitants of this place valued the region's products so much could help him a lot at this time.

'Is this a way for them to value their region? It can't be. This behavior is very exaggerated!' Davis thought to himself as he waited for his turn.

After a few minutes, he finally got what he wanted. He bought two large apples that cost him ten low-grade crystals. He then used some of his spiritual energy to clean the apple and then tasted it.

"Ugh?"

When he felt the amount of spiritual energy that the apple provided him, he immediately jumped in surprise after just one bite.

"How can this be? That is surely a fruit with a high spiritual concentration! Something like that would have cost about 60 low-grade crystals on the Stone Island!" He murmured, taking another bite of the apple in his hand.

'Ah! So, that's why those people were in such a hurry to buy these apples…' Davis thought as he realized how important it was for those people.

That is because foods with high spirituality could be as good as cultivating low-grade spiritual crystals!

Such a thing might not be a big deal for cultivators over level 50, but it was incredible for the people of the Black Plain.

Davis did not have much information about this place. Yet, he knew that the inhabitants of the Dry City, a place with low spiritual density, must have talents of, at most, Blue classified. With rarely someone more talented showing up.

As a result, for those generally trapped below level 40, the spiritual energy contained in food was essential. Not only that, but even people with Golden talent valued the spiritual richness of their meals in the early stages of cultivation because no one could use spiritual crystals before level 20.

"Now I understand…" Davis said in a low voice. 'But how did they do that? As far as I know, cultures with a high spiritual concentration only grow in regions with a high spiritual density…'

...

Davis continued to walk through the Dry City as he knew the place little by little. He did this for four days until finally, he had made his decision!

After observing that plants with a high spiritual concentration could grow in this region and conversing with various residents, he discovered the extent to which this city had changed since Minos' arrival. He was stunned when he found that this place had been almost completely remodeled in just over a year.

Not only that, he learned that the city's spiritual energy was even lower earlier.

When he heard about it, he even tried to cultivate in another part of the city, where it was unaffected by the spiritual gathering arrays, to know the difference.

When he did that, he found that this place lacked spiritual energy more than he thought. The city was only slightly better due to the various arrays that were 'burning' low-grade crystals constantly.

After all that, Davis finally concluded that Minos could keep the offer that he had previously made. So, with that, this place could certainly be an excellent opportunity for an alchemist without the support of large families like Davis.

Anyway, shortly after deciding, Davis met with Minos. He worked out the last details, including the location of the alchemy store that Davis would run.

As for the resources that he would need to produce the spiritual pills, this would be provided by the young Elen, at least until some of these medicines began to be planted here in the Black Plain.

There were several spiritual medicines in the Spatial Kingdom, but they could not be used by someone as low-level as Davis. Consequently, this man could only start working only importing these resources from other kingdoms.

After that, a few days passed, and Davis finally opened his alchemy store. Because of the agreement he had made with Minos, he could charge prices far below the market for pills sold to the people of the Dry City.

To give you an idea of this, low-level, medium-level, and high-level grade-1 pills were generally priced in the range of 100, 500, and 1,000 low-grade crystals, respectively.

However, Minos made a deal in which he and Davis would charge only 30, 150, and 300 low-grade crystals for each pill he sold from those ratings.

That was an effort to increase the strength of the population of the Dry City and the soldiers of the Black Plain Army. This action could also attract less talented people to migrate to this region.

That was necessary since, for the labor for the fields of cultures, people with low talent were the most suitable for this type of service. After all, it would be a waste to put someone with a high aptitude to grow grains...

Minos also did not intend to do this for a long time. Instead, he planned to give subsidies to some alchemists for 20 years.

After that time, prices would increase and be closer to the values charged in other regions. However, when that happened, the Dry City would already have other factors attracting and keeping cultivators.

It didn't take long, and soon the population of the Dry City was very excited about the news, that an alchemist was opening a store in the city!

The rumor also said that the prices charged would be so low that even farmers could afford to buy spiritual pills!