The Rise of the Black Plain

Upon arriving in the Dry City, the group immediately headed back to Minos' mansion in the central part of the city. Once there, the group was received by secretary Mia and Sergeant Pyke, who had remained in charge of the city during these past days.

When Pyke and Mia saw the group return without losses after just over a week, they knew that the mission had been successful, without significant setbacks. Because of this, they were both smiling while waiting to talk to Minos and Dillian about the things that had happened in the city in the past few days.

"Welcome back, young master, butler Dillian." The two said in unison.

At that point, the soldiers who had traveled with Minos returned to their homes, with Minos, Ruth, and Dillian heading towards the mansion's interior.

After walking for a few seconds, the group finally arrived at Minos' office, where they could talk more peacefully.

Upon arriving at his office, Minos quickly sat down in his chair and blew out a breath before speaking. "Well, how were those last few days here? Did something important happen?"

Pyke, who was standing on the right side of Minos' table, said with a smile on his face. "Haha, nothing problematic has happened, young master. But several people from the Yellow City have arrived in our city in the last few days."

"Hmm, this is normal. We have already spread the rumor that there are job opportunities here in the Dry City, so many of them must have come to check this information out." Dillian said as he relaxed on one of the office sofas.

"Ehh, well, this is good. It should not be long before the migration begins. Still, it will probably happen gradually, as has been happening with the populations that lived in other parts of the Black Plain."

Minos was serious for a moment and said. "But inform these people, who are already here, about the hiring schedule. They should know when the best time to come is."

"Okay, I'll do this as soon as I get back to headquarters." Pyke responded quickly.

Minos did not want a large population to come at once. They could have many opportunities in the Dry City, but anyone interested in working in agriculture should wait to come here when the harvest is close to being done.

Thus, it would not be long before they got their jobs in the fields of the Black Plain.

Of course, if these families decided to come early, the Dry City would still welcome them with open doors, even before the next harvest occurs. Many other opportunities within the city demanded new people. So, those people who came earlier would still have something to do around here.

For example, the city currently had only one hotel. Assuredly, some hotel families in Yellow City could take advantage of this fact and increase the number of hotels in the city. This action could create a growth cycle, hiring employees, hiring builders, purchasing items in stores, food, etc., that could favor the local growth.

Only adding a new hotel in the city could stimulate the local economy. But that was just something shorter. Moreover, many services were still lacking in the Dry City, such as high-end restaurants, blacksmith shops, array shops, medicinal shops, among many other necessary activities needed in a developed city.

After Pyke gave his answer, secretary Mia then spoke for the first time. "Young master, the public library that you requested has been ready for a few days now."

"Oh! I almost forgot about it, young master. As requested, I had passed on your order to secretary Mia, but I forgot to probe how this library was doing." Dillian said with an apologetic smile.

Minos had given the order for this library to be built before he left for Stone Island months ago. He wanted to make Blue-grade techniques available so that anyone in the Dry City could learn them.

That was an essential measure for strengthening the city's population.

Although Blue-grade techniques do not pique the interest of the big powers in this part of the Central Continent, people with low talent and who are not from large families are generally limited to White-grade techniques!

That was indeed a significant disadvantage for them, and it was challenging to resolve.

To give you an idea, subordinates from large families and with Black talent generally had techniques of Blue-grade and one or two of the Black-grade classification.

Those with Blue talent generally had White-grade techniques, mostly, and Blue-grade techniques, in their minority. And those poor White talent people, even having a Blue-grade technique, could be considered a dream!

And that was also one of the reasons why low-talent people cultivate so slowly.

That was due to their low-grade cultivation techniques!

For example, a White-grade technique has 40% efficiency, while a Blue-grade technique has 50%.

With this, someone using a Blue-grade cultivation technique would be 25% faster in cultivation than someone using a White-grade cultivation technique!

Such a difference was not slight. For example, if these people cultivated for 100 years, one would gain a 25-year lead over the other!

Talent could also increase or decrease someone's cultivation speed. However, the more significant effect of cultivation speed still depended more on the quality of the trained techniques.

Because of that, people with excellent techniques could cultivate up to the 3rd stage of cultivation in a few years, but those individuals with inferior techniques had to work for decades to achieve this!

Because of this, Minos had decided to release these techniques for the inhabitants of the Dry City to increase their strength more quickly.

And as to why he didn't do it before, it was because they didn't have enough budget or even a high number of techniques of that degree.

First, their budget was limited and was focused on increasing the cultivated land, increasing the numbers of the Black Plain Army, and buying the necessary resources for the soldiers of this place.

As for the number of techniques, the Minos group originally had less than 100 of its, which was a too-small number to start a library.

But as the army was formed, the butler Dillian was collecting Blue-grade techniques from soldiers who were receiving Black-grade ones until he stores more than 1,500 techniques.

That happened about four months ago before Minos gave the order for the public library to be built.

Minos then smiled and said. "Well, there is no problem. Grandpa Dillian can pass on those Blue-grade techniques to the library. We will open it tomorrow for the population."

After saying this, the group said goodbye, and each of them went about their business. Pyke went to resolve the issue of future immigrants from Yellow City. Mia continued with her administrative services while Dillian headed towards the library that had been built, not far from the mansion.

As for Ruth, she went to her room, in the visiting area of Minos' mansion, where she stayed. She wanted to rest from the last days of the trip, taking a good nap.

After all, even for cultivators like her, it wasn't comfortable to sleep during multi-day trips.

As for Minos, he returned to the Spatial Kingdom and decided to rest for a few hours before training. It was better to sleep in a place richer in spiritual energy and a quiet place like the Spatial Kingdom.

That gave a feeling similar to sleeping in a heavenly place, with a pleasant temperature and the sound of the wind in the background.

...

A few hours passed, and the news that the Dry City public library was to be opened had already spread throughout the city.

Of course, Minos' subordinates had done this under his orders. After all, it wouldn't make sense to open a place like this if people did not know that.

And because of that, thousands of people were very anxious because, for many of them, they could finally train a Blue-grade technique!

But not only that, for many people this was also an opportunity to live more!

After all, many cultivators of this city were already at the end of their lifespan, with only the hope that they would step up before their times were over!

And with Blue-grade techniques and the living conditions of today's Dry City, many of them were hopeful of being able to extend their lives for a few more decades or even centuries.

Such a thing was also the goal of the children and grandchildren who watched their parents and grandparents dying little by little.

These people wanted to work hard to pay for the spiritual pills, which could help their ancestors increase their life expectancy.

...

Somewhere in the city, two women were talking about the recent news.

"Hey Wanda, how about we go together to the opening of the public library tomorrow?" An adult woman asked a friend after hearing the rumor with her husband.

Wanda then shook her head and said. "Hm, hm, I think we better wait a day or two. I think that place will be full tomorrow."

"We should wait to do that later."