The Rise of the Black Plain

Two days later...

Some people investigating the current situation in the northeasternmost area of the Western Empire were already considering the hypothesis that Minos had recently acted in his state.

But the evidence this was indeed the deeds of Emperor Stuart was small, with large margins of error for someone to expose their thoughts to people of importance in this state.

So even with some individuals being suspicious of that fellow from the northern region, his name was still not being spoken among the investigators of both the imperial guard and the Elemental Sect.

Precisely because of this, the Minos observers investigating him were far away from this state, still investigating the possible whereabouts of this emperor in the Black Plain Empire's allied states.

As for the Travisani family investigators looking for what had happened to the map of the Seraphim Ancient Sarcophagus, they were still in the early stages of their investigation, so it would take some more time before they connected certain coincidences...

In any case, even the Spiritual Church had already noticed the strange movement of Vico's imperial family and was beginning its own investigations.

They had no way of knowing what had happened, as Vico knew because the only tracing item on that map was in the hands of House Travisani. In any case, even without such a thing, the many observers from the Church and Pirates of the Blood Triangle had a lot of information, and it wouldn't take them long to discover something very important to them!

Amidst all this, the Black Plain continued to develop under the pressures of the major factions of the Spiritual Church, while Minos and Gloria's faction was working to gain alliances with others of similar size to theirs.

Meanwhile, Minos had finally bypassed the sea area with no powerful beast territories to enter one of the most mystical and dangerous places in the Spiritual World!

...

At this moment, Minos was sailing along the southeastern edge of the Ancestral Sea, inside the cockpit of his yacht, while cautiously scanning the surroundings.

It was nighttime, but danger lurked in these waters at any time of day. Therefore, while traveling at maximum speed on his yacht, he had tens of cubic kilometers of space under observation in his surroundings.

Probing the underwater world was by no means easy due to the characteristics of water in the Spiritual World. But there were ways of trying to do it for one not to be totally surprised by what lay below his vessel.

Minos was doing this right now, looking out for powerful beasts but also underwater cities.

The underwater communities were very diverse, with populations even more impressive than the human ones in the Central Continent.

To give you an idea, while a continent as large as this had a few tens of billions of humans, the Ancestral Sea alone had at least hundreds of billions of living beings!

Obviously, not all of them were powerful. An example of this was the shrimps, limited by level 59, but their species alone had more members in that sea than all the humans in the Black Plain Empire!

That was only one kind of underwater beast, but there were hundreds of thousands of species and races in the seas around this world!

Some were more powerful, so they had fewer members. Still, this was a gigantic habitat not only in space but also in population.

Due to these species' different characteristics and needs, there were underwater cities where beings of the most diverse races could trade.

Usually, these places were located on gigantic coral reefs, but there were artificial cities in the depths of the seas, places not so different from human cities.

Some beings were gigantic, and interacting with one would be difficult for humans 100 times smaller. So many creatures transformed themselves into their humanoid sea versions and used these artificial cities to do their proper exchanges and interactions with other beings.

Due to the size of these places, which in some cases could contain tens of millions of inhabitants, the vigilance of the leading beasts of these places was strong, and any craft in the vicinity could attract their attention.

Because of this, Minos also had to be vigilant for underwater cities, which were usually not so far away from where human vessels sailed.

Usually, artificial cities of sea beasts grew in all directions, unlike human cities that didn't go very far into the sky.

Because of this, there were huge populations in these places, but also, the cities of these creatures came close to sea level.

Minos didn't have a map of the underwater world, so he had to constantly monitor his surroundings.

'Hmm, there's nothing in the surroundings.' He thought as he sensed nothing of interest nearby other than some small low-level sea creatures and the phytoplankton.

He continued sailing for a while longer until a craft appeared on the horizon, traveling toward Minos.

He was attentive, and it didn't take long for him to pick up an artifact useful for observing things far away, and he looked at that vessel.

It was different from his yacht. It seemed to be made of wood. Also, it had items in its construction that made it look like an entire tree had been turned into a ship.

It was very strange and unique, but also striking of a certain race from the Spiritual World.

"Elves?" Minos wondered as he saw that ship, frowning, for he did not expect to find elves precisely in this place.

He was the ruler of the Central Continent's northern region, an area not so far from Elves Island.

Elves even frequently passed through his domains, in particular through the areas of End and Snow. But Minos had never encountered any being of this species himself in his short life.

So when he came across what he thought was an elven vessel, he became more serious.

Elves were not beings who would battle for no reason or initiate world domination. They even had characteristics necessary for this, such as longevity and power, two of the things they were best at in this world.

No race in this great world could live as long or have as much talent as the elven race!

But even with the possibility, these creatures did not start wars of conquest and much preferred to live on their island, in that natural paradise.

Only Elves Island could compare 100% to Spatial Kingdoms in the Spiritual World and still have some advantages over these alternative spaces!

Because of the superiority of the Elves Island over the rest of the Spiritual World, most beings of this species despised the rest of the Spiritual World and only valued the creations of the Gods, of whatever races.

But in addition, these beings were arrogant and prejudiced, the kind that would only respect those with talent close to their own or of equivalent power.

So it was by no means easy to interact with someone of this race, which was Minos' reason for concern when he identified that elven ship!

...