The Rise of the Black Plain

When they arrived at the city entrance post ahead of them, Minos and Abby had tired looks on their faces when they finally passed through a large gate and stopped.

At that location, there was a tollbooth that regulated people's entry into this city, where several guards wearing the same uniform were distributed at different points.

They had the same symbol on their armor, which looked like a big blue wave in the middle of a silver circle.

That is the symbol of the Kingdom of the Waves royal family!

And apart from the guards stationed at this post, only a few people passed by, not even occupying all the soldiers there.

Soon, the spiritual beast in which the two youths were, was stopped by one of those guards. "Welcome to the Diamond City, the first border town of the Kingdom of the Waves."

"To enter our territory, each visitor must pay 500 low-grade crystals. However, if you are a royal nobleman or regular merchant, present the symbol of the power to which you belong, and we will allow your entry free of charge."

Hearing this, Abby looked at Minos for a moment, but she did nothing. She could present the Miller family symbol and enter the Kingdom of the Waves for free, but she wouldn't do anything if young Stuart didn't ask her.

"Here, a thousand crystals." Minos handed a bag with the amount charged to the guard while he was still on top of that big beast, which looked very much like a tiger.

"Okay. Your beast is too big, and you won't be able to pass through the city streets. Therefore, we advise you to leave it in the Reserve, which is 500 meters ahead."

"OK." The two agreed shortly after receiving two medallions from that man. Such a thing was the identification that they had paid to enter the kingdom and not be charged again in other cities.

Such a thing had its lifespan, and if the two took more than 20 days for them to travel the first 500 kilometers of the kingdom's border areas, they would have to pay the fee again. That's because such medallions would degrade in that period.

As for such an area, well, these were the places where there were border posts. In other words, in every city less than 500 kilometers from the border, except for places like the Yellow City, there would be posts like the one that the two had stopped.

That was the typical border configuration in this region, being so in all local states.

After that, Minos and Abby left that big beast in an appropriate place and hired the service of a local coachman. Unlike the Yellow City, this place could already be considered a medium-sized town, with more than 250,000 inhabitants!

That's why Minos couldn't just walk around without knowing the place. And the two wanted to find an inn to stay, and the quickest way to do that was to rent a carriage at this location.

...

"Good evening. Where should I take you?" The old man controlling the carriage that Minos had rented asked after the couple had entered it.

"Good evening, ehh, we're passing through here, and we don't know the city. Please take us to the best local inn." Minos promptly responded while he had the beautiful Abby leaning against his shoulder.

"Oh? I see, hehe, I know the right place."

And as they moved around the city, Minos could see that despite being a place with an extensive area, there were few buildings, and the population density wasn't big at all.

In fact, this place looked a lot like the City of Waters, as if it were the larger version of that place.

There were better parts, closer to the main streets and closer to the city center. But, at the same time, many other places had just ordinary houses.

It was nothing like what had been in the Dry City before Minos' arrival, but it wasn't much better than the reality of the City of Waters.

Apparently, this place shouldn't be too developed.

"Sir, I heard from the guard at the tollbooth that this place is called Diamond City, but this place doesn't look like a place with mineral wealth." Minos said, trying to learn something about this place.

"Hehe, a lot of people say the same thing when they come here for the first time. But, in fact, the city's name is not related to the presence of diamonds in the region, but rather a historical fact!"

"Oh? Can you tell me about this?"

"Of course, hehe. I don't know how true this rumor is. Still, it is said that about 80,000 years ago, Diamond City was a place like the Yellow City and was not very attractive to the kingdom."

"However, at that time, a powerful cultivator had fought against a mighty spiritual beast at this location. According to the stories, that individual could even travel through space!" He said with a gleam in his eyes.

Talking about the stories of his homeland to travelers who passed through here wasn't bad. This old man had always liked his passengers' expressions of surprise and sometimes laughter, so he told them all with a smile on his face.

"To sum up, by the end of that fight, both sides had tied and died at that spot. And although the fight was incredible, the main point was what happened afterward, when the two corpses fell to the ground, close to the local spiritual root."

"Strangely, within a few days of their death, a crystal that looked like a giant diamond had formed over their bodies."

"Oh? I see…" Minos muttered in a low voice. He then asked. "After that, this place started to get better, right?"

"Exactly!" The coachman said excitedly. "It is said that after 30 years, that crystal had disappeared from the city's soil, and the local spiritual energy had increased, becoming the same as in many other regions of this state."

"Because of that, the city was renamed with that name."

'Interesting, it seems that the local spiritual root has completely absorbed the spiritual power from the bodies of these two opponents…' Minos thought to himself, remembering the memories of Henricus Longos.

Naturally, when a cultivator died, his soul would dissipate, and his body would be left behind. But while the spiritual energy in the soul would spread through the atmosphere, that part stored in the fleshy body would be utterly concentrated in it!

And such a thing could serve as a 'fertilizer' for spiritual roots!

Such a thing would only have significant effects if the corpses were of high-level beings, like those from the Spiritual Sage stage and so on. Below that, the amount of energy in a cultivator's body would not be enough to stimulate external changes by feeding the spiritual roots with the energy contained in it.

'It seems that the spiritual roots present in the north of the Central Continent suffer from the same problem as that of the Dry City…' Minos thought about it for a moment.

If his theory was correct, then the corpse of the cultivator and beast that died here had functioned as an 'amateur' version of what he'd done in the Dry City. That had resulted in a small-scale recovery of the local spiritual root, allowing this site to improve its spiritual density.

However, this had not completely healed the local root, given that this site did not develop further after thousands of years.

But that was expected. After all, even though cultivators at the 9th stage have abundant amounts of energy in their bodies, that's only a tiny fraction of what a Divine-grade medicine has!

And assuredly, the energy of these two corpses had not fully healed the local spiritual root!

'Hmm, as much as the local spiritual root has not been completely recovered, after the Dry City's fully recovered, maybe it will be shared with this town...' Minos thought to himself, already leaving some mental notes in his mind.

'If that happens, I will have to annex this place to my territory...'

After that, the coachman of that carriage continued to tell Minos about some local facts while Abby listened to everything, resting her head on her partner's shoulder.

But this town wasn't that big, and in a few minutes, Minos and Abby had already registered at an inn in the center of Diamond City.

This place couldn't be considered the best Minos had ever been in, but it was still a little better than the hotels this young man had visited in the City of Waters.

Besides having a good number of rooms, there were options for paying more and getting some comforts. Other than that, the view of the city, despite not being one of the most beautiful, was still quite good from this location, from where one could see almost the entire urban perimeter.

But due to the many whale oil lamps in the streets, many sections were darkened, and the local smell reminded Minos of the old Dry City.

Anyway, after settling into one of the inn's rooms, Minos and Abby quickly began to cultivate their energy, something that they hadn't done since the beginning of the day.

The journey ahead of them didn't have many cities, and they would have to travel through the forests for a few days until they reached the next urban concentration. But this was perfect for Minos, who wanted to train during this period, and Abby, who would start training with him!