After saying goodbye to the two brothers, Minos and his wives left the Walker family's royal palace and flew to where their mount should be waiting.
"Minos, what will we do with Abby? We can't travel with her like this..." Gloria commented without giving it much thought.
He smiled at her. "Don't worry. As soon as we leave Athela, I will take her to the Spatial Kingdom and leave her in our room."
"We'll be on our way together after that."
"All right, then." She commented in a low voice while already thinking about their trip to the Flaming Empire. "How many days will we stay in Dry City before our trip? For that matter, how will we make the journey there? There are some pretty quick methods of getting us to the capital."
Ruth said to her in Minos' place. "Minos likes to sightsee on his trips, so he naturally wants to travel slowly."
"Sightsee?" He repeated her. "I like to fight opponents on my way! And what's wrong with seeing some different places while training?"
"That's what I said. He likes to train while traveling." Ruth commented with a smile, looking at Gloria.
"And where will we start our sightseei... our training trip, honey?" The beautiful redhead asked as the three of them flew through Athela.
He answered her. "We will depart the region through the Cromwell Kingdom, traveling through Vogel. We will take the chance to approach the royal family and try to kidnap someone capable of speaking."
"After we resolve that, we will continue traveling through Rosser and then enter the Flaming Empire through the territory of the Holy Sect and then leave for the capital. We will only stop by the Gray Clouds Sect to get to know that place after all this."
"Oh? It looks like you've already thought of everything..." Ruth commented.
"Hmmm." He nodded. "We will also take the opportunity to meet some branches of the Spiritual Church on the way to the empire. Let's start our connection with them for the sake of the future."
"How do you intend to do that? Aren't we too weak for that at the moment?" Gloria looked at him.
"Weak? With spiritual crystals, that has no influence." He laughed. "In any case, we won't start our relationship with these Spiritual Church ranks by already going to talk to their leaders. First, we will bring medium and high-level Spiritual Emperors to our side."
"They will have more influence in the short time, but they will be more available to associate with Black Plain."
"Oh?" She opened her mouth, liking how Minos handled this, which was even a little better than she had planned for her rise in the Church.
"What will we do about these enemy states of the Flaming Empire? That problematic relationship of them may hinder our advances with the Church branches of that area." She commented. "Our branches have never been very united because of this."
"That will be resolved in time." He looked into her eyes and said. "When they realize they are in the same boat, those problems will be over."
"Our boat?" Ruth laughed because of how Minos saw things...
"Exactly!"
...
A month and a half later...
After traveling without much haste, but also without being slow, Minos' group arrived in Dry City early this morning!
Abby was still in an unconscious state within the Spatial Kingdom, so Minos arrived in his city and received a glorious welcome from his forces, accompanied only by Ruth and Gloria.
In doing so, he discovered that some visitors had arrived in Dry City while others had left due to their advances. That was the case with Jade, who had advanced to level 60 in this period, leaving this city shortly before her husband arrived to begin his seclusion there.
On the other hand, Minos was surprised to learn that one more of his soldiers had broken through to the 7th stage, Elena, that woman so close to him.
Besides that, almost none of Minos' high-level soldiers or even allies and vassals had made advances in this period, so he did not notice anything significant in his arrival.
But not only he but Ruth and Gloria had noticed during their trip that the Black Plain had developed more in the months they had been away.
More cities and green regions were visible from the skies of these areas, demonstrating the population advances that kept happening.
And it was not long before they put their experiences observing this territory during their return to the test along with the soldiers and members of the local government.
...
"Your Grace, we have officially reached the 40 million population mark in the main area of the Black Plain and 80 million in our entire state." A local government member proudly said.
"Hmm, we are growing at an accelerated rate..."
"At this rate, we'll reach our neighbors' mark in less than five years!"
"Hehe, we'll be the largest state in population very soon!"
Several comments spread throughout the royal throne hall, where Minos and his two wives were receiving the updates.
He then said. "That's good. We will keep the migrations as planned until we reach 200 million inhabitants. But once that happens, I want to close the Black Plain."
"Oh? What does Your Grace have in mind?" A member of the government asked.
"Once we have all the labor needed to develop our territory, there will no longer be a need for us to bring ordinary people here. Then we will make it harder for them to migrate to the Black Plain to improve our state's quality." He said.
The people in that place nodded in agreement, aware that such a thing was necessary.
"But we will begin our development projects outside the Black Plain once we reach that mark." He continued. "We'll start that on Stone Island, then the Kingdom of the End, and the other states after that."
"That way, we will give the regional population reason not to depend solely on the Black Plain and come under our migratory controls."
"We will do that, Your Grace!" Some men there said, surprised at Minos' commitment to maintaining law and order by developing other parts of the region.
After a few more minutes of conversation, one of them brought up an important subject for discussion. "Your Grace, the first Giant Turtles are already on the Black Plain."
"Oh?" The two women next to Minos opened their mouths in surprise at Albano's efficiency in sending those creatures.
"That was quick." He smiled.
"Hmm, we have already started doing business with that kingdom, and the three turtles in our state are already working with the army forces." A soldier reported.
"They fly a few kilometers above the security area of the capital's belt of satellite cities, Your Grace."
"That's good." Minos nodded as he looked at that person. "I'll be leaving soon to travel to the Flaming Empire, so it is better that this defensive line is already working."
"Will you travel already?" Abby's father, who was also there, asked in surprise since he already knew about his daughter's situation. "What about Abby?"
"She will be going with me. I think she will finish her 'seclusion' before my group leaves the northern region. So, she won't miss anything." He said as he looked at that man.
"Sigh..."
'I was more concerned about talking to her before she left for such a dangerous place...' Eliot sighed after hearing Minos' response.
Minos then stood up and said. "Anyway, I want the regional leaders in my state to come over here because I have something to talk to them about." He ordered. "Also invite the highest level members of the regional branches of the Church. I have things to talk to them about as well."
"Yes, Your Grace!"
