After seeing his grandfather departing, Minos returned to his government headquarters, intending to get on with some administrative matters before leaving for Vogel.
In the meantime, since he would be in Dry City for a few hours, perhaps a few days, he sent that high-level Spiritual Saint to the Spatial Kingdom.
Several other high-level elders from the Gray Clouds Sect were training there, while soldiers from the Elite Squad were around as usual.
Minos did not stay at that cultivation shrine and soon were at his imperial palace, with only Sarah there to accompany him since his wives were busy with other things.
Abby and Ruth were focused on cultivating to reach level 70 as soon as possible. As for Gloria, she went to settle matters of the Spiritual Church for her domain, the northern region.
The Spiritual Church arm for the northern region had grown recently because of the Black Plain Empire's support for these members, who were all part of Gloria's faction.
Due to this support, over 200 Spiritual Emperors emerged from these ranks. At the same time, the total number of Church members in the region had reached the 100,000 mark!
That was a higher number than the number of Church experts in the pre-ascension of the Black Plain, something that had never happened in recent years due to the death of experts from that organization.
Some outposts of that institution had suffered from the attacks of Abe's group and the cleansing by Gloria after the establishment of the Black Plain as an independent state.
As all the forces in the region had begun to receive people into their forces, the main one being the forces of Minos, the Church had faced difficulties in attracting people regionally in recent years.
Because of this, only now, with the post-defeat peace of the terrorists and the continued evolution of the Black Plain, had these posts gotten more recruits to increase their numbers to such an extent.
Because of this also, Gloria had more work and had to deal with even more subordinates in Dry City than before.
The Spiritual Church did not have a post in that city yet, because of the agreement Minos had signed with Gloria. But soon, the 20-year period that he had asked her to give would end, and she was already planning to establish a local post.
Because of this, she had little time to be at her husband's side in running the Empire, and only Sarah was at her father's side, watching how to run this state.
Sarah was already over 7, so she was well-behaved beside her father, sitting on the throne of one of her mothers, dressed in a long, white dress with blue details.
She had a smile on her face, happy because she had heard that her father had reached the 8th stage on this day.
She already understood this world's cultivation ranks and basics as she had been studying at the Dry City Preparatory Academy for over a year. As such, she understood her father's power more than ever and was immensely proud of him.
'In a few years, I will start cultivating as well... I wonder what my talent level will be. What about my Physique? Do I have a good innate ability?' She wondered, longing for her 10th birthday to come soon.
Meanwhile, Minos had no idea what was on his daughter's mind. He was just paying attention to the words of the soldier presenting a recent point regarding the local forces.
"... In addition to these army numbers, Your Majesty, the empire's core currently has about 5 million Spiritual Kings and 6,000 professionals available to vie for army slots."
"Every month, more Spiritual Kings come from the other states in the region, but also Albano and Rosser. So, soon, we will have to increase our numbers to keep the borders secure."
These two high-level states were the ones sending the most migrants to the Black Plain after those from the northern region. As for Blackrock and Vogel, the former did not border the empire, so fewer people from that place went to the state of Minos. As for the latter, this empire's territory lost a few of its inhabitants to the core of the Black Plain because it was already part of this state.
Some believed that with the strengthening of the Stuart family, Vogel would continue to be part of the empire, so they would not need to migrate to take advantage of opportunities.
And since the men of Minos did not count Vogel's numbers as part of the empire's numbers, in relation to these expert numbers, those Vogel inhabitants did not appear in the data cited.
In any case, the present Black Plain already had about 1.5 billion inhabitants, counting Vogel, excluding that state, over 700 million. On the other hand, the empire already had an average strength of level 50, still a bit below the average power of the Spiritual World.
In any case, the state of Minos was making strides towards becoming a high-level empire, similar to the Flaming Empire.
There was still a long way to go, of course, but considering that not long ago, this place did not even have Spiritual Emperors, and now it had thousands, the members of the local government were already predicting a step change in this state before long.
They already envisioned the day when the Black Plain Empire would surpass the Flaming Empire!
Minos also had this in mind, something he had even been using to compete with Isabella, his girlfriend in that state.
She was currently at level 73, having improved slightly in the last few years due to Minos' constant improvements.
She loved him and did not want to be left behind by him or his other women. Thus, she had been training hard to be able to at least maintain her advantage until the end of this stage.
As for her state's competition with Minos, Isabella did not have much to do about it. The Flaming Empire was already very close to its peak strength and did not have much to do to improve.
The Black Plain Empire, on the other hand, had a lot of room to improve, so even the heiress of that place felt that she had no chance against Minos' territory.
Luckily, they had a good relationship and would not have to worry about becoming enemies of Emperor Stuart.
Anyway, Minos continued in that place, being updated on some local matters, giving orders about where the Bank of the Black Plain crystals should go and sorting things out before his trip to Vogel.
...
While Minos was working in Dry City, Mortimer had just opened his eyes to where he had spent the whole last year in seclusion.
After Gavin's eye transplant surgery, this man had regained his powers and had begun to get used to those powerful eyes.
In this instant, after a long time of trying to control them, he finally felt such an affinity that it allowed him, for the first time to have control over Gavin's visual abilities!
He looked at his fists and clenched them, smiling immensely, as he felt that his cultivation was at the limit of the 8th stage.
With that feeling, he muttered. "Time to try my breakthrough to the 9th stage!"
