Three months after the construction of the wormhole ports around the Black Plain Empire began...
On this fateful day, Minos achieved another level of advancement while cultivating in the Spatial Kingdom, reaching level 77 exactly a year and a half after his last advancement.
That impressive cultivation speed was not slowing down as he got stronger within his cultivation stage but increasing!
But this was due to his innate ability and the various giant skeletons in the Spatial Kingdom, which gave Minos a cultivation base and understanding more easily as he became more powerful.
However, Minos was not at all deluded by this. He knew that once he changed stages, his cultivation speed would drop a bit, as he would need to gather increasing amounts of energy to keep advancing.
That was by no means easy to counterbalance with what he could achieve with those skeletons since his natural ability would only evolve once more when he absorbed a Divine medicine.
So as much as his results would get better as he got a more powerful soul, it would only help him to decrease the advancement time he would need at the 9th stage. But that wouldn't make him cultivate faster than he was currently achieving.
There was a qualitative and quantitative change in stage evolutions, after all.
In any case, Minos wasn't worried about his cultivation speed at the moment, which had always been on his side, bringing good feelings to him even in difficult times.
After his advancement to level 77, he left his wives and children in the Spatial Kingdom and returned to Dry City, where he hoped to meet the envoys of the Blood Triangle Pirates.
The 10-year agreement with this group would end in a few more days, so he wanted to wait for the return of those people to finally decide what he would do about that map in the Spatial Kingdom.
And upon his return to Dry City, he was surprised by an unexpected visit!
...
After being congratulated by Mia, currently at level 64, who was there to take care of business with him, Minos ran into Eduard, bringing news of a last-minute visit.
That man dressed in the uniform of the imperial guard over his armor, level 72, stooped in front of Minos and said. "Your Imperial Majesty, envoys from the kingdom of Sista are outside the capital asking to speak with you."
"Sista?" Minos heard that with surprise since this was the home of one of the three strongest experts on the continent, the home of one of the strongest women in the Spiritual World!
He had never received contact with anyone from that state, one of the few on this continent which had not yet tried to contact him.
So he asked. "Where exactly are they? What are their strengths and numbers?"
"They were waiting for Your Majesty's reply in one of the satellite cities of Dry City. When it comes to their strength, they are three people, the weakest at level 85 and the strongest at level 88." Eduard replied, surprising Mia, some other government members, and the imperial guard.
Minos didn't worry too much upon hearing this, considering this would be his first contact with these people.
With that, he asked the people there to handle business with him to wait for him and then went next to some level 79 elders of his forces to the meeting with these three people.
...
After a few moments, Minos and six Spiritual Saints, two women and four men, came out of the protected part of Dry City, which Spiritual Sages could not access without the permission of the local forces.
As they flew toward one of the satellite cities that Eduard had indicated, the seven people quickly felt the fluctuations of those three Spiritual Sages.
"Level 88 Spiritual Sage... What an impressive aura!"
"Yes, but compared to the aura of that woman from the Flowers Kingdom, those auras paled. It's like comparing an ant and an elephant." A woman who had witnessed Hannah's passage through Dry City said to that man who was not around at that time.
Amid these people's conversation, the three Spiritual Sages of Sista realized that powerful people locally were moving towards them and set off to meet Minos.
After a few fractions of a second, the ten people found themselves amidst the local sky, with those three visitors looking interestedly at Minos.
Minos looked very young and was a level stronger than they had expected.
This emperor seemed to have just advanced a level, so one of those three people, a bald man, said. "Your Majesty Minos Stuart, I presume? It looks like you have just increased in level, so my congratulations. You are not far from reaching the 9th stage."
Minos looked at that man and the two women next to him, one level 85 and one level 87. The weaker one seemed to be the youngest one there, probably a high-ranking noblewoman or something like that.
So he was polite as he introduced himself to those people, especially to her. "That's me... I heard that you are friends from Sista, is that true? To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"
"Your Majesty is friendlier than we thought, haha." The level 87 woman said, smiling, "This old man and I are guards for the young Miss Hope Weaver." She indicated with her hands the level 85 woman standing there with them. "We are here under orders from the royal family of our state to bring our kingdom closer to the Black Plain Empire."
"Oh? Royal family?" Minos frowned at the same time as the six elders beside him, noticing that yet another high-level power was approaching them.
In particular, this power had someone at level 99, the peak of cultivation for 99.9% of the Silver and Gold talented people in this world.
"That's good to hear," Minos said. "But what exactly does the royal family expect from me?"
Hope stepped forward to answer that question, which was her responsibility as an envoy of the royal family.
She was a noble in Sista, but because of her relationship with one of the princes, she was occasionally sent to represent the interests of that family outside of her state.
That was not uncommon in the Spiritual World, and other nobles and even men related to royal and imperial successors did this kind of work for their sovereign houses.
She said. "Her Majesty wishes to cooperate with Your Majesty Minos Stuart regarding the Continental Tournament about to take place in a few decades.
Since the Black Plain Empire is an emerging state that has reached the 9th stage of cultivation, it will have minimal conditions to participate in the competition.
Her Majesty wishes our states to cooperate in sending competitors, as well as betting together on the results of this competition." She said while watching Minos in a way that any woman there would know how to identify as evaluative.
...
