A year and a half had passed since Minos returned to the Black Plain Empire.
With the changes in the Spiritual World and the Central Continent caused by the situation with the aliens, few external problems could get in the way of Minos' current projects.
Moreover, he had no interest in leaving his nation at the moment, so he had remained in his capital for the past few months, helping his experts to become stronger while strengthening himself.
All of his family, government members, and closest allies had recently been living in Dry City, which had contributed to the rapid improvement of the local forces in terms of strength but also in terms of understanding enemy technologies.
In a year and a half, they had developed their projects on many fronts!
...
Sarah and George inspected one of the empire's food storage facilities in Dry City.
Though most of the local forces were involved in projects related to alien technologies, they and many others had been busy preparing for the arrival of the ice age.
Sarah, level 76, was at her husband's side, level 89, in the central office of the city's grain storage facility, where the two of them dealt daily with problems related to the empire's goals, as well as the security of the silos.
They should have left for Sista months ago, now that the war between Maximilian and Vico was officially over and the peace treaty between the Church and the nations of the Western Region had been signed. But given the future challenges of the Black Plain Empire and Sarah's desire to be close to her family, George and she had decided to delay their trip to Sista.
Until the situation with the aliens was resolved, the two would remain with the Stuart family.
"The numbers are higher than expected," George commented to Sarah as he counted the day's results. "It looks like your father's investments are paying off. The underwater part of the empire is producing more and more food.
We may be able to exceed by more than 100% the food reserves he predicted years ago when the ice age actually arrived."
"That seems to be the case." Sarah sighed as she realized that things weren't going so badly for them despite the bleak future ahead of them.
If it hadn't been for the imminent arrival of the aliens, this information would have been enough for her to know that her family would be fine during the ice age. But since the coming age of disaster wasn't the only problem that awaited them in the future, Sarah couldn't celebrate just that.
She looked at a subordinate and asked. "How's the guard situation..."
...
Meanwhile, near the large lake in Dry City, several experts of the empire were gathered near some members of the imperial family while soldiers were running a simulation on the lake.
On the lake in question, there was a warship completely different from the army ships and another strange ship completely enclosed, with no deck or other structure open to the air.
Meanwhile, a soldier presented the two vehicles to the members of the imperial family present, including Kendrick, currently at level 69, Isabella, level 85, and the three youngest Stuart children, who were between levels 28 and 32.
"Your Highnesses, Your Majesty, before us are two prototypes created by combining the empire's most advanced navigation technologies with what we have already understood about the enemy's technologies." A level 90 soldier introduced it to the group.
"The first example before us is a model ship developed from the alien superships. It has special cannons attached to its structure and much stronger and more resistant defense arrays than the ones we had before.
Even though this ship can only be considered a low-level grade-4 vehicle at present, its defense, attack, and speed surpass what we found in the Spiritual World a few years ago in medium-level grade-4 ships."
The people who heard this smiled as they muttered about the incredible progress of the state.
Then, that army soldier gave the signal, allowing the soldiers in that prototype to attack a medium-level grade-4 target that was there to serve as a target.
Boom!
The ship's cannons fired, unleashing attacks that could threaten even low-level Demigods, showing everyone the true power of this ship.
After the attacks, it was fired at by the empire's ancient cannons, items of the same rank as this ship, which should have been able to damage at least some of its structures.
However, when the cannons attacked it, its energy barriers were merely pressurized by the attacks without showing any problems with its durability.
'Excellent!' Kendrick thought as he saw how the empire's new ship model was more advanced than the technology available around the Spiritual World.
'If the world's strongest powers hadn't made as much progress as we have, their ships would be losing to ours by now.' He thought, but without considering the possibility that the world's other powers had mastered the same or more than this state.
The rest of the group thought such things, while the children there enjoyed the simulation.
After a few moments, the level 90 man returned to what he was presenting today.
"That was the demonstration of what we have accomplished with the ships. But now I present to you the first starship of the Black Plain Empire!" He said as he gestured to the fully enclosed ship, drawing all the eyes of this group to it.
At that moment, the spaceship next to the warship began to float above the lake, with several side turbines lifting it off the lake's surface, while defensive and offensive structures similar to the ship's appeared around it.
"This ship has the same offensive and defensive level as our warship. However, its focus is on speed. It can fly five times faster than the ship!
Meanwhile, it has special structures that may eventually allow it to travel through wormholes! We're still developing the parts of this ship that relate to that, but we have high hopes of proving our theories in a few years' time."
The people next to Isabella and Kendrick clapped as their eyes lit up, seeing that their state still had much to improve and that the future might not be as bleak as many had assumed!
