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Zumm!

'Ow! Hell, I thought I was going to die,' thought one of the soldiers as a trickle of blood dripped from his left ear. He could hear a humming sound all around him while experiencing a feeling of imbalance and blurred vision.

"Lathar! Lathar! Look over here!" screamed one of the soldiers with fewer injuries to a teammate who was lying on the floor with a stunned expression and blood running out of his mouth and both ears.

"Hey man, are you okay?" the soldier asked as he looked at Lathar.

"Cough, cough. Ah! I'm fine, Kallus. I just need some time to recover from the shock," Lathar said weakly and with a pale face as if he had been zapped out of energy.

The same thing was happening with the other of Minos' soldiers. Half of them had been fighting protector Philip just before the guy sacrificed himself, causing them to be more exposed to what happened.

Of the 11 people in their group, five were utterly exhausted with few injuries and Minos was one of them. Though the rest suffered internal injuries, nothing was too serious. All they would need to do was to rest for a few days before they would be fully recovered.

"That guy scared me a little bit! Even after being exhausted, he could cause damage to this degree!" said Pyke, narrowing his eyes. He was one of the most injured among the group and was shocked by what had happened.

'Hmm, it was truly awful. I hope to never encounter this type of enemy in the future...' Minos thought. Even with his Golden-grade defense technique, Indestructible Body, he was unable to withstand the blast's power, it was to the point where several bruises could be seen on his body through his torn clothes.

"All of you, rest as much as you can. We will stay here until tomorrow. After that, we will return to the city of Portland. I will also give you the due rewards for this fight later," Minos spoke aloud for all of them to hear.

All the ten people were delighted to know that they would have time to rest and still receive rewards.

Meanwhile, as the soldiers were gradually recovering their energy, the young Stuart started walking towards the bodies of the three previously killed people.

He first went to Darell's headless body, which was just a few feet away from the crater formed there. There the body didn't look in any good condition after being so close to the source of the blast.

When Minos looked closely, he noticed a silver ring on one of the few fingers on Darell's right hand which remained.

It was his spatial ring!

There were several types of spatial rings in this world, but the main difference between them was the storage volume that each could provide. However, even those rings with lower capacities could be considered a rare item in this region of the Central Continent.

Generally, other than the children of the great noble families in the region, such belonging was only commonly seen in cultivators of the 5th stage of cultivation, Spiritual General or above. That was because these rings were not cheap for the ones at a lower level.

However, it was not common to see the cultivators who had just started their journey in cultivation to possess a spatial right, since it normally would take years for them to acquire one.

Anyway, Minos kept searching for the remaining two bodies, but there was no spatial ring. 'Tsk, as expected… These two are just subordinates to the Silva family and were only at levels 41 and 42.' Minos thought as he was done searching them, other than the bags with a few dozen of low-grade crystals, there was nothing they had which caught his eye.

Not finding any spatial rings from the other two, Minos had lost hope of finding one from Protector Philip as well, nonetheless, he still wanted to give it a try.

Minos then walked to the crater that had been formed after Philip's sacrifice and began searching for any remnant. This is because even low-level rings had an excellent resistance and could withstand the degree of explosions as the one that had occurred here.

Minos continued his search until he saw something shining close to the waterfall.

It was a spatial ring! 

'Oh, what a good surprise! It is no wonder that he seemed to be the leader of the group!'

After collecting the two rings that were now without any owners, Minos sat on a rock next to the waterfall intending to look at the contents of the rings.

This was not much of a difficult thing to do since the rings were generally linked to their owners' spirituality, and it was not hard to check their contents. However, once the cultivator died, his belongings inside spatial rings could easily be 'recovered' by others.

Minos then decided to start checking the protector Philip's ring thinking that it was best to leave the 'main course' last which consisted of Darell's ring…

'Hmm, here are 3,000 low-level crystals… Two techniques of Black-grade!

Wow! This guy should have good contacts within the Silva family to achieve such a thing.' Minos thought to himself as he searched the inside of Philip's ring.

It didn't amaze him much seeing the wealth as this amount of crystals was not much, but the presence of two Black-grade techniques surprised him since Philip was only at level 43 and a subordinate at that. 

At this level, even having one single technique of this quality could already be considered a lot for someone who was just a subordinate.

Albert Stuart himself, a subordinate to the royal family, had only three techniques when he was at level 51! And for a person like Philip, it could take a few decades to reach that level, so his situation was quite bizarre.

Additionally, with more search, Minos also found three spiritual weapons in Philip's spatial ring, but they were all medium-level grade-1...

'I will give these weapons and techniques to the Black Plain Army. It does not yet have a good variety of techniques or a good amount of weapons...' Minos thought.

After that, he started to examine Darell's spatial ring.

'Haha, as expected, this Darell Silva was wealthy.' Minos burst out laughing when he saw the contents of the ring.

There were 400 medium-grade crystals, 20,000 low-grade crystals, four Black-grade techniques, some grade-1 spiritual pills, and three high-level grade-1 spiritual weapons.

The patriarch of the Silva family was indeed quite generous to his son!

'Ah! So, that's why he can't keep bidding. He didn't have any more medium-grade crystals...' Minos thought with a smile.

After that, he started analyzing the four techniques that young Darell possessed, of which, one specialized in cultivation, two in attack, and one in defense.

'How peculiar, this guy learned two attack techniques, while only being in the 4th stage of cultivation…' Minos was surprised when he noticed the abnormality.

Such a thing was not expected since normally when being at the lowest levels, learning techniques for different purposes was much safer than focusing on a single specialization trait. Only cultivators who did not focus on battles, such as alchemists, and others used to have this type of configuration.

Among the warriors, the ones like Minos and most people in this world, the common thing was to have a cultivation technique, an attack technique, a defense technique, and a movement or support technique by the time the cultivator reached the 4th stage of cultivation.

'Hm, this must be because the Silva family is a militaristic force that believes only in force. This must be the reason…' Minos thought as he clicked his tongue.

…

After a while, Minos turned to the group of soldiers who had started to gradually recover by now.

He then focused on those who were most hurt and said, "The young master of the Silva family had five spiritual pills specialized in recovery. I will give them to you since you are hurt the most. This will help you recover more quickly."

Upon hearing this, these five soldiers quickly rejoiced. Because of the degree of injuries they had received, it was not hard to say that they would have to go through quite a trouble for the following few days and using such a pill would recover most of their injuries in a matter of moments!

"I'm going to give these two spatial rings to Sergeants, Pyke and Lathar. But the rest of you will be given your rings when the Black Plain Army develops a little more and acquires at least an array master and a grade-2 blacksmith."

"It may take a while, but we will get there," Minos said confidently before scanning each of the soldiers.

After saying this, he distributed the spiritual crystals that he had plundered from the bodies of the young Darell's three protectors among the ten. There were just over four thousand crystals, which were duly distributed among the ten men.

It didn't take long, and the waterfall at which the group was standing fell silent again and at the same time, the eleven men started cultivating peacefully.

…

Meanwhile, in the Maritime City, a white eagle stood outside the town.

A young woman with black hair approached the beast and caressed its neck.

"Come on, White. Now we are going to travel by sea. I want to see this Stone Island. They say that it is a decent place near this northern region of the Central Continent," Ruth said softly while stroking her huge spiritual beast.

She had stopped at the Maritime City to rest before finally starting to cross the sea. And although she didn't like being sent to places with low spiritual density, this was a mission given to her by her master, so she wanted to make the most out of this trip as this was her first time doing something like this and try to enjoy this trip to the fullest.