Business on the Stone Island

Out of the two beauties in the room, Minos recognized the one who was his commercial ally within Stone Island, Elen Nash. However, the other was a beautiful woman who Minos did not know and had an unrivaled appearance and a breathtaking figure that could captivate anyone who looked at her.

At that moment, Elen welcomed him with a wide smile on her face, "It is good to see you again, Mr. Minos. Let me introduce you to my business partner and friend, Elena Neel."

Elena also greeted him after a short introduction from her friend, "Oh! So, you're the young Minos that Elen talks so much about!"

Minos responded politely, "Mnn, nice to meet you."

On the side, a slight bush could be seen on Elen's cheeks.

Soon after, Elena tried to gauge the strength of her friend's commercial ally. At first glance, she was sure he didn't seem as weak as Elen had described to her before.

'Ehh? Level 33. This is definitely not weak for someone at his age. Was Elen fooling me?' Elena thought of taking a glance at her friend through the corner of her eyes after being surprised by Minos' current strength level.

But then she suddenly remembered something that Elen had said to her not long ago and her eyes widened as she stared at Minos.

'Wait a minute… Didn't he just start cultivating a year ago? What kind of monster is he?' The more she thought, the more she was shocked by this kind of cultivation speed!

At that moment, she asked Elen with a whisper, "Are you sure about the information related to him? Look at his current strength. It doesn't seem like anything you said to me."

"Of course I am. Eduard researched this himself," Elen whispered back to her friend.

Soon, she also gauged the difference in Minos' strength during the period that they hadn't seen each other. 'Unbelievable, level 33, how did he do this?'

Meanwhile, Minos and Ruth had already settled into the room while the soldiers stood outside waiting. Elen then exclaimed with a surprised face, "Mr. Minos, you have a really incredible speed in cultivation. I've never seen anyone this swift before!"

Minos feigned indifference and started talking, "Mnn, I want to introduce you to Ruth. Although she is not an ally of mine, she is going to accompany me for a while, due to certain reasons..."

Minos then continued to reveal the reason for his visit after the three young women exchanged some polite words, "Ms. Elen must already know the reason for my visit today. I want to start trading my products on Stone Island in the next three months."

"Oh! That was a lot faster than I anticipated. But how much are we talking about? Considering the time since the plantation started in the Black Plain, there shouldn't be much of a big harvest," Elen said with surprise, staring at Minos earnestly.

Minos acknowledged, saying, "Mnn, it's true. At the moment, we are only able to plant 100 hectares of land. As for the numbers, by this point, we can only supply  around 200 tons, which consists of grains, cereals, and spiritual fruits, all that with a high spiritual concentration."

"What? Cultures with high spiritual concentration! Are you kidding?" Elena exclaimed in disbelief and jumped up from the sofa.

Her reaction was pretty obvious since foods with a high spiritual concentration were planted only in those territories with a high spiritual density. And the Black Plain was definitely not that kind of place. In fact, no region in the north of the Central Continent had spiritual density enough to be able to cultivate crops with high spiritual concentration.

Elen was also taken aback by what she had just heard. It was just unbelievable. However, if what Minos said were true, she could become one of the few people on Stone Island who could provide such items.

Besides, the quantity that Minos had stated was also not small!

This was because foods with a high spiritual concentration were generally imported from other regions of the Central Continent, which would always result in limited availability in the market. 

Ruth, who was sitting calmly in an armchair while observing the situation, was also impressed. Although she noticed numerous crops being planted in the Black Plain, she did not bother herself to probe the spiritual quality of these plants. Therefore, Minos' statement about this fact had also left her surprised.

Elen asked Minos with stars in her eyes, "Mr. Minos, is this really true? I don't want to doubt you, but what you said is simply very unbelievable for anyone who gets to know of this within our region."

"Mnn, I understand your skepticism," Minos nodded. "But rest assured, I wasn't kidding when I said any word. However, I have a request for you. I don't want my items to be sold at prices much higher than the crops of medium concentration, which is similar in the case for items imported from other regions."

The three women in the room stared at Minos while he continued.

"I have my reasons for this, but I want you to know that I want to sell my items to ordinary people as well, and not just to the wealthiest families."

"Alright," Elen nodded, "Because the Black Plain isn't as far away as the other regions from which the Stone Island normally imports many of such resources, the prices charged for these items would already be lower."

"But can you tell me why you demand that? You could earn a lot more if it were sold at a higher cost, even if not equal to the imported items," Elen asked curiously.

Minos replied with an expressionless face, "In fact, my region is currently suffering from a severe lack of labor. This is also one of the most pressing matters at the moment and if there is no population increase in the Black Plain soon, within a maximum of 6 months, we will no longer be able to increase our production. So, this is a way to attract some less talented people to my region."

Elen narrowed her eyes and thought to herself, 'With such a low spiritual density, the population of the Black Plain has hardly grown much in a long time…'

Suddenly, Elena then remembered something and said with a smile, "Perhaps I might know of a quick way to help you increase the population of your territory.

In addition to the Black Plain region in the Brown Kingdom, there are two small territories, each in the Kingdom of the Waves and the Cromwell Kingdom, which lie on the border with the Black Plain.

These two territories are similarly weak in spiritual energy because of their proximity to the Black Plain, resulting in their weaker populations as well.

With that, you can try to attract people from these places to your territory by offering employment opportunities. After a while of knowing about your plans, they will naturally migrate as well, since their territories do not offer as many opportunities compared to the current Black Plain."

Elena then took a breath for a second and continued speaking, "I suggest that you start with the territory within the Kingdom of Waves, as there is a strong criminal presence, and so it's likely that the inhabitants of that place would be willing to leave. You would just have to eliminate these criminal groups, and many people would emigrate to other regions. If you know how to attract them, then they might as well go to the Black Plain."

'Oh! So, are these places close by? Since Dry City hardly interacts with other regions, I did not receive any such information,' Minos thought to himself as his lips slowly curved upwards.

That was great news for him. If this situation was just as Elena said, he could attract these people to the Black Plain without drawing much attention from the powers in the region.

After all, if these places were only slightly better than the Black Plain, the most prominent families in their respective kingdoms definitely wouldn't care about those places, just as they did in the Brown Kingdom.

Hell, the situation of the Black Plain was so bad within the Brown Kingdom that the prominent families or even the royal family went for years without getting any information from that place!

In fact, Minos did not know, but the last time King Brown sought to know any information about the Black Plain was over seven years ago when the territory was allocated to Minos after the death of Albert Stuart!

Elen then made another offer to Minos, "I know this information is tempting to you, but for that, you will still have to face these groups of outlaws to achieve this. However, I can help you attract people to Dry City from other regions within the north of the Central Continent."

"It's alright, facing these groups of bandits could be a good military exercise for my army. As for your suggestion, this also interests me. However, I doubt that these two territories will be able to satisfy my demand for labor for a long time," Minos replied with a smile.

He then remembered something and said, "Okay, we also can't use the port of the Maritime City to transport my products."

Both the women frowned while Elen asked in confusion, "Why not? If so then where are we going to transport your items from?"

Minos smiled and replied, "I plan on building a port somewhere else on the Black Plain coast. In regards, well, I don't want any of the great forces of the Brown Kingdom to know about the development of my territory."

Upon hearing this, Elena frowned once again, thinking about the consequences of Minos' actions. She then asked in a solemn tone, "Are you thinking of rebelling?"

When she said that, Elen was scared, and so was Ruth. They couldn't believe that Minos had such an ambitious plan. 'Does he want to create his own kingdom?' the two thought to themselves.