Upon arriving in Dry City, the group immediately made their way back to Minos' mansion in the central part of the city. After arriving there, the group was received by Secretary Mia and Sergeant Pyke, who had been in charge of the city during these past few days.
When Pyke and Mia saw the group return unharmed after just over a week, they knew that the mission had been a success without any significant setbacks. Because of this, they were both smiling as they waited to talk to Minos and Dillian about the things that had happened in the city during their absence for the past few days.
"Welcome back, young master, Butler Dillian," the two greeted in unison.
By now, the soldiers who accompanied Minos had returned to their homes, while Minos, Ruth, and Dillian proceeded toward the mansion's interior.
After having a brief walk, the group finally arrived at Minos' office, where they could talk more peacefully.
Upon arriving at his office, Minos quickly sat down in his chair and blew out a breath before speaking. "Well, how were those last few days here? Did something important happen?"
Pyke, who stood on the right side of Minos' table said with a smile, "Haha, nothing problematic has happened, young master. However, we've had several people arriving in our city from Yellow City in the last few days."
"Hmm, this is to be expected. We have already spread the rumor that there are many job opportunities here in our Dry City, so many of them must have come to confirm this information," Dillian chimed as he leaned while relaxing on one of the office sofas.
Minos nodded as he remarked, "Ehh, well, this is good. It should not be long before the migration begins. Still, it will probably happen gradually, as it has been happening with the populations that lived in other parts of the Black Plain."
Minos turned serious for a moment before continuing, "But don't forget to inform these people who are already here about the hiring schedule. They should know when the best time to arrive here is."
"Of course, I'll do this as soon as I get back to headquarters," Pyke responded promptly.
Minos didn't want a sudden influx of a large population. While they could have ample opportunities in Dry City, anyone who is interested in agricultural work should wait until the harvest season approaches.
Thus, it won't take before they could get their jobs in the fields of the Black Plain.
Of course, if these families decided to come early, Dry City would still welcome them with open doors, even before the next harvest occurs. And since there were many other opportunities within the city that demanded more people. So, those people who came earlier would still find something or the other to do around here.
For instance, the city currently has only one hotel. And surely, some hotel families in Yellow City could take advantage of this fact and increase the number of hotels in the city. Such an establishment could create a growth cycle that would lead to hiring employees, hiring builders, and purchasing items in stores, food, etc., that could ultimately favor local growth.
Although adding a new hotel in the city could stimulate the local economy. But that would be something for the short term. In fact, many essential services were still lacking in Dry City, such as high-end restaurants, blacksmith shops, array shops, and medicinal shops, among many other activities that were basically needed in a development of a fully-fledged city.
After Pyke gave his answer, Secretary Mia spoke up, "Young master, the public library that you requested has been ready for a few days now."
"Oh! I almost forgot about it, young master. As requested, I had passed on your order to secretary Mia, but I forgot to probe how this library was doing," Dillian admitted with an apologetic smile.
Months ago, before he had departed for Stone Island, Minos had given the order for the construction of this library. His intention was to make Blue-grade techniques available in Dry City so that anyone could learn them and improve themselves.
That was an essential measure for bolstering the city's population.
Although Blue-grade techniques might not pique the interests of the numerous big powers in this part of the Central Continent, people with low talent and who were not a part of such large families are generally limited to White-grade techniques!
That was indeed a significant disadvantage for them and proved quite challenging to resolve.
To give you an idea, any subordinates from large families with Black talent generally possess a few of Blue-grade techniques and one or two of the Black-grade classification.
As for those with Blue talent, they would generally have White-grade techniques, mostly, and a minority of them would have Blue-grade techniques. And those poor with a White talent, even having a Blue-grade technique could be considered a dream!
And that was also one of the reasons why low-talent people cultivated so slowly.
That was due to the low-grade cultivation techniques they had access to!
For example, a White-grade technique has a 40% efficiency, while a Blue-grade technique has an efficiency of 50%.
As a result, someone using a Blue-grade cultivation technique would be able to cultivate 25% faster than someone who was using a White-grade cultivation technique!
Such a disparity was definitely significant. This simply meant that if two people cultivated for 100 years, one would gain a 25-year advantage over the other even if they might have the same talent!
Talent could also certainly have an impact on someone's cultivation speed. However, the more significant effect of cultivation speed still would still depend more on the quality of the technique they were being trained in.
Because of that, people with superior techniques could easily cultivate up to the 3rd stage in a few years, but those with inferior techniques had to work for decades to achieve the very same result!
That was also why Minos had decided to provide these techniques for the inhabitants of Dry City, which would allow them to increase their strength more quickly.
And as to why he didn't do it earlier, the primary reason was that they didn't have enough budget, and the other was that they didn't even have a high number of techniques for the required degree.
First, their budget was limited and was mostly focused on expanding the land that would be cultivated, increasing the number of soldiers in the Black Plain Army, and buying the necessary resources for the soldiers as well.
In terms of the number of techniques, Minos' group originally had less than 100 of them, which was too small of a number to start a library.
However, as the army was formed, Butler Dillian began collecting Blue-grade techniques from soldiers who were receiving Black-grade ones until he amassed over 1,500 techniques for the library.
That took place about four months ago when Minos gave the order for the public library to be built.
Minos smiled and said, "Well, there is no problem. Grandpa Dillian can pass on those Blue-grade techniques to the library. We will open it for the public tomorrow."
After saying this, the group bid farewell, and each of them went to do their business. Pyke went to address the issue regarding the future immigrants from Yellow City. Mia continued with her administrative duties while Dillian made his way towards the newly built library, located not far from the mansion.
As for Ruth, she went back to her room in one of the visiting areas of Minos' mansion. She wanted to rest after the tiring last few days of the trip by taking a good nap.
After all, even for cultivators like her, it wasn't comfortable to not to sleep for a few days.
As for Minos, he returned to the Spatial Kingdom and decided to rest for a few hours before starting his training session. According to him, it was better to sleep in a place richer in spiritual energy and a serene place like the Spatial Kingdom.
This gave a feeling similar to sleeping in a heavenly place with a pleasant temperature and the gentle sound of the slow breeze in the background.
...
A few hours passed, and the news of the imminent opening of Dry City's public library had already spread throughout the city.
Of course, this was done by Minos' subordinates according to his orders. After all, it wouldn't make any sense to open a place like that if people weren't aware of it.
And because of that, thousands of people were filled with anticipation, for many of them, this might be the first opportunity where they could train in a Blue-grade technique!
But that was not all, for many people this was also an opportunity to live a longer life!
After all, many cultivators of this city were already at the end of their lifespan, with the only hope that they might be able to make a breakthrough before their time was over!
And with the availability of Blue-grade techniques and the current living conditions of Dry City, many of them held high hopes of being able to extend their lives by a few more decades or even centuries.
Such was also the goal of a few children and grandchildren who could only watch as their parents and grandparents died one by one.
These people were willing to work hard to pay for the spiritual pills which could potentially help increase their ancestors' life expectancy.
...
Somewhere in a different part of the city, two women were talking about the recent news.
"Hey Wanda, how about we go together at the opening of the public library tomorrow?" an adult woman asked her friend after hearing this rumor with her husband.
Wanda then shook her head and sighed, "Hm, hm, I think we better wait a day or two. I don't doubt that place will be crowded tomorrow."
"We should wait to do that later."