The Rise of the Black Plain

Minos then began to read a golden parchment in his spatial ring. He had not taken the parchment out of his ring but had sent his spiritual senses into that item.

Young Stuart trusted Ruth quite a bit, but he had not yet reached the point where he was ready to talk about all his secrets with her. After all, Maisie's disciple might have certain obligations to the Gray Clouds Sect... 

Therefore, he would prefer that Ruth not know about the Golden-grade techniques, nor other things for a while. At least, he would need to have assurances that the Gray Clouds Sect would not show up at his door demanding things after he told her such things.

Hence, he didn't want her to see him learning such a technique, so he preferred to use this learning method.

On the other hand, Abby was already aware that Minos had Golden-grade techniques. In fact, she was already learning one specialized in cultivation, the same one that Dillian had previously learned from young Stuart.

Minos didn't know how far his relationship with Abby would go. Still, she already knew about the Spatial Kingdom and was part of its army.

On the other hand, he thought her as reliable as Dillian. And since this individual already used Golden-grade techniques, there was no reason to be any different with that woman.

But she had only learned one of these techniques at the moment since he had taught her about it not long ago, and it was also not possible to change techniques constantly.

Anyway, as his girlfriends watched him, he began to understand some of the laws involved in that mental technique.

That was not difficult. Minos only needed to read the contents of that parchment while relaxing, allowing the technique to be engraved into his soul. At the same time, he could gain a little compatibility with the Natural Laws involved in the operation of such a technique.

But that was only the minimum necessary for a person to start using a specific spiritual technique. In other words, if one wanted to achieve the highest level in any technique, they would need to gain affinity with the Natural Laws involved through training and understanding.

But even if two people learned the same techniques, they would not increase in comprehension in each one at the same rate. Things like talent and other variables also influenced this.

But regardless, learning techniques happened basically the same way for all types of spiritual techniques and people. 

Every technique would be found on spiritual parchments, which were devices that reflected through the color the quality of the Natural Laws involved in the technique.

On each parchment, there would be a small amount of the Natural Laws involved in such a technique, something left behind by the technique creator, someone who would undoubtedly have a great affinity with those laws.

With that, what was left was a specific device that would place the person reading the entire technique into an illusion. After that, such a person would learn the basics of the method to be able to begin practicing it independently.

That is, considering that such an individual did not protect himself while reading the thing. 

Anyway, young Stuart had chosen to learn at this stage a technique focused on the mind, called Infinite Dream, Golden-grade, composed of 6 phases.

Such a technique had its primary ability to put the user's targets into a dream, fully controlled by the user. In such a dream, the user could fight, teach, torture through a nightmare, among many other things, all while the target would think he was living all those experiences.

On the other hand, the user himself would not be trapped in the same dream. Instead, he would be conscious of everything that happened in the dream and the real world!

But despite being somewhat impressive, this technique had several limitations. For example, it would only work perfectly on those up to 100% stronger spiritually than the user.

Above that, the user would lose more and more control over the dream as the difference in levels increased. That would happen until it could not affect the target when the difference in spiritual power was three times in favor of the target.

But, against opponents with twice the user's spiritual power, i.e., 100% stronger, the user could at most affect one target at a time. Below that, each time the power difference between the parties doubled, the user could double the number of people of the same level under the effect of the technique.

Suppose the user used such a technique on people with the same spiritual power as himself. In that case, he could put two people of the same energy into the Infinite Dream.

If he used the same technique on people two times weaker spiritually than himself, this limit would rise to four. And so on.

These were the limitations of the technique for the first phase of mastery. However, such values could increase significantly with each advancement of the technique phase that the user had.

Finally, there was one other feature, which, although it would not vary as the user's mastery of the technique increased, was still something Minos desired at this time.

That was the protection of the user against mental attacks from opponents up to 100% stronger than the user.

Minos knew about some hazardous mental techniques in the Spiritual World, which could easily cause opponents of equal proficiency to perform very differently in a fight.

And there were also those with innate abilities related to this, as in the case of soldier Grym, level 43, someone with whom Minos had trained right after he reached the 3rd stage, more than four years ago.

People with innate abilities like Grym's, or mental techniques, could easily defeat opponents with the same spiritual power as them, as long as such people lacked mental defenses.

And precisely because of the risk involved, Minos couldn't help but learn such a technique!

It wasn't a big problem not having something like this for the time being since there weren't many cultivators with techniques like this in the northern region of the Central Continent.

On the other hand, most people who had things like that were Spiritual Kings, individuals that only more recently Minos had begun to fight against.

However, even among the local Spiritual Kings, most did not learn techniques of this sort. That happens either because of the low number of them in the region or the overall low quality of the mental techniques found in these areas.

For all that, it was not so worrying not to have a mental technique while being in this impoverished region.

But Minos didn't intend to spend his entire life here. Instead, he wanted to travel around this vast world to get to know it, explore it, and bring new things to his territory.

So, he would need to prepare himself to fight in the future against opponents who would undoubtedly have good mental techniques.

But besides protecting himself against possible opponents, he also wanted to use these techniques to his advantage. After all, they could make fights between people of similar levels much easier...

They were truly dangerous when one side had nothing of the sort!

For all that, he had chosen Infinite Dream.

...

Anyway, while Minos was learning the basics of the mental technique, Abby and Ruth watched him as they sat at one end of that room.

The two of them were anxious to see the moment when he finished doing this and finally had a chance to see this young man's new technique.

They had already been very impressed with the new power that Minos had gained after his advancement to the 6th stage during the previous training. But even though this was shocking to both of them, since the characteristics of those techniques had significantly improved, they were already used to such methods being used by him.

So, even though it was incredible, it was still similar to what they already knew of him. But, on the other hand, this would be the first time the two of them would see him using a new technique, one that neither of them knew what type it was.

So, they were both curious to learn what specialization his 6th technique would be and what its effects would be like!

"Looks like he's finishing it..." Ruth commented in a low voice as she saw Minos' eyes slowly open....