In an area dozens of kilometers above Dry City, more than 40 cultivators between levels 79 and 83 were on the outskirts, floating in the area.
There were Queens West and Rosser, both at the same level as King Blackrock, all three individuals who had taken great advantage of the peace of the past few years to grow stronger and reach their current cultivation.
In particular, King Blackrock was not far from the point where he would attempt his advancement to the 9th stage!
But besides them, several members of the Gray Clouds Sect and guards of the Goddess of Life's relatives, also at level 79, were in the vicinity, surrounding Minos.
Finally, the strongest opponents near Emperor Stuart, Spiritual Sages, were also around, concentrating on this brown-haired fellow.
Minos was quietly in the middle of all these people, who were wisely standing at some distance from him so as not to suffer immediately from his more difficult-to-counter attacks.
Unlike normal people, the worst thing about Minos was not his offensive techniques but his ability to manipulate energy.
Through his innate ability, someone in his vicinity could be weakened and used to strengthen him.
At the present moment, he was at level 79, so if these people were careless, he could easily steal their cultivation bases and reach level 81!
At that level, he would be as strong as someone at level 87, so there would be little hope of even a group of dozens of cultivators like them doing anything against him.
In any case, even distant enough from him not to be immediately affected by this innate ability, Minos was very quiet as he awaited the start of this military exercise.
Even without using this card up his sleeve, he was still as strong as a level 83 Spiritual Sage, stronger than the strongest of his opponents.
This was also why the group in the surrounding area was so cautious, holding their positions in the formation they had been training for days.
These people normally couldn't stay long in the empire's capital, as they each had their responsibilities throughout their territories.
But once every two or three months, they would meet in Dry City to work together and eventually participate in at least one military exercise with Minos.
This served to improve their joint skills in facing opponents more powerful than themselves, something necessary in the present times.
So these people were not for the first time together against Minos and already had some experience fighting against him.
Unfortunately, certain things were hard to avoid!
When Sarah gave the signal for the start of those people's fight, Minos immediately activated his Space and Time Avatar, making everyone in the surroundings feel how terrible his current powers were.
'Damn it! A single advance, and he's improved so much?'
King Blackrock thought to himself as he made a frown, trying to hold his ground under Minos' pressure.
The last time they had fought in a military exercise, Minos was still a level 78 Saint. So his strength has improved a lot since then!
'Is that His Majesty's current power without stealing our cultivation bases?' The strongest Spiritual Sage there, level 83, wondered, feeling the powerful spiritual fluctuations departing from that gigantic avatar.
Minos' strengths did not look normal!
Even considering his innate power-boosting ability that promoted a more robust cultivation base than others of the same level as him, he still looked more impressive than everyone expected.
'That's the stuff of those giant bones...' One of the Sages of the Gray Clouds Sect thought to himself, considering that Minos had been absorbing a lot of power from those skeletons.
There was still the preserved body of Fah'um of Dunov, which Minos had not yet decided what to do because of how difficult it was to move that thing.
At first, he was thinking of leaving it in the Spatial Kingdom for a while until he was strong enough to split it up and bury it along the northern region.
His goal was simple, to improve the situation of all the spiritual roots in this area!
However, the more time it spent in the Spatial Kingdom, the more that place seemed to benefit. At the same time, his and his people's cultivation seemed better in the presence of that preserved corpse, so the question of what to do with it had arisen.
Anyway, such a thing had been helping him grow stronger, making it possible for his subordinates to feel his strangeness.
The Soul Avatar of Minos seemed more solid than ever, and its spatial and temporal laws seemed to be at their peak, just waiting for the moment of its step advancement to raise the quality of this technique.
But even before that happened, Minos' mastery was already much stronger than before, and now it could further increase the difference in the passage of time between inside and outside of it.
Minos wouldn't take long to show his avatar to those people and soon activated Chaotic Gravity, trying to hinder the actions of the many opponents in his surroundings.
Those people were already trying their best to start their attacks and create some pressure on their leader, but their speed could not compare to his.
When he acted, Minos disappeared from where he was and appeared behind one of the level 79 Spiritual Saints.
When he reached out one of his arms to grab that person, he already had the Devouring Art sucking the energies of that individual so that it was paralyzing him.
In the midst of this, that person found himself in a different place, temporarily losing contact with reality.
'Shit...' He realized the problem of falling so easily into his opponent's clutches and thought casually.
Fortunately for those people, there were Spiritual Sages in the surrounding area. Before he fell completely into Minos' hands, a hand reached across the space and pulled him away from Emperor Stuart.
Minos realized this and used his spatial manipulation skills to punish this daring Spiritual Sage.
Even before that spatial crack of that level 81 cultivator disappeared, one of Minos' hands went through space with his hand closed into a fist.
Minos' Indestructible Body was activated, making his skin as powerful as low-level grade-4 artifacts.
So when that fist struck that Sage's belly, he couldn't help but exclaim in pain as he felt surprised by Minos' movement.
Everyone knew that Minos could manipulate space, but using another cultivator's spatial crack was something challenging to do!
As such, his attack had been unexpected and very effective against that person!
Thus had this exercise begun!
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