<h4>Chapter 444: Trade War</h4>


    In the time that had passed since Minos and Abby''s return to the Dry City, many issues had developed on Stone Ind, some positives, some negatives...


    Firstly, all the agreements those noble families wanted to make with Minos through Elen were organized after Abby, and he returned from their business trip.


    At that time, during the couple''s journey, Elen had alreadymunicated those powers of Minos'' conditions, having even negotiated for several weeks until they reached apromise.


    And after all that was resolved, almost a year had passed since then!


    In the meantime, Minos had done a lot of business with those powers, including making some demands that would disrupt Charles'' life, among other matters as well...


    And they had hardly had any problems in this business rtionship for most of that time.


    Everything was going well, with Minos sending his resources through the army''s naval base, Elen transporting the goods on the ships of the Nash families, and then distributing them among the Nash shops and these noble families.


    Finally, those powers paid the crystals to Elen, and she made all the payments at once to young Stuart.


    That was something that had worked well for both sides until, eventually, the Allen family had discovered the army''s naval base.


    At that time, they had had a big defeat and had never tried to go near that ce again. However, the same was not valid for Nash family ships...


    Since the Allen family couldn''t risk attacking an unknown power, they could only fight opponents they knew well, their historicalpetitors!


    And to do this, the Allen family had hired several pirate groups from the northern part of the Central Continent to plunder and destroy the Nash ships.


    As a result, immediately following the meeting of those Allen family specialists with Eda, this organizationunched that strategy, destroying four ships operated by Elen''s subordinates, which were carryingrge quantities of food nted in the ck in.


    With that first attack, Elen lost over a million crystals in products in a single afternoon, not to mention material and personal losses associated with the ships and subordinates who operated it!


    And to make matters worse for her, this loss could not be shared between her and her business partners, Minos and the noble families of Stone Ind...


    After all, her agreement with Minos granted that payments had to be made in advance, with the one exception being the first delivery. And as for the noble families, they paid for the products that arrived...


    In other words, if nothing arrived, there was no payment!


    Thus, if the product were sold, stolen, destroyed, none of this would matter to Minos, much less to those noble powers.


    Elen was the intermediary between the parties. When she had such products in her hands, it was just her and her family''s problem to deal with the issues that came up. At the very least, her business partners had no responsibility for these urrences!


    And the results of this situation, which continued to repeat itself a few times in the months following the first attack, well, it had utterly affected the actions of the Stone Ind powers.


    For this reason, today, someone well-informed could quickly identify tworge groups in that state: those who did business with Elen and those who didn''t and were on the side of the Allen family.


    Elen had created this division, convincing the powers that had made agreements with Minos to assist her if they wanted to receive the previously agreed products...


    After all, she couldn''t afford ongoing losses while ensuring a regr supply of products to these organizations!


    She knew she couldn''t make demands of Minos, as the ck in was not yet strong enough to show itself in public.


    On the other hand, she needed this young man much more than he needed her at the moment, so there wasn''t room for her to demand things from him.


    However, the noble families of Stone Ind with whom she had negotiated on Minos'' behalf were also interested in these resources. Therefore, they had no reason to oppose this young woman from increasing her demands!


    Hence, she had formed a group to pressure the Allen family, creating a two-front war, with the sides constantly faced each other in sea andmercialbats.


    First, the Nash family had invested much more in the Elen and Minos business, having allocated the best ships for this and several Spiritual Kings to protect the loads.


    On the other hand, each noble family sent at least one of their Spiritual Kings to help protect the loads.


    Second, while they fought to protect the ck in''s resources, each family allied with Minos started a trade war against the Allen family by lowering the prices of this power''s best-selling items!


    On the other hand, the Allen family was already doing the same thing against the Nash family, and when Elen had started the previous scheme, it didn''t take long for this rival power to begin pulling together the organizations that had been left out of the agreement with the ck in.


    As a result, a cycle formed!


    One side lowered the prices of certain best-selling products to cause more significant damage to its opponents. At the same time, the other did the same, but with different goods...


    Simultaneously, each of these families had closed off to the ''outside world,'' focusing their attention entirely on Stone Ind.


    That''s because the state experts predicted that when such chaos ended, the winners could soar to new heights never seen before in this region in hundreds of thousands of years!


    Therefore, almost all of them were willing to focus on this conflict started by Elen, Minos, and the Allen family.


    Anyway, Minos and Elena, who were still lying on that bed, naked and facing each other, talked about these matters for a while.


    This young woman didn''t know all that well about the things going on there, as she spent most of her time in the Spatial kingdom, training the Elite Squad soldiers.


    Hence, Minos wanted to update this young woman so that she would take certain precautions during her nned trip to that state.


    "But don''t worry too much about it. When I get to level 53, regardless of the situation in that ce, I will put Stone Ind on the line. Any war that takes ce there will end at this moment." Minos confidently? said as he took in the beauty of Elena''s naked body.


    "Oh? So, it shouldn''t take long, hehe." She responded with a smile on her face.


    Minos then remembered something and asked Elena while he had an earnest expression on his face. "However, I''m curious about one thing, Elena. Why hasn''t the Stone Ind royal family been involved in this matter yet?"


    "Almost the entire state is involved with this problem, but Elen did not even notify me of possible actions of this organization."


    "Oh, you don''t know?" Although this young man was a fighting genius and had made many correct decisions, she realized he didn''t know everything and needed help.


    "It''s not strange that you don''t know. Such a thing you don''t learn in spiritual academies... At least I don''t think you listen about things that happen in states other than your own."


    Elena knew that Minos was no regr nobleman, that came from a traditional family. The opposite of that, a nobleman from a newly established family. Therefore, she knew that he had not had the opportunity to learn more about his region from a noble regional power''s information.


    She then started to exin to him. "Well, on Stone Ind, the functioning of the state is a little different from what happens in the Brown Kingdom, there we..."