The Rise of the Black Plain

After Minos returned to the guild, the months would fly by. Eight months would pass in the blink of an eye!

The situation of Minos and his companions now differed greatly from what it was nine months ago when they had dealt with Artaud the first time.

...

Today, Minos' entire group was at the Armhands' headquarters, each of them carrying out their activities around the internal and external areas of the guild.

In the cave where Minos' faction had developed, prospective new faction members stood near its entrance, waiting for an opportunity to attract the attention of one of the faction members.

At the entrance to the mountain, where the entrance to the Minos faction's cave could be seen, a group of 13 creatures with cultivation levels between 102 and 105 were standing at the edge of the area where the bars separated the inner area of the mountain from the part of the outer city.

"Look, Soldier Lily is coming down next to Officer Otis!" a female alien said, getting the group's attention.

"They say it's easier to get close to the Stuart girls... Unfortunately, Officer Otis is standing next to her today." One alien commented with a sigh.

In the last few months, Minos' faction had only accepted five new members. But all of them had joined the guild because of Hollie or Lily, while those who had tried to approach the other faction members had all been rejected.

Seeing Otis talking to Lily, those Elite Soldiers of the same rank as the young human walking down the hill sighed and realized today might not be their day.

Some of them tried to talk to Lily as she passed them, but the robot Otis promptly shooed them away.

As he watched Minos' daughter leave, one alien in the area said to his companion. "We have to stay here. Officer Minos' faction is the fastest growing faction in the guild.

In the past few months, eight members of their group have become Elite Soldiers, reaching that rank in record time. If we join the faction, we'll be able to make our promotions to internal guild members faster!"

The alien's companion agreed, standing firmly in place, eager for an opportunity.

All eight of Minos' allies who had joined the guild with him just over a year ago were now Elite Soldiers!

"Look! Officer Minos Stuart is coming!" One of them shouted as he saw Minos and Abby walking toward the mountain.

While these people shouted for Minos to give them a chance, he and his wife continued on to the cave, with her smiling at him because of the many requests thrown in their direction by this group of outside guild members.

"Aren't you going to give them an answer? That way, they won't keep asking us to join their faction," Abby asked him as she walked hand in hand with him.

"It's not time to expand yet. Let them get on with it. Those who stick with it until we can do our optional missions again and earn merit points will be the first ones we recruit."

In 8 months, Minos had spent over 4 million merit points training his group. Also, he hadn't yet reached a level of merit point generation that was sustainable to maintain his faction, so he was restricting the development of his faction.

But as soon as things changed for them, he intended to recruit at least 15 more members to the group!

Abby knew this, but she preferred Minos to talk to these people so they wouldn't hang around every day.

But when she entered the faction's cave, and no longer heard the cries of those individuals, she sighed, back in that silent place where there were even more coffins than before.

With Minos' return with many high-level 11th stage corpses months ago, they had recovered all the corpses lost in the battle against Artaud and increased their numbers even more.

Aside from these beings and the allies Lily and Hollie had brought into the group, they had gotten little stronger over the months, and no member of the group had advanced recently.

The closest to advancement were the level 107 Sovereigns in the team, but even they would take months or years to reach level 108.

This was the reality of mid-level Sovereigns!

Minos told Abby when they arrived at the cave. "I only have one punishment mission and two mandatory missions left to complete my period of not being able to do optional missions.

Soon I'll be preparing for an optional mission that will earn me the amount of merit points I need to advance to the rank of Intermediate Officer. You and the others should continue to earn merit and become stronger. Don't become an Officer until you've reached the new level of advancement."

That could take over 10 years! However, it had taken Minos much longer than that to become an internal member of Armhands, so he saw no problem with his group slowly growing by the hour.

Besides him, his five fellow Officers who had been wronged by Jembei were finishing their punishments and could soon accumulate valid merit points for their promotions. However, it might take years for all of them to do so, so there was no rush for the weakest of the group to rise through the ranks.

"Sigh... Are you really preparing? Artaud should be returning to the guild any minute. Your mission will probably be his next attempt.

As much as Jade Chainsaws hasn't tried to kill you in the last few months, it won't stay that way for long!" Abby warned him, worried about her husband.

Over the past eight months, Minos, Ruth, Otis, and the three humans who had traveled from Zocarro to the Spiritual World and then returned to Zocarro and stumbled upon Jembei's consOriginal, had completed almost all the punitive and mandatory missions they had to complete.

They had tried to complete the out-of-quarters missions first, at almost the same time, taking advantage of Artaud's absence to fulfill their responsibilities. During that time, they had hardly had any clashes with Jade Chainsaws outside the guild.

Even though the enemy faction within the guild was still pressuring them to deal with Minos' eight companions, they didn't try to deal with the six strongest members of this Spiritual World's group. By waiting for Artaud's return, the enemy group had given Minos and his people the freedom they wanted to complete their punishment.

But Abby and all the members of the faction knew that wouldn't be the case for much longer!