The Rise of the Black Plain

After meeting with his staff to deal with more important orders for his local forces to act on, Minos focused on bringing his sect to his state.

Taking one of the most influential organizations out of one state and bringing it to another was not simple!

The Gray Clouds Sect was not just an organization that had decided to be in the Flaming Empire and could come and go as it pleased. No, this organization had once been free to do so. Still, at some point in its history, it had become a vassal of the Edwardstone family.

As a vassal, that organization had privileges, such as management of the large territory it was based in in the southeast of that state. But it also had obligations to the imperial family, such as paying fees, sending soldiers to war, etc.

Hence, it was not enough that the sect master decided to take that sect out of the Flaming Empire. That would be like taking a vital piece of a body without even asking its owner's permission!

In other words, it was a delicate issue that would need to be discussed and negotiated. So Minos was planning with his wives and some of the higher echelons of his forces about it.

"For now, I see no problem with you bringing some of the sect forces to the Black Plain, sect master. Of course, as long as you don't bring more than 50% of our experts here." Ivory said this to Minos as she sat across the table from where they were standing in his office. "That will just be you getting the sect to act in this area, which did not constitute abandonment of function on our part. But more than that will create problems for us."

"So how do we legally get this sect out of the Flaming Empire?" Abby asked.

Gloria then said. "One way to do that is to compensate the imperial family in some way that replaces whatever is to be taken away. In that case, we would have to give them something with a 'weight' equivalent to that sect's."

"And we can do that?" Ruth questioned her husband.

"Not today, but perhaps in a few years." Minos replied, wondering what he could accomplish after more time.

"Besides," Gloria continued. "We have some alternatives. For example, if Minos marries Isabella and she is made official as Empress, it will be easy to do that. But the chances of that happening in the short term are pretty low..."

"On the other hand, if Minos saves the Emperor of that kingdom, it is quite possible for that man to lower the cost for us to remove that sect from the empire and bring it here."

"Hmm, that might be the case." Minos nodded, considering that he could also take that organization out of the Flaming Empire by force since he still had the protection of the Church for a few more years.

The Church did not protect him from the mercenaries of the Western Empire because of the agreements it had and the fact that that state was not part of its territory. But the Flaming Empire was part of its domains and naturally feared it.

But even with that possibility, he would not do such a thing since it would form enmity between him and the powers of that empire, which went against his goals.

Moreover, even without being able to bring the Gray Clouds Sect to his state in the short term, it would not affect his actions against Abe. After all, he would already have a few dozen Spiritual Saints at his disposal in a few weeks.

That would already be enough for him to start acting against Abe and develop his state again!

When it came to definitely dealing with this enemy, Minos judged that they could achieve this within a year, when the high-level elders of his sect would no longer have to be under house arrest.

With these high-level cultivators, plus the likely advance he would have by then, he felt they could disturb that Spiritual Sage long enough to kill Abe!

Now that he had the necessary answers, Minos was no longer in such a hurry and was relaxed about his plans.

He then said. "Well, I have already talked to Isabella about bringing this sect here, but she didn't like the idea and thought that the elders of her family would not allow something like that."

"According to her own words, they would probably rather face war with me than accept such abuse."

"But it's true... That's practically a robbery." One of the Spiritual Saints from that sect standing there next to Ivory said this in a low voice.

"Well, we can think about some kind of fractional compensation." Minos thought about that idea.

"What does that look like?" Abby asked.

"We can propose something like, for every ten level 77 Spiritual Saints we take out of that state permanently, we will return one level 79. That would follow for all the 8th-stage cultivators who migrate here from the sect." He suggested. "By doing that, we would hand over more than 100% of the power we take from that state, but we would do it slowly, without losing much in the short term."

"Everyone would gain from that."

"Oh?" Ivory became interested in that. "But how would you return that power to the Flaming Empire?"

"We can't bring more than 50% of the sect members here since that would constitute abandonment of function," Minos said as he saw Ivory nod in agreement. "Then we will keep some people from that sect here below that ratio. We will train them and make them stronger."

"When we have a level 79 Spiritual Saint, we'll bring ten more level 77 ones. When we have level 78, we will get ten more level 75 ones. And so on, until we can migrate almost all the high-level members of the sect."

Members below the 8th stage would not hinder Minos from convincing the imperial family to accept his proposal. Thus, he was not thinking of going through with this plan for all the members of that sect.

Those weaker ones would come to the northern region when almost none of that sect's experts were left in that empire.

"Won't that take a long time to happen?" Ivory looked at Minos with her mouth open in shock.

From Minos' words, it seemed that he thought it was easier for Spiritual Saints to cultivate in the Black Plain than in the Flaming Empire!

Minos then replied. "No, I believe it can be solved more quickly than you think..."

"But there would have to be people in that place who would have to stay behind." Another Spiritual Saint said. "Following your logic, the sect would end up staying with only a few high-level members. But it would be impossible to bring all of them."

"Hmm, but that doesn't matter. After all, I am the sect master, so I would only leave some of my men in that state." Minos said.

"They would take care of the outpost of our forces while most of the force members would be on the Black Plain."

"I see..." Such a person commented, still thinking that it would be pretty difficult for this to work but that it was indeed an offer that would be tempting.

What leader would not covet to exchange weaker subordinates for stronger experts?

There were less than 40 level 79 Spiritual Saints in the Flaming Empire. But there were more than 300 level 77 individuals there!

Hence, this would be quite a trade!