The Rise of the Black Plain

After listening to Minos, Wana quickly grabbed what she needed from her house and headed to a public training ground not far away.

Special training grounds, where one could obtain unusual conditions, could only be accessed by paying with merit points. However, there were also ordinary training grounds where one could train as long as one booked the time in advance.

Wana had been in Armhans longer than Minos and was so used to the place that she had fewer tasks to do than Minos. That's why she had scheduled several training sessions in different arenas outside the guild headquarters.

When she brought Minos to this place, he asked her a question he had been curious about since he arrived. "Recruit, why does the guild limit the number of members in positions higher than ours?"

She turned her face to the side and smiled at Minos. It was a common question among new guild members.

One might wonder why the guild didn't allow its members to advance through the ranks without having to compete against each other. That would prevent people like Wana from wasting their time in lower ranks, getting access to better opportunities, etc.

But it wasn't that simple!

She explained to Minos. "If the guild allowed it, we'd have to let people develop in practically all the higher ranks, don't you think? After all, these beings would need leaders to command and supervise them."

That made sense. There was a limit to how many people a single individual could lead without being negligent.

"Besides, you don't grow just because you want to. There are factors beyond us. The guild couldn't keep growing, or there would come a time when every being in the world would be a guild member. But there are competitors as strong or stronger than the guild, so it is challenging to expand our numbers.

When an Examire organization reaches the size of Armhands, it is extremely difficult to grow by 0.5% in a decade. Hell, it's hard for the guild to maintain its size, so imagine how Herculean the task is to increase our numbers." She smiled at the man, who still didn't know much about this place.

"So that's it. The guild can't increase its numbers very much. It's probably trying hard to maintain its numbers and not lose ground." He commented to Wana.

"That is the case. Therefore, there are a certain number of guild members in each hierarchy. These numbers make sense for the organization to stay organized and for everyone to play their role without jeopardizing the guild's future.

Lower positions like ours have a lot of competition for members since it's easy to find Grandmasters in Zocarro. On the other hand, a Senior Officer has almost no competition to become a General. However, there are hardly any vacancies for Generals. They usually only become available when one of them dies or is promoted due to the death of a superior.

That doesn't make it any easier for us members, haha." She laughed because even though the number of opponents would decrease throughout the ranks of the Armhands, it wasn't easy to reach the highest positions in this place.

One would have to have a lot of talent, power, perseverance, and contribute for a long time to grow enough in this place to become a high-level internal member or even a low-level council member.

Minos frowned as he thought about this, realizing he might have to stay in this place for several years to become an internal member and regain some of his freedoms.

'It looks like I'll have to do all sorts of things to grow up in this place, including tricking outsiders into coming here.' He remembered how one of the members of this organization had invited his group to this guild.

That being was probably just trying to use all of his abilities to grow within the guild and become free of such an organization!

As he learned more about this place, Minos couldn't help but feel that this guy probably didn't put him in this situation out of spite.

Now that he was thinking of doing the same thing as that guy, Minos understood how complex this organization was.

"What do you think about Armhands, Wana?" He asked her.

"The same as all the external members." She said. "We hate this place until we reach positions good enough to stop being the oppressed and become the oppressors.

The creators of this guild were geniuses. They created an impenetrable system where the weakest can't escape, and the strongest have too many benefits to leave the organization.

The only way any of us can leave this guild is if it's destroyed. Otherwise, we'll die trying to get better, or we'll get better and not leave the advantages we will have here."

Minos had already thought this was the case and didn't say anything more about it until they arrived, where Wana had an appointment for today. It would be a few minutes before they were allowed to enter the place, so the two waited together in front of the training room in question.

"Is this your last individual mission?" She asked him as she waited, sitting on the floor like normal cats would.

"No, it's the first," Minos said, making her look strangely into his eyes.

"You don't mean that..."

"I don't want to insult you, but the other missions seemed much harder."

"Tsk! You'll change your mind when we're done." She muttered, not liking it but getting used to the situation enough not to show anger in her expression or words.

"Since this is your first mandatory mission, you haven't done any free missions yet."

Free missions were those that generated merit points. However, they could only be done after the mandatory missions were completed.

"Be careful when doing your free missions. Most of them can be done by multiple guild members simultaneously, so don't be surprised if some Recruits try to get in your way in the middle of your mission.

In my experience, there are 7 free missions for every 10 Recruits. That means that 3 out of every 10 Recruits will end up competing with other Recruits for the same mission.

The guild will award points to whoever completes the mission. So if you do all the work and a rogue completes the mission, they'll get all your points. So be careful. It's not uncommon for newbies like you to be targeted by older Recruits looking for merit points."

"I appreciate your advice," Minos said as the door to the room where they would train finally opened.