The Rise of the Black Plain

"I saw a fucking level 105 Sovereign coming from a distance! Did anyone else see that?" Said one of the level 99 Grandmasters in the group after the door they had passed had closed completely, ensuring their safety temporarily.

"Yes, I saw it too."

"Me too."

"You said we'll have to stay in this place for a while... Is it because of those creatures?" The leader of the alien group allied to Minos asked.

The young brown-haired human nodded in the affirmative. "That's the case. Those creatures will fight each other, and the winners will devour the bodies of that snake and those who die in the dispute.

After eating, they will digest the food in that place, which will make it dangerous for us to pass through then... So we had to stay here for a few months."

"What about this place we're in? Is it safe?" Ruth asked.

"There's nowhere safe in this region," Minos sighed. "But there aren't as many dangers here as there are outside. There are some opportunities for our group to collect in this building."

"What about the level 102 snake brain?" One of Minos' guild mates asked.

Minos looked at the alien who had taken that giant organ and stored such essence in his own storage device.

"Let's split it up. Half the brain for my group and the other half for yours." Minos said, looking at that individual and the leader of the group allied to his.

There wasn't much to talk about. That creature's brain was valuable to both sides, but not to the point of making them fight each other over it.

In a few minutes, the group split the snake's brain in half, with the leaders of each team taking what belonged to them.

There were no alchemists around, but the creature's brain could only be used in favor of the majority of them if some alchemy professional cooked up a pill or potion based on it.

With that settled, the group was faced with another situation. What to do in this place?

Minos took the lead after consuming a recovery potion that would act in time for him to be ready for the next challenge.

The aliens who had spent their energy helping him deal with the level 102 snake did the same as he did when they saw him stand in front of the group.

Minos then explained. "This building we've entered must have been an important part of the city that existed here a long time ago. Most of its levels are underground, while the levels above the floor we're on have blocked access.

Landslides, accidents, or living beings intent on blocking the alternative entrances to this place have blocked all access beyond the entrance we passed. So there's no point in exploring the upper floors; there's no way of getting to them.

As for the lower floors, there are several levels, and each one has its own threats and opportunities. The first one will be the one where I said we'd divide up the books, scrolls, and other historical materials that might be here."

"All right. Then we have to head down." One of the aliens from their allied group commented.

"What about the fact that we couldn't absorb what we found here outside the right place?" Another individual asked.

"That's right, this location is not where we are. There must be a neutral area inside this gigantic submerged ruin. We'll find our way there, but if we try to absorb any resources before we get there, we'll have problems and some of us will die."

One of the aliens who was more skeptical of Minos asked. "You keep saying that we'll die if we do anything. Are you sure that's true? From what you say, it seems that more deaths than people from our group are going to come our way."

Minos looked at the alien, who looked like a hybrid of a human and a fly and explained, "I foresaw several possibilities. In the event that we crossed that square instead of going the way we came, some of us would die, and none of us would risk absorbing resources from inside this building here.

But among the possibilities that we passed through that snake, the ones that we all survived, there was the possibility of deaths inside this place because some of us would consume what we shouldn't."

"In short, we avoided deaths by not crossing that square and surviving the snake, but there are still dangers in our path that could cause different deaths," Ruth commented.

"Yes, that's it. Several of us could still die from now on." Minos stated. "The fact that we've overcome some dangers doesn't mean everything will be smooth sailing from now on."

"Then we can't absorb the resources we get here for the time being." Said the leader of the aliens allied to Armhands' group.

"That's the case. But we'll have a chance to do that before we leave this ruin and get back out of this lake." Minos confidently said as he began to swim down the long, dark corridor ahead of their group.

The 15 individuals there followed behind Minos carefully and quietly, each aware of the possible dangers in their surroundings. They couldn't help but feel that every move they made could be activating natural or artificial mechanisms that would act against them.

They followed that long corridor until they swam down three flights of stairs to the basement of that area.

They could all see very well in the dark, so they would soon see the number of real levels below them.

There were a total of 10 underground floors in this place!

For the moment, they didn't think too much about what they would find swimming deep in this place, as they would soon reach the area where there seemed to be a grand library.

When they arrived at the entrance to this submerged area, the group encountered a space of more than 3,000 square meters, where shelves decorated a large part of the room, many of them crammed with items.

The area was 4.5 meters high, but the shelves went all the way to the ceiling, and some of them had items stacked even at their highest points.

The external markings of the books and scrolls there had long since been lost. The group wasn't even sure if they would be able to read anything from those materials when they left. However, they followed Minos' proposal not to read what was in those materials, and they divided them up at random.

So Minos and the group leader allied to his would spend the next two hours dividing up the many materials in that place, each of them storing those items in their spatial rings.

At the end of this time, they would clean out the library and then leave the area, which they would later discover was the last level of this place where they would face no danger.

Returning to the previous staircase, they would continue into the depths of that area until they reach the first point, where they would encounter more obvious opportunities but also more significant dangers!