Lin Huang, Bloody and Sword 1 gathered in the lounge.
"How is it going with the Sword Alliance lately?" Lin Huang took the lead in asking.
"We've already completed the registration process at Royal, and we've started to accept missions." Sword 1 paused as soon as he was done speaking. He sneakily lifted his head to peep at Lin Huang before continuing to speak, "We've also spread the news of us recruiting new people but… nobody is applying."
"There are many who inquired, but they aren't even willing to come for the interview after finding out about us."
"What do you guys think the issue is?" Lin Huang raised his brows. In reality, he expected such a situation to happen.
Bloody said nothing when she heard that question. Instead, she looked at Sword 1 quickly.
Sword 1 felt his throat dry up and gulped before speaking again, "I think we're too weak at the moment. We're not good enough to attract new members to join."
"In the universe, heavenly god-level combatants make up an organization's basic battle strength, and there are Lords everywhere. Although your name is in the spotlight as the Lord Swordmaster, and we've also mentioned that you have dao-level combat strength, apart from you, we're all lower-rank Lords."
Bloody finally spoke up when she listened up to this point.
"Should we join the Sword Alliance?" Bloody looked at Lin Huang. The "we" she was referring to were naturally the imperial monsters.
"I don't think that it'll be helpful." Lin Huang shook his head after giving it a moment of thought. "Even if you guys joined, there will be a large strength gap in between. The new members will soon notice the issue after they join."
"Also, the Sword Alliance would definitely be investigated if you guys joined with your current levels of ability. At that point, my real ability would definitely be exposed."
Lin Huang turned his head to look at Sword 1 after falling silent for a moment.
"How many people do we need to maintain the operations of the Sword Alliance?"
Sword 1 was momentarily stunned before he responded instantly, "There are actually only three things running as part of the daily operations now."
"The first one is sorting out items, including spolis and rewards, as well as distributing the materials."
"Another is handling the transactions of items."
"The last one is obtaining information about the outside world and relaying messages."
Only approximately ten people were needed in total.
"Almost all of them are busy with the missions that Royal posted."
Lin Huang nodded after hearing that. "How about this? We'll keep 20 people in the universe who will be responsible for the Sword Alliance's daily matters. The rest will go into the Kingdom in my body to work hard on their cultivation."
"The 20 people will only need to stay there for a year. They will go into my Kingdom to cultivate the year after. They will replace the 20 people in the Kingdom at that point. They'll be rotated in and out every year from then on."
"We'll draw lots to decide on who will stay. To be fair, those who have stayed put will be removed before we draw lots for the next batch randomly," Lin Huang added after thinking about it. "Also, those who stay put will be given tenfold of the items and rewards during the year in which they are on guard duty as compensation."
"I'll go ahead and make the necessary arrangements."
Sword 1's eyes lit up when he heard Lin Huang's words. Naturally, he knew how much benefit there would be should they be given the opportunity to go into Lin Huang's Kingdom.
Apart from the 10,000 times accelerated timeflow, there were also countless monsters of different tribes to be hunted in there. The elevation speed of their combat strength and ability would be at least 10,000 times faster.
The three of them discussed some details in the meeting room before Sword 1 left in a flash. He began to sort out the matters that Lin Huang tasked him to do.
On that day itself, all the Sword Servants gathered together.
Including Sword 1, 214 Sword Servants drew lots in front of Lin Huang and Bloody.
The 20 people who ended up having to stay behind looked terrible.
Apart from Sword 2, who stayed behind in the great world, among the 11 initial Swordmaster's bodyguards, only Sword 8, who looked like a little girl, drew the lot to stay put.
In reality, she did not understand what the purpose of the draw was at all.
Sword 1 took the initiative to voice out when he saw that. "I'll trade with Xiao Ba. She doesn't know anything about the Sword Alliance's operations. I'm worried that she'll only mess things up if she stays behind."
"I don't think that's necessary. I can teach her whatever she doesn't know," Bloody spoke directly before waiting for Lin Huang to agree to her suggestion, "Moreover, apart from Xiao Ba, the remaining 19 people know what they should do."
Lin Huang nodded to agree to what Bloody said after hearing that. "Don't worry, Sword 1. The Sword Alliance has me. Don't waste your gift. Focus on your cultivation for the next 10,000 years!"
Seeing that Lin Huang had spoken as well, Sword 1 could only nod in agreement.
"Alright. Those who drew the lot to stay behind, don't be sad. You'll take their places next year. As compensation, I'll customize a set of cultivation methods to get to major dao-level for you guys exclusively!"
The 20 people who drew the lot to stay behind became excited after hearing what Lin Huang said.
Now those who were going into the Kingdom looked envious instead.
Over the next few days, after Lin Huang sent the Sword Servants into his Kingdom, he had been kept busy developing cultivation methods for the Sword Servants.
He then gave the cultivation inheritance to the 20 Sword Servants who stayed behind one by one.
Bloody got Sword 8 to stay by her side. She did not participate in handling the Sword Alliance's matters.
In reality, the remaining 19 people were sufficient to run the Sword Alliance for the time being.
After Lin Huang was done with the Sword Servants' matters, the appointment he scheduled with Xia Bing a week ago was due.
He changed to another temporary communication device and called Xia Bing again.
A moment later, she accepted the video call request.
Xia Bing, who had a head full of red hair, was smoking as she leaned on the railing on the balcony. There was a sky full of dark clouds behind her.
"You look like you're in a bad mood." Lin Huang did not expect Xia Bing to be in such a state. "Does this have anything to do with the situation?"
"Uh-huh," Xia Bing responded and put out the cigarette. She puffed out the smoke before speaking while frowning slightly, "I suspect that… the Longevity Tribe is completely on the Black Abyss' side."
Lin Huang could not help but furrow his brow when he heard that.
Indeed, he had not thought of such a possibility at all. He thought that the Longevity Tribe would only have spies among them like White Brow.
He soon calmed down after the shocking revelation.
"Can you tell me more about it?"
"After I submitted the corpses, all the organizations came to the Star Cluster to bring the corpses back immediately. Later on, all of the organizations should've done a thorough investigation and obtained some information."
"Two days ago, the seven organizations held another video meeting. In the middle of the meeting, the Longevity Tribe's patriarch suddenly spoke out. He said that you had contacted the Longevity Tribe yourself and used White Brow's corpse to threaten them to provide you with resources. They even showed video evidence…"
Lin Huang was speechless when he heard that. "That's ridiculous. Why would I want their insignificant resources?!"
"I recorded the video, I'll send it over to you later. No matter what, the video that they came up with was quite impressive. The person in the video wore the exact same mask and clothes as you did. It's no different from the video taken in the mystic territory. That person imitated your voice too, and it's exactly the same. Even White Brow's corpse looked exactly the same."
"After they played the video, they even said that we were accomplices. I couldn't take it anymore, so I played the video of our conversation that I recorded directly."
"After your declarations were made public, the Longevity Tribe's patriarch and the two deputy patriarchs looked terrible, as if they had eaten flies."
"What happened later on?" Lin Huang could not help but laugh as he listened up to this point.
"They were even more determined that we were accomplices. They said that we were the spies from the Black Abyss and had framed White Brow. They even said their fake video was an act that you had put up intentionally to slander them."
"I think there are two possibilities regarding this situation. One is that something is definitely wrong with the Longevity Tribe. The other possibility is that someone really disguised themselves as me to mislead them in order to create chaos."
"I think the second possibility might be more plausible…" Lin Huang fell into silence momentarily before voicing his opinion.