CHAPTER 35: MEMBERS MEETING

That same evening, I called everyone together. All the members—the twins had accepted, their contracts were signed an hour ago.

In truth I did not trust them but I’ve already ordered Ravenna to out an hex on them without them knowing. Anytime they talk about what they should not....it won’t turn out pretty for them.

They gathered in the main hall of our underground headquarters. And I look at my chess board with glowing eyes.

A mix of personalities consisting of assassins next to accountants, rogues beside knights, chaos that somehow worked.

I stood before them, taking in the assembled group.

"First official meeting of the Obsidian Council," I began. "Welcome, everyone, especially our new members."

The reactions were mixed, some were excitement while some showed curiosity and then there’s wariness from the twins who were still evaluating.

"Let me be clear about what this is. We’re not a gang and we’re not villains plotting world domination, not yet. We’re professionals with a common goal, survive and thrive despite people trying to destroy us."

I survive this damed book.

Nods of agreement.

"Each of you has skills. Each of you has value. Each of you chose to be here." I let that sink in.

Nervous laughter rippled through the group.

"We’re organized into divisions now

Intelligence Division will be led by Lucille. Kira, Mira, and Eliza will work under her coordination. Our eyes and ears.

Research & Development, Marcus runs his workshop. When we need tactical advantages, he creates them. And we’ll find more members for him as time goes on.

Economic Division will be run by Isabella and she manages trade and resources. Thomas handles logistics and accounting.

Combat Division.....Currently advised by Professor Helena, although she hadn’t fully accepted to join me. Drake and Gareth are our core fighters. Everyone gets basic combat training from her on time.

Alchemy Division is for Felix, our potions, poisons, and medical supplies.

Support Division, Damian coordinates. Lyra provides morale and magical support."

I looked around the room. "Questions?"

Eliza raised her hand. "What’s our endgame? What are we actually trying to accomplish?"

What a simple question and yet....what are we trying to survive? What am I trying to survive? The world that’s made to kill me and to a larger extent, them. Some of them should be dead, including me but now....what are we trying to accomplish?

I smiled at her and told her what she wanted to hear.

"Survive and thrive...." I paused. "And prepare for something bigger. Can’t say what yet. But it’s coming."

Drake asked. "I don’t know much but I can’t help but notice that this group is made up of people who are against Adrian Celestius, especially you, Master Hadeon. So what if Adrian comes after us directly?"

I smiled like a cat. "Then let him come."

Thomas spoke next. "What’s the financial structure? Pay, expenses, profit sharing?"

"I have prepared full documentation. Base salary for everyone. Performance bonuses. Profit sharing."

One misconception is that always get overlook in books that I read is the fact that villain members don’t get paid. But it’s even expensive to form a faction, I know.

Kira asked. "And if we decide to leave?"

"Door’s open. I won’t hold anyone against their will. But...." I met her eyes. My eyes turned flat and cold. "It’s better no one leaves. Either way, the door is open."

She nodded slowly.

"Last chance to walk away," I said. "No judgment, but if you stay, then you are shackled to this."

No one moved.

"Good. Then let’s show Adrian Celestius what a real organization looks like."

```

[FIRST OFFICIAL FACTION MEETING: COMPLETE]

[MORALE: High]

[LOYALTY AVERAGE: 78%]

[ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: Established]

[UNITY: Surprisingly Strong]

[REPUTATION: Growing]

```

☆☆▪︎▪︎☆☆

Late that night, alone in my room, I reviewed everything with the system.

``’

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

FACTION STATUS

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

MEMBERS: (50% increase)

ORGANIZATION: Informal → Professional

CAPABILITIES: Basic → Multi-Departmental

LOYALTY AVERAGE: 78%

MONTHLY INCOME: 8,000 → 10,000+ gold (projected)

MONTHLY EXPENSES: 3,500 → 5,200 gold

NET POSITIVE: +4,800 gold/month

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ACTIVE OPERATIONS

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1. Intelligence Network Establishment (Lucille) - In Progress

2. Communication Crystal Creation (Marcus) - In Progress

3. Southern Trade Route (Isabella) - In Progress

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NEW CAPABILITIES UNLOCKED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

● Alchemy Division

● Enhanced Intelligence Operations

● Professional Administration

● Support Magic

●Advanced Security

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SYSTEM FEATURES UTILIZED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

● Villain Network

● Subordinate Missions

● Loyalty Tracking

● Resource Management

● Secure Communications

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

PROGRESSION

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

VILLAIN SCORE: 15,000 → 15,500

VILLAIN QUALITY: Mastermind (Confirmed)

NEW TITLE: "The Organizer"

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ASSESSMENT

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’ve successfully transitioned from individual operator to organizational leader. This is significant growth.

Most villains fail at this stage. They can’t delegate, can’t trust, can’t build actual loyalty. You’re doing all three.

The system upgrade came at perfect time. You needed these tools, and you’ve used them effectively immediately.

WARNING: Larger organization = larger target.

Adrian will notice. His response will escalate.

Prepare accordingly. The Council will also notice large anomalies pooling in one place.

```

"Not bad" I murmured. "Original Hadeon would be horrified."