"I will take a chair then," Thomas said.

"Me too." Axel imitated his new companion.

After saying that, they both unfolded their chairs and sat in front of the man, who looked at Axel curiously. When Axel realized what was happening, he couldn't help but ask.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh, sorry. Do I know you? Have we met before?" the man asked.

"Not that I remember," Axel replied.

The man stood still, looking at Axel for a few seconds before shrugging.

"Well, I'm sure we will figure it out eventually. For now, I'm Philip. Nice to meet you." the man said while shaking hands with them.

"I'm Axel. Nice to meet you too."

"And I'm Black Lotus. Nice to meet you."

After that, they began to talk about the rift to pass the time until it opened.

"I guess this isn't your first-midnight rift, right? You are too prepared for it to be the first time," Axel asked curiously to Philip.

"You guessed right. I'm the one who usually comes to this kind of raid in my group." Philip confessed.

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"Really? That sucks." Thomas exclaimed.

"The truth is that I offer myself to volunteer each time. You can get a lot of resources by farming mid-night rifts, and every advantage counts in the office's fantasy league." Philip said with a broad smile on his face.

"Fantasy league? What is that?" Axel asked curiously.

"It is a game that has popularity in some companies. The employees would create their worlds following rules, and they would battle each other in a league. At the end of each week, there will be a point count, and the losers will pay for the winner's drinks that night. As you can understand, there is a lot of money in play." Philip explained.

"Not a bad reason at all," Axel confessed.

"Yeah. Thanks to this, I have managed to leave the bottom positions, and I'm climbing toward the top. In a few more weeks, I will be drinking for free every night." He said while bursting into laughter.

"Good luck with that then," Thomas said while laughing.

After that, they asked Philip a few more questions about the fantasy league before changing the topic again.

"Do you know how long it would take for the rift to open?" Axel asked.

"It should be less than a quarter-hour. Maybe we should start already to prepare our troops." Philip replied.

"How many troops should each send?" Axel asked.

"How about around thirty each?" Thomas asked.

"Sounds good to me," Philip said.

After that, each of them began to prepare their troops for the rift. To do that, Axel closed his eyes while sitting on the folding chair so he could look at his world.

In the middle of Orixe, around the stone archway, Axel found a magnificent castle surrounded by what looked like a small city made of pure white stone. But once he looked closely, he realized it was not a city, as what surrounded the castle were fortifications and towers instead of houses.

The whole area was more like a big fortress than a small city.

One of the things that caught Axel's attention more was the number of people he could see in that fortress. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of people walking around minding their own business.

Some looked like scholars, while others looked like hunters or warriors. There were even some that looked like farmers or merchants.

Axel was sure that that was the main base of the new neutral faction he had created inside his world and seeing how big and powerful it looked, he was happy with the results.

"Heaven, we are going to participate in a raid in more or less a quarter-hour. I want you to prepare thirty cultivators to participate in it. This time, choose them from those that have joined the new faction. I want to see how powerful they are right now." Axel said.

"As you wish, Master," Heaven replied.

After that, the factions inside Axel's world began to move.

With a message from Heaven explaining that the new faction would participate in a rift, the three tribes sent large amounts of resources to strengthen the army's power, as their success could benefit the world as a whole.

At the same time, another power was pulling the strings in the shadows.

Some of those resources became mysteriously lost and ended up in the hands of powerful individuals.

Thanks to this, some cultist leaders significantly increased their cultivation in a short time.