Click.
Hours later, the bathroom door opened once again and Nova stepped out.
If one didn’t carefully size him up, they wouldn’t even notice it, but his skin now looked fairer than before. It wasn’t by a huge margin, but there was indeed a change.
“Not bad, but…” Nova said as he fished the letter out of his Inventory.
He unfurled it and took a peek, only to immediately close it with a wry smile.
“…nowhere near enough,” he finished with a sigh.
He could feel that his strength had indeed increased after refining the two herbs, perhaps even more than he had estimated, which came as a pleasant surprise. But even so, the situation he was in hadn’t changed at all.
Reading the letter without risking his life was still a concept far beyond his reach.
Standing there, he mumbled, “Before anything else, I need to make a trip back to Quarath and increase the rank of my elemental mana cores.”
During his talk with Cassidy, Nova had learned that over the years Nemesis, thanks to its members’ efforts, had managed to slowly build rooms filled with specific elemental mana.
At the time, he couldn’t take advantage of them, so he never bothered visiting, but now he needed them, and they could save him the trouble of searching for those elements on Earth.
There was a small problem, though.
While what Nemesis had done was indeed very useful and practical, they hadn’t managed to gather enough materials of the light and darkness elements to set up proper training rooms.
As for using the Store to buy them?
Just the thought of it made Nova chuckle.
Years ago, before entering the Purple portal, and even before spending two years roaming Earth to gather as many elemental mana particles as he could, he had already tried using the Store for that purpose. But the prices for elemental mana-based materials and ores were outrageously high for his old self.
Buying just one or two of them that contained a small amount of elemental mana wasn’t too expensive.
The problem came when he needed to make up for the low concentration by purchasing them in bulk. The price easily soared into the hundreds of thousands, and that was when he only needed a few tens of thousands of particles.
But how much did Nova need now?
To form his elemental mana core, he had spent many times that amount, and now he needed to upgrade his cores to rank 4. It was hard to fathom just how much he would have to spend if he relied solely on the Store.
And, as if to mock him, materials of the metal, wood, fire, water, and earth elements were the cheapest.
Wind, ice, and lightning were right above them.
And lastly, there were light and darkness.
The rarer the element, the pricier it became.
Forget about light and darkness, Nova couldn’t have even afforded to increase a single elemental mana core of the cheapest group to rank 4, even if he hadn’t bought the Spear King’s letter.
He took out the communication device and, after scrolling through his contacts, selected Cassidy’s and called.
A few moments later, he heard the call connect and said, “I’ll be there in a bit. Can we meet at the HQ?”
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Quarath.
Cassidy sat by her pond with a slight smile on her face. Her hands were still holding the communication device even minutes after the call had ended.
Bzzzzz!
Right then, the device vibrated as it received a call.
She looked down at the display, and her smile slowly disappeared. In its place was the serious expression she used when handling Nemesis’ affairs.
Picking up, she said, “I’m listening.”
“A report just came in about that matter.” From the other side, Shira’s quiet and calm voice rang out. “The woman is called Mavis and is part of an elite group called Numbers. During the Birth of Deities a few years ago, she managed to place 2nd, and after that, there was no more information about her, until now.”
After saying that, Shira went completely silent for a few moments, giving Cassidy time to absorb her words before continuing.
“We couldn’t find anything else about her or about Numbers. There’s no mention of when it was founded or how many members there are. The report says only a select few of the Federation’s higher-ups even know it exists, which is why it evaded our notice.” When she reached that point, she muttered, “That’s all.”
The call was still ongoing, but neither Shira nor Cassidy spoke.
Cassidy was deep in thought, processing all the information, while Shira waited in silence. Such occurrences weren’t anything new to either of them.
Minutes passed before Cassidy finally spoke.
“Mavis disappeared after the tournament… The question is, how did she manage to evade our detection for years? And if she disappeared, did others also go missing?” she mumbled, more to herself than to Shira.
Her eyes narrowed and, this time, she asked clearly, “Do you know if others disappeared after the tournament?”
As if Shira had already expected the question, she answered, “No. In that year’s tournament, only Mavis disappeared.”
“What about the other Birth of Deities?” Cassidy asked, thinking, An elite group needs elites in their ranks, and where else would they get them if not from the Birth of Deities? The question is, do they pick the top 20? The top 10? The top 5? And when did they start recruiting?
This time, a few seconds went by before Shira answered, “There’s only one other person who disappeared from public view after their tournament. Everyone else either died or was spotted over the years.”
Hearing this, Cassidy frowned. Was I mistaken? But if I’m wrong, then where do they get elites from? Or is the disappearance only related to Mavis and not to Numbers?
She sank deep into her thoughts, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t come up with an answer.
There are too many possibilities, and I’m missing too many details to narrow them down.
“Alright. For now, try to find out more about this ‘Numbers’ group. Report back whenever you have even the tiniest bit of news,” Cassidy said steadily.
“Mhm.” Shira let out a quiet sound of acknowledgment before ending the call.
After the call ended, Cassidy stared at the pond, lost in thought.
When she snapped out of her daze, she didn’t know how long she’d been lost in thought, but it couldn’t have been long as Nova had yet to arrive.
“I need to go to the HQ,” she whispered.
Remembering she was supposed to meet him there, she stood up, dusted off her clothes, and walked out of her villa.
/////
As soon as Nova arrived in front of the Nemesis HQ, he saw several guards standing tensely, their eyes fixed ahead as if staring at the horizon but their entire focus was actually on the graceful figure standing a few meters away from them.
He looked at the scene in amusement, the corners of his lips lifting slightly. ‘She might as well be royalty here.’
Seemingly sensing his gaze, Cassidy turned around, her eyes lighting up as she waved at him.
Nova smiled back, and after exchanging a few words with her, they entered the building, walking side by side.
Seeing this, the guards who weren’t familiar with Nova quickly burned his image into their minds.
Someone who could be personally received by Cassidy wasn’t a person they could afford to offend, nor did they want to.
Meanwhile, after learning the reason for Nova’s early return, Cassidy felt a mix of emotions, half sadness, half happiness. Part of her was sad because it meant he would only be passing through before leaving again, while the other part was happy to see him so soon after he had left.
They were two opposing emotions that had no business coexisting, yet strangely, she felt them both.
“How’s the training going?” she asked curiously as she led Nova to the basement, where the elemental mana rooms were.
Following beside her, Nova sighed. “Hmm… I’d like to say it’s going well, but the truth is I’ve missed too much time, and I can feel the gap between me and those who can use Force. Now I’m just playing catch-up.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I mentioned this to you days ago, but you really should pick up a hobby to relax. I know it might sound hard to believe, but relaxing is also a form of training,” Cassidy consoled.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He nodded, thinking, ‘Relaxing is a form of training, huh? Should I give it a try?’
The two crossed a large door and entered a part of the HQ accessible only to higher-ups and members who had traded merit points to be there.
It was a large, circular room with ten door-like gates spread evenly around. Each door bore the color of the element it represented.
Cassidy smiled and, making a motion as if presenting the entire room with her arm, asked, “Which element first?”
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