‘The Simon family is far more powerful than I expected. At least, in this part of the country.’That was Calvin’s line of thought as he recalled the squad of B-Rank elementalists in suits who had shown up at the police station at Ashley’s command and, within a few minutes, taken the police captain and several other officers into the interrogation room.He’d wanted to talk to Ashley about the matter of getting into the illegal fighting ring, but she had gone straight to her car and conked out within seconds, sleeping soundly for close to an hour before being woken by a knock on the door from the driver, who had come to inform her that the guards were done interrogating the police captain.The end result of that interrogation, which left the buff-looking police captain shivering in the corner of the interrogation room, was that the man was indeed connected to the organisation.Calvin took one glance at the men and women in suits, noting that a few of them were water elementalists, and af

The club was every bit as loud as it had been before Calvin stepped outside, and after walking back in, he silently scanned the large hall for somewhere he could pass the time.He wanted an area that wasn't occupied by drug addicts sniffing and injecting themselves with all sorts of substances that Calvin didn't even want to know about.Beside him, Ashley quietly watched his little movements, noticing how he frowned slightly whenever he spotted people using drugs.Eventually, he found a suitable spot, though it happened to be one of the counters where drinks were served, which sat on a lightly elevated platform along the north wall of the clubroom.Since the plan was to blend in anyway, Calvin didn't mind as he led Ashley over to the counter and glanced at her before asking, "What do you want to drink? Since we're here, we might as well get something."Ashley finally took her gaze off Calvin and looked at the assortment of drinks behind the bartenders.One of them noticed her attentio

Ashley's bad feeling turned out to be right, as the man she had correctly identified as the deputy governor was making his way down an empty hallway together with the lion-masked man leading the way.After passing through another set of doors, they entered a large dungeon-like chamber filled with cages that held chained elemental beasts, their groans and growls echoing all around them."Hm, what? These are the only types you have? What about the higher-level elemental beasts you mentioned?" the deputy governor asked.At this, the lion-masked man shrank back slightly, cowering as he replied to the politician, "Um, sorry. Please forgive me, but we haven't been able to find many C-Rank beasts lately."Hearing this, the deputy governor clicked his tongue."How incompetent!"After being called incompetent, the lion-masked man felt his eyebrows narrow in annoyance as he thought to himself, ‘Does this fool think it's easy to capture C-Rank elementa

A hulking bear elemental beast covered in metal-like scales lowered its body and charged through the collapsing hallway with enough force to smash apart what little furniture still remained.Ashley stepped aside calmly, lifting one finger as several broken support columns lying nearby responded to her elemental energy. They shot beneath the beast's body from different directions, piercing through the softer flesh beneath its stomach before another massive spike rose beneath its jaw, bursting through the roof of its mouth and dropping the enormous creature where it had been charging only moments earlier.Every destroyed section of the underground complex simply became more ammunition for her, allowing her to consume far less elemental energy than if she had created the earth herself, and with every passing second, the battlefield became even more favourable to her abilities.Meanwhile, Calvin tore through the weaker elemental beasts with frightening efficiency, e

The raid was over, and now came the mundane reality of consequences and clean-up, two things that neither Calvin nor Ashley was going to be directly involved in.For Calvin, there wasn't even any indirect involvement, as his plan was to completely detach himself from the matter.He had made a huge profit from the situation. Not monetarily, but physically.The profit was his advancement to D-rank.The raid had provided him with a combat environment that placed him under pressure and created the perfect conditions for him to advance.It was something that, if he'd simply continued absorbing elemental energy over time, would've taken him at least a month to achieve, even with the enhanced absorption speed granted by the Dark Elemental King core within him.For Calvin, that was the greatest benefit he'd gained from this crisis.Even so, he couldn't help thinking about the other benefits he could've extracted from the situation if he'd possessed greater resources and stronger connections.