Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 23- Cleared Rifts and Rising Stocks

Calvin woke the next morning to the loud buzzing of his apartment doorbell.

He blinked, glanced toward Martha’s bed, and noticed it was neatly arranged. There was no presence in the apartment besides his own, so the woman had definitely already left for work.

Getting out of bed, he headed into the kitchen, where his breakfast sat covered with foil alongside a small note from Martha.

He picked up the note and read it before turning toward the door, walking over and peering through the peephole to see who was outside.

The face he saw on the other side made him blink in surprise, his sleepiness vanishing as a confused sound slipped out.

“Huh?”

He unlocked the door and opened it, still blinking in mild shock, and the young woman who had been about to press the bell again smiled brightly the moment she saw him.

“Hey there, Calvin!” she called out, waving.

Calvin stared at her in silence for a moment before asking, “What the hell are you doing here, Ashley?”

Indeed, for some reason, Ashley Simon was standing at his door at around 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

His disbelief was obvious on his face, but Ashley, acting as though nothing was unusual, responded calmly.

“Well, I didn’t see you at school yesterday, so I got a bit worried and decided to come check on you today.”

Calvin’s eyes narrowed slightly as he replied, “I’m going back to school on Monday, and I don’t recall ever giving you my exact address.”

On Thursday, when Ashley had dropped him off, she had not brought him directly to his apartment building but a block away, since that was where he had told her to stop. He had also not told her he lived in that building, nor had he mentioned the floor or the exact apartment.

And yet she was here.

“Well, I happened to be talking with your homeroom teacher yesterday, and she just happened to be going through your files at the same time, and I just so happened to glance at them and notice your address.”

“That’s a breach of privacy, Ashley,” Calvin said in a flat tone, but Ashley simply waved it off.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s not like I went looking for your address on purpose. It just happened to be the only thing printed in bold on that page, so it caught my attention.”

For a moment, silence followed her words as they both stared at each other, but Calvin quickly broke it.

“I’m not getting into another staring contest with you. You’ve seen I’m fine. Your check-in is done. Go home.”

With that, he moved to close the door. However, Ashley reached out and held it open, resisting his attempt to shut it as she spoke again.

“You don’t have anywhere to be today, right? If that’s the case, then let’s go check out the artifact market.”

“And what reason do I have to go with you there?” Calvin replied, still trying to close the door without damaging it with his strength.

Ashley’s smile didn’t change as her hand barely shifted. “Well, I heard from my father last night that a guild cleared a rift filled with a large number of dark elemental monsters, so a huge amount of dark elemental stones and artifacts have hit the market this morning.”

The moment she said that, Calvin immediately stopped applying force to the door and looked at her in silence, while she continued smiling.

“Enough reason for you to come with me?” she asked.

After a moment, Calvin exhaled and said, “Wait outside. I’ll change.”

He shut the door before Ashley could react, then went back inside to shower, eat his breakfast, change into casual clothes, and return to the door.

“You made me wait almost 15 minutes,” Ashley said immediately after opening it.

“Only 15”, Calvin asked with a raised brow. “I was thinking of making it longer.”

He stepped out, closed the door, and locked it behind him, slipping the key into his crossbody bag as he added, “All right, let’s go.”

“That’s really not nice of you, Calvin,” Ashley said, moving up behind him.

Calvin just snorted and replied, “Says the one who looked up my address and showed up at my house uninvited the next morning. Did you forget you took my contact details on Thursday?”

To his question, Ashley shook her head.

“No, I didn’t forget that I got your contact details on Thursday. I just wanted to surprise you.”

“And what would you have done if I wasn’t around?” Calvin asked.

Ashley paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I would’ve probably called you then.”

Calvin exhaled softly and rolled his eyes, not bothering to push the matter further.

As they went down the stairs, they passed by a few neighbours who stared at Calvin with odd looks when they saw him walking with a girl. Calvin ignored them completely, while Ashley glanced back at the neighbours they passed before quickening her steps to catch up.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask,” she began. “Do you know how to use any weapons?”

The answer to Ashley’s question was ‘Yes’.

Calvin knew how to use a lot of weapons, having trained with many during his younger years in the Osborn family.

However, right now he was in a new body that was far weaker than his former one, so his handling of those many weapons wasn’t the same.

As such, he carefully phrased his reply.

“Calvin Carter has not received any formal or informal weapon training. As such, I mostly use my hands.”

Ashley blinked slightly at his answer and then said, “That’s a weird way to respond, but okay.”

She didn’t seem interested in pushing the topic further, crossing her arms as she continued, “In that case, I guess getting you a dark elemental weapon would be good. Since you said you like using your fists, we should look at gauntlets or maybe brass knuckles.”

She paused, her eyes lighting up as she added, “Ah, you told me to add spikes to the gauntlet on Thursday, so you like spiked stuff? How typical.”

Calvin didn’t respond, only scrolling through the stock exchange listings on his phone, checking whether any of the companies he’d invested in the previous day had significant gains or losses.

He naturally hadn’t used all the money available for investment, having kept some aside for elemental stones and enough to secure a weapon.

When he switched the tab to the elementalist guild listings, he tilted the phone toward Ashley and asked, “Is that guild the one that cleared the rift with the dark elemental items?”

Ashley looked at the guild at the top of the screen and nodded.

Calvin tilted the phone back and said, “Figures.”

That guild’s stock had already risen significantly. When he switched to the EMA app to check the available rifts in the state and those controlled by guilds, he noticed that one of the rifts under that guild had been marked as ‘cleared’.

‘Oh well, the items in that rift will regenerate over time anyway. Unless they find the rift’s elemental core and remove it, the rift would exist there permanently.’