Walking to the door, Edric waved Logan goodbye and left his room.
'Now I'll have to wait for the investigation to start before planning my next move,' Logan thought, looking outside.
The sun was at its highest, shining brightly on the massive city outside.
'It's been around a week since I disappeared from my old life,' Logan thought. 'I've done things I never imagined were possible for me, and I've only just started.'
Opening his system interface, he looked at the cooldown on his spending system.
'Four days left until I can redeem money once again,' Logan thought, closing the interface again.
Looking outside again, Logan realized, 'It's been a week since I walked outside too, huh.'
He glanced at the massive room around him. 'I guess there's always some negatives to huge benefits.'
Logan stood up, walking to the desk inside his study room and started studying. This time in particular, he wanted to study the dungeons his company had control over.
"The mana cores gathered from the dungeons are one of the largest profit streams we have," Logan said, ''amounting to around 22% of the company's total revenue.''
For a company this size, controlling a few S-rank and tens of A-rank dungeons wasn't a problem. The cores found in these dungeons were used in the creation of flying shuttles, battle armor, and countless other products.
'Countless hunters go down into the dungeons every day, fighting countless monsters inside the massive caves,' Logan thought.
'For B-rank hunters and above, there are even yearly dungeon raids that the government made mandatory.'
Looking at the S-rank worldwide strength rankings, a website set up by countless people based on estimates and successful results in raids and tournaments, Logan started searching for Silas's name.
'There are only around 5,000 known S-rankers worldwide,' Logan thought, starting at the bottom of the list. 'They're spread out over 183 countries, some with far more than others.'
Saying that, Logan remembered a tragedy that had happened a couple of years ago.
"Malta, a small island nation, disappeared overnight," Logan muttered.
The island Logan was talking about had a relatively small population, and thus very few S-rankers.
''The island only had three S-rank hunters,'' Logan remembered. "In the middle of the night, countless water creatures surrounded the island."
'Out of 520,000 people, only 20,000 survived,' he thought, shaking slightly as he remembered the news footage.
Logan had watched the news footage live while on a late-night shift. Unlike what he'd expected at the time, the news stations from Malta sent livestreaming footage without any filters to countless news stations all over the world.
Watching the news feed back then had left him shaken.
He remembered watching multiple angles of the fight. One news crew was on the ground, watching helplessly as water swallowed the streets and countless underwater creatures dragged people underwater.
Another crew had gone to one of the highest buildings in the city, managing to capture a fight between two S-rank hunters and a massive crab-like creature.
'The fight between the two S-rank hunters and the catastrophic-level Earthrock Crab had been fairly balanced, but that all changed once another catastrophic-level Lightning Eel showed up.'
'No one watching the livestreams even knew it was there until it flooded and electrocuted the entire city,' Logan thought, bitterly. 'That's also when the last filming crew's footage went dark.'
'In the end, the two S-rank hunters died fighting the catastrophic-level Earthrock Crab and Lighning Eel.'
'The other S-rank had died holding off the other catastrophic-level Lightning Eel according to recovered communication lines.'
It wasn't the first time entire nations had disappeared in history, but it'd been generations since something like that last happened.
During the Great War 150 years ago, fourteen nations completely disappeared, run over by mana creatures. Within three months of time, everywhere in the world creatures suddenly swarmed out of dungeons.
"Tens of millions died back then."
'I really wonder where all these creatures come from,' he thought.
Finally finding Silas's ranking on the website, Logan was met with a surprise.
"He's ranked 143rd," Logan muttered.
Clicking on his profile, pages of achievements and in-depth descriptions of his affinities showed up.
"S-rank hunter with a diamond core. Three known affinities: Blue Ice, Wind, and Light. His fourth affinity has yet to make a public appearance," Logan read aloud.
After reading more, Logan finally closed his laptop.
Walking to his bed, Logan sat down and entered meditation.
He meditated until deep into the night once again, after which he headed straight to bed.
Satisfied with his progress, he thought, 'Tomorrow I'll hear more about the investigation and my training.'
Logan woke up early the next morning.
After washing up, he quickly sent a message to Edric, asking him to bring some food and help him train.
Hearing a knock on his door, Logan made sure it was Edric behind the door before letting him in.
"Good morning," Edric said, smiling broadly as he handed Logan the same breakfast order he'd asked for yesterday.
"Good morning to you too," Logan said, a smile spreading on his face too.
Sitting down, Logan started eating his omelets while Edric gave him a little briefing on the call he'd made to Virellon the day before.
Edric started at the beginning. "Yesterday, I gave them our request and told them the reward we'd give them for it."
"They needed some time to get their members together, but they accepted the offer," he continued. "I'm expecting a call about their arrival sometime later today."
"Very well," Logan answered, nodding. "Make sure they get plenty of room to settle in. I'm afraid this investigation won't be a short one."
Edric gave a nod, before changing the topic.
"Here's the physical training plan I created for you," he said, handing Logan a folder.
Inside was a detailed schedule filled with exercises and daily goals he had to meet.
"Wow," Logan muttered, flipping through the pages.
"Once you finish your food, we'll get started on today's program," Edric said, gesturing to his food.
Forgetting he had food in front of him, Logan quickly put the schedule aside and continued eating.
Ten minutes later, Logan stood on the training grounds, waiting for Edric's instructions.