When Aldrin and Renissa left the Refiner's Association, personalities big enough in the scale of the city arrived one by one.
Apart from the Frostland Corporation's Lonewind City Branch Head, Evelyn Nightfrost, who they ran into before leaving the building, the Branch Head of two other Energy Refiner corporations or companies arrived.
Silliard Morrowdawn of the Entraia Group of Companies.
Agate Basset of the Alpinecloud Industries.
Furthermore, Commander Yun of the City Hall Guards as well as the four Windblades accompanying the Lonewind City Mayor also arrived a few minutes after them.
Compared to when Aldrin and Renissa arrived earlier, Gordon didn't block the way and Janet, who was just playful earlier, accommodated the hurried and important guests of the association. The other Energy Refiners of the Association appeared from the depths of the building to accommodate them and soon, the silent Refiner's Association became busy.
With all the newcomers having the same destination, all of them could soon be seen gathering inside a special conference room located on the 9th floor of the Refiner's Association.
The three Branch Heads, although they hurriedly arrived, were now calmly waiting to hear the reason for the sudden emergency gathering of the highest-ranking individuals of the whole Lonewind City.
All of them were quite busy due to the disaster that happened yesterday. Some of them lost Energy Refiners against the Rift Monsters and some were sorting out their personnel and income.
However, they all dropped whatever they were doing when the call to gather was mentioned as something of the utmost importance.
The Conference Room located on the 9th floor of the Refiner's Association was big enough to accommodate 50 individuals. With the logo of the Association plastered at the wall facing the entrance and decorations glorifying the honor of the most important Energy Refiners that made it flourish to this present day, anyone who would enter the place for the first would feel a sense of awe and appreciation.
But given that they're all big names and those faces on the wall were something already ingrained in their minds, they picked their seats and sat down as they waited for everyone invited to arrive.
"Evelyn, I heard one of your new recruits will be departing to Sunspeak."
Breaking the silence of the room, Silliard from Entraia addressed Evelyn.
Although they both appeared calm from their seats, most of the individuals in the room were giving off a menacing aura towards each other as if they're trying not to lose out in that department.
Around Evelyn, it was like a winter hell while around Silliard, it was like huge pressure would push down anyone who would approach him. About how strong they were compared to Aldrin and Renissa, it's like comparing an ant to a human.
"Mhm. It's not exactly a secret. I trained her myself. Those at Sunspeak will surely be in awe at how great she is. Who knows? In less than a few years, she will be sitting among us in this very room." Evelyn calmly answered while low-key promoting Renissa as an exceptional Energy Refiner.
That's what she believed and that's also what those higher in rank than her upon noticing how quick Renissa's progress during the month where she was trained by Evelyn.
Normally, Energy Refiner who awakened by chance would struggle at refining Dimensional Energy even with their Energy Quintessence. In this day and age, they're mostly considered normal citizens winning a jackpot but the pot prize wasn't even half the fortune of Energy Refiner lineage or the payment needed to awaken by being injected with Dimensional Energy, unlike the first time they first appeared.
However, during Evelyn's training, Renissa showed excellent refining speed that she even got to utilize her chosen Concept quite easily.
That's a feat that even Evelyn struggled at when she was starting as an Energy Refiner.
"Such confidence coming from you, someone who will rather choose to slack off than to do actual work." From the other side of Evelyn, another woman made a snide remark. It was Agate from the Alpinecloud. As if showing contempt, she even opened the paper fan in her hand and covered her hand before laughing.
Evelyn wasn't fazed though.
"Agate, please. Save me from your takedowns. It's not working... By the way, Commander Yun, how is the Dimension beyond the Rift? Is it worth looking into?" Switching her gaze to the famous Hero of the Lonewind City, Evelyn inquired.
And with her question, the other two also perked their ears up. Since whatever reason they were called here hadn't started yet, it was time for them to scoop out information from those always at the frontlines.
"It's a dangerous place. The opening of the Rift seemed unorganized and hurried that the strongest Rift Monster from that Dimension only reached the middle-stage of Ordinary Rank. The damage would've spread to the neighboring districts if something stronger than that appeared. Had that happened, the three of you would be called out of your cozy offices." Commander Yun cast his gaze over the three Branch Heads as he answered Evelyn's question.
Upon hearing that, the three nodded their heads as they thought back towards the disaster that happened. In their knowledge, something didn't add up.
"Only middle-stage of Ordinary Rank? No wonder the share was too low. However, how did it result in 60,000 casualties on top of dead Energy Refiners?" Before the two could ask the same question, Silliard beat them to it.
However, Commander Yun's answer was short. "You'll find out about it soon as we will be discussing it here. Is that right, Mr. Mayor?"
At this point, only now did they notice that the usually loudmouthed mayor was too silent and a grim expression covered his whole face.
At this same moment, the wide door of the conference room, welcoming the arrival of the last personage they were waiting for. The current Branch Head of Lonewind City's Refiner's Association. Matias Borja.
"For the Honorable Mayor to gather all of us here and not in your favorite office... it must be too important to divulge to your constituents." Matias, whose appearance was that of a white-haired old man wearing a red robe draped over his whole person, opened the conversation even before he sat down at the helm of the conference table.
And with an eerie sense of urgency, the Lonewind City Mayor presented something, a small device. "Inside here is an audio recording my office received earlier. Please listen to it and tell me what you think."
After saying that, he pushed a button from the device and slid it towards the middle of the conference table.
If Aldrin was present at this conference room, he would surely recognize it. It's the audio clip he sent containing the clear voice of that mysterious man in the southern district.
As soon as the gathered high-ranking individuals of the city finished listening to it, their expressions turned grave.
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Six hours later, without knowing that the audio recording had already reached the ears of the strongest and most important people of the Lonewind City, Aldrin was back in his apartment.
After paying his rent that was already overdue to the landlord, he informed him of his intent to move out.
He then immediately called a moving company for his belongings to be transported back to their home tomorrow.
Once he's done, he did a set of exercises before sitting down in front of his computer and turning it on.
As soon as it finished booting up, he opened the IDLE Database and went straight to Idle Adventure.
"They're wounded again, huh? It's not even 20 minutes and they ran into another detached force of a Commander Ant's battalion..." Aldrin muttered after he finished backreading the status log at the lower left of the interface.
With more and more Soldier Ants and Elite Soldier Ants corpses piling up around the Ant Colony, their alert level had already gone up to the point that even the other insects such as caterpillars, spiders and beetles were being attacked by them.
Moreover, Aldrin's clone couldn't do the approach of creating a perfect ambush anymore. Although ambushing was still their main strategy, it was now a bit dangerous.
To earn more IDLE Points, Striker, being someone with the highest speed among the three Dimensional Clones would position itself near an approaching battalion or squadron of Soldier Ants, luring them towards an obscure area where Tank would be standing and Hitter hiding nearby.
Using that kind of strategy, the third run earlier racked him an additional 300 points before the inevitable ejection. His total takeaway became a record-high of 1800 points due to how he only spent Points on the multiplier and a couple of healing times.
In contrast to that, this fourth run had only earned him less than half of that even after purchasing the second attack multiplier.
With his Dimensional Clones exhausted, Aldrin ultimately decided not to risk it anymore and chose to end it there.
[Total IDLE Points Stored: 2563/10000]
"2500 points... Although this looked great in the eyes, it's only possible because I refrained from converting or buying anything earlier..." Aldrin shook his head as he heaved a short sigh. "Storing these wouldn't benefit me for now. Well then, let me spend these before starting the fifth run."
As soon as he made that decision, Aldrin converted half of the IDLE Points and prepared himself to receive another flood of Dimensional Energy.
With more than 1250 IDLE Points about to be converted to Dimensional Energy, the total converted points would be more than triple the threshold to awaken.
If he would use that 1000 converted Dimensional Energy as a benchmark for his evergrowing strength and progress as an Energy Refiner, it's safe to say that he's now more than three times stronger than yesterday!
Is that a good thing? Hell yeah!