100X Return System: My Talent Awakening Becomes a God-Level Cheat-Chapter 32: The Alley

"Can someone tell me I didn’t just imagine what I saw..." Chrome uttered with a stunned expression. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Of course, he knew he didn’t imagine it and that was indeed the light of a return stone after it had been activated

He knew this because he had seen a few Farmers use it. There was a time when he entered the Abyss with a couple of high ranking Farmers, and saw when they used the stone to return to the real world.

"You were not." Sinon confirmed. "I know that anywhere because I have seen a lot of farmers use it. That was indeed the return stone."

Sinon had a stunned and baffled expression. She didn’t know whether to be surprised or just believe it as she had seen it.

"H... How did he get a return stone?" Shelia asked, her hands holding her staff tightly. "That isn’t an item that is easy to come by."

"There is only one explanation. He is among the top dogs." Natsu added as he eyes were beaming with brilliance.

He had studied the higher ups to a certain level, and even though he didn’t get much information because almost everything was confidential.

He still managed to dig up a couple of things about them. And one of these was that they possessed a certain amount of return stones.

"That is the only explanation." Natsu continued. "You said he was S-rank right? Then that means he has access to their inventory."

"It is said that each S-rank has possession of a return stone. He either obtained it from the inventory of the higher ups, or he got it himself."

Well, it wasn’t as if they could know the exact truth. All they could do was speculate and come with their own conclusions.

"I think we underestimated him too much." Chrome uttered.

"The thing that I don’t get is why would a S-rank Farmer enter the Abyss secretly?" Sheila asked, and the other turned to her like the answer was obvious.

"I mean he could have entered with his full glory instead of pretending to be a low rank Farmer, and he even got a fake id."

It was still a mystery to them on who Aegon really was and how he possessed the abilities of S-rank even if his identity said otherwise.

But they would never know. It wasn’t as if they had access to the document of communication between S-ranks farmers and the Farmer’s Association.

"That is indeed true..." Natsu added. "I have gathered and known almost every S-rank Farmer by name only, and his... I haven’t heard of it before."

"It could be a fake name..." Chrome replied.

"True, but what if it wasn’t." Natsu added. "What if he is truly F-rank and has climbed up to S-rank? He could be the first to ever climb from scratch to the top."

As the words left his lips, everyone turned to him as though he had just spoken the impossible, and it was.

It was difficult for a Farmer to move from one rank to another as it required a lot of training, absorbing essence from essence stones and other resources.

It was a life that most only dreamt off. Those who were able to rank faster because they had the resources, are those who were financially stable.

The broke ones? It was a struggle.

While most times luck and raw talent were needed, resources were also still important and time consuming.

Although it had just been three years since the whole awakening happened, while some people awakened S-rank or any talent at start, there have only been a few who have climbed upwards to a much higher level.

It was possible for an A-rank to reach S-rank if they put in the effort, but it was very difficult. It was even more impossible for a D-rank to climb to A-rank as that would take a lot of time.

They all stared at Natsu with an expression that could definitely say what he had claimed was indeed impossible, but...

"There was one person who did it. He climbed from D-rank low stage to A-rank top stage and might be on his way to break into S-rank."

The others stared at Natsu as he relayed the information to them. He was the brains when it comes to these kinds of things.

While Chrome was good at calculations and problems solving, Natsu was good at researching and gathering information.

"And who is that?" Chrome asked, then Natsu responded.

"His name is Reynolds, something. I don’t remember his last time, but he is called the Lord of Whispers, and I want to know just as much as he does some day."

The others didn’t make any reaction to the name as they haven’t heard of him before. There were many farmers out there so it was impossible to know them all.

However, it was possible that Natsu would know someone like him with his good research skills.

"Looks like you have done your homework." Sinon teased while she walked over to him and wrapped her hand over his shoulder.

At this moment, Nyra was staring into a distance, her thoughts clouded, then she heard a voice that brought her back to reality.

"Shouldn’t be going?" Chrome asked, as he walked up to her. "We have a mission to complete for the Guild master before the Annual Event."

Hearing this, Nyra retracted her gaze and turned to Chrome, her eyes beaming with elegance.

"No, we wouldn’t continue the mission." She uttered. "We don’t know how much time we have spent in that place, so it is only wise to go and inform the Guild master about what had happened. It is possible that we might have spent more than a month already."

Hearing this, Chrome nodded and uttered.

"Make sense."

They set out to find the next exit of the Abyss.

While they moved, Nyra returned back to their thoughts and spoke inwardly.

’I wish I could have convinced him to come with us. I wanted to introduce him to the guild master.’

"__-__"

In a small alley in between two tall buildings, a bright golden light appeared, illuminating the area when suddenly a single individual appeared as though they had spawn from the heavens.

Their body was shimmering with brilliant gold and after a couple seconds the light dimmed and disappeared, leaving just the individual.

It was Aegon.

"Looks like I made it..."

He had the return stone in his hand and the system window before him.

[Return Stone - "Status": Just Used]

[Cool down duration: 04:59:57]

Aegon gazed at the system, at the cool down timer and then looked at the return stone.

The light had dimmed but it wasn’t fading as this was just a sign that it had been used and was in the process of charging.

Aegon placed the stone in his pocket and was about to walk outside when he realized and saw that he was covered in blood, especially his jacket.

He removed his jacket and dropped it on the ground, looked down at his cargo and saw that it wasn’t very stained.

He didn’t want to be walking the streets and people would see him covered in blood.

Although it could be partially understandable considering the fact that a lot of people enter the Abyss and come out with blood stains. But he had a reason for not wanting to walk around like that.

"If my guess is right. That man might have sent people to check if I have actually left, and if not, I don’t even know what he plans next."

Aegon thought of Reynold as he said this. Just a single thought of him, if possible, could be enough to kill Reynold.

But that wasn’t what he had planned in mind. He had planned that if he ended up getting to Reynold, he wouldn’t just kill him straight away, that would be too merciful.

If he was late and his sister was already dead, he would do worse than death to Reynold that he would beg for death to come, but death wouldn’t take him.

Aegon was feeling suspicious, he was going to head to his house now, but he knew he had to be careful.

"Staying alert is the best choice now. It wouldn’t be wise if a fight were to break out in the city and I’m throwing cannon balls everywhere."

"That would be ugly now wouldn’t it? I must avoid too much attention at all cost"

After he had removed his jacket and dropped it on the ground, he looked at it and realized that he didn’t have much new clothes that fit his current body, so why waste cloth?

Knowing this, he reached for the jacket and just then a black cat jumped over his hand and ran down out of the alley.

Aegon’s gaze followed the cat as it went, and just then his eyes met a shadowy figure in black cloak, standing at a far distance outside the alley.

Aegon blinked and by the time he opened his eyes, the figure had disappeared, nowhere to be found.

"Hm? Am I seeing things?"

Aegon didn’t think much about it as he thought he was just tired from all the fighting he had done.

He quickly grabbed the jacket and wrapped it over his hand. Afterwards, he walked out of the alley into the busy street of Monolith, of the City, Xemburg.