"Do you guys think Eren is safe? What is taking him so long?"

White Raven Crew had received a message from their shadow leader that he'd be back after his long absence. He had taken up a long-term mission with Besanc and had been absent for almost a month now.

Renita was anxious to meet Eren so she would ask questions like these every about a minute or two to her teammates. The team had been waiting for Eren to show up at their usual practice area. Everyone in the White Raven Crew was present at that time. And for some reason, Ron and Dino were waiting on him too.

"Relax, Renita. If he had called, he'd come. Eren won't"

Jake tried calming down. But Ramy yelled in excitement as soon as he saw someone making their way towards the group:

"Thewe he is. Ewen is hewe guys!

... I think?"

Everyone in the group saw someone coming casually towards them. Each of them spread their mana sense and sensed the presence of Eren. Or as close to it as it could get anyway. But then they saw the person's appearance and doubted their senses.

That's because they saw a tall young man coming for them. Plus, he seemed to be an Ace ranker.

"Don't tell me that's Eren!"

Steve stood up from the wooden log he was sitting on and narrowed his eyes. Nobody could believe that the person they were seeing was the same Eren they knew of a month ago.

"What's up, guys? Everything's well, I take it?"

Eren flashed a mild smile at his teammates and stopped a few meters away from them. Renita was the first one to get close to him. She asked with a voice that was laced with part excitement and part confusion:

"Eren you are Eren! Right?"

Eren nodded before tapping her shoulders in a friendly manner. He was much taller than her now. So the angle of their eye contact made Renita look up to him in a literal sense. She was already looking up to him in a metaphorical sense anyway.

"Yes. How are you guys?"

Eren looked at his other teammates while stroking Renita's shoulder. Jake came first and asked with a shock written all over his face:

"What happened to you dude? Take my money and give me whatever that blessed you with this fucking unfair makeover.

You also broke the Ace rank?

How?"

Eren chuckled lightly before answering the questions that had been bugging everyone:

"Hahaha! The power of money is undeniable in most cases, Jakey. But sadly, this one is not one of them."

Eren's smile suddenly vanished and his voice got a bit serious before he continued:

My missions didn't turn out as well as I had planned. I was put in mortal danger by the beast horde and was forced to run away.

Long story short, I failed my mission but managed to achieve a forced breakthrough because of it. About my drastic physical changes. Sigh. They happened to me as soon as I broke through into E-Rank. It's not that rare. Happens to a few rankers when they rise through forced breakthroughs. I was just one of them."

The way Eren bullshited nudged his teammates in the direction to make sense of his overachievement in Purgatory. Breaking through into ranks would sometimes lead to many unusual wonders. He used that fact as the reason behind his progress.

'Layla, that potion would be effective, right?'

While Eren was talking to his teammates, he asked the bratty resident inside the pendant that he had worn under his shirt. The latter replied with a haughty attitude:

'Of course, Eren. The potion would suppress your rank to the very early stage of the Ace rank. The suppression would be maintained for more than 100 hours unless you try to use your mana core without any restrictions.'

Layla reassured Eren and put him at ease. As he had said, he could explain the physical changes with his rank up. But he couldn't explain how he had progressed so much into the E-Rank without attracting the attention of other students and the academy.

He had already talked to Layla about it. And she had offered to help him with certain goods she needed. of course, they were a bunch of brand-new books she wanted him to buy for her. He agreed without any hesitation.

The talk continued for hours on end. Eren would sometimes link up the events that had happened with him in purgatory in reality with his fictional version of them taking place in the Beast Sanctuary. His teammates would talk about the missions they took and the advancements they had made.

Eren also talked about Ron and Dino, the dual berserkers, for a few minutes, away from his group in private. The White Raven crew members wondered what the guys were planning. But they didn't pry. Eren was tightlipped about most of the things he did in private anyway.

Eren sparred with them one-by-one to test their progress. He was in the Ace rank, while his teammates were still in the Novice rank. So no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't beat him.

Finally, the day was about to end. Eren and his group were sitting in a circle. He clapped his hands to grab everyone's attention before speaking up:

"So I've already taken up my on-field assignment, guys. I'm supposed to report to the place in about a month. I'll take a rest in the dorm tonight. Then I'll go to the city of Osan first and meet Aunt Nina before heading there.

I hope you break through into E-Rank soon and start taking up on-field assignments too. There are always limited slots per assignment type. So you need to hurry up."

Eren nudged his teammates to progress faster in their ranking journeys than they already were. He had already finished his formalities with LA. The assignment would take him away from LA grounds. So he won't have time to guide his members anymore. And the assignments would usually last for a few months. So it would be difficult for him to keep track of them personally.

Jake got tense after he heard Eren was heading to the city of Osan. he spoke up right after:

"Eren, be careful on your way to our city. My old man has been keeping tabs so he told me. I heard that the atmosphere is tense around there with added security enforcement from Edinburgh.

And we don't know why, but for some reason, Isen Osan has been reported missing with his entire family. I would have come with you too. But since you want me to focus on my growth, I won't."

'Can you tell that fat kid that the reason for that is sitting in front of him?'

Layla voiced her sarcastic comment in Eren's mind. The latter just smiled mirthlessly before nodding his head at Jake. he also had another thought of his own:

'Damn, Edinburgh is going to face a shitstorm soon.'