"I’ve got the news." Maya returned to the VIP room while bringing some fried chicken. "Apparently, Simon hadn’t left the chat group for the club after being expelled. They might want him to leave by himself. The Lightning Emperor was visiting our campus at that time, so they couldn’t do it yet."

"The Lightning Emperor was the main consideration." Auric looked down, contemplating. "If they kicked him out of the group, it would be the same as disrespecting the Lightning Emperor’s face."

"Yeah. They would most likely try to wait for the situation to calm down first and then remove him." Maya raised one finger. "But it all changed after our clash. There was a mention of that clash, which resulted in Simon getting information faster."

Auric agreed. "If he had just visited the school forum, he would only find it a bit later. At that time, I should have reached home, which wouldn’t have given him the opportunity to act."

"Yep. Because he received that message, he realized this was the best time and escaped from his house arrest."

"I understand why he escaped, but..." Auric frowned.

"According to the police, those people are thugs who were lingering four blocks away from your location. There was no witness, but the police assumed that Simon didn’t have the time to hire assassins, so he hired whoever he could find on the streets."

"He could only find those thugs?" Auric nodded. It matched what the thugs said. "What about the Lightning Emperor?"

"The principal was dealing with him. I showed another outburst to scare him, so the principal stopped me and pushed me back to you. This way, the Lightning Emperor would have the chance to bury his disciple properly. Regardless of his actions, he never severed their master-and-disciple relationship, so it was only natural for him to prepare the burial.

"So, this is what we’re going to do. The police will interview you about this situation. I’ll be by your side, so you don’t have to be scared of them messing you up. Then, you will mention Abel’s name to the police.

"By using the police, the Lightning Emperor will definitely hear about this name. Then, I’ll pay another visit, which I should do after all those outbursts, and steer him in the direction we want him to go."

Auric closed his eyes. "Then everything will go according to our plan."

"Yeah. The Lightning Emperor will then direct his hatred at this guy, Abel, and we will just watch how the chaos unfolds. By the way, how are your elements progressing?"

"My unique element might reach 100% after acquiring one more element. Meanwhile, the other elements are around 30% to 60%. I am planning to search for more elements that may be suitable for me soon. Since I haven’t shown all elements, the number of people with different elements isn’t that high."

"Do you have any requirements?"

"I prefer elements with a rating of 3.0 at a minimum. There are also other uses that I want to consider, but the biggest requirement is the rating."

"I see." Maya looked up. "Well, I can’t think of any solution right now."

"Don’t worry. I haven’t maxed out what I have, so there is still plenty of time."

"Well, you need to prepare your explanation regarding the elements for the police at least. They were murdered in an abnormal way."

"Don’t worry. I’ve prepared the explanation. At most, I will reveal another element to cover my tracks."

"In that case, I will stop them from releasing the investigation. This way, no one will know about your third element yet."

"That works too," Auric agreed. He would love to get the element from the leader, considering he had an element with a rating of 3.2. Unfortunately, the guy kept using a battle technique that suited his juvenile-form avatar, so he had no way of copying his element.

Maya thought for a moment before asking, "Should we ask that the Lightning Emperor needs to demonstrate a battle technique as one of the compensations?"

"!!!" Auric widened his eyes. "I didn’t think of that."

If they used the compensation as an excuse, the Lightning Emperor would definitely agree. He didn’t want to confront Maya, so it might be possible.

When he saw the Lightning Emperor’s energy, he realized that the Lightning Emperor’s element was of an extreme variant. The rating might be lower than Simon’s element, but it was still quite powerful.

"Anyway, that’s the gist of the situation. Are you ready for the police interview? After that, you can go home."

Auric nodded with a serious expression.

Maya then walked outside and brought the police in five minutes later.

The detective in charge of this matter politely smiled at Auric. He could understand the shock that Auric suffered after two assassination attempts.

In addition, the mayor had given him a stern warning before. With Maya around, he couldn’t press too much.

"Hello, Auric. I am the detective in charge of this investigation. You can call me Paul."

"Hello." Auric nodded.

"What were you doing before you were attacked?"

"I was on my way home."

"How did the fight occur?"

Auric sighed. "It might be because of the previous attempt that I became a bit more cautious of my surroundings."

"Paranoid... Trauma..." Maya interrupted.

"Teacher..." Auric smiled wryly, trying to say that he wasn’t suffering anything to make himself look strong.

However, this small interruption caused the detective to sympathize with him more.

"All right. Please continue."

"Yes." Auric took a deep breath. "So, I thought someone was following me. I tried to confirm whether my senses were accurate, so I entered the alley. It turned out I was right and Simon brought all these people to surround me. Since he wanted to kill me, I tried to escape."

The detective paused for a moment. "Why didn’t you remain in the open? You could avoid conflicts that way."

"My goal was to confirm whether I was just being paranoid. I was supposed to return to the main road after confirming it, but I met a dead end, which slowed me down and allowed them to catch up. If there had been no dead end, I could probably go back to the open and somehow head to the police station."

The detective nodded. "But was it necessary for you to confirm it?"

"Yes." Auric nodded. "The last time, I was heading to my store before the assassins came to me. I managed to buy precious time by heading into the alley, so I just used my experience. I just didn’t expect that alley to have a dead end there."

"You could stay in the open all the time. The culprits would be less likely to attack if there were so many people around."

"I could stay in the open while trying to confirm it, but I would end up risking the citizens’ lives, wouldn’t I? I’m not a monster."

The detective paused for a few seconds. "How about killing them? Why did you kill them?"

"My only thought at that time was to neutralize the threats. If I held back to avoid killing them, I would be the one lying on the ground right now, and you would be in charge of my murder investigation." Auric shrugged. "So, I didn’t hold back. I wasn’t in any condition to spare anyone’s life. They could probably get back up and kill me again before the fight ended, couldn’t they?"

"Indeed." The detective nodded in agreement. "However, there’s something that I’m confused about. Some of them had their chests pierced by something thin, like a dagger, some seemed to have been sliced by a sword. I could understand if it was a gaping hole because it matched your plant element. How did you kill them?"

Auric looked down as if he were hesitating to say it. He first turned to Maya.

The detective was suspicious, but Maya stepped forward and said with a solemn tone, "Detective. From now on, please remember that everything you hear is a secret. It shouldn’t be put in any official files because it may cause a lot of disadvantages to my students."

"That’s..." The detective frowned.

"You must know the mayor is currently supporting him. It is related to this secret. If you’re going to put it in a file, you need the mayor’s permission at the very least."

"I understand. I’ll consult the mayor about it. For now, I won’t write down your answer to this question." The detective nodded.

"Does the detective know that I am currently holding two titles as an evolution master?"

"Yes. You are both the plant element and the wind element evolution masters."

"Actually, I managed to awaken a third element." Auric raised his hand, channeling his earth element. He concentrated that power to form a small steel dagger.

"That’s the earth element..." The detective was amazed. It was no wonder Maya requested that it not be put in any record.

"It was due to their lack of knowledge about it that I could survive. If you were going to reveal such a thing, I might not be so lucky next time. I do plan to register my new element to the Evolution Department, so at the very least, please wait until that time arrives if you decide to make this information public."

The detective’s face turned serious. "I understand. I’ll directly consult the mayor regarding this matter."

"Thanks."

"Last question." The detective raised a finger. "Do you have any evidence that could be useful for this investigation?"

"I don’t." Auric shook his head helplessly. "However, when my back hit the wall, I heard Simon saying, ’I will kill you, Eric, and that Abel. You will be the first.’ That’s the only thing he said before I managed to turn the situation around."

"I see." The detective stood up. "All right then. That’s all for now. Thank you for giving me your statement."

"Yes." Auric gave an exhausted smile.

The detective exited the hospital to take care of matters.

...

As Auric and Maya wanted, this information also reached the Lightning Emperor’s ears.

"Abel?" The Lightning Emperor frowned. "Who?"

The butler explained, "It looks like he is the president of the club that the young master was in."

"Why? Is there another conflict that I don’t know about?"

"I’m not sure. However, this matter is a bit strange, sir."

"Weird, how?"

"After Miss Ellia visited, I was investigating this matter, including looking into Miss Ellia. Apparently, Miss Ellia had a lot of suitors, but the biggest one seemed to be Abel from the Phoenix and Dragon Society. I might just be paranoid or overly suspicious, but..."

"Are you saying that he was manipulated?"

"I couldn’t say for sure." The butler shook his head. "However, I managed to take a look at the young master’s phone. Apparently, the young master found out about your clash with Vice Dean Maya because of the chat group.

"He had not been removed from the chat group after being expelled from the club. There might be reasons, so I didn’t dare to speculate for now.

"However, the person who posted that clash before any other clubs, including the Newspaper Club, which usually covered the news around the college, was Abel."

"!!!" The Lightning Emperor’s expression turned dark. "Investigate the Phoenix and Dragon Society completely. I want to know everything about them."

"Understood."

"I don’t take kindly to my disciple being manipulated to cause all this mess. If he was indeed manipulated in such a way and even risked my Lightning Dojo to clash with the former adjudicator, I would freaking ruin him!" The Lightning Emperor gritted his teeth.

The butler just bowed to him before taking his leave.

...

He immediately investigated the Phoenix and Dragon Society. He didn’t conduct interviews directly, but because there were three names the young master mentioned, he got the information from Eric.

Eric told him that the vice president of the club might know something.

Hence, the butler visited William.

William, of course, was startled, not expecting the Lightning Emperor’s butler to come to him directly.

He then questioned William about Abel.

There were only two people who knew about this information. They were Auric and Eric.

In other words, this was a gift from Auric to shake up Abel’s foundation.

When the butler asked him about Abel, William couldn’t help but smile inwardly to himself.