Mangekyō Sharingan (Shisui)

"..."

Hearing that answer, Dr. Genus fell into utter despair.

This went beyond simply losing his composure. He was so hopeless that he rejected everything he had done in the past.

Both this crimson-eyed young man and that bald freak had completely shattered his worldview.

Dr. Genus sank to his knees, his legs giving out.

I should give up on this research. What needs to change isn't this world, but me...

"Teacher, aren't we going to get rid of him too?"

Looking at Dr. Genus, who had come running out on his own, Genos couldn't help asking Bai Ye.

"No need."

Bai Ye offered no further explanation and simply turned to leave.

He knew that what had happened today would make Dr. Genus abandon his field entirely and switch to making takoyaki.

"All right..."

Genos said nothing more and followed his teacher Bai Ye away.

On the way back, Bai Ye checked the changes in his body.

Sure enough, the third stage of Susanoo put an enormous strain on him. Even using it for that brief moment had left him feeling rather uncomfortable.

That went doubly for the Complete Form beyond it, which Bai Ye wasn't considering for now.

Just to use the third stage freely, he would either need the Hashirama cells in his body to reach a certain level of purity or obtain the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Achieving either one would make it possible.

Bai Ye felt that the former at least offered some hope. As for the latter, he had no idea how to obtain the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

After all, Obito had no biological brothers, and every Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan had been obtained by merging the Mangekyō Sharingan of biological brothers.

After leaving the House of Evolution, Saitama just barely made it in time for Supermarket Sale Day.

Bai Ye had also returned home.

Genos, meanwhile, had gone back to his own place.

Bai Ye had planned to grab his phone and head to the Hero Association to report the monsters he had defeated.

But the moment he picked up his phone, he saw a pile of message notifications, all from Lily.

After sending three messages without receiving a reply, Lily had waited a while before sending three more "angry" emoticons.

[૮₍ꐦ-᷅⤙-᷄₎ა]

[૮₍ꐦ-᷅⤙-᷄₎ა]

[૮₍ꐦ-᷅⤙-᷄₎ა]

[...?]

When Bai Ye saw Lily saying that he had joined the [Blizzard Group], he slowly typed a question mark.

Within seconds, it was marked as read.

Then Lily replied almost instantly.

[You finally answered. Do you never check your phone?]

[I was busy earlier, so of course I couldn't check my phone. Also, who told you I joined the Blizzard Group?]

[Lady Fubuki, of course. What's wrong?]

[...]

Bai Ye sent an ellipsis and fell into thought.

He had clearly never agreed to join the [Blizzard Group], yet Fubuki had still told Lily that.

In other words...

Fubuki wasn't planning to let him go...

[First, let me clear something up: I never joined the Blizzard Group. Now I have to go out and take care of something again, so whatever it is, we can talk later.]

After sending that message, Bai Ye turned off his phone and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

Lily's barrage of messages arrived immediately afterward.

[Wait! What's going on?!]

[Lady Fubuki told me that herself. Did you change your mind at the last minute?]

[Don't leave yet!]

[ʕ.•᷅ࡇ•᷄.ʔ!ʕ.•᷅ࡇ•᷄.ʔ!ʕ.•᷅ࡇ•᷄.ʔ!]

[...]

But no matter how many messages Lily sent, they all remained unread.

Apart from calls, Bai Ye generally kept his phone on silent, so no amount of messages could disturb him.

Whenever he had time, he would naturally open his phone and see the messages, so he had never liked message vibrations or notification sounds.

Using the Flying Thunder God Technique, Bai Ye instantly arrived at the Hero Association's Z Branch.

He had stored the bodies of Carnage Kabuto and Beast King, the two monsters from the [House of Evolution], in his Kamui Dimension. They could serve as proof.

However, since the Hero Association had yet to assign disaster levels to Carnage Kabuto and Beast King, it couldn't immediately determine the disaster levels of these two monsters.

"Mr. [Kamui], since our Hero Association has no information on these two monsters, we cannot determine your exact contribution at present."

The review committee member looked troubled as he said, "How about this? We'll report this to our superiors first and send these monster corpses to headquarters for study. They can determine your contribution."

"That works. Handle it however you see fit."

Bai Ye answered casually.

He wasn't in any particular hurry anyway.

He was the one who had actually brought over the monsters from the [House of Evolution]. Saitama would never have bothered to report something like this.

As long as the Hero Association wasn't too lazy to calculate his contribution, that was enough.

Three days later, the results of the research at Hero Association headquarters came back.

Carnage Kabuto was provisionally classified as a Dragon-level monster, while Beast King was provisionally classified as a Demon-level monster. Those were fairly appropriate assessments. The Hero Association never bothered distinguishing between the weakest and strongest Dragon-level monsters anyway.

But doubts from headquarters followed.

After all, Bai Ye was only a B-Class Hero, yet even an ordinary S-Class Hero couldn't have dealt with the monsters whose bodies he had brought in.

It was only natural for that to arouse suspicion.

Headquarters convened a special senior-level meeting over the matter.

Everyone attending was an executive of the Hero Association.

"You should all be aware of the matter concerning B-Class Rank 4, [Kamui], correct? What are your thoughts?"

"My position is that we should keep observing him. If he can defeat more Demon-level monsters, or even Dragon-level monsters, like [King], then there won't be a problem."

"I agree. If he really is a hero like [King], someone who suddenly makes a name for himself, then we have even less reason to question him without cause."

"..."

In the end, the minority yielded to the majority, and the executives decided to take a wait-and-see approach toward Bai Ye.

Of course, they did not block Bai Ye's rise in rank either.

The meeting about Bai Ye lasted less than ten minutes.

Had Saitama and Genos accumulated more hero activity, these people would undoubtedly have spent another two hours coming up with hero names for those two S-Class newcomers next.

As one of the Hero Association's few genuinely hardworking executives, Sitch sat there feeling utterly helpless.

It wasn't that he firmly doubted Bai Ye. Rather, they had finally convened such an important executive meeting, only for this bunch to wrap it up carelessly in less than ten minutes.

It was like child's play. They could at least have discussed some other serious business.

Afterward, Bai Ye was promoted to A-Class thanks to contributions that far surpassed those of a B-Class Hero.

Precisely because of that, he neither took Fubuki's position as B-Class Rank 1 nor needed to undergo a promotion interview.

First, the credit for the Demon-level [Beast King] allowed him to jump straight to A-Class Rank 39, the very bottom. Then the credit for the Dragon-level [Carnage Kabuto] pushed him further up to A-Class Rank 5.

This was also because A-Class Rank 1, [Sweet Mask], stood in his way, while Ranks 2, 3, and 4 were all disciples of the S-Class Hero [Atomic Samurai]. Even setting aside [Sweet Mask], who was an extremely important public ambassador for the Hero Association, they still had to show Atomic Samurai respect. Thus, Bai Ye could only be placed at Rank 5 for now. If asked, they would say his track record wasn't extensive enough. The Hero Association certainly wouldn't reveal these unwritten rules of the hero world.

[Ding! The host has been promoted to A-Class Hero. Rewards obtained: 30 points + Mangekyō Sharingan (Shisui)!]