The light of the Teleportation Star Gate faded.

Allen stepped onto the planar port of the Ring City Alliance’s branch.

His eyes were met with a forest of colossal teleportation gates and shuttling levitating airships.

The grandeur and clamor of Hub City once again filled his vision.

Twenty years had passed, but the place still looked just as bustling.

Allen took a deep breath. The cool air invigorated him.

As he walked toward the exit of the teleportation plaza, two Ring City Alliance guards in heavy armor stepped forward, raising their weapons.

"Routine inspection. Please cooperate."

Allen stood perfectly still.

A beam of ethereal blue light scanned his body from top to bottom.

"Soul fluctuations stable. No high-risk curses, parasites, or foreign Magic Power contamination detected."

The guard glanced at the readings on the instrument. When his eyes swept over the energy level indicator for "Second-level Wizard," he froze for a moment.

The two immediately put away the instrument, took half a step back, and bowed their heads respectfully.

"Welcome back to Hub City, Your Excellency."

Allen gave a slight nod and walked straight out of the plaza.

Stepping out of the Ring City Alliance’s fortress-like building, he found the wide street bustling with clamorous voices.

Allen stepped onto the street, wondering where to go next.

But he quickly noticed something was different.

Twenty years ago, when he walked this street, he had to constantly be on the lookout to avoid reckless Alien Giants or hurried Wizards.

Now, the crowd automatically parted three meters around him.

Scale-covered Lizardman merchants, cybernetically enhanced warriors carrying greatswords, and First-level Wizards in gray robes all sensed the passive radiation of Magic Power emanating from Allen. They lowered their heads and quickened their pace to walk around him.

A three-meter-radius vacuum formed quietly around him.

The last time he walked this street, he had been crammed together with everyone else, completely unremarkable. After all, in the elite-filled Hub City, about one in every eighty people was a First-level Wizard, hardly a rare sight.

But a Second-level Wizard was one in a thousand.

The leap in life-level brought with it the most direct form of class suppression. In his past life, this was the equivalent of having a room cleared for you wherever you went.

If he were on one of those not-yet-fully-civilized mortal planes, this aura of Magic Power alone would be enough to make mortals kneel and hail him as a god.

Allen reined in his Magic Power fluctuations. The vacuum shrank slightly, but still, no one dared to approach.

He felt nothing special about this treatment. His Mechanical Mind suppressed such emotional fluctuations to a minimum.

"Commander, an encrypted communication has been received," DSeek reported in his mind. "Sender: Plane Exploration and Development Association."

Allen raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t even contacted the Association yet, but they already knew he’d left the Molten Iron Mountain Range. Their intelligence network was quite efficient.

He opened the message: "Mr. Allen, welcome back to the civilized world. We have received the departure record forwarded by Forged Fire Fortress. As your investors, we are obligated to remind you that any changes in your whereabouts during the protocol’s suspension period must be reported to the Association within seven business days."

’Hah. A Second-level Wizard is still just a high-level corporate drone.’

He shook his head and walked toward the other end of the street.

「The Gate of Truth’s Hub City Office」

It was a white, spire-topped tower, elegant in style and strikingly out of place compared to the surrounding buildings, which were full of steampunk or magical Rune aesthetics.

Allen went inside.

The main hall was quiet. The only movement came from an eyeball-shaped sigil made of countless Runes on the ceiling, which slowly rotated as it looked down upon all living things. A dozen or so young Wizards in Apprentice Robes were busy poring over documents.

He walked up to the front desk, where a female clerk with gold-rimmed glasses looked up and asked,

"Hello, how may I help you?"

"Allen Wesren. I’m here to fulfill my investment protocol with the Plane Exploration and Development Association."

"Please place your hand on the service terminal and present your Wizard’s Mark."

Allen complied. The next second, a file highlighted in red popped up.

[Name: Allen Wesren]

[Protocol Number: ZLF-M-7749-C]

[Status: Suspension Period Ended, Awaiting Activation]

[Potential Rating (Twenty Years Ago): High]

[Current Strength Assessment: Second-level Wizard, Alchemy School]

[...]

The clerk’s pupils dilated slightly as she looked at Allen’s record.

In just twenty years, he had gone from a fledgling First-level Wizard to a genuine Second-level Wizard. That rate of promotion was quite astonishing.

And he even had a record of planar pioneering. No wonder the Association had rated him as a "High" risk investment.

"Lord Weisren." Her form of address changed. She stood up, her tone much more respectful. "Your protocol fulfillment procedures must be handled at the headquarters."

"Headquarters?"

"Yes, in the Gate of Truth’s [Grand Library Plane]. The headquarters of the Plane Exploration and Development Association is also located there."

The clerk explained, "Your file has been placed in the ’Priority Processing’ queue. Please proceed to the headquarters on your own via Hub City’s Teleportation Star Gate to report within seven days."

’Do I have to do an interview here, too? Aren’t I supposed to be a management trainee?’

Allen complained inwardly but kept his expression neutral. "Understood."

After leaving the White Tower, Allen glanced at the sky.

Seven days left.

After twenty years of high-intensity operations, his mind was like a string stretched to its breaking point. Now that he was suddenly idle, he felt a bit at a loss.

’Go to work? No rush.’

’First, I’ll relax a little.’

And so, for the next twenty-four hours, Allen experienced Hub City’s top-tier life of leisure.

He ate a feast at the "Pavilion of a Thousand Flavors," prepared from rare Magical Beasts from seven different planes. The meal alone cost him one thousand Low-Level Magic Stones.

He walked into a high-end bar, ordered a bottle of elven fruit wine, and listened to the surrounding Mercenaries and merchants shooting the breeze, gathering fragments of intelligence:

The Ring City Alliance had encountered staunch resistance from an "unexpected native civilization" on some high-value plane and suffered heavy losses;

Several of the Gate of Truth’s observation stations had detected "anomalous Law fluctuations" in the tide of Magic Power, a topic now under fierce debate in academic circles;

The Mystic Code Council had recently passed a new planar development control act, further tightening the entry requirements for independent Pioneers...

This last piece of news made Allen’s brow furrow slightly.

After eating and drinking his fill, he strolled into a gladiatorial arena called "Between Life and Death."

It hosted a famous form of entertainment among Wizards: the Modified Creature Gladiatorial Tournament, which was said to be very interesting.

Allen spent eight hundred Magic Stones to book a private viewing platform with the best view.

An abyssal troll, grafted with dragon wings and Magic Steel Armor, was fighting against three small void hounds capable of short-range spatial jumps.

Flesh and blood flew everywhere, and energy exploded, inciting frantic cheers from the entire audience.

It was spectacular.

But Allen felt nothing.

To him, a battle of this level was like children fighting. He even ran a quick simulation in his head with DSeek: if it were one of his Golem squads instead, they would only need thirty seconds to blast all the opponents on the field to cinders.

When the first gladiatorial match ended and the frenzied roar of the crowd faded, Allen sat alone in the empty private box, feeling only a profound sense of boredom.

The war had remade him into a machine interested only in efficiency, resources, and victory.

He was familiar with this feeling. In his past life, after working around the clock for a month straight, on the weekend after the project was delivered, he had lain on his bed in his rented apartment, and the world had felt utterly empty.

He opened his personal terminal and, as if guided by some unseen force, opened a communication frequency that had lain dormant for twenty years.

The signal passed through relay nodes across several planes. After a wait of about ten seconds...

BEEP—

The other side picked up almost instantly.

"Allen?! Is that really you?!" Vera’s voice, a mixture of joy and surprise, came through the terminal, tinged with disbelief.

"It’s me." Hearing the familiar voice, Allen felt as if a corner of his heart, long encased in machinery and data, had begun to melt.

"B-Boss?!?!"

Colin’s booming voice cut in. "Is it really you?! You’re not dead?"

"...Why would I be dead?"

"No, no, that’s not what I meant—" Colin was incoherent. "This is great, just great! Boss, where are you now?!"

"Hub City."

"We’re still in the Seven Towers Alliance!"

Vera’s voice regained its usual crisp efficiency. "You—wait, is it a good time to meet? No, you must be tired. Tomorrow! We’ll come find you tomorrow!"

"No need," Allen said. "I plan to return to the Seven Towers Alliance tomorrow."

Both ends of the terminal went silent for a moment.

"Back... back to the academy?" Colin’s voice was hesitant.

"I haven’t been back in twenty years," Allen said in a level tone. "I’m going back to take a look."

"That’s wonderful! We’ll wait for you at the academy, then!" Vera decided decisively. "The company will reimburse the teleportation fee!"

"Uh... no need. I can afford it."

After hanging up, Allen put the terminal away in his Space Ring.

The Seven Towers Alliance...

The place where his career as a Wizard had begun.

Images of the academy’s Black and White Towers, and of that rented workshop filled with memories, surfaced in Allen’s mind.

The confusion and emptiness that had shrouded his heart were swept away, replaced by a sense of peace that was almost nostalgia.

’Before I go fulfill my contract, I’ll go back and see my alma mater.’

’It’s also time to see what those old friends, whom I "incentivized with equity" for twenty years, have managed to build "New West" into.’

Allen withdrew his gaze and looked down at the arena floor.

A mechanically modified four-armed gorilla was fighting a magical lion with a venomous snake’s tail stitched onto it.

Blood splattered, and mechanical parts scattered.

The spectators waved their betting slips, their faces flushed with excitement.

’The transmission design in the four-armed gorilla’s left arm is flawed. And the biological modifications on that magical griffon are completely impractical.’

Allen silently critiqued in his mind.

’The technique is too crude. Not even close to what a Black Wizard can do.’

...

Meanwhile, several planes away, in a spacious office on the Grand Library Plane, a light screen silently illuminated, displaying a new personnel change notification.

[Pre-registration for Protocol Fulfillment Personnel Arrival: Allen Wesren, Second-level Wizard, former designation S-0447, estimated arrival within seven days.]

A slender finger tapped the notification, lingering in the darkness for a moment.

"Level 2 already... Thirty years faster than expected."

The voice was deep and familiar.

The light screen shut off, and the office was plunged back into darkness.