Helen Morstell sat in her office, staring at the 3 heroes that were gathered before her. "Thank you so much," she said with a genuine bow. "I don’t know if we could’ve done it without you all."

"We are happy to be of aid, Mrs. President," Godhood said.

Frostveil nodded. "We did what we had to."

Ning stayed silent.

"You do not understand how much you have saved us all. With the upcoming summit, Conjora needed all of these inventions to prove to the world that we’re not just an idle country that anyone can threaten," the president said.

Godhood leaned forward. "We’re revealing all of this to the world?" he asked.

"What we’re capable of, yes," the President said. "Not how they work, but simply what they can do. We just have to."

"Including the one that can give others new powers?" Ning asked.

"We’ve not decided just yet on what we are showing in the summit. The summit itself is more than a few months away, so we have time. We had brought you all here so you could help us speed up the manufacturing process so by the time the summit comes around, we would have a small batch of everything to sell to the other countries. It will be a great financial decision."

Ning couldn’t argue with that. "Did you regain everything then?"

"The one you captured revealed everything. The vials and equipment were in his hotel room, along with the hero. We’ve captured him too and are hoping Godhood here will be able to set things straight for him."

"What about Calvin?" Ning asked. "Suppression won’t work on him, so what are you going to do to him?"

With suppression not working, the only thing one could do was kill them. But Ning wasn’t sure Calvin warranted that. He was lured by Tritus and hadn’t fully gone to the other side. The mere fact that Godhood’s words had an effect on him was telling enough.

"We’ve placed him in a padded cell," Godhood answered. "He can transform his body into whatever he touches and move through that matter, so placing him in a padded room makes it so that he can only transform into the material of the pad and can’t move out of the walls."

Ning raised an eyebrow. "Is that how his powers work?"

"I asked him, and he explained everything," Godhood said. "So, it’s fine for now."

"We’ll have to find out how these people are being given the ability to perform while under suppression. There has to be something they are doing that we can counteract," the President said.

Ning had no idea about that. He could only let the president and Sharron figure something out among themselves.

With their conversation there over, Ning returned to his hotel where he met up with Blake and explained parts of the day without going into detail on things he wasn’t allowed to say. Even as he left the president’s office, he had to sign another non-disclosure document.

He did tell Blake about the work opportunity that he was given, and that soon he would have to start commuting from New Limaro all the way over to another city where he would work with the government for the safe transport of Aullazire. It was an incredible work opportunity that would also benefit the Star Hero Agency.

They returned back to the city the next day and Ning returned to his regular work. He still had some community service left to complete, so he went on to do that. He could’ve asked the president to pardon him, but he didn’t like the idea, so he didn’t bother asking her.

Once the community service hours were done, he finally started becoming a proper hero, helping around the city. He also helped with the homicide division, working with Larissa, Mira, and Jack.

Ning heard nothing about Tritus in that time, and not a single one of the Numbers contacted him either. He had now killed 3 of the Numbers and gotten rid of at least one potential number, so they were either cutting their losses or waiting so they could regroup and regain their strength.

Star Hero Agency worked together with the government to negotiate Ning’s work with Aullazire, giving him another hefty sum for his work. Ning was set to start next month after the negotiations were done.

Before that, however, another month came to an end. And with that came the renewed rankings.

Previously, Ning had debuted at the 36th rank in the city-wide ranking. As a new hero, making anywhere within the Top 100 was considered an incredible feat, and reaching Top 50 was practically impossible. And yet, through some coincidences and a lot of public eyes on him during his first month, Ning had managed to gain the 36th rank.

His name wasn’t as much in the news anymore, at least not with the same intensity as when he saved a school bus full of children or when he killed one of the wealthiest men on the planet. The only big news he was in was that he was involved with the government in some sort of activity, and that was not exclusive to him at all.

So, when the new ranking came and he jumped from Rank 36 to Rank 32, Ning wasn’t surprised. He just hadn’t done anything major to warrant a bigger jump. His overall countrywide ranking had also gone up by 12 more ranks.

Blake and the others were quite excited regarding his improvement in the ranking. His ranking had seen a much bigger leap than they had expected, but Ning knew his potential was to go much higher.

"The average hero can go months without improving a single rank. And you have managed to go up by 12 in a single month," Blake said with some excitement. "And there’s so much more we can work on to improve your standing too."

"There’s still more you can do?" Ning asked with raised eyebrows.

"You don’t stay behind long enough after dealing with the threat. Your interviews aren’t inspiring. And most of all, you don’t turn into a bat enough," Blake said. "And those are just the start of it all."