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Inside a small inn in the City That Never Sleeps.

Reno, Clarice, Nora, and Stark gathered together.

Reno was making coffee for everyone.

He placed the cups into the coffee maker, threw in some coffee beans, and after a short while, the machine brewed aromatic and delicious coffee.

Reno brought the coffee to the table. "Yours, yours, and yours, Stark."

"Thanks, boss. Actually, you could have had the robots do this," Stark replied as he took the cup.

Since being pursued, Stark no longer addressed Reno as his superior, as if he had transformed into a bandit.

"I'm used to it. The instructor said that when you can do things yourself, try not to use robots. It only makes our bodies weaker, even though with the advancement of life technology, we can live up to two hundred years, but our strength becomes weaker," Reno explained.

"You're indeed a good student," Stark chuckled.

"Dandy Bag is a capable person. You don't understand him. He can take you down in just ten seconds," Nora said.

Stark knew Nora rarely praised people, which made him take her seriously. "What about me now?"

"It depends on how strong your abilities are," Reno said, taking a sip of coffee and sitting down. "Initially, I thought you just became stronger, but it seems you have other tricks up your sleeve."

Stark grinned and extended his hand, flames rising from it. "I like this feeling."

"How big can you make it?" Reno asked.

The flames suddenly surged, enveloping his entire body without damaging anything.

"Wonderful," Clarice exclaimed in admiration.

"The downside is its limited range," Nora said. "Stark can control the flames, even whether they harm people, but he can't release them to attack."

"So, you mean he can't do the legendary fireball spell, and his flames can only be used for lighting himself on fire?" Clarice asked in surprise. "Sounds like it's only good for starting fires for free."

"It depends on how you use it," Reno said.

He turned to Stark. "How long can you keep it up?"

Stark grinned. "It depends on the energy released. Nora and I tried it. If released throughout the body at full power, the flame temperature can reach 1800 degrees Celsius, with an effective range of three meters, but it can only last about ten seconds. But if the release isn't too intense, just raising the surrounding temperature, it can be maintained for a long time... We waited for you for six hours on the ice peak."

"Thirty seconds," Reno said.

"What?" Stark didn't understand.

Nora chimed in, "He said Dandy Bag would take thirty seconds to kill you, but I think twenty seconds would be enough, at most twenty-five."

Stark's face immediately darkened.

Without dwelling on the instructor's issue further, Reno turned to Nora. "What about you?"

Nora wore a reluctant expression, thinking for a moment before saying, "Energy control."

"Energy control?" Reno looked surprised. "I thought it was invisibility."

Nora shook her head. "No, it's control over energy, including heat and light."

"So, you can create ice spikes. How do you manage invisibility then?" Reno asked.

"The same way, by blocking light energy. However, it consumes too much of my own energy, and the more light falls on me, the more energy I need to consume."

"So, you can only be invisible in darkness?" Clarice said mockingly. "Sounds even more useless than Stark."

Nora sneered. "I don't need invisibility to kill you."

"But you didn't succeed," Clarice retorted.

"Enough!" Reno intervened in time.

Helplessly watching the two women, Reno felt a headache coming on.

Stark also shook his head. "Thank goodness Claire isn't here, or it would be even more lively."

Seeing the two women silent, Reno said, "No wonder you're not afraid of the cold."

The concept of cold and heat, from a physics perspective, are not truly opposite entities. They are both determined by the same energy: heat. The amount of heat determines the temperature.

Nora only needed to control the flow of her body temperature from high to low, so she didn't have to fear even if she didn't wear clothes.

However, she couldn't stand in a sea of ​​fire, as the heat energy there was too high for her to control, or she could only control it for a very short time.

From this perspective, she was indeed far inferior to Stark, but Nora could control a considerable amount of energy. She could control light, heat, and even electricity, provided they weren't too powerful.

In fact, kinetic energy is also a form of energy. However, with Nora's control abilities, if she were to try to control a bullet, under her influence, a bullet that could have blown her head into several pieces might only explode into three or four pieces.

Reno glanced at Stark and then at Nora, suddenly saying, "You two would make good partners."

Stark chuckled. "You noticed."

He extended his hand, and a flame appeared. Then Nora waved her hand, and the flame flew out, heading towards Clarice.

Clarice screamed in terror, but Reno extended his hand, and the flame split into two, veering away from Clarice's face.

Retracting his hand, Reno said, "As you can see, I can also control some things."

Stark envyingly said, "Looks more fun than ours."

"But it must be on a macro level, and no matter what, the larger the mass, the greater the consumption," Reno explained.

"Now it seems like everyone on the Abrodiya has gained superpowers... we've become monsters," Nora said in a low voice.

Having gained superhuman strength, she did not take pride in it. Instead, she was deeply afraid.

She understood well the price of being different. While on the surface, it might seem like an extraordinary power that everyone envied, in reality, it could cause panic and even label her as a monster.

She didn't want that, but it had already happened.

"I don't care what our people have become; all I know is that they are warriors and should not be treated unfairly. Nora, Stark, we must rescue them," Reno said.

"Are you suggesting we fight the government?" Stark asked.

The people from the Abrodiya were all captured by the federal government, so rescuing them meant confronting the government.

"I don't know about fighting the government; all I know is that my soldiers are being treated unfairly, and I'm going to get them out. Stark, Nora, what do you say?" Reno asked.

"I'm with you, boss. Whatever you say, I'll do it. After all, you saved my life," Stark replied earnestly.

Nora answered, "Claire was taken by them."

She didn't say whether she would help or not, only explaining the situation.

Reno nodded. "So, we're in agreement?"

The three looked at each other and laughed together.

"Enough!" Clarice exclaimed. "You guys are daydreaming. You're challenging the entire federation; it's impossible."

Reno looked back at Clarice, his gaze serious and determined.

"We're soldiers. In the eyes of soldiers, there

 is no such thing as impossible; there is only how to achieve the mission. Regardless of whether the enemy is strong or weak, we have no reason to retreat."

Clarice was speechless.

After a while, she said, "Fine, but what are you going to do? Perhaps we should seek help from the media. As long as we release the news, the federal government will be under pressure and will surely release them."

Reno shook his head. "That's not possible. First, this is a covert operation, and we have no evidence. The media won't believe us. Second, this is a serious matter, and they won't dare to publish it. Don't think the media is all about exposing dark secrets; they know the boundaries better than anyone. They only criticize individuals or systems, never organizations."

"So, how do we rescue them?" Stark asked, somewhat frustrated.

"First, we need to know where they are," Reno replied.

Without knowing where the Abrodiya's people were, any action would be futile.

"Find the secret police, torture them, maybe we can get some information," Stark suggested.

Reno shook his head. Even Ned Bradley, the deputy director of the Earth Central Bureau of Secret Police, didn't know where the Abrodiya's people were. How could ordinary secret police know?

"Then go to the headquarters of the secret police. Maybe we can get information about the Abrodiya there?" Nora suggested.

Reno still shook his head.

Obviously, this wasn't a good idea either.

This wasn't a movie. It was impossible for the three of them to break into the headquarters of the secret police, even with superpowers. And even if they did, it wouldn't help. This kind of information wasn't stored conventionally; they didn't even know where the information was stored.

All suggestions were rejected.

Reno sat there, deep in thought.

Stark, Nora, and Clarice watched him.

After a while, he suddenly said, "Maybe there's someone who can help us find out where they are."

"Who?" the three asked together.

"Russell Hill."