The second round of the Exhibition match continued on like normal. With the continued success of Sir Fenix and the otherwise ’untalented’ Knights advancing to the next round, the chocolate ice cream had become a true viral hit.

The McTony’s Restaurant back in the Feast were completely swamped with orders. If it weren’t for the Chefs advancing their cultivation throughout the entire Feast, then they wouldn’t have been able to handle the workload that they were currently at.

And the best part was that the orders continued to get bigger and bigger with each and every hour!

Not even four hours after the opening, Michael was surprised to find out that they were already on track to surpass 50 million tokens in a single day! He couldn’t believe it. At this point, they’d be able to get a hundred million tokens easily!

That would firmly place them near the top 10, or maybe even inside it!

This was exciting. The chocolate ice cream had proven to be incredibly addicting. More than half of the customers were buying more and more, trying out the different flavors to find their favorite ones.

Of course, the McTony’s chicken was doing good as well. The two were a perfect meal when paired together.

Now, Michael and the Rebornians only had to worry about the Exhibition match.

They didn’t really have any need for Jaku to win the competition. In fact, Michael almost wanted them to lose! Maybe fighting against a powerful opponent and being unable to find victory would finally push the lazy Jaku to lock in and practice.

And so, Michael continued to merrily watch the competition with the rest of the spectators.

Until something happened.

An invisible shockwave emanated throughout the entirety of New Sparta, alerting Michael.

Somehow, this wave didn’t come from anything physical. It wasn’t made out of air, sound, or anything else. It felt metaphysical, something that only his Maugnetic heart could notice.

In fact, he felt the small core on his chest pulsating. He didn’t know why it did this, but he knew it was because of that strange feeling.

He immediately whipped his head trying to find the source of this disturbance.

But unfortunately, he seemed to be the only one who noticed this.

Every single person around him was clueless as this strange shockwave came over them. The spectators as well. It looked like he was the only one who noticed it.

"Narito. Sasuki. Did the Ersatz make their move?" he asked them.

The two Shadow Orcs appeared at his feet. Their reflections on the ground expressed their confusion.

"Bu to to... no, Lord Michael. We have them under surveillance at all times."

Michael verified their claims through his Mini Drone.

The Ersatz were currently about a hundred kilometers away from New Sparta. If they were the one responsible for this, then he would have felt the strongest shockwave coming from that specific location.

Instead, the shockwave came from inside New Sparta. He was sure of that.

He immediately closed his eyes, using his Mini Drones to survey the area.

With thousands of eyes watching the city, Michael finally noticed something.

He wasn’t the only one who noticed this disturbance.

Almost every major company, corporation, or organization were currently having private discussions amongst their top people.

Whatever it was they were discussing, they didn’t want anyone else to know.

But of course, Michael was too curious to simply let this opportunity pass by.

He was a Nascent Spirit cultivator now. He was no longer a pawn in their games. He played by his own rules.

Eventually, he picked his target.

The Zentmeister company. They had their headquarters positioned at the center of all this commotion. Literally and figuratively.

He pulled his own consciousness into his own Drone, embodying it as if it was his own. And because of that, he could clearly tell that the disturbance came exactly from this location!

The very shockwave that rocked his heart was caused by them.

What was that?

If he wanted to know, he’d have to look inside. But if he were to simply saunter through, he’d get found out immediately.

He had to get smart about this. Gather intel first before doing anything.

He surveyed the area. There were multiple guards of different loyalties watching guard at the entrances.

It was clear that some of the leaders of the Upper Echelons had gathered at this exact location to talk amongst each other.

After a quick talk with some of the Shadow Orcs patrolling the area, it seemed that very early in the morning, multiple automobiles pulled up at the Zentmeister headquarters.

The Orcs gave him a list.

{Zentmeister company}

{Cuisinology Pattern}

{Zarax Group}

{...}

There were about eight companies in total, their rankings ranging from the top 11 to top 20.

Michael immediately cross-referenced these companies to the known companies in the Anti-Automobile group.

But none of them were part of that alliance. They were all either pro automobile, or neutral to it. The Orcs also confirmed that these companies had never done anything shady to the Reborn company. They competed fair and square, which was good to know.

What are they doing there?

Spurred by his curiosity, he willed the Mini Drone to come closer to the building.

But as soon as he did, he felt a powerful force rebuffing him, like a gust coming from a tornado, making his Drone’s flight unstable.

It was at this point that he realized what he was dealing with.

That was Aubility Power. But not the ordinary one that he’d seen all this time. This was Aubility Power that was so dense and so qualitative that it almost became solid in his eyes.

He understood intuitively. There was a Nascent Spirit cultivator inside. Whoever they were, they used their power to create a privacy barrier between them and the world.

Michael was also a hundred percent sure that the shockwave he felt came from a Nascent Spirit cultivator.

But... what kind? He didn’t see any Aubility Power threads coming outwards.

Was it something only Nascent Spirit cultivators had?

Despite advancing to this level, Michael never really knew what kind of powers he had. Harbinger was gone. There was no one to teach him the basics about being a Nascent Spirit cultivator.

The only other person he knew was Katarina. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have even known that Nascent Spirit cultivators could summon their Diva and use it as armor.

He wished she was here right now. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be found.

"Young Master..."

Castelle’s words brought Michael back to reality. He exited out of the Drone Vision and returned to his body, where he saw Castelle right in front of him with a confused look on her face.

"What’s wrong?" he asked her.

Castelle found it hard to find the right words. "Young Master, we’ve seen a dip in sales."

Michael found this weird. Things were going so well just a few minutes ago. It was uncharacteristic for the market to suddenly change in the matter of minutes, especially in a world that wasn’t dominated by the internet.

However, Castelle’s intuition was never wrong. She was familiar about the Reborn company like it was her own hand. She would know if they got injured.

"I’ve verified this with Tony, Young Master. We are losing the virality we had a few minutes ago," she said.

Tony managed McTony’s like she did. He had a mental sense about the company.

If they felt the same thing, then it was probably true.

"What happened?"

"Well... it’s hard to explain, Young Master. One minute we had thousands upon thousands of orders coming in every second. And the next, they were suddenly halved."

At this point, halving their current sales would still be a win compared to yesterday. In fact, they would probably still have that 50 million token sales mark.

But this decline in sales would mean that they wouldn’t ever progress past their current rank. And with tomorrow being the last day of the Feast, it would be extremely unlikely for them to reach the top 10.

"How could this be?"

Castelle shook her head. "I don’t know, Young Master. It’s like our customers suddenly lost their appetite."

Michael wondered what kind of incident could have caused this. Anything he came up sounded nonsensical. It sounded... out of this world.

Wait...

That shockwave. It was undoubtedly made out of Aubility Power, despite the lack of threads.

And what were the characteristics of Aubility Power?

It could change reality itself.

What if the shockwave was the cause of this sudden loss in sales? What if those Nascent Spirit cultivators from the Upper Echelons tampered with the very reality of New Sparta?

The more he thought about it, the more and more he was convinced.

What else could make such a drastic change?

Michael turned to Sheina. "Talk with the Orcs. Figure out why our customers lost their appetite."

And just as he was about to say something else, he heard a knock.

"Michael? It’s me, Joseph."