To be honest, he was indeed surprised to see Mr. A being so blunt and direct in his question.
But at the same time, he realized that something must have happened to stimulate Mr. A so much.
Based on the question that Mr. A asked…
It could only be that someone had advanced to rank 7 and the government thought of looking for him because they couldn't contact Samuel and Riya. The former was because he had been staying in the crack for a long time while the latter was because the government didn't dare to contact directly.
After all, Riya's attitude was clear.
She handed over most of the negotiation over to Samuel and only talked with them very briefly about some matters.
And since she was inside the crack, the only time she came out was when she took the magic beasts' corpses that she asked them to collect and handed over a batch of space storage scrolls as per agreement.
At this moment, anyone who dared to have any other ideas were simply stopped at the very first step.
They couldn't even contact her.
How could they ask something from her?
"Samuel didn't tell me much about it, Mr. A," Mr. Jones replied helplessly. "He said that he will tell us only after we have reached rank 6 peak where he would help us to advance to rank 7."
It was not a complete lie.
Samuel did keep a backup of a file somewhere but he would only explain the content to them after they had reached sufficient rank. Knowing too much too early was not too good. Because they would only feel pressure from the knowledge without being able to utilize it.
He felt that Mr. Jones was not telling the truth.
How could Samuel not leave some kind of backup for his family members?
These returnees were all betting on their lives, advancing further and further away on the road to reach the peak. Their lives were in danger and those who still have family members would definitely leave something for them so that their lives wouldn't be too bad.
But at the same time, he could see that Mr. Jones was truly unwilling to tell more to them about this matter.
"In that case, did Samuel ever tell you about the rank 7 advancement ceremony?" Mr. A asked another question.
"Advancement ceremony?" Mr. Jones blinked his eyes and thought about it. "Samuel did mention that advancing from rank 6 to rank 7 required special preparation, but he didn't go into details about it."
After all, they were still too far away from reaching rank 7.
Samuel didn't want them to worry so much about it and planned to tell them in person if possible when one of them had the qualification to advance to rank 7.
Well, their current qualification didn't seem to be that good.
"Is that so?" Mr. A was disappointed.
All returnees said that, but they were unwilling to go into details about what kind of preparation they needed to advance to rank 7.
No matter how curious they were, they didn't even know what they needed to prepare.
"With all due respect, Mr. A, has Samuel reached rank 7?" Mr. Jones asked the question he has been wondering about.
He knew his son's progress was fast, but isn't it a bit too quick for him to reach rank 7?
Even if he did, Mr. Jones would not be surprised, though.
After all, Samuel has been staying in the crack for a long period of time and probably obtained a lot of resources that could help him to advance through ranks faster.
While these treasures were indeed rare, but who knows what kind of things existed inside the crack?
They couldn't enter too deeply.
Only Samuel and Riya were brave enough to explore deep into the crack. The only good thing was that Samuel still send videos to them, allowing them to see part of the crack through his exploration.
Unfortunately, Samuel didn't bring too many things for them to research or others.
After all, most of the magic beasts' meat was eaten by Samuel and Riya…
For this matter, everyone was silent.
Samuel is a magic warrior, so they were not surprised that he had to eat a lot of magic beasts' meat. But Riya is a rune master, which is part of the mage's branch, why did she have to eat a lot of magic beasts' meat?
But well, Riya's answer was that she used them to make runes.
When they got this answer, everyone was silent.
Considering that Riya had explained the use of magic beasts' blood and that there was refining process that could be done to turn these magic beasts' corpses into mana… they could only gave up asking.
"We don't know," Mr. A replied. "The returnees are telling me that there's a rank 7 advancement ceremony performed right now, but they're not entirely sure who it is. Based on the location and the four returnees whom we managed to contact, we estimated that it should be either Samuel or Riya."
As for which one of these two, Mr. A was not entirely sure.
"Well, I can try to ask?" Mr. Jones said.
"Have you contacted Samuel recently?" Mr. A asked in surprise.
"Well, he contacted me just an hour or so ago," Mr. Jones replied truthfully as he took his phone and send a message to Samuel.
The reason why he didn't call was that he was worried that he would disturb his son.
However, Samuel replied in an instant.
Samuel: It's Riya who's advancing to rank 7
Samuel: If anyone asks, you can answer this way. There's no point in hiding this matter either way.
Samuel, who was looking at his phone, arched his eyebrows slightly. It seemed that the satellite was still working well and it was not disturbed by the mana disturbance by Riya's advancement.
It seemed that science and magic had to advance together.
So that if one route was blocked, they could use the other one.