GETTING A TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM IN MODERN DAY

by Kideo11

For others it takes dying and reincarnating for them to get a system but what happens when you get one without dying. Aron Michael is an average student set to graduate within a week, but he was expelled for a random reason. Due to that he had a heavy student dept and no diploma to help him earn the money to pay it back. But one day he got a system that called itself the [Advanced

3. Chapter 201 - 300

In the room where the Esparian government was providing information as to what had HAPPENED.

Most of the reporters in the conference couldn't help but feel sorry for Esparia, after hearing the TRUTH.

Meanwhile, the guy who had been informing them about the events from last night looked at the reporters with conviction after a deep moment of pause.

"As a nation committed to peace and cooperation, we never intended, nor did we seek for any confrontation with our neighbor, Eden. The events that unfolded were truly regrettable and tragic, we might never be able to forget what they had done to us."

"However, Esparia doesn't intend to use vengeance, rather we seek to resolve the conflicts through peaceful means and we extend our hand in dialogue to Eden. We call for a cessation of hostilities and hope that together, we can find a diplomatic solution to prevent further bloodshed and foster a peaceful coexistence for the citizens of our nations.

"However, let me be clear - in the face of this unprovoked aggression and the great loss of our brave soldiers, Esparia stands united and resolute. We will defend our sovereignty and protect our citizens from any threat with unwavering determination, no matter the cost."

The sudden change in the tone and words caused almost everyone in the room to look at each other, nonetheless, they still continued to hear him.

"In the upcoming weeks, we will work to get our captured soldiers back and seek the absolute necessary compensation to our martyred soldiers. We hope Eden cooperates with us in this regard and avoids any further escalation of the situation, as that might lead to a bite back."

The man then put a blank look on his face as he said.

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"Rest assured, this decision to negotiate is not due to the lack of our capability for retaliation, rather it is an act of mercy to prevent any further loss of life, should we choose to retaliate in a similar way."

"Should our negotiations with them fail, we have the responsibility to remind them: Esparia's military might remain unmatched, our soldiers are courageous and skilled, and we also have the unwavering support of our citizens."

"With that said, we shall retain the right to declare war on them in case the negotiation with them ends unfavorably."

"We shall not be deterred and we shall not falter. Together, we will overcome this adversity and emerge victorious in revenging our fallen, no matter the price."

"God bless Esparia!"

With those words, he concluded the press conference without taking any questions from the reporters, despite having their hands raised the moment he finished, trying to point out the inconsistency in some of the things he had said.

"They really went with that approach of trying to make us look like the instigators. How is the reaction online?" Aron asked, maintaining a smile on his face, not showing any negative reaction to what was said at Esparia's press conference.

[The Morgans have gotten into high gear as they are trying to shape the world's perception of the event. They are using their massive media control to portray us as the aggressors. They are trying to shape public opinion and make it seem as if we were the ones who started this as they saw no chance of winning if we were to be fighting fairly, thus chose this surprise, coordinated attack as a means to attack to the strong-arm themselves into ending the standup we had on our border] Nova reported back, answering Aron's question.

[Should I start countering their attempts at shaping public opinion?] She asked about his preferred choice of action.

"No, just make sure such rhetoric doesn't appear inside Eden," Aron answered.

"By the way, how long is their preparation going to take before they are able to declare war on us?" he asked, as he was sure that they didn't have any plans of not declaring war on us and merely used it up as an excuse to buy themselves some time before they could return back more prepared.

[The minimum is a month, but it won't exceed two months. They will likely be preparing themselves on ways to counter measures on what they perceived as our ability to jam their outdated communication tech. So, most of their upgrades will be in that direction. Also, since they are sure that they can damage our communication infrastructure by cyber-attacks, we can expect more of them to happen in the next fight] Nova reported back.

[Should I allow them to do the damage or is the current damage enough] she asked, wanting to know his approach on the cyber battlefield.

"Nah, they did enough damage the first time to give us justification to overhaul all of the government's communication networks," Aron answered, showing that this was going to be the first and the last time he allowed a cyber attack to be targeted at important things in the country.

"Also, did the materials Felix bought arrive yet?" He asked, remembering the reason this war had to be taken care of by only a few members of ESF and some helicopters.

[Yes they have arrived at the port and 46 percent of it has already been delivered. As for the rest, they will continue to arrive by Saturday evening] Nova reported back.

"Good, we need to make it extremely clear that we are not to be messed with," Aron said in a serious tone before he was interrupted by his phone's ring. When he took a look at the caller, he saw that it was Alexander, the President of Eden.

"Hello, Mr. President," Aron said, playfully adding the title jokingly.

"Hello, I called to ask if you have seen the press conference which Esparia just did?" Alexander asked respectfully, just like always, maintaining his respect for Aron.

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"Yes, I watched it while it occurred and I must say, they are making quite bold claims," Aron answered.

"Are we capable of handling their war declaration, or are you planning to return their captured soldiers and compensate for their loss?" Alexander asked in a tone which showed that he didn't hope this to happen since that would destroy the country's morale.

"You don't have to worry about that. We know for sure that no matter what we do, they don't plan for anything to end peacefully either way. They plan to declare war on us and we are completely capable of winning it. We have about forty thousand soldiers ending their training by the end of this week, that would make it impossible for Esparia to come victorious in any fight we have with them," Aron answered, reassuring his friend.

"Realy?" Alexander exclaimed in surprise, knowing that although Aron would joke sometimes with him, his jokes would always be backed up with action if push comes to shove.

"Yes, as for how, John will be visiting you soon to brief you on everything. So, don't worry about such matters and continue to encourage the citizens to join their effort in strengthening the country, both in construction and military," Aron said.

"Also, how do you plan to refute their accusation of us attacking them without any warnings?" Alexander asked.

"Our spokesperson will be holding a press conference soon, coming up with evidence showing that we did warn them and even give them enough time to change course. When they didn't, we took necessary actions to protect our territory on both the sea and land by firing at them for trespassing," Aron answered and shortly added.

"More details will be sent to you in a few minutes by the Minister of Defense," dumping all the responsibility to John, who was both the general and the Minister of Defense of the country, with no term limit for his position and could only be removed or replaced by Aron's approval.

"Oooh, that's good then," Alexander said after hearing his response and continued having conversations with him on different topics which were not in the least related to the ongoing war, since Aron had promised to solve this issue, he completely trusted him and was awaiting for John's meeting to know of the details.

A few hours after Esparia's press conference concluded, Eden held a press conference of its own too.

Although Aron had told Nova to not intervene except for Eden, he had meant in cyberspace, leaving Alexander free to do whatever he, John and Athena could come up during their meeting.

This time however, unlike the last press conferences of the two nations, the only difference here being the fact that it was Alexander, the President of Eden, who would be speaking and not some representative of the government.

Usually, the press conference in the presidential palace would have been carried out inside a press room which was large enough to accommodate more than fifty reporters along with their recording equipments, however, due to the large influx of reporters today, their equipments were restricted from entry, allowing only the reporter themselves to enter the conference. As for the footage of the press conference, everything regarding that would be provided to all the channels who requested it, since it was being recorded by the latest equipment owned by the government bought for their commercial use.

Alexander, wearing very stylish-looking glasses, walked into the room while accompanied behind by John, the General of Ares, who was closely followed by their spokespersons from the two offices and a few high level members of the government trailing behind them as they immediately spread, standing in a straight line behind the podium which at the moment carried Eden's President's emblem, meaning that it would be the president who will be addressing the conference first.

As he stepped onto the podium, Alexander adjusted his glasses and turned his gaze to the more than fifty reporters in the room who had quieted themselves to let him start his announcement as early as possible.

With a slight smile on his face, he started addressing his speech to all of them.

"Good evening everyone" At the start of his speech, he simply greeted and then continued.

"First, I would like to apologize for such an abrupt press conference, but our enem… fellows on the other side of the border did something that required us to make this abrupt conference to make sure that no more misconceptions are spread among everyone and turn us into the bad guys. So, this press conference is going to be spending most of the time refuting what they had claimed during their press conference."

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He looked around at the people and added.

"Of course, with the valid proofs."

He then paused for a moment while the screen beside him was powered on and started showing CCTV footage.

The footage played on the screen behind showed that it was captured at night, and instead of a color footage, the footage was infrared, albeit a pretty high-quality one.

For the first few seconds of the footage, nothing seemed to happen as the screen displayed the uneventful environment where the camera was recording, however, the reporters and watchers of the press conference knew exactly what this footage was for, on the top left corner of the screen it displayed a date of today, immediately after midnight, indicating that it had something to do with the war.

After a few seconds of continuous nothingness, the screen suddenly turned white, followed by the shake of the video before it returned to normal, but this time it showed a very different environment, the place which the CCTV had been recording had been completely altered, leaving behind a massive crater, clearly indicating that it has been struck by an artillery shell. The footage was followed by the shaking a few more times at indifferent intervals before the video file came to a conclusion, returning the screen to black before it was followed by Alexander who resumed his speaking.

"What you saw was the footage captured from one of our frontline bases located on the border that was the first to be hit by the artillery shells just a few minutes after midnight and that is not all, this is just the evidence of the attack they started on the land border. As for what took place on the water, you can listen to that yourselves," after he said that what immediately followed was the appearance of sound waves which started displaying on the screen, indicating that it was going to be an audio evidence instead of a video one.

[

"Attention all Esparia Navy vessels,

This is a warning announcement from Eden's Navy.

We have detected your entry into Eden's territorial waters, and we demand an immediate explanation for your presence in our sovereign waters.

We are closely monitoring your movements, and any provocative or hostile actions will be met with a firm and decisive response.

In the interest of de-escalation and maintaining regional peace, we urge you to identify yourselves and your purpose for being i…"

]

The audio started with the full warning that Athena had issued to Esparia's fleet which had trespassed into their waters.

[

"This is Esparia's Fleet commander. We are here under the order of the Commander-in-Chief, the President of Esparia, in retaliation to you firing ..." 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑒𝘭.𝘯𝑒𝑡

]

It was followed by the response of the Esparia's fleet commander which revealed how disrespectful they were despite being the one trespassing in the waters of another country.

[

"If you don't turn around within thirty seconds, you will regret having said those words"

]

Following the response which people knew very well the results of, the reporters at the moment had goosebumps knowing how Eden had warned the other side only once and when the other side disrespected them, they even gave them thirty seconds to change course or promised to send them an ordinance which might have to be the last thing they heard while still being in one piece.

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[

"Big words used by weak people, but this will also be our last warning. As soon as th..."

]

The Esparian fleet's response was followed by what they considered as their own version of threat.

[

"When the thirty seconds are over, fire at them,"

]

This made people think this was weirdly similar to a children's fight which continuously escalated as the other side doubled down on their threats.

But all of their thoughts came to an end when the screen that had been showing the audio wave footage turned on and displayed a moving camera in night mode while the Esparian fleet was closing near the Eden's border and their navy flag getting closer and closer, the reporters immediately realised that this was the fucking missile, a response of Eden's after the given thirty seconds were over.

Right now there was a complete silence in the press conference that was held by Eden as the reporters stared at the huge screen before them with some fear and shock, many of them also seem to have been deeply taken aback as their faces looked pale.

In a matter of a few seconds, the fleet went from being seen from afar to the footage suddenly cutting out. The screen now started displaying a new angle of the war theater as it was captured on a helicopter camera, recording what happened. 𝙗𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝙜

The massive waterspout mushroom which was displayed was accompanied by the high-speed shockwave that disrupted the water as it continued to spread. The camera that was recording the situation started shaking before stabilizing itself for a short moment, silencing the entire room despite having seen the same images that were released by the American Government and they could imagine the size of that devastating explosion and whatnot.

However, this time they were seeing it happen frame by frame, observing a few ships that were raised fifty meters high before breaking in two as they fell down, disappearing deep into the water that slapped the other surviving ships, turning them upside down and all the horror one could imagine about the ocean fury, happened all at once.

When they thought that there were people who were alive inside those ships, they felt goosebumps all over their bodies, both the reporters and the people who were watching the video on the other side of the screen.

As the footage came to a conclusion, the screen returned to its default black while Alexander continued his speech, "Among many evidences that we could bring to refute Esparia's claims, there was also something that every citizen of our country suffered, Esparia started by cyber attacks four days before they even made their moves past the border. Our citizens can bear witness to it since most of the people had their internet slowed down to almost a halt while we had most of our government websites shut down from their DDOS attacks. Which now, thanks to them for revealing the weaknesses on our side, we have now reached an agreement with CONNECT to revamp the entire country's internet infrastructure along with the government systems which would start immediately from next week." He paused for a moment as the expression on his face got a little darker before he continued with his speech.

"Despite all of these evidences, the other side has the audacity to accuse us of being the ones who started the fight, portraying us as the bad guys and even sending subtle threats of declaring war on us." His way of speech changed very quickly, going from his calm demeanor to an obvious anger as he emphasized on his ending sentence while gritting his teeth.

"BAM!"

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He startled the reporters by hitting the podium where papers would usually be placed, however, at the moment, there were none of them. His hand indicated that he was angered by the situation as he said, "Did they think that such petty threats will make us return their captured soldiers without taking compensation for the damage they inflicted on our infrastructures, just because they threaten us with a declaration of war."

"If that is what they are relying on, they can continue dreaming. Thank you for your time," he said, immediately leaving the podium and the room as he rubbed the sweat that had accumulated in his hands due to his anger.

His place was immediately taken by John, who immediately commenced his speech as that was what he was advised to do by Athena, who was the mastermind behind all of the things that happened during the press conference.

John's speech was a little bit tame, carrying with it the confidence and dignity of a general compared to what the people now thought as an emotional president who loved his country, giving its people more assurance on his capability of keeping the country safe.

His speech had nothing to do about more threats or similar things, but he was just talking about the conditions of the prisoners, informing them that they were safe and were being treated according to the international treaties, facing no torture or such things, assuring their family members in the other country.

At the same time, he followed by giving the conditions for the release of the captured soldiers to Esparia, starting the first round of negotiation publicly by stating their demands which were not too outreaching, except for one which they wanted the whole island that they shared the land border with Esparia to be handed off to them, effectively turning Eden and Esparia into nations having only water borders with each other. Many people saw this as an extreme overreach.

Some people believed that these were just the initial conditions Eden was open to negotiations, however, John's last statement threw all of such notions out of the window as he firmly stated, "All the conditions stated above are non-negotiable and must be accepted by Esparia before we move forward with the prisoners of war returning to their families. This is what is deemed as enough compensation for their abrupt action of conspiring to attack a nation without any reasoning behind it."

Following by saying a few more words, John also left the press conference, leaving the task of concluding the press conference into the hands of the spokespersons who had observed as the two people before them broke every public speech rule for government officials in existence as if they were mere suggestions. This now left them with the task of not antagonizing Esparia and the rest of the world any more than what they already had.

However, the bullet had already left the chamber and the reaction to the press conference was massive as the explosion footage and the radio communication continued circulating in social media, scaring the shit out of some people and incurring the curiosity of others who wondered which bomb in existence could carry such a heavy punch and could even be delivered with a booster and was on sale for Eden to buy, dismissing the idea that it was custom made completely away from their minds.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

This new piece of news which included Eden's press meeting stating the truth and their conditions for sending back the soldiers of Esparia was immediately fanned by the news agencies that continuously kept releasing article after article with headlines that attracted people's attention to the situation even more.

BreakingNewsAlert: Explosive audio evidence surfaces in the Eden-Esparia conflict! Watch the shocking footage of the missile attack on the Esparian fleet. Tensions escalate as Eden demands full control of the shared island border. #BreakingNews #WorldConflict

AnalyticalInsight: Eden's bold move demands complete control of the island border. But will Esparia accept these "Non-negotiable" terms? The footage of the attack leaves us horrified! Where does this conflict go from here? #GeoPolitics #WarOnWater

MilitaryInsider: That missile strike was next-level! The power and precision displayed by it is unparalleled. Speculations arise on the weapon's origin and its potential suppliers. Questions abound! #AdvancedMilitaryTech #WarfareEvolution

CNNnews: Strong words from Eden's President, Alexander! Will Esparia yield to their demands? Negotiations seem tense, and world leaders are closely watching. #InternationalRelations #DiplomacyInCrisis

CuriousCitizen: What kind of missile caused such a massive explosion? This raises concerns about the accessibility of such powerful weapons. The world needs stricter arms control regulations! #ArmsProliferation #GlobalSecurity

Thanks to this, every reader of this topic found themselves thinking that they were experts in the citation and started laying out their ideas and assuming as to how the situation would be going to follow from now on, some even coming up with good assumptions, some completely got deviated and entered the realm of science fiction.

HistoryBuff101: Tensions between nations are nothing new. Let's take a deep breath and reflect on historical conflicts that eventually led to peaceful resolutions. Will Eden and Esparia find their own "Cold War" détente? #LessonsFromHistory #HopeForPeace

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CrazyConspiracies: What if this whole thing is just a distraction from an even bigger conspiracy?! Alien invasion, anyone? Share your wildest theories and let's keep an open mind! #BeyondTheSurface #TruthUnveiled

And among many of the discussions, one of them attracted a little bit more attention as it seemed that Twitter was very good at sowing conflicts between people with different ideas about the situation, leading to heated arguments about the situation.

WarOrPeaceExpert: The Eden-Esparia conflict got me thinking! Diplomacy will win the day. Both sides need to sit down, talk it out, and find common ground. No need for war when dialogue can lead to peace! #DiplomacyFirst #WarOrPeace 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝐯𝗲𝐥.𝗻𝗲𝐭

MightyWarrior: You're kidding, right? War is inevitable! Eden already showed their strength in this small-scale fight. Esparia is clearly no match for them. Victory is on the horizon! #UnstoppableEden #WarIncoming

WarOrPeaceExpert: Oh, please! A small skirmish doesn't decide the outcome. Esparia may regroup and retaliate. It's crucial to prevent further violence and aim for a peaceful coexistence. #OptForPeace #WarNotTheAnswer

MightyWarrior: Wishful thinking! Eden had indeed gotten the upper hand and they wouldn't back down. Esparia will crumble under the pressure. Mark my words! I choose strength and power! Eden has got the edge and that's the reality. Esparia better watch out! #EdenSupremacy #WarriorsRise

WarOrPeaceExpert: War is not a game! Innocent lives are at stake here. Let's put our efforts into de-escalation and finding common ground for peace. #ProtectLives #WarNotTheAnswer

...

While most of the online netizens were discussing the events that had occurred one after another, but at the same time, inside the earth 2.0

Soldiers could be seen engaged in a war against a country that possessed more advanced technology compared to them, and they were having their asses handed to them by their enemies.

They had been here for more than seventy-five days, and during this period, other than training, they had faced nothing but war, briefing about their mistakes before they were returned back to war, again and again, to get their asses handed once more before they were shown their mistakes once again in a continuous loop, with their enemies also continuously getting stronger just like them.

However, thanks to their mistakes being shown and being returned immediately with that fresh knowledge to the fight, the lessons were etched deep into their brains, never to be forgotten again.

They were receiving first-hand experience in all situations. Like how to fight as a small group, as a medium-sized group, to fight as a massive group against a small group of enemies, to medium, to a massive group of enemies, getting experience in every aspect of war.

On the first day they entered the simulation, they were asked to choose which branch they wanted to be specialized in and be a part of.

After the selection, they were assimilated with the knowledge of that specific field, making them a super expert in that particular field while also receiving combat training with it, no matter what field they choose, even if they had opted to be a military spokesperson.

Following that, they were sent to a massive military school where they practiced the knowledge they were assimilated with, to ensure nothing had gone wrong during the process.

Soon after, they were immediately attacked by an enemy nation in a surprising assault, serving as the start of their test, being graded based on every action they took from that point until the last day of graduation. The final results would decide what position one would be assigned on the graduation day, meaning that one who was just a new soldier after entering the simulation could excel if they did very well and received high marks from Athena, starting their military career by becoming a Commander right away.

With the soldiers now informed about the benefits of earning higher points, they started working harder than when Athena had forced them. Forcing someone to do something without an endgame was difficult but when they learned that there are benefits in having higher points than others, this boosted their motivation to strive harder than their friends and through that camaraderie, a healthy competition started between the soldiers as they strived to gain higher marks so that they could start their lives with a high level in the military, knowing that they couldn't resign with the substantial amount of investments that was being spent on them.

A massive military with all of its soldiers having their bodies genetically enhanced and having received first-hand experience was thus born. The existence of this army remained as a well-kept secret with only a few handful of people being aware of it. This was an army that was capable of terrorizing the planet or beyond and was now taking its first step towards its formidable future.

Eden's press conference did nothing other than completely disrupt many of the Morgan's plans, forcing them to spend several hours which were spent on meetings, trying to come up with new strategies to make sure they were able to achieve the desired outcome. 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.ｏｒｇ

They didn't have an option of backing down, since that would mean two things that they couldn't swallow no matter what.

First, their pride would be hurt greatly if they were to lose to a country which they considered primitive, especially after having several government institutions acting as their helpers.

Second, the amount of investments they had made in Eden, even putting their other developing projects on hold so that they could direct the use of their technology department to hack the shit out of Eden's government infrastructure to divert their attention, giving Esparia the opportunity to kick their asses. Unfortunately, their efforts backfired, making them suffer a significant up defeat as if the other side had already expected of their plan, leading them to look for a suspect within their own ranks.

Another reason they couldn't back out no matter what was…..

"So you are saying that it might be the Rothschilds who tipped them from behind and gave the bomb after buying it by using their contacts?" George grumbled after hearing the report from the representative.

Right now, there were just three people inside his father's workroom, George himself, his father and the representative who had been in Esparia a day ago.

"Yes, we also suspect that their cooperation goes even further than simply that, Rina, the heir candidate, after her visit to Israel had personally visited Eden secretly," answered the representative, who had returned to America to report on what was happening first hand, not trusting any communication infrastructure of Esparia.

After a brief pause, he continued with his briefing "It is speculated that she had been carrying a cargo containing something radioactive, based on its shielding, which was not present with her during her return to America"

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"By the way, how did you know about her visit, when we failed to track her during her visit?" asked George, curious about the validity of the intel.

"I accidentally stumbled upon her image among the intel files which were provided to me by Esparia, they were collected by one of Esparia's spies in Eden. At that moment this one had been observing the people going in and out of the presidential palace and when his attention was attracted to a convoy that was entering the presidential palace without being searched at the door, the spy tagged it, informing his fellow spies in the country to keep an eye on it. With some trouble, they were able to manage to capture one of her pictures while she had got off to board a boat that was heading to the island."

The representative took a pause trying to see if the two in front of him had any thoughts.

After hearing no reply, he continued while asking, "What can they even do with radioactive materials in that underdevelop..."

However, George stopped him mid-sentence as he remembered something about Eden that had created quite the buzz a few months ago.

"The Brown Clouds!"

George exclaimed, similar to a scientist who had experienced a eureka moment before he continued, saying, "They must be doing something with what the cargo she had brought to them during her visit," he muttered as his mind simply connected the dots after receiving the new information.

"Yes, this is also what we suspect it to be as well since Esparia's spies in Eden have failed to gain access to that Island too. Everyone getting closer to it, even the port that has boats heading to the island will need heavy credentials. There is also a report that last week, more than forty thousand soldiers were sent there to what we suspect being the expedite of the construction of whatever they are building there," answered the representative.

"What sort of construction would need so many people and most importantly, with all of them being soldiers to expedite it? In order to keep the project a secret? Are they doing something like the Manhattan project?" asked Geroge, being the one who asked the question while his father remained quiet, listening to the answers as the representative provided them.

"You are not too far from our speculations. We suspect it to be an enrichment facility, but everything about that island is nothing but pure speculation. We don't have any or even a few concrete rumors about what might really be going on at that piece of land much less any information to base our assumptions on what they might be doing there, but it should be important enough for them to warrant for sending their heir candidate there secretly, with minimum security to avoid attracting any attention," answered the representative while explaining.

"Look like the Rothchilds are already busy doing some preparations for round two and it has to do something or the other with that island," Aubrey chimed in, voicing his opinion for the first time throughout this entire meeting, before he shortly ordered, "Tell Kassim to contact the Secretary of Defense and have him provide us the intel of what the fuck is happening under those clouds by the end of this week." His words clearly indicated that he had come to a decision based on the back and forth of words that had taken place between his favorite son and the representative.

"Sir, Kassim is still receiving his punishment for delaying our attack on the Rothschilds, does this mean that he has been forgiven and can return to duty?" Inquired the representative in a tone that had a hint of jealousy within, subtle enough for George to not pick it up but obvious enough for Aubrey to understand what the man was implying.

"No, this will act as Kassim's last chance to redeem himself, if not, he will really hope that he had never known us before," answered Aubrey, acting as if he didn't see the man's intention since he didn't care at all about the rivalry amongst the servants as long as they accomplished the tasks given handed over to them and if this increase in competition among them ended up hurting their capabilities of accomplishing the tasks given to them, he would just get rid of them and their replacements will be more than willing do it in their stead.

"I will inform him, sir," the representative answered, portraying a respective posture while waiting to see if there were any other instructions from him.

Aubrey on the other hand ignored him and turned to his son before asking, "Do you think that the Esparians can win in a rematch against Eden's army if we were to provide a similar support compared to the last time?"

George confidently replied, "They would have no chance at all if the Rothschilds are really using that country as a ground base for whatever attack they are planning, then they must have done a massive amount of investment in the country's security. Which is rather surprising since we didn't have any indication of anything as such happening at all, meaning that they are taking whatever is happening there very seriously."

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"Good, so what do you think we should do? Give up on them or should we support them even more?" Aubrey asked, like always, testing his son even more after being satisfied by his response.

"I think it is time we send our fighting forces to stretch their muscles since Afghanistan is not making them stretch themselves very well due to the US army dealing with the insurgent groups by bombing the shit out of them," Aubrey suggested, immediately eliciting a smile from Aubrey who was feeling happy, thanks to his favorite son who continuously provided the answers he was expecting from a son who he thought was a perfect candidate for the role of inheriting his position after him.

With the words now out of his son's mouth, these words soon reached the representative's ear who at once knew what George clearly meant.

Their (Private Military Contractors "Mercenary") PMC's would be making their moves very soon as they start heading to Esparia.

Among them were many prominent PMC's, such as;

Academi (formerly known as Blackwater): A private military company that provides security, training, and logistics services for the family.

DynCorp International: A company which offers services, including- aviation support, intelligence, security, and logistics for the family.

G4S: Although based in the United Kingdom, provides security and risk management services worldwide for the family.

And many more that were about to head to and be stationed in Esparia, acting as their counter card against the Rothschilds, or so they thought.

While the Morgans were preparing for an imaginary third round of their battle in the 21st century with Eden, due to their single misunderstanding of collaborating Rina's visit to Eden and had used her family's influence to help the country by making America turn the aircraft carrier that would have otherwise caused quite a few troubles for them.

At the same time, the FBI finally deemed themselves to be prepared enough for making their move. They used the ongoing war between Eden and Esparia to be the reason for Aron to try to escape and return to America for his safety, so they had to make an urgent move before that happens, as Aron could be a powerful obstacle if they delayed it for too long.

A convoy of five cars, three of them being from the police and two having the logo of an energy utility service provider, parked in front of Aron's house. A group of people started coming out of the cars, with police officers armed with weapons and bulletproof vests.

As for the company workers, they walked at the center of the parallel, making their way towards the house, which could now be seen to be bustling with movements as all the guards guarding the house started positioning their hands on their waists, indicating that if those in police uniforms tried to do anything funny, this place would turn into a war scene.

"What brings you here?" Donald asked as he walked out of the small fence around the house, already wearing a bulletproof vest and other radio equipment.

"We are here under the judge's approval to cordon the house for containing a machine that is deemed to be dangerous for the neighbors and the grid," answered one of the workers as he handed Donald the paperwork detailing the judge's order.

Donald received the piece of document and started reading it. At the same time, he had already informed Aron and his lawyers, however, even before the lawyers could respond, Aron had responded and ordered for Donald to not cause problems for them and allow them to enter the house, but before that, they should evacuate his family first.

"You can enter the building but before that, we have to evacuate our clients," Donald said. Right away, someone was about to disagree under the worry that they might be hiding something but Donald continued with his statements, "A few male and female police officers can come with us as the clients pack their things and evacuate the premises since the judge's order says that they have to evacuate the building until you find the cause for the problem anyway."

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"Sure," they accepted and some of the workers released a few sighs of relief. They had anticipated that the situation would go in a completely different direction, hence the massive armed police presence they had brought with them but it seems that the owner of the house cared more about his family than whatever dangerous thing might be inside, or the dangerous thing inside had already been moved.

Meanwhile, the residents living in the neighboring houses all seem to have been attracted by the commotion as they immediately left their houses and gathered at the place where this drama was taking place, surrounding at a small distance away from it as they watched everything taking place in silence or sometimes discussing between each other about the situation while pointing a the police who were on the door.

After a few minutes of supervised packing, the family left the building with a few guards who were heading directly to Henry's school to pick him up, as per Aron's orders. At the same time, the house also had its perimeter wrapped around with yellow tape as the police started guarding the building together with the guards who were ordered to keep an eye on the ongoing situation until the lawyers arrived to assess if any law had been broken during the process and decide their approach to revoking the occupation of the property of their client.

The onlookers in the surrounding area started dispersing, but there remained a few groups of neighbors who continued talking about the ongoing situation, but not for a long time before they too left to tend to their own work, which they had momentarily put on hold to witness the police raid.

...….

"I really expected them to give us more trouble than simply packing and complying with the warrant," Peter Strozk reported to Lisa Page about the success of their plan using his phone.

"I don't think it's going to be that easy from now on. The army of lawyers will soon be arriving to scrutinize whatever you are doing at the moment before they start the process of revoking access to the building by appealing the warrant," Lisa cautioned, trying to remind the team leader that everything was not over until they had secured what they had come for.

"I know. My team is now collecting the data from his private server and in the process of dismantling the electrical connections before we start the process of moving the machine back to the HQ," said Peter, showing that he wasn't letting the plan's success get to his head. He turned and smiled looking at the guard whose job was to make sure that they weren't doing anything shady but at the moment the guard was doing nothing of that sort even after seeing that they were collecting data to the Network-Attached Storage(NAS) they had brought with them.

"Having access to information is really convenient," he said to Lisa, who on the other side of the phone understood what he meant by that statement. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗻𝗲𝐭

The team had thoroughly investigated all of the people who were working at the house, providing security and maintenance of the surrounding. However, they found out that the people Aron hired were only for the security and nothing else, the chores inside the house weren't done by anyone else, as the people living there handled it themselves, as they felt more comfortable that way.

Leveraging their access to abundant information they had collected about the guards working at the house and identifying their soft spots and weaknesses just in case they were ordered to oversee all of their steps. Unfortunately, they did exactly that, but now thanks to them being prepared for it, the team threatened the guard using his family and a few more of his secrets, ultimately convincing him to now be working for them in return for payment. This meant that they weren't the only ones getting something out of him since he was also getting money and was not working for them just because of threats and with no compensation.

Now, thanks to that guard's assistance, they had managed to gain uninterrupted access to the security services' logged information, which detailed every journey the family had taken in the previous months, as well as the details of who visited the compound and much more.

With this information, the team could piece out the destinations the whole family had visited since day one of their jobs, allowing them to later be able to correlate events occurring at certain places with their logged information which was always accurate since the guards were always present with them during those visits.

Their actions were all marching in the same directions the Morgans had been taking themselves to: Successfully attracting Aron's attention towards them. Something that many people in the future would be afraid of doing thanks to these two being the pathfinders of demonstrations of what would happen to those who dared try to do anything like this.

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

Sunday

An RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone could be seen cutting through the skies, flying at the maximum speed it can safely reach without causing any damage to itself, heading towards the direction where only two countries are situated: Eden and Esparia.

It was on its fourth hour of flight for this mission, having taken off from a land base in America due to its inability to take off from an aircraft carrier. Nevertheless, because of its long-range endurance capabilities, that was sufficient enough for allowing it to go and collect intel while returning without having to worry about the risk of falling out of the sky since it could handle a mission that could last for more than 36 hours.

Not too far from it, there was an aircraft carrier that was acting as the commanding base of this mission. An E-2 Hawkeye, a squadron of fighter jets and an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft took off from the aircraft carrier with the assistance of the steam catapult.

It too was starting its mission to act as an early warning system for the Global Hawk with the squadron acting as the guard for the E-2 that was keeping an eye on the reconnaissance aircraft just in case anyone in the targeted location discovered it and did anything that might pose any threat to the aircraft.

The mission had started very well and many people acting as the team members of the mission hoped that the mission would conclude well without any problems.

...

[Sir, the booking of the private plane has already been completed and your family should be in the air in a matter of half an hour. However, since they don't have visas to come here, you will need to have someone from the migration department grant them entrance to the country] Nova reported to Aron, who was reading the report he received from the ARES members who had been observing the whole raid by the FBI who were acting as if they were employees from the utility company.

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"Good. I will be personally welcoming them at the local airport. Inform Alexander about it," Aron instructed, to which Nova immediately complied by sending the message to Alexander's glasses who responded without any delay assuring them that they can consider it done.

[He gave us the approval and will be sending us the official documents soon] Nova informed Aron about the successful arrangements.

"Good. How many hours until the graduation ceremony?" Aron inquired after he remembered that today was Sunday and it also marked as the final day for the soldiers in training to graduate.

[You still have a few more hours, while they still have a few more days to fight in the war before they are able to receive their final evaluation. I will inform you when you are required to log in to attend it] Nova added, receiving a nod of understanding from Aron.

His eyes raised in some astonishment as he continued reading the document that held information about Esparia's recent movements which had been quite erratic since Eden's press conference, to which Esparia responded with one of their own.

However, since they didn't have any counter-evidence, it ended up only being a press conference that was full of accusations with not a single piece of evidence to back them.

But at the same time, they also hinted about Eden doing something weird and mysterious activity on the island that had been covered with brown clouds for a few months and was trying to divert the attention of some people away from them, putting pressure on Eden to do something big that would return these people's attention back to their fight once again if whatever they were doing there was indeed a super secret.

The silence in the room continued for a few more hours until Nova reminded Aron that he should start preparing himself for the graduation ceremony of the trainees.

Aron said nothing and simply closed his eyes, after which, Nova immediately logged him into the VR where he found himself already donning the uniform of the Commander of the Army which he liked quite a lot since it made him look imposing and commanding. He was then teleported into a convoy that stood right at the entrance of the graduation compound which was filled with an eerily silence, as if there was no one.

The convoy then gradually made its way as it entered the silent stadium where rows and rows of soldiers were arranged in groups of 40 by 40, who stood motionlessly like statues, only their eyes moving as they watched the convoy come to stop right after the entrance before all the cars in front and behind the General's left, leaving only the General's car, which immediately opened its sunroof, allowing Aron to rise and stand through that opening.

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This immediately resulted in all the forty thousand soldiers adorned in ceremonial uniforms saluting at him in unison as if they were being automatically controlled but they were not. In fact, this was a result of the training they had received throughout these three and a half months that they had spent here. And thanks to that, they felt respect and adoration towards the General that was now ingrained from the very depth of their subconscious.

Aron returned the salute and by the time he put his hands down, he felt a sense of pride rising from the depth of his heart, he felt the worry of the safety of this place would also be soon removed from his heart as in the upcoming days, Eden was going to become the safest country in the world. As he did so, the soldiers also lowered their salutes and returned to the attention position.

The announcer or the controller or the MC of the event who at this time was Athena, was present in her physical body, while also being donned in ceremonial military attire that perfectly complemented her beauty.

She announced the commencement of the troop inspection, which was immediately followed by the start of the General's car as it drove a few meters away from the soldiers, who remained still as statues, turning only their heads to maintain their eyes on the general as he passed in front of them with the military songs playing in the background a result of the military bands hard work.

This process took more than half an hour, as Aron needed to pass in front of more than forty thousand soldiers, who for the whole time didn't even shake or move, earning Aron satisfaction due to their remarkable discipline and composure throughout this time.

The inspection was soon followed by Aron giving a speech to the soldiers which was pretty emotional for the soldiers acknowledging their hard work and dedication. After this, they finally received the results of their hard work.

Those who were appointed to different commanding positions were called forward to receive their appointment documents. Along with that, all the soldiers were also shown a hologram that displayed their appointed position and the points they had gained throughout their training.

If they wanted any more details of their performances and why they had earned those points, they could access them later when they were handed the VR glasses after their graduation ceremony after they had left the simulation pod and received their uniforms and other equipment tailored according to their own specializations.

The ceremony continued with a flyby of the fighter jets, which the soldiers had fought alongside for a very long time as they endured the challenges together, instilling a bond between the soldiers and their military equipment

The newly graduated soldiers who had completed their training received their appointments and got off the pods and had already cleaned themselves and had already taken their places in their allotted rooms for having a rest, where they would be spending a week recuperating there and the time would be even longer for those who would be responsible for doing security duty on the island similar to how it had been done by the previous ARES members who will be soon replaced by the these already trained and high-level point achievers, taking their place since they will be going to take their training.

But among these graduates, there were a few among them who were called by Athena before they could start resting due to the emergence of some urgent matter.

"WHOOOOOOOM"

A beastly roar could be heard as it echoed through one of the empty roads that were usually busy with trucks passing back and forth, carrying containers in tandem with the rail network, however, at this moment this usually heavily busy road was completely empty.

Four SU-35s could be seen already powered on as the pilots were urgently making their way to them, donning specialized pilot gears which didn't have any resemblance to any of the existing gears seen before. The maintenance teams were doing their final system checks on the planes like removing the red hanging tags on the missiles that were attached to the hard points of the planes, the urgency of the situation could be seen due to their professional movements.

These aircrafts looked brand new as if they had come out of the factory just a few minutes ago, because in fact, it was true that they were indeed made just a few moments ago.

While these planes outwardly resembled SU-35s, the only difference between these planes which resembled other SU-35 was that the structure and all their internal components of these planes were entirely different and were made by utilizing a special material that was the result of continuous breakthroughs in the lab city.

Though the data as to how these planes appeared could be found online, Nova had still opted to ask Athena to send one of the two flight-ready, fourth-gen flights that the previous military had to the island.

There, the plane was immediately sent to the printer for it to be thoroughly scanned, to have all the dimensions measured accurately and by using that acquired information, new aircrafts that looked like the SU-35 were built.

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However, these new aircrafts didn't have anything similar to them other than their outside appearance, with everything inside comprised of the latest tech, resulting in these fighter jets being able to go toe to toe with even the most advanced aircraft the current world could offer, while at the same time, not attracting attention and suspicions as to how they were able to manage to research and build brand new fighter in a matter of few months.

The pilots boarded the planes using the ladder integrated into them and soon took their seats, this was followed by them putting on the seat belts before they started conducting their pre-flight checks of all the moving parts on the plane.

The flight control surfaces responded crisply to their inputs, and the displays in the cockpit blinked to life, showing the vital flight data before it was immediately transferred to the headgear they were wearing, subtracting any need for them to have a look at the displays on the cockpit unless a malfunction on the headgear occurred.

"Ground, this is Angel One-One. All systems are green, I'm ready to take off," James, the pilot of the first SU-35-looking aircraft and also the team leader of the mission, reported.

"This is Angel One-Two….." "This is Angel One-Three" "This is Angel One-Four" the other three pilots also shortly reported to confirm of having finished their system checks, with all the systems being green.

When James heard the clearance from all three other pilots having reported their green systems and ready for takeoff he smiled, feeling happy that their very first mission had started without facing any problems. 𝚋ｅ𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖｅ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐

"Angel Squadron, this is Square Tower, you are cleared for takeoff!" A response shortly came, allowing them to proceed with take off.

With them receiving the clearance to take off, they wasted no time as James pushed the throttle on his left hand, increasing the amount of thrust coming from the engine, and slowly releasing the pressure from the brakes. The airplane started moving slowly, gradually gaining speed before he slowly started raising the front wheel which was shortly followed by the rear wheel, leaving the ground, officially marking the take off of the first Eden-made plane in real life and this was not for a test but for an official mission.

Closely behind him, the other three jets also had taken off within a few seconds of intervals, which was soon followed by them joining each other, flying side by side.

The moment they rejoined each other side by side, James radioed in, "Square tower, this is Angel Squadron. Requesting clearance for mission Vector."

"Angel Squadron, you are clear for mission Vector. Godspeed," came the response from the tower.

The squadron leader acknowledged the clearance and made a slight adjustment to the target they were heading to, the other three SU-35 following his lead seamlessly.

"Angel Squadron, this is the Air Operations Center. Intercept an unauthorized drone entering Eden's airspace. Escort it back to the international waters immediately," came a tense communication the moment they started their mission vector.

"Angel One-One, roger that. We'll intercept the intruder and redirect it," James responded, his voice reflecting his brimming confidence.

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In the vastness of the open sky, the Angel Squadron executed a series of precise maneuvers, each pilot seamlessly the moves of the other without having the need for any word to be spoken. Their training had forged an unspoken language of communication between them, a bond that transcended any verbal communication.

The jets cut the sky in full speed and were heading to the country's northern border as if there was no tomorrow, they were doing so to intercept the RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone that was on the verge of entering their border in about half an hour.

During their flight, they maintained their high Mach three speed, resulting in most of their flight path to avoid populated areas in the worry of breaking windows in those areas.

At the same time, they weren't trying to hide themselves or anything since the world was already aware that they had four SU-35 planes, but the surprising fact was that all four of them were in the air at the same time, something that had never been seen in the history of the country.

This meant that all the stealth options that were present in these new aircrafts were disabled for this specific mission, with the only active one being a signal releaser, whose job was to make the plane have the same radar cross-section that of any normal SU-35, hiding the actual radar cross-section of this plane that could send the Raptors to therapy.

"Target sighted at twelve o'clock," called out James.

"Angel Two, Three and Four, confirm visuals," James instructed.

"Confirmed," echoed his wingmen.

In a matter of a few minutes, the squadron had already reached their border, and after reaching, they noticed the foreign aircraft, thanks to their advanced avionics.

Following the response, James gave the order and they immediately started executing the interception maneuver. Two aircraft patrolled in the area just in case any other aircraft appeared, while the remaining two aircrafts went to intercept. One of them positioned itself on the starboard side of the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone and the other one stayed at the rear of it at a slight distance, prepared for taking the action in case the drone ignored the warning.

"Unidentified aircraft, this is Angel One-One of Eden's air force. You are approaching restricted airspace. Identify yourself immediately," James called out over the radio.

But the intruder remained silent even after he radioed in.

"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, identify yourself immediately," John called over the radio once again after the awkward silence they had received after his first warning.

"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, identify yourself immediately," John said for the third time, but like the previous two attempts, they received no response as the drone continued to approach closer and closer to the border.

"BRRTTTTTTTTTTTT"

Suddenly, a sound was heard as bullets passed at the port side of the drone, resulting in it moving to the starboard side, forcing the Angel One-Two to make an aggressive pull to the right to avoid collision with the drone.

"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, this is your final warning. Turn back immediately to avoid any hostile actions," James commanded firmly, at the same time, he initiated a lock on the drone which had leveled once again after the aggressive maneuver.

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At the same time as James initiated the lock on the Global Hawk the two patrolling aircrafts immediately in a sync did a 180 degree in such a short span of time that their suit had to get to work to reduce the extreme amount of G-forces the pilots experienced. The force had reached 15 G's which their enhanced bodies were able to handle, however, the suits dampened most of it, leaving them to experience 10 G's.

If the frame of these planes had been made from the same materials as the original SU-35s with these maneuvers they would have bent and crunched on themselves.

With the powerful engines capable of supporting such aggressive maneuvers, the two pilots headed in a single direction as a squadron of four FA/18 Hornets was approaching them at full speed.

The SU-35's afterburners were engaged, marking the first time they had ever been engaged since the time they had been supercruising in Mach three without them, thanks to the powerful engines.

"Angel One-Three to the approaching unidentified aircraft squadron, this is Eden's air force. You are approaching our airspace. Turn on your transponders and identify yourselves immediately, or you will be shot at once," Angel One-three announced through a universal radio frequency, making sure that the approaching aircraft was able to hear his announcement.

"Angel One-Three this is Falcon One-One of the USS Freedom. We are conducting signal recovery for our drone that has lost signal during a training exercise. Do you have any information about it?" A response came from the approaching aircraft, followed by them immediately turning on their transponder as a demonstration of their sincerity.

"Falcon One-One, this is Angel One-Three. Roger that, we understand your situation. We have detected your Global Hawk on our radar, and two of our aircrafts are attempting to intercept it. I will act as the guide, follow closely behind me," came a response from Angel One-Three, who immediately turned the planes that only had visual confirmation between each other. Angel One-four continued heading to the approaching aircraft, passing each other from a safe distance before he turned the plane 180 degree and started heading in the same direction as the American squadron that was following Angel One-Two, acting as an insurance in case the false reason the Americans gave them changed and they started dishing out at them, he was sure that they could win without causing any harm. 𝒷ℯ𝓭𝓷ℴ𝓋𝓮𝓵.𝒸ℴ𝓶

When the American squadrons reached their Global Hawk, they pretended to try to recover the signal and when they finally succeeded in doing so, the Global Hawk turned around and was immediately followed by the squadron as it started heading out of Eden's airspace. They then return to the direction where the aircraft carrier of the Pacific fleet was positioned, their mission having ended in failure due to the unexpected discovery and reaction from Eden's Air Force.

...

"So, you're telling me they discovered, intercepted and almost shot down our drone, forcing us to pretend as if we had a signal problem to avoid further escalation?" Obama asked as he briefed immediately, his face and tone reflected his disbelief since he was having a hard time believing that Eden had developed to such a degree.

"Did they secretly buy new aircrafts or something similar without our knowledge?" he asked sarcastically, finding it hard to believe the information that he had just received.

"No, they didn't buy new aircraft. They simply refurbished the ones they had, meaning what we saw was the entire Eden's Air Force at work. However, after a few months of operation, they won't be able to maintain more than one of them in operational readiness due to lack of experienced mechanics working for them and they don't have resources to train some new ones either," answered the Secretary of Defense, assuring that something like this is not going to happen again.

"The same thing happened to Esparia when they thought they could win against them and what do you think happened to them? What do you think will happen to us?" Obama asked sarcastically, getting pissed off by the man who seemed to be too overconfident in their military's power to not even consider the potential outcome of that.

"No, Mr. President, my confidence stems from knowing the full capabilities of our military as the source of it and no matter how they develop and how much faster they are able to get new equipments, they would never imagine of reaching our level at least for about a century," answered the Secretary of Defense, showing the source of his pride.

"I don't care about that. Now it seems that they have something secret enough to hide to even risk shooting down an American drone. If push comes to shove, I want to know what they are really hiding on that island and what is important enough to warrant such actions from them," Obama asserted, as his senses were urging him that they need to understand what was happening there as soon as possible or they were going to regret it in the future.

That night, Aron could be seen at the local airport, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the private plane that was carrying his parents and younger brother, who were still not quite sure what transpired in the last few days.

After a few minutes of waiting, the private plane started approaching and Nova immediately informed that it was the plane carrying his family members. This caused a smile to spread across his face, knowing that he hadn't seen them for a very long time. Since the day he moved to Eden to oversee the plans of the coup, he had only been keeping in contact with them through phone calls which he did to them almost every day.

After a few minutes of the plane landing, taxing and the passengers getting off, Aron met them at the doors of the plane as he had driven there.

"BROTHERRR!" Henry exclaimed while calling out his name as he escaped from their mother's grasp and ran down the plane stairs, nearly missing a step on the way and stumbling in his enthusiasm.

Of course, given his inhuman reflexes, Aron wasn't going to let his brother fall. After simply taking a single step forward, he moved forward, catching Henry before he could fall on the ground face first and due to the amount of force he exerted, the floor under his foot just a moment ago had developed a few cracks.

"You should be careful and look where you are going," Aron advised with a playful tone as he raised his younger brother before he set him on the ground while Henry still held a slight fearful expression on his face.

"BROTHER!" But a few seconds later, the young boy's momentary fear disappeared while he jumped and put his hands around Aron as he immediately tried to hug him with a smile donning his face.

"Missed you," Aron said as he hugged him back and pendulum swung him a few times, causing Henry to elicit a joyful laughter before he put him down and went to hug his mother who had already walked to the ground while he had been hugging Henry.

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"Welcome, Mom," Aron greeted as he hugged her, smiling as she hugged him back.

After a few seconds of hugging, he released the hug and went to his father, Michael and shook hands with him before hugging him as well, this awkward situation between a father and son caused Rose to laugh.

After catching up with a few greetings and a heartwarming reunion with his family, Aron escorted them to his car that was parked near them. He opened the door for Henry and his parents before taking the driver's seat and started driving them out of the airport without undergoing any of the required checks. Aron had provided the officials with a signed document from the very President of this country, although it was difficult for them to believe, after verifying that it was indeed real, they obliged by what was written on it, allowing them to pass without any hint of defiance.

As he drove the car taking them towards the port, Rose asked him, "Do you have any more details about what might have been the reason for those armed police to come and cordon off our house, forcing us to leave?" She wanted more information to satiate her worry since she had quite liked living in that neighborhood as they had very loving neighbors, in fact, both she and her husband had made friends with them.

"During the time I was here, I decided to invest in the country. However, doing it under an American company was going to bring some limitations to what I could invest in, so I decided to move the company here to be able to invest in those industries more freely. But this decision of mine seemed to have triggered something as they tried every means to try to force me to remain there, even going as far as using intimidation tactics like what happened at home. This forced me to bring you all here, for your safety," Aron explained with a serious expression, telling the truth but not the entirety of it.

He was using some liberty to edit the reason behind the occurrence of certain things and a few more, "I'm Sorry for causing you trouble," Aron said, feeling slightly guilty for having to resort to using such means so that he could remove any idea of them thinking of returning to the country later, lest they try to do that and end up having facing something bad.

"Looks like our citizenship is going to change," Michael, Aron's father, remarked after hearing the explanation, taking over for his wife, who still wore a face of bewilderment. While she was having a difficult time believing that the country they had been living for so many years really did something like that to them, the trust she had in her son was much more than she could ever trust them, with that being the tipping point, Rose decided that whatever the truth was, there must have been a reason for doing it and since nothing bad has ever happened from Aron doing something for them for a very long time, she decided to trust him in this too.

"Yes, within a week, all the process will be completed and you will be given the citizenship of Eden while still keeping your American citizenship for the time being," Aron answered, reassuring his father.

"That's good. By the way, where are we going?" Michael inquired after noticing that they were on a road that was completely dark with very few cars around. ｂ𝚎ｄｎ𝚘ｖ𝚎ｌ.𝚌𝚘ｍ

"We are heading to the island that is owned by my company. For the time being, you will be staying there until I have found a suitable residence for you to stay at." Aron explained, earning him a nod of understanding from his father.

"Your company owns an Island?" his mother asked in surprise. Although she had read news about her son's company having made more than a few billion dollars, she still didn't completely trust them, worried that if she starts completely trusting the news about her son, one day they might even say something negative about him and she might accidentally trusting that information as well, causing a rift between them. This was why she was always accepting any news about Aron with a grain of salt.

"Yes, it's quite large. I plan for this place to be the future headquarters of the company," Aron answered, causing his parents who heard him to have their expectations raised even higher.

"Brother, what about my toys?" Henry interrupted the conversation as he asked, not forgetting about his most important things.

"Don't worry, your toys are here too," Aron assured after a brief smile, noting how different Henry's priorities were compared to that of his parents.

Henry was jubilated when he heard the response and during the remainder of the journey, he drifted off to sleep with a smile of satisfaction donning his face while Aron continued having different conversations with his family.

"Wow"

A unified gasp of surprise escaped from his parents' mouths after they got off the boat which had brought them to the island and saw the massive and brightly lit port. There were thousands of people moving to the trains since they were the new batch of trainees who had come from those freshly recruited, while others boarded the boats and departed the port as they were heading to their stationed locations to take over the positions of the people who were had been there till now and needed to come for their training as well.

As for Henry, the young boy was still asleep, enjoying the privilege of sleeping in the car and would be waking up on the bed since he was being carried by Aron who at the moment seemed as if he was carrying nothing but cotton candy.

But that gasp was nothing but a mere start of a surprise marathon for his parents as they were surprised once again as they boarded the trains. As they started moving, they saw the brightly lit, beautiful-looking road, saw the grand building rising from the horizon, thinking if it was a wall, they realized it was indeed a building when they got closer and saw the size of the building

As the train came to a stop, they were amazed to see the Reserves, of people going in and out of the building, later they got onto the elevator and were shocked by its size.

As they entered the house they would be staying at they weren't much shocked after seeing its luxury, his parents had finally become used to the surprises they had come across one after the other in such a short period of time and had almost numbed to any surprise now.

...

The following day in Esparia.

The first batch of mercenaries had already started arriving at Esparia, the only difference they have from any regular soldiers is that they are mainly intelligence and tactics specialists with some of them even being training specialists.

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They were welcomed by high-ranking soldiers of Esparia and were immediately escorted to the central command of the country's military for allowing them to immediately begin their tasks since they had less than one month to do the job assigned to them. Their objective was to act swiftly and not give Eden enough time to prepare a counter against them since Eden seems to expect Esparia to attack them.

When they arrived at the military headquarters, they wasted no time and immediately got to work, starting by analyzing the intel they had gathered from Esparia and coordinating with the spies in Eden to gather the crucial intelligence for devising a more sound plan.

At the same time, those specialists acting as trainers started doing targeting training with the special forces batch of soldiers, officially marking the start of the plans and preparations for their upcoming war against Eden. 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝘯𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝑐𝘰𝘮

This was just the first batch of mercenaries and more of them were expected to arrive within the week, totalling to more than a thousand of them and all of them were going to be using their expertise in their specific fields to bring up a grand plan for victory during Esparia's second round against Eden.

...

For the past four days, a plane resembling a dot was spotted in the sky by numerous people. Being seen by many people in many cities and villages in the country, it had attracted their attention and became quite a topic of conversation between people, but as always it didn't take long before they forgot about it as well.

[Sir, the mapping has been completed and we now have an extremely detailed map of Eden] Nova reported to Aron, who had just woken up early in the morning and finished freshening up.

"Good, let's take a look at it," Aron said, putting on his glasses and taking a seat on the sofa as Nova immediately logged him into the universal simulation.

In the VR simulation, Aron found himself in an open field with Nova standing at his left, looking as beautiful as always.

"Show me the results of the mapping," Aron said after he enjoyed the view of the surroundings for a few moments.

Nova said nothing and created a miniature version of the entire map of Eden, with various of its regions being highlighted in different colors with the information of what each color indicated, which displayed different minerals and other resources the mapping plane had managed to detect.

The map had incredible details, going as deep as thirty kilometers underground, meaning that every small bit of information from that depth to the ground and water was scanned and mapped with the accuracy of nanometers, making Eden as the most accurately mapped country in the world. And with the military now having access to the most detailed map of a country to date, this would allow it to be uploaded in a simulation and conduct various training based on the cities and villages and everything with unprecedented accuracy, perfectly matching the real world one-to-one.

"Wow, I didn't know they were this blessed," Aron remarked, surprised when he saw the vast reserves of the highlighted regions, this indicated that there was something valuable in every highlighted parts of the map.

[Yeah and although I expected them to have many minerals, thanks to how the earth was in the universal simulation this exceeds my expectations by quite a large margin] Nova answered expressing that she too was surprised by these results.

Mineral Wealth (Deep Ground Reserves) :

Iron Ore Reserves: Reserves 500 billion metric tons

Copper Deposits: Reserves 350 million metric tons

Gold Reserves: Reserves 25,000 metric tons

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Uranium Resources: Reserves 2 million metric tons

Rare Earth Elements: Extensive deep deposits

…..

….

..

Aron silently read through the list of resources found and the reserves they had, the list even included the reserves, arable land, river, lakes, underground water reserves, timber resources and one of the hottest resources: oil and gas reserves, which were within their Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ), with the reserves being about 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which immediately rose them to the 12th country with the most reserves of oil in the world right behind America and on top of Qatar.

[Do you plan to buy the spots that have minerals and use them for yourself?] She asked Aron when she was sure that he was done with reading the information.

"I'm stuck with two options, one is to buy these locations and own the mines. The second is to inform the government about the reserves and make an agreement with them for revenue splitting, this would give me the right to mine the resources and since I can mine them at a very cheap price, I can create a great amount of profit from them without having to spend any money from start," Aron answered after a short thought.

"Which one do you think is the better option?" Aron asked followed by a brief moment of pause, wanting to know what would be her opinion.

"Which option do you think is a better one?" Aron inquired, his voice trailing off after he asked, wanting to know what would be Nova's opinion.

[Regarding some of the resources, I suggest option one and for the resources, I recommend going with option two] Nova responded before pausing for a brief moment after which she continued by elaborating the reason behind such a recommendation from her.

[Starting with the resources that I believe option two is better suited for, the oil and gas reserves. Firstly, these resources are usually developed through the collaboration between the governments of the countries that have these resources and the private companies that will be responsible for extracting them. The arrangements of such a deal will involve revenue sharing between the two parties through the drilling rights of these resources. It is done this way to allow for the country to reap continuous benefits without being forced to invest heavily, making that resource a country's income stream]

[The next reason I suggest you do it this way other than precedent is so that the citizens can sense the direct benefits from the amount of investments the government would be doing by using the profits generated through this venture. These benefits could include universal health care, tax cuts and much more of such public initiatives. And given that you can extract the resources with what could almost be considered as little to no cost at all, the profits resulting from this venture will be substantial, far surpassing any of those oil and gas exporting country's profits margins by several magnitudes higher, allowing those countries to have massive funds for investing them in the public.

[The third and final main reason is that, although I can manipulate and steer the public opinion in any direction you want, it would be very difficult to justify to the public for handing over a massive amount of profits to a private company that has been trying to infiltrate every part of their country. This could lead to dissatisfaction between the citizens and us, potentially harming your reputation. And while you could make them sway from it after a long time of persuasion, it still wouldn't erase the negative opinions they might form about you] Nova paused after that long, detailed explanation, allowing Aron to digest the information before she resumed shortly.

[Regarding the other minerals and resources, you can simply choose the second option, just buy the locations that have the significant deposits while leaving the rest of them in the hands of the government. This aligns with the already established precedents where companies buy mines and profit from them. However, you will have to make it known that you are buying them after you release to the public about the potential existence of minerals in those locations. This transparent approach will facilitate a rightful price from the government and save you from any public outrage that might happen if you publicize the existence of minerals in those locations after you have bought the lands for cheap]

With those words, Nova finished her explanation, letting Aron have some time of silence to contemplate on his decision.

After an extended period of silence, Aron responded, "Start formulating a plan regarding it for the acquisition of the locations based on your suggestions. We should hold off on the announcement of us being the ones discovering oils until our second round with Esparia. It will serve as a good revelation during a victory speech and should make Alexander's government's approval rate to break the ceiling since the announcement will coincide with the announcement for the preparations of the first presidential election of the country in three months, after that announcement, his win will be secured to the point where the election results would resemble those from North Korea," Aron had managed to maintain a serious look on his face throughout the time he said all those words but ended cracking a smile as he delivered the last few words.

...….

While Aron was having a pivotal conversation with Nova that could remold the shape of the entire country, at the roads on Avalon island, a name that Nova had opted to give to the island based on the public thoughts about the island being shrouded in mystery due to the constant brown clouds covering most of it. 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗼𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗰𝗼𝐦

Right now, one could even witness some unconventional sights that were different from any usual sights that one could expect to see in their whole lifetime on a normal road. Fifteen massive cargo airplanes could be seen parked on the road, having already been loaded with their cargo and doing their final taxiing before they started the run for a takeoff.

Named as Titan, nicknamed as Paradisemovers, these planes were definitely not like any normal plane, each of the planes had a size that was comparable to the Ukraine's An-225, while also being capable of carrying twice the weight of the AN-225, yet having the ability to fly faster and longer than it. The aircraft itself exhibited a high degree of intricacy and reflected rigorous craftsmanship and even though there were fifteen of them, each carried an undeniable power and utmost technology of its time. With the fiercely sculpted bodies of these aircrafts, it's sweeping wings and angular tail radiated an aura of power and technical sophistication, enough to instill fear in even those who were used to seeing such warplanes.(image here)

These extensive logistic movements were planned to continuously take place in the upcoming days, for a team of humans to come up with an efficient plan, a week or two would have been easily used up. So, Athena, recognizing the urgency and complexity of the situation, simply asked her mother to build Hermes, an AI capable of overseeing the military's entire logistics, for her and made it responsible for the entire logistical planning and movements. Hermes, in turn, generated smaller versions of herself to assist in the task, ensuring as much efficiency as possible.

With the cargo planes now ready and prepared for takeoff, the pilots asked for permission to take off, to which they received swift approval and without wasting any time, they immediately commenced their departure. With a massive surge of power in the thrusters, the first plane gained speed and went down the runway. After traveling for a remarkably short distance for such a massive cargo plane, the plane's front wheels started rising, indicating that it had gained enough speed to start the final process of takeoff. This was soon followed by the rear wheels leaving the ground as well, followed by the plane starting to gain a stable altitude as smoothly as possible, without the risk of rattling the cargo within since it was something quite sensitive.

In a span of less than a quarter of an hour, the remaining fourteen cargo planes took off similarly, each heading off and veering in different directions from the other, disappearing into the early morning darkness.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

In succession with the disappearance of the planes that had been on the road not long ago, another set of similar-looking cargo planes started taxiing out of the printer building and heading to the patch of the road that was suitable for planes to take off during peacetimes due its elevation being flat, as for wartime, the planes can take off from anywhere, thought that would just require a little longer maintenance or they could simply be disassembled and printed once again.

This subsequent batch of planes also carried a printer each and after they took off, they also went to new directions that were different from their predecessors.

This sequence repeated itself several times, with each round fifteen new planes would come out of the atomic printer then take off and head to a new direction that was different from their previous batches. This continued until ten batches of planes had already taken off, with the planes going to a total of one hundred and fifty different destinations, each of them had an atomic printer that took the complete space of the massive cargo bay, these were destined to arrive ahead of the soldiers who would be stationed at those locations. 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝐧𝗼𝐯𝗲𝗹．𝐧𝐞𝘁

Subsequently, they were soon followed by the appearance of a fresh batch of the same looking cargo planes, this time they were serving as specialized tankers, carrying rare materials in their atomic forms and sending them to where the printer carrying planes went, for them to be used in tandem with the materials that could be found from the constructed bases surroundings to print things for the soldiers and allow them to accomplish their tasks.

"I really can never get used to this." A man wearing a stylish navy blue colored uniform commented as he marched in a parallel line with a group of a hundred fifty soldiers on each line, all of them carrying a military bag on their backs as they made their way to the train station to be taken to the port to be sent to their stationed bases. He observed as the massive cargo planes were taking off one after another in short intervals.

"This is going to be our new normal, so you better start by getting used to it," replied a comrade who was walking beside him in the line jokingly and at the same time seriously since from the moment they were logged inside the universal simulation they knew that their world view was never going to be the same again based on what they had experienced there.

"I know, I know," he acknowledged the truth of the statement while adjusting his glasses which at the edge of his lens displayed pertinent details such as his name, age, military position and much more, indicating that these were VR glasses. However, the man who had just responded to him didn't have any such glasses, rather he had an earpiece on him fulfilling the same task.

These devices were given to every soldier who had successfully completed graduation from the Athena's training as a participation reward, these were specifically designed devices that allowed the soldiers to log in into the universal simulation when they were not on duty. However, during their time of duty, they were required to put these devices in their secure lockers and donn their official military gear since the military ones had permission to access things that even their gifted devices didn't.

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These soldiers weren't the only ones on the move, as a contingent of fifteen thousand personnel would be leaving that day, heading to the same path those cargo planes that had taken off to before them. Their destination: the various military bases where they would have to fulfill their duties.

As for those from the intelligence department, they were already being briefed for their missions. About a hundred of them were about to be discreetly smuggled into Esparia, while two of the best among the graduates of the intelligence branch were preparing themselves to get ready to head for a mission to Russia.

This marked the official start of soldiers trained and approved by Athena to be entering the service of the military en masse. It also marked the dawn of a corruption less and a theftless military. During their knowledge assimilation, a subtle suggestion had also been added into their subconsciousness over the course of the entire week, it was done as gently as it could be, which rendered it impossible for them to be able to discover these changes. For them, these changes had happened to them gradually and had taken over a period of three months, making them realize and consider these changes as the result of the brutal training they had received.

As a result of this process being completed successfully, it had now become impossible for them to even consider exploiting the military resources needlessly or even think of using their position to coerce the lower-ranking workers into doing something against their acknowledgement or exploit them had become completely inconceivable.

Issues like sexual harrasment of female soldiers, rape, trading sexual favor in return for underserved promotion and many other reprehensible behaviors which were difficult for the current world's militaries to completely eradicate, had completely been removed from the minds of Eden's soldiers.

While all the soldiers who had came out from Athena's training other than those from the intelligence still had their previous personalities and everything coming with it, but all of their corrupt and negative tendencies had been completely removed, leaving them as forthright and sincere human beings who had been given the strength of a machine and an unwavering conviction to follow all the orders given to them by their commanders to the T, regardless of the cost, as long as it was an order from their leaders.

They were perfect soldiers, as perfect as one could be without resorting to destructive mind manipulation which Aron had no intention of subjecting them to.

As for those from the intelligence department, they were conditioned differently. For the women, most of the focus went on increasing their beauty to monstrous standard, with their proportions reaching a divine level. As for men, they too experienced huge changes on their body shapes and face, being developed to a very handsome face and although all soldiers who went through genetic strengthening had become somewhat handsome and somewhat beauty, those from the intelligence department still held one against the rest, with their minds being strengthened further and being assimilated with everything both a spy and intelligence analyst would need, making them ahead of the world standard by several miles even if you don't include the technological advantage they come with.

...

The following days of the week were followed with the unfolding of a similar pattern, marked by substantial soldier movements and the constant activity of the cargo planes. The massive cargo planes returned and repeatedly carried the same cargo-loading routine they did in the past and embarked once again on a journey to a new destination across the Avalon Island and different parts of the country.

The already-graduated soldiers were already sent to replace their counterparts in the many bases that were adjacent to civilian settlements. Additionally, the new bases that were already built during the past months had been refurbished by the atomic printers that were sent there during the previous days.

As for the negotiations between Esparia and Eden, they were not going well at all and faced significant challenges with both sides not agreeing on a few key concessions. At the same time, both countries started bringing their massive military movements near the shared borders, each accusing the other side for forcing them to escalate even further amidst the negotiations, forcing them to respond to their movements.

At the same time, Esparia had started trying to rally the international watchers to urge the foreign countries to exert pressure on Eden who was using the captured soldiers as hostages and as means to accomplish their needs. At the same time, they had also started the talks for buying some country's fourth generation aircrafts, the talks also seemed to be going in a very positive direction since most of those countries were also planning on replacing their long active fighter jets with new ones of the same gen as they waited for the F-35 program to start rapid production after the testing phase was carried out.

And with the support of the Morgans behind them, many of Esparia's negotiations were going very positively. As for the matter of the shortage of pilots to fly these aircrafts, the Morgans promised to handle that problem by simply hiring the pilots who had left the military and those negotiations were carried out well, they were on the verge of buying about 30 to 50 new fighters within a month and since the countries having already planned to have their aircraft retired, they would also be immediately delivered after these fighters received their final maintenance.

They chose to announce their acquisition efforts openly, aiming to boost the morale of their citizens. This served as one of their publicly stated ultimatums which they intended to use for pressuring Eden into a compromise, persuading them for the release of the war prisoners. This was the opinion they sought to create within the minds of their citizens.

Two weeks passed by since the cargo planes had started sending the necessary materials to the borders that were shared between the two countries, Esparia and Eden.

In the two subsequent weeks, nothing much had changed other than the arrival of a new batch of recruited soldiers at the island. Simultaneously, the graduating ones had left the island for their posts, starting their military service once again.

During this time, the atomic printers sent to all the military bases had been working non-stop, churning out equipment in continuous batches, ensuring that all the graduating soldiers were equipped with the gear they had trained with during their training in the VR environment.

Meanwhile, Eden had taken a humanitarian step during the negotiations and released a list of the names of the soldiers who had unfortunately died in the conflict so that their family members could start mourning earlier and not continue clinging to a false hope about their loved ones' survival, only for it to be crushed later on.

As for the negotiations between the two nations, nothing had changed much other than the continuously escalating tensions between Eden and Esparia. The prisoner negotiations weren't going very well since Eden wasn't budging on demanding the remaining of the shared island border as the final condition for the release of the captured soldiers. And together with Esparia's successful acquisition of twenty-nine aircrafts escalated the situation even further. Esparia was now using those aircrafts to breach Eden's airspace repeatedly and forcing Eden's air force to mobilize their aircraft in response which would be followed by those Esparian fighters returning back to their borders the moment they noticed Eden's aircraft on their radar.

They were doing it constantly at times even reaching up to fifteen times a day for the known four aircraft of Eden or so they thought. Esparia's tactic involved sending two fighters every time before allowing their planes to rest for maintenance while sending the next batch, this tactic served as a refreshment training for the hired pilots and at the same time, making it so that the pilots of Eden Air force were not given enough time to rest due to the constant sorties they had to make due to Esparia's unlawful breach in their airspace, at the same time increasing their anxiety in worry that any of these sorties might as well be a real mission from Esparia where they would come in hot and just start bombing, forcing a dog fight out of them, or so was the Morgan's intention.

Many international observers excused this as actions simply as a protest of Esparia for the release of their soldier and nothing more. However, this action of theirs acted as nothing other than a way of increasing the anger of the majority of Edenians, who demanded the government to further increase the conditions for the release of the captured soldier or if push comes to shove, they should simply duke it once again since they had won the first fight, the citizens believed they could win the second confrontation too.

Throughout the negotiations, Esparia continued to maintain the negotiations as public as possible, showcasing their commitment to securing the return of their soldiers. This strategy was a means to sustain the high morale of the remaining of their hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the trust of the citizens in the government as a means for avoiding an uprising from the inside, in case a dissatisfaction arose if they didn't show that they cared about the captured soldiers that much and were preparing themselves for another round with Eden.

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Thanks to them putting on this show, Esparia agreed to many of Eden's demands withholding only a few of them which they argued that they couldn't agree to.

One major sticking point being the concession of land. Esparia argued against it, citing that land concession was against the international agreements while also voicing their concerns that once the country agrees to the concessions it would just mark the start of a losing precedent. They feared that every argument or a fight between them in which Eden came out victorious would result in further land concessions and would start eroding their country's sovereignty over time.

This decision of theirs sparked a division within Esparia.

One side being the family members of the captured soldiers, arguing that their loved ones who had already fought, risked and sacrificed their freedom for the country and now called for the nation to reciprocate by sacrificing a part of its territory for their freedom as a repayment for their commitment towards their country.

While the other side consisted of the family of the soldiers whose death had been confirmed, along with many of the citizens of the country who felt dissatisfied for losing to Eden. They believed that they could triumph over Eden in not just military might, but also many aspects, including economically and wanted their country to not agree to any deals.

Instead, they urged the country to fight with Eden once again, this time with ample preparations and win the war to avenge their loss of both life and of their pride.

With the second narrative gaining the support of most of the people in the country, it reached a point where the government was compelled to make an announcement that they would do their very best to bring their soldiers back home and had already started compensating the families of the confirmed dead, this was thanks to funds provided by the Morgans and acted as a means to make Eden seem like a greedy monster. Simultaneously, the government also announced that in case the negotiations failed, they still retained the right to declare war to fight against Eden and ensure the rescue of their soldiers. ｂｅ𝚍ｎｏｖｅ𝚕．ｃｏｍ

This strategy worked since the compensation provided to the families of dead soldiers had managed to temporarily suppress their eagerness for revenge, leading to a movement which wanted the war to slightly calm down while at the same time garnering the support of both factions to the government, demonstrating that the government's concerned for all of its citizens.

Thanks to their well-orchestrated act and the support of the Morgans, who had kept running the narrative that Eden was trying to exploit their lucky win and with the use of their massive political power, the Morgans had made a few countries to subtly condemn Eden internationally, just enough to make sure that Eden knew that the world was watching the situation but not enough where Eden would end up giving up all the war prisoners since the Morgans wanted the war to happen no matter what.

This tactic wasn't used to intimidate Eden, but rather to increase the morale of the Esparians. As they saw that the world was having their backs, the citizens became even bolder finding themselves in the same situation as when you were having an argument with someone, then you would have someone trying to stop you, this resulting in filling you with confidence causing you to start using stronger language.

This resulted in the happening of many bad things within Esparia, such as mass arrests of citizens that were of Edenian descent, having their businesses vandalized, together with beating those known citizens of Eden who were living in Esparia. The only thing holding them back was the worry that if they kill any of them, they would lose the support of the world, which at the moment was very necessary for them. Thanks to that, other than being heavily injured, most of the Edenian citizens were rescued by the police and a few sane citizens before that threshold was crossed.

In response to their citizens now being prosecuted, Eden responded by adding the clause of having their citizens released and be compensated for the damage inflicted on their citizens who are residing in Esparia and were facing prosecution. They also demanded the reopening of the borders for the return of their citizens to their country after they had received their compensation packages for the damages they were inflicted upon during the prosecution, increasing the tensions between the two countries even further.

For those who were observing how things happened from the outside, they could see that either the negotiations would be agreed upon or they would really be duking it out against each other for the second time. And from the looks of it, it seemed that the citizens had already moved into wartime readiness as most of them wanted the war to happen, and both country's citizens were sure that their country could win.

Edenian citizens were sure of it because they had already won the first encounter, as for the Esparian citizens, they believed their military was more powerful and their previous loss was only thanks to Eden attacking them by surprise, resulting in quite aggressive arguments between the two countries citizens on the internet.

As for the individuals who had the unfortunate circumstance of encountering each others on foreign lands, their interactions escalated beyond mere disagreements. In fact, a subset of them proceeded to engage in physical altercations, much to the amusement and disdain of onlookers who didn't forget to record and post it, further solidifying the hate between each other.

"This is what has been causing the formation of those brown clouds!?" Obama inquired as he examined the images on the table that were collected by the Global Hawk they had deployed for the second reconnaissance mission.

"Yes, they were engaged in a large-scale and rapid construction, using the construction effort as a form of strength training for their soldiers," answered the Secretary of Defense, his tone revealing the disappointment it had caused him after he saw the images and realized that it didn't show any significant development, contrary to what he had anticipated.

"So, what exactly led to the formation of those clouds?" Biden asked, trying to seek an explanation as to how a normal construction site would result in the appearance of those clouds which also remained for a very long time.

"After the return of the drone to the base, we analyzed the particles that were still attached to it, we discovered no unusual composition apart from the dust and ground particles within them. This confirms that it was indeed the construction activities that had been the reason behind it and there was no evidence of any advanced technology involved, like what we had thought," clarified the Secretary of Defense.

If one looked at the images on the table, one would notice that those images didn't have even a slight resemblance to what was actually going on on the island, rather, the images only depicted a few large but different ongoing construction sites and a vast open field that contained thousands of tents arranged in rows, showing that it was what would be serving as the living quarters of the soldiers that were sent there to do the construction under the guise of training.

The same discrepancy applied to the other satellite images of the country that were captured daily where there were no images about the Paradisemovers that could be seen among them at all.

This discrepancy arose due to the Americans sending drones instead of a manned surveillance aircraft like the U-2 to allow for human observation while at the same time, taking the pictures of the island. However, the drone, controlled by a satellite connection, was susceptible to Nova's interception, which had access to all the radio signal stations within the country.

This allowed her to intercept the signals that were being sent to the drones control base and edit the images that were taken before transmitting them, with her massive computing power in action there was not even a slight delay between the interception, editing and transferring of the data the drone had captured.

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This covert manipulation allowed Aron to keep what was happening on Avalon as a hidden secret, while the world, or precisely the American government, thought that nothing important was going on. Rather than trusting Eden's words, they would trust their own military hardware information more, causing them to gradually lose interest in the ongoing events on the island.

"Anyway, what is your assessment of the situation going on in the Pacific?" Obama asked, shifting the matter of what is happening on the island aside since the information had made him remove it from his consideration anymore.

"I believe that Esparia is likely going to emerge victorious during this second confrontation, although not with an overwhelming landslide victory, among the reason of why is the theoretical existence of those powerful bombs they had used in their first fight in store, as they could just send it to the capital of Esparia and take a few thousands of people with it if push comes to shove," answered the Secretary of Defense, handing the people in the room the documents that contained their analysis of what was going to happen in case the two countries were to engage in a conflict for the second time.

"They have truly gone all out," Biden commented as he read the document that outlined the procuring of weapons that had been done by Esparia in the last three weeks, which totalled the amount to billions. And notably, each of these acquisitions required at least half of their payment to be done upfront, with the remaining sum to be settled soon after.

"But why hasn't there been a response from the opposing side?" Obama raised the question, seeking a reason as to why Eden remained quiet, not them particularly but their backer "Rothschild", who seemed to not be doing anything to counterbalance the massive arms race that was instigated by the Esparians, led by the "Morgans".

"There are only two possibilities for this: either they have already given up or they are already prepared for it beforehand. The reason behind that can be found after referring to page thirty-five," the Secretary of Defence responded and paused for a moment to allow the others to open the specified page and start reading the contents before he proceeded to explain.

When he was certain that everyone in the room had opened to the designated page, he continued, "As you can see, this section delves into the detail of our analysis concerning the response of each country when the other side further escalated the conflicts. And when you look carefully at their response in every Esparia's escalation, you will find that Eden has always responded just enough to be able to counteract the escalation and nothing more than that."

"This implies that they have some astute and competent decision-makers who are guiding Eden's response, alongside those, they have a moderately competent leadership in their military to make sure that those given orders are precisely executed, as envisioned by their think tanks while making those plans. This is rather surprising, given that even Esparia, despite having the support of the mercenary groups who had been sent to help them prepare for the second round, appears to have fallen short of having their plans completely and successfully executed in their real world execution, and a long time will be needed to train them for that as well."

"But based on the escalation trajectory, they don't have enough time to solve that, so the Morgans' side is forced to blanket the planning, which factors in the likelihood of their plans being brought to life by the incompetent army." 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑒𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"Due to the scale of those plans being big, it would be necessary for their plans to take longer time to be implemented compared to Eden's efficiently executed strategies, which is weirdly always efficiently executed to our amazement, though not on par to our level yet." He explained.

"Let's observe and assess. The more they engage in fights outside America's borders, the less trouble America will face," Obama commented, placing the document down and pinching his temples, clearly fatigued by even thinking about them.

The THEM, as they had come to be known, would always cause trouble for America when they were in conflict. A notable example of it was the 2008 financial crisis, which stemmed from the culmination of their discord. The Rothschilds won but forced the entirety of America to bear the loss along with the Morgans. Due to their deeply rooted influence, the government could not even think about holding them accountable, leaving them seemingly untouched, giving them the feeling of an ant facing a boot.

Their conversation shifted as they started speculating on the potential outcome of the war and how they could leverage themselves by choosing which side to support to maximize the amount of benefits they will be able to reap based on the forthcoming outcome.

A week later, in Esparia.

As the week commenced, officially marking the fourth week since the onset of the negotiations and escalation between the two countries, a different kind of atmosphere could be sensed, compared to the other weeks.

Since the start of the week, Esparia had started a large-scale mobilization of its military forces.

Troops, equipment, and resources were being openly prepared and organized, hinting at the possibility of the upcoming combat operations.

Simultaneously, several countries that had diplomatic ties and embassies within both Eden and Esparia had started the evacuation of their personnel, temporarily closing their embassies.

This was followed by Esparia starting public awareness campaigns during the same time, informing the population regarding the prevailing situation, potential risks of a war and recommending many national security measures.

Throughout this period, Eden's response always remained a step behind. A fact that was acknowledged by the whole world was akin to the calm before the storm, however, no one wanted to be the first to say it, waiting for either of the two countries to burst the bubble and just set the events into motion.

Tensions had reached their zenith as the world collectively held its breath, observing what could be considered as the first official war declared between the two countries while also being one of the wars to be fought in the modern era and was a clash between countries with comparable military might, raising the expectations of it not completely being one-sided beatdown like the many other wars fought in the twenty-first century. 𝙗𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝙜

With each passing day, the tension in the atmosphere continued to increase, culminating in the arrival of Friday, when Esparia announced an upcoming press conference that would be taking place in a few hours.

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When the appointed hour came, the press conference's live feed started being broadcasted worldwide. The background didn't show the customary conference room, but the serene presence of trees in the garden, indicating that the conference was taking place in the palace grounds. This was due to the overwhelming attendance of reporters that were attending the event, forcing them to hold the conference on the open grounds of the presidential palace.

This time, however, instead of the usual presidential spokesperson, the President of Esparia, Emanuel, had taken over the podium, showing that whatever he was going to address was going to be important.

"Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed citizens of Esparia," he said, starting his speech by extending his greetings to all the viewers watching the broadcast worldwide, though primarily it was being watched by the people of Esparia and Eden.

Continuing his address, he articulated, "Today, we gather on this somber occasion, marking the passage of a month filled with arduous negotiations aimed at securing the release of our unjustly imprisoned compatriots. These individuals have become tragic victims of an unwarranted and merciless assault, driven solely by the insatiable greed of Eden." He paused slightly after saying that before he continued

"Throughout this challenging journey, we have steadfastly extended the hand of diplomacy, seeking a peaceful resolution to this distressing ordeal."

"However, despite our unwavering commitment to finding common ground, we have witnessed the unrelenting growth of their voracious demands." He paused as his hand crumpled the paper he was having difficult reading from, due to anger as he he continued with difficulties, "Every concession we made, every compromise we reached, has only continued to fuel their insatiable hunger for power."

"As we engaged in these negotiations, we have observed their appetite for dominance intensify, akin to vultures feasting upon our desperation. Our efforts to reach a fair and just agreement have been met with ever-increasing rapacity, leaving us with no choice but to reassess our course of action."

"With a heavy heart, and after careful consideration, I hereby declare that the hour of negotiations has come to an end," he stated, pausing for a moment before continuing, "We have explored every avenue for a peaceful resolution, yet the scales tip relentlessly towards conflict."

"Today, I bear the weight of the trust and support you, the citizens of our great nation, have placed in me. It is with this solemn authority that I make this proclamation: We shall no longer engage in such fruitless parleys." He paused once again, allowing for tension in the compound to grow, followed by continuing his speech, however this time became as calm and as confident as possible as he said "Instead, we hereby declare war Eden." while his eyes were looking straight at the camera to project confidence.

The moment he said that, the entire compound seemed to have frozen for a moment, even the constantly flashing cameras stopped, causing a slight dimming in the compound, together with the utter silence spreading throughout the entire press conference, silencing the attendees for a few seconds before the flashes on cameras started to reappear, now so frequently that they formed a continuous burst of light, illuminating the president's face brightly.

He then continued, "This declaration is a testament to our unyielding dedication to justice, our commitment to safeguarding the lives and dignity of our people, and our resolve to confront those who think that they can bully us and threaten us."

"In the face of adversity, we shall unite. In the presence of challenge, we shall stand firm. And as we embark on this difficult path, may history remember our resilience, our courage, and our unwavering pursuit of a just and equitable future."

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"May our determination shine as a beacon of hope, even as the drums of conflict echo in response to the encroaching destruction."

"Thank you, and may our nation find strength and unity in the days that are to come. God bless Esparia" With those words, he concluded the address and left the compound, making his way back to his presidential palace.

Helicopters could be seen arriving at the palace which was closely followed by trucks filled with soldiers and armored vehicles starting to enter the compound as well. All of the cameras broadcasting the press conference continued to roll, capturing the scenes, but not for too long since the feed was shortly cut after around a thousand soldiers had arrived, with more of them en route.

...

Moments after the press conference concluded.

The skies had started to be filled with the screaming sounds of jet engines, courtesy of five of Esparia's newly bought planes– fifty in total – a feat in itself, and had started donning the sky on patrol to make sure that nothing passed through their airspace. At the same time, the remainder of the fighter aircrafts that were stationed at different bases took off for the sky too, heading in the direction of Eden.

This marked the first action of the war, with forty-five planes preparing to face off against four of Eden's fighter jets which they were sure that the pilots of them were tired after having spent the entire previous three weeks in constant sorties against the Esparians due to their airspace violations.

The Esparian pilots forged their way to Eden's airspace with confidence, trusting in their pilot training and the experience they had received from their previous militaries before they were hired by the different mercenary companies owned by the Morgans.

Each pilot carried the dream of earning the chance of gaining the coveted ACE designation before their name if they got the chance of shooting down Eden's underserviced fighter jets which they were bound to encounter today.

"What the fuck have they done to their system?" exclaimed a person in anger and disappointment, his bloodshot eyes, an obvious hint for the watchers to tell that he had been typing on the keyboard continuously for more than three hours without having any decent break during that period.

However, he wasn't the only one, the room he was in was filled with more than one hundred people doing the same task which he had been doing.

"They shouldn't have gotten enough time to completely overhaul their entire system within just a month, right?" questioned a man nearby who had given up just a few moments after the first person had resigned in frustration.

"While it is theoretically possible, they shouldn't have been able to make their system operate seamlessly like the way it is running right now. Even if all of those things are working in their favor, their system shouldn't have been upgraded to such a significant degree as such an upgrade would need a very long time to accomplish. We've been trying to breach their defenses for more than five hours but nothing can even latch onto their firewalls. How the heck did they go from being completely vulnerable in cyberspace to having an impenetrable wall in just a matter of a month?" He finished his words with a mix of a few words of self-doubt, logical reasoning and amazement at the transformation of their former victims who had now become formidable opponents.

"They couldn't have intentionally allowed us access during the first attack, right?!" he asked his neighboring colleague.

"As much as I would want to deny that assumption, I also find it hard to disagree with it. The level of firewall we were met for the second time doesn't seem to simply take a month to accomplish the change. All of those anomalies could be explained if they had just allowed us the access during the first time and then blocked us out of it during the second time. Alternatively, it might also be possible that during our first assault, they were still building their security infrastructure, meaning that over the last month, they completed making it and replaced it over with their previous, shitty firewall," replied his colleague, trying to make sense of what they were experiencing during the current predicament.

"But which company is capable of doing such a significant project without using it as a means to brag about their capabilities? And why choose to start it at Eden as their testing ground in all of the places?" he pondered, this time trying to give a reason as to why his colleague's second theory doesn't seem to make much sense.

"Oh, I think I might know who could be the one behind this new firewall," his colleague responded, the guy's tone carrying excitement as if he had finally found a missing piece of the puzzle.

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"Well, go on then. Who is it?" he asked impatiently, annoyed with the fact that his colleague had mentioned who it was but didn't reveal the name.

"GAIA Technology," answered the colleague in excitement, not trying to hide that he was a fanboy of the company– the makers of BugZapper, GAIA OS and the renowned game as their products.

"If it is truly them, then we might as well give up on this commission," the first guy declared with a sigh after hearing the name mentioned by his colleague. The mere mention of that name carried a dreadnought presence in the realm of technology, with most of their influences in the fields of security, OS and the gaming world.

Every product they released held an unparalleled level of standard and with more than three of their released products already reigning as industry-leading products in their specific fields, people had started expecting that their upcoming products would be of the same standards.

As for the man, he felt admiration for the company because of a single product from them, the BugZapper, a product that almost single-handedly sent the hacking world to the shadow realm, pushing it to redefine its limits.

He had personally tried the product and had nothing but praise for the one who had created it. The program would always manage to identify any vulnerabilities that would have gone unnoticed by most humans. Still, due to its emergence, the hacking world wasn't completely obliterated, rather the BugZapper had just raised the level of sophistication required to be able to hack the systems. Whenever a new way of hacking came up and succeeded in passing the program, in just a couple of hours a patch for it would be released, making it a continuous game of cat and mouse between hackers and Bugzapper, always keeping the hacking community excited as the GAIA technology always generously rewarded those who managed to get past their systems after they had patched it up, giving the community incentives for doing so.

"I will go and inform the boss about this. I hope he agrees with your assessment and decides to cancel the commission. If not, we will be spending days typing without any solutions," he remarked as he stood up from the chair and made his way to the office of the hacking group's leader, which was weird in itself since most hacking groups operated remotely, even when they were working as a team.

...

In the Eden airspace.

The four fighters of the Angels squadron could be seen maintaining a formation as they took to the skies, starting from the moment the Esparian press conference had initiated. 𝒷ℯ𝒹𝓃𝓸𝓿ℯ𝓁.𝒸ℴ𝓶

In an instant, the headgear of Angle One-One, piloted by James, shifted from green to red in his peripheral vision a few minutes after they had taken flight. The pilots who had graduated from Athena's training program knew that, their headgears turning red was a stamp of approval to shoot down any unverified or unidentified aircraft within their airspace, without even giving them any warnings.

Taking a look at the multitude of enemy bogies that had been detected by Sky Eye 0, a country scale scanner & radar like machine that had collected the information and integrated it into their aircrafts computers and their headgears, making their powerful radar(Henry's eye) to have no need of being on while they were still within Eden's airspace since Sky Eye 0 had the ability to capture every bit of information about their enemies that entered its scanning radius and it had a scan area that covered the entire airspace of Eden.

James the squadron leader, transmitted "This is Angel One-One. As you know, there are forty-five of them. Each of you can have ten each, as for the remaining five, they will be chosen by our computer randomly. Let's wrap this up as soon as possible and show them a performance for the the history books"

"Copy that," echoed the responses of Angel One-Two, Angel One-Three, and Angel One-Four.

Followed by the headgears of each pilot marking ten out of the forty-five enemy bogies that were on the way to Eden, and the squadron wasted no time as their planes' ailerons synchronously came to life while the aircraft rolled to the right with one of their wingtips pointing to the sky and the other pointing to the ground moments after that they pulled their control stick toward themselves, making all the four fighter jets to pull an aggressive turn to the right, changing their direction and heading towards the incoming bandits.

After flying for a few seconds in coordination, each of the fighters started heading in different directions, despite they were maintaining their collective trajectory due to the enemies having divided themselves into a squadron of five aircraft each, meaning that now there were a total of nine squadrons for them to take out.

However, even without having any visible missiles on their hardpoints, none of the pilots of the Angel's squadron seemed to have any worry regarding the upcoming faceoff. This meant that it was going to be a showdown of four against forty-five, with the underdogs having nothing other than guns at their disposal, while their enemies came fully loaded with an array of both long-range and short-range air-to-air missiles.

A squadron of five aircrafts could be seen soaring through the expansive sky, with a few clusters of islands being visible beneath them on the ocean's surface as they moved forward at a very high speed with the eyes of the pilots being fixed on their screens, hoping to find any target in their radar and see if their squadron was lucky enough to have all the four Eden's aircraft come to them or if they were simply unlucky and would just end up bombing some military bases until the enemies surrender in fit of fear.

"Looks like luck isn't on our side," remarked a pilot designated as number twelve as he glanced at his screen and found that there was nothing that was caught in the radar. Feeling disappointed knowing that he would not be finding an opportunity to shoot down a fighter plane.

"I understand, but that doesn't necessarily mean that others are luckier than us. Maybe the enemy pilots ran away? I mean, there are forty-five of us against four of them. I will not be flying an aircraft if it means that I will be going to a guaranteed death," replied his wingman, who was designated as fourteen, trying to boost his comrade's morale.

"I would have," an unidentified voice chimed in. However, they failed to identify the source of the voice, unfortunately, they were not given enough time to even try to find out from where the mysterious voice had come from since it was quickly overshadowed by an aircraft suddenly revel'ng itself under their formation, matching their speed, after which the aircraft immediately pulled its nose up executing a Pugachev's cobra manuever, bleeding its speed before the nose automatically returned at a level putting him behind the moving Esparian planes whose pilots started panicking and breaking the formation while still wondering where the fuck had that Bandit came from.

"BRRRRRRRRR" Rapid gunfire started erupting from Angel One-Three's plane, targeting the aircraft designated as twelve, riddling it with bullets, shredding its wings and control surfaces into pieces.

"MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!" The pilot number twelve urgently shouted at his radio but he didn't wait for a response as he simultaneously pulled out the handle for his ejection seat. The seat was quickly ejected and he was propelled out of the plane that was now dropping like a brick.

As he continued to descend to the ground, the parachute on the seat finally opened, slowing down his fall, allowing the pilot to calm down.

Calm down enough to be able to regain his composure and think of raising his head to see what was the thing that had shot him down and wasn't even caught in their radars which were actively scanning for something in the sky.

And to his horror, the pilot twelve saw something that no amount of therapy in the world could heal. He watched as a single fighter plane messed with his fellow squadron members that were being plucked from the sky as if a grown man was fighting against a group of children, by using nothing but the gun on the aircraft.

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The maneuvers the bogey was executing were something that he could never think of pulling while being under the pressure where four enemies were trying to kill him using missiles and guns, at least not without worrying about making a mistake and causing his own death.

However, the bogey in front or rather above him pulled all of such maneuvers with the perfection and calmness of an experienced fighter which was something quite scary in itself.

With a series of perfectly executed maneuvers, Angel One-Three found himself behind one of the four aircrafts and without any hesitation, he pulled the trigger, bathing the plane's body in metal, breaking it apart and forcing the pilot to eject and letting him join number twelve in becoming a spectator as the he continued to inflict a lifetime of PTSD on the two of them.

Although the remaining three planes that were chasing him fired their missiles after they got a lock on him, the pilot of Angle One-Three didn't release a single flare to divert them and simply pulled some ghostly maneuvers causing all the missiles that were following him to lose their locks on him before they headed into some random directions, damned to fly for eternity until the missiles propellant got empties and fall from the sky under the curse of gravity.

With now two spectators watching him, he put on a show so as to not embarrass his airforce. Angel One-Three kept his word since within exactly a thirty seconds period, he had completed shooting down the remaining aircrafts, the proof of it being the number of parachutes that donned the sky as the pilots who had successfully ejected themselves from their shot-down fighter jets.

After having downed all five of the planes within two minutes, Angel One-Three didn't waste any time by lingering any more as he immediately veered into the direction where two of the missiles he had evaded earlier had gone, speeding and catching up to them within just thirty seconds followed by him shooting them down from the sky.

If the missiles had continued on their flight trajectory, they would end up falling in populated areas in one of the cities that were closest to Esparia.

After unleashing a barrage of bullets on those two missiles, Angel One-Three swiftly headed for the next squadron that was designated for him to shoot down as soon as possible.

However, this time, it won't be a surprise attack and would be met with a prepared group who were anticipating the fact that someone was coming for them.

But, for the pilots who had ejected, they were somewhat relieved that they were alive, but were still suspended in disbelief with the aftermath of the unprecedented events they had experienced. Even with them being equipped with missiles, in a span of just two minutes, someone came and just by using gunfire, had shot them down.

Then just as he had appeared, the pilot had left them and went to shoot down two of their missiles, followed by him leaving without even giving them a second look, before heading to a direction which they knew their fellow fighter squadron was at and couldn't help but feel bad for them.

Everything that had transpired had left them deeply astounded, the astounding aerial command their enemy had displayed, made them struggle to comprehend reality.

As concern for their fellow fighter squadron rose, all they could do was use their radios to transmit warnings to their comrades about the monster they had encountered and was heading their way.

They recommended them to be prepared for an impending face-off but also suggested that running off would be the best option.

As they landed at the ocean's surface, they lost all hope of any rescue coming for them. They knew that nothing was going to be passing through Eden's airspace to come for them, rendering any assistance from the outside to be highly improbable.

This was further substantiated when they saw a helicopter they had never seen in their lives, quietly coming to them while generating a sound so low that they would have thought that it was a helicopter that was passing very far away from them if not for seeing it approaching and getting closer.

The helicopter came near them and continued to hover about thirty meters above them and did nothing other than hover, making them wonder what it was doing if it wasn't here to rescue them. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗻𝗲𝐭

But their questions were soon answered as a boat approached them at a very high speed, clarifying that the helicopter was only acting as a marker of their location so that they would be rescued by the boats.

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...

While all of this was going on, something else was going on in the city that was about to become the victims of those two rogue missiles' that were shot down, if they hadn't been shot down by Angel One-Three.

At the moment, perched atop an elevated mountain on the outskirts of the city, a group of three people could be seen standing behind a tripod-mounted camera. This elaborated setup featured a camera with a super long lens on it, indicating its ability to capture distant scenes with extreme clarity.

The expressions on the faces of these reporters were filled with excitement and amazement at what they had managed to record.

They had come to the mountain hoping to have the chance of recording the incursion of Esparian fighters as they invaded Eden's airspace before the bombers so that they could clear Eden's airspace.

However, what they saw was beyond even their wildest dreams, something even the movies would have difficulty in making people believe that something like that could happen. T

he unfolding spectacle was nothing other than a pilot's dream, to be so calm and dominant that despite being outnumbered five to one and yet still coming out victorious without having even a single damage done on his own plane or even reporting any casualties of the enemies soldiers, who were now being taken by a mysterious looking massive helicopter that appeared out of nowhere, and taking the enemy pilots away after they were rescued from the ocean by a fast-moving medium size marine vehicle, which itself didn't resemble anything that had ever seen either.

The trio of reporters knew that the world would soon be talking about their footage and how it was going to impact the war after they had released it.

And since no deaths had occurred throughout the whole dogfight, they could upload the entirety of it without having to worry about any censorship at all.

"This is Esparia's Central COM, all the aircrafts must return to base immediately. I repeat, this Esparia's CENTRAL COMMAND, all airc….." This urgent announcement resonated three times across all the radios of Esparian pilots right after the twentieth fighter jet was shot down.

While this might seem like it had taken a very long time for the central command of Esparia to come to a decision and order the retreat as their fighter jets were being plucked from the skies and turned into bricks, the reality was quite the opposite. The time it had taken Eden's air force to shoot down a total of twenty of their fighter jets had barely lasted for a span of two minutes before the Esparian central command realized what was going on and ordered a mass retreat.

This meticulous synchronization and the timing of the attack also played a very crucial role because although Angel One-Three had reached his designated squadron earlier than others, he just remained patient under them and monitored their communication for fun as he waited for the arrival of other Angels at their designated squadrons before they could start the orchestrated massacre, they knew very well that the moment the number of casualties was realized, it would trigger the order of a mass retreat, after which they would have to chase them, which was quite wasteful when they could have their enemies in a bundle.

As for the remaining twenty-five Esparian fighter jets, they wasted no time in initiating a mass retreat, worried of being shot down at once if they returned in a group if all of the pilots were ordered to solo it, hoping that they are not the unlucky ones to meet those monsters which at the moment was considered a completely assured ejection, as it looked like the enemies were messing with them or toying with them by just shooting down the fighters, leaving the pilots alive as a witness for their brilliant piloting.

The jubilant Edenian pilots, who were racking in to gain more kill numbers of their enemies wasted no time as they started to chase after them, claiming a few more scores in the sky.

This relentless cat-and-mouse chase continued until they reached the airspace borders of the two countries. With that, all the headgears of the Angel squadron returned back from the red color it had to the original green marking the end of the hunt, followed by Athena's voice which echoed by their ears, saying.

[Archangels, return to patrolling following the highlighted flight path]

Addressing them with their new moniker of "Archangels" signified that they were finally being upgraded from Angels to a higher position of Archangels after they had shot down an average of six aircrafts each, a distinction of them becoming ACE on their very first air-to-air face-off against an enemy aircraft.

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This marked them becoming the members of the ACE Pilots club which had very few people within the twenty-first century, but they weren't just any random aces but the fabled members of the "Ace In A Day" club, a rarity which no one other than them could join it in the twenty-first century other than them. Because to join it, one needed to shoot five aircraft within a single day, the four Archangels had just joined such a rank at once and that too in a span of just two minutes, a record that was likely to never be broken, unless broken by the very same pilots.

Following the command, the Archangels didn't waste even a second to shoot down the ones in front of them as they pulled their joysticks up, making a ninety-degree vertical drift which didn't last for a long time as their hands still maintained their grip on the joysticks, causing the aircraft to do another ninety-degree turn but this time it turned them upside down which was immediately solved by the pilots as they rolled their aircrafts, returning them to a normal level before they started their afterburners once again, making their way to return to their designated patrol flight paths.

This inaugural encounter between the Edens and Esparians which ended with a decisive victory for the Edenians, established a one-sided dominion in the skies.

...

"What the fuck just happened?" Emanuel's voice boomed with anger as he stood in front of the Air Force General.

All the things he had imagined, winning their first air-to-air face-off which he could use for raising his approval ratings and raising the morale of their soldiers to win the war where his gain would rise in magnitudes, had crumbled into a disastrous loss.

Now they had lost more than twenty aircraft which they had acquired after negotiating a bad deal- a debt which they would have to pay back to the Morgans once they had won the war. Yet, at the moment, that victory seemed to be slipping away from his hand at the speed of light. His once confident face now had paled, even paler than a powdered baby's face, showing the weight of his dismay.

He just couldn't believe that they had lost the usefulness of their aircrafts in a matter of a few minutes, even after having greatly outnumbered Eden's air force by more than nine to one.

"I still don't have a comprehensive answer as to how but from what little information we have received from the ejecting pilots before they were rescued and lost their radios, it appears that they were taken down by monstrously skilled pilots," reported the Air Force Commander who was sweating from his forehead, knowing very well that he would be be taking most of the fall if he were to fail to find someone to ditch the blame onto.

"But, I think there is also a possibility that they did it knowingly, maybe Eden had bought the pilots even before they started working for us. With a little amount of money, they were able to sabotage our air force which could be the only explainable reason as to why the Edenian pilots didn't go for the kills even when they shot down the aircrafts. And given that we can't see how they were shot down, they can attribute all of it to them being lucky, but luck can't be happening to all of them, with the same result of all of them surviving," he added, giving a very solid reason as to what might have happened which allowed the Edenian pilots to shoot down more than twenty of their aircrafts in just a matter of two minutes, this was something he managed to come up within the little time he had before reporting it to the President.

"Hmm.. that theory makes more sense. Because if that is true, then all of it could be explained with them ejecting in sequences with Eden pilots just shooting the planes that had already been abandoned by their pilots. Or there can be another explanation, they weren't shot down at all but just made those sounds before heading to Eden and giving them free aircrafts which WE HAD PURCHASED AT EXORBITANT PRICES!" Emanuel grumbled in frustration as he hit the table by the time he reached the last words of his assumption of the given idea. 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝐧𝗼𝐯𝗲𝗹．𝐧𝐞𝘁

"Indeed, Mr President, I think so too. Such an act would only require them to pay a fraction of the price of the fighters we had paid to buy and yet they would be profiting substantially. Normally such things are not anticipated to occur by other nations since they nurture their own pilots, resulting in them fostering a sense of assurance that the pilots won't be betraying their country. However, our pilots who were shot down on this mission were all guns for hire, which means that they can be easily bought with money, making them susceptible to turning against us if they are given enough convincing," Air Force General, Dickson added, doubling down with the President's additional ideas, which gained more credibility the longer he spoke of it, this was something that could happen if they trusted their multimillion-dollar aircrafts to the pilots who were given to them by the Morgans to operate the fighters for the country they had no connection at all.

"Inform the Morgans about this. Should this be found true, tell them that they will be held accountable for the bill of the aircrafts we had lost. They should reimburse us for the loss and the humiliation they inflicted upon us due to the negligent due diligence they did while hiring the pilots," Emanuel said to his assistant who would be doing the talk to the Morgans spokesperson in Esparia. Lamentably, he wasn't deemed important enough to warrant being given access to direct communication to the upper echelons of the Morgans, resulting in this inefficient spokespersons to spokesperson communications.

Emanuel's frustration was obvious, his desire for accounting this incident on someone and getting compensation for rectifying this blunder so that he could regain control over this unfolding chain of events.

The populace's reaction to the war declaration was not good at all. In Eden, a sense of panic started spreading like wildfire, causing them to frantically rush to the shops to start mass purchasing the things they deemed essential when in the face of an impending war.

As for the rest of the world, they heard the news which seemed to be spreading even faster than light.

However, they were all astounded as Esparia had chosen to go with the option of declaring war, instead of a surprise attack. This choice of theirs hinted that they were assured of their victory, resulting in them taking their time and efforts on trying to convince the world of their righteous cause and following the rules and their alignment with the principles that would garner more global support.

This display of confidence that Esparia had shown with their declaration of war had divided the netizens into two groups. One group thought Esparia would really be winning the war while the other thought that they were just being overconfident.

They argued that throughout Esparia's weapons' purchesathon, Eden wasn't just watching its enemies getting trained for the sake of beating them and instead must have already prepared themselves to endure the fight for not a complete one-sided beatdown.

Meanwhile, high above in the sky, the fighter jets of Eden patrolled, following the flight path that was arranged for them by Athena, during which they ended up passing through many cities.

The soaring of the aircrafts reminded the citizens that just a few minutes ago Esparia had declared war against their nation and they were now officially at war.

Although the citizens thought that their air force was just patrolling to calm them down and remind them that they were being protected, they still remained oblivious to the fact that the air patrol had only commenced after they had taken down a little bit more than twenty of Esparia's fighter jets. The jets that were meant to attack some of the very important infrastructures in Eden, but were thwarted in their attacks, resulting in their very own downfall.

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In response to the Esparian press conference that had ended with the declaration of war, Alexander personally took to the podium and directly addressed the nation. He promised that they were sure of winning the war and causing as little as possible disruption to people's daily lives. However, he acknowledged that a few certain cities that were nearest to Esparia and were only separated by the water between them, such cities would be entering martial law and that state would continue for the next two days of the weekend, as to whether or not it will continue to be the same on Monday or whether they will be evacuating those cities will be more dependent on how the ongoing fight was going to develop.

As Alexander's press conference continued, thousands of troops rapidly started converging upon those cities and started executing swift and coordinated takeover, securing the cities, wasting no time at all since they were already stationed near the cities after anticipating the escalation.

They immediately started by taking control of the city's security from the police, delegating them to public control. Some streets were barricaded, other security measures were increased, and the navy vessels started appearing from the ocean horizons, coming from the nearest Navy ports.

These vessels also started patrolling the maritime borders of the two countries, giving assurance to the people after witnessing how the government was already prepared and had even started responding, this resulted in people cooperating with the soldiers to the best of their abilities, trying to cause as little interruption to the soldiers as possible.

This proactive response served as a hope of reassurance to the citizens. After witnessing the swift and organized mobilization of the military, the faith in their country rose after understanding that their government had already been prepared for this, leading to the swift response with precision right after the declaration of the war and was quickly responded with the dispatch of soldiers for their safety.

...

"How long are you planning to let this fight continue?" Rina asked Aron during their virtual meeting, a meeting which she had specifically asked for minutes after the declaration of war.

"No longer than a week. My family is here as well and the longer I let it drag on, the more convincing would be needed as to why I still live here, as they would suggest of going to some other country which would be safe for both me and my younger brother," Aron answered, revealing how long he was willing to let Esparia continue messing with him.

"Good. However, I believe that the morgans have misunderstood something based on the amount of investment they are putting in," Rina added after hearing his response, not showing even a hint of distrust in his capabilities of being able to end the war whenever he wanted to. What she had seen from him throughout the months they had known each other was more than enough to let her have complete trust in every word that came from Aron, even if it was a joke as even his jokes always carried a hint of truth within them.

"Yes, it seems like they somehow learned of your visit to Eden and also about the talk you had with Alexander, which made them think that you are behind some of the large investments in the country and they believe that you are acting as a helping hand in preventing the country's economy from collapsing and thwarting them from profiting from the country's economic collapse. Thus they decided to side with Esparia, causing a war with Eden so that it would force Eden to divert its resources from development to war, which would result in a faster collapse of Eden's economy, than it would have ended with them benefiting from the aftermath" Aron explained, chuckling as to how a mere misunderstanding had caused the Morgans to make some huge investments in Esparia.

"Sorry about that" Rina said in slight embarrassment, remembering how she had insisted on visiting and bringing the Tritium to Eden personally, which inadvertently triggered the misunderstanding to occur, resulting in the sparking of an all-out war between the two countries and a slight delay to some of Aron's projects.

"No need to worry about that. A fight with Esparia was bound to happen soon anyways given their provocations since the downfall of the previous government, and they weren't able to receive any benefit with the change of power. Right now, I plan to use the Rothschilds as a cover to use some of my tech in a way that can explain having an advanced tech so soon without even having any news of extensive research by the country and to justify being forced to release the tech for the public to see to those familiar with your family's beef."

"Although this had accelerated the timeline for some of the plans and even delayed some, everything else is still going to happen according to schedule, unless the Morgans manage to force the US military to intervene," Aron replied and when he reached the last part of his words, he initiated and maintained an eye contact with her.

"You don't have to worry about the possibility of such a thing happening. For such a huge move to happen from our side, it will need an acknowledgement from both families and a few small ones, which is almost impossible due to us always not agreeing on the same thing, so you can be rest assured, the US government won't be swayed into intervening by the Morgans on my watch," Rina replied, promising to handle that matter and also make sure something like that doesn't happen at all.

"Then I will consider that to be done and plan accordingly. Also, a few days later, a cargo should be arriving to you, it should help you with moving Ava to the glasses," Aron said giving her something that would change the topic of their conversation and remove the weird atmosphere that they had entered in after he had mentioned the reason for the larger than usual investment done by the Morgans in Esparia. 𝚋𝚎ｄｎｏ𝚟𝚎ｌ.ｎ𝚎𝚝

"Thanks. Based on her brief explanation, Ava told me that she should gain at least three times an increase in efficiency compared to when she is on the private network, which in itself is unbelievable since I had witnessed one of the servers where our private network is being hosted. And it was really massive and having it being out beaten by a computer inside glasses is similar to something from the dreams"

Aron said nothing but just smiled as he knew that Ava's transition to the glasses wasn't just going to amplify her operating efficiency by more than ten folds, but it would also trigger an evolution in her capabilities due to a part of her code that will be coming online after having found a suitable and sufficient computing power for it to operate with everything she was made with. As for why Ava was not sure of how much efficiency she will be gaining, it was because she didn't have complete information about the quantum computing technology at the moment since Nova had deemed it to not be among the required knowledge during the time she was making her.

"You can leave us for now," George instructed his secretary to leave after she relayed what Emanuel's spokesperson had reported about their hypothesis of Eden having bought the pilots, resulting in Esparia's loss of the aircrafts to Eden. If these assumptions were proven to be true, Eden would get these aircrafts at little to no cost at all.

Aubrey, George's father, chimed in, "Is there any possibility that this might indeed be true?"

He wanted to seek more insight into whether his son had done his due diligence while the companies were hiring and coercing the pilots to resign from the military in order to start working for them.

"We conducted thorough due diligence, Father. I can assure you we took every precaution to prevent such a sort of scenario from happening. While hiring, we coerced the best that the militaries could approve for resignations," George responded, his tone didn't show any sign of agitation by his father's question. He knew that this question of his father wasn't coming due to his lack of trust, rather it stemmed from a desire for getting more clarity on the situation before he reacted to it.

"Then, does this mean that the pilots of Eden are better than we had anticipated?" Aubrey pressed again as he questioned.

"While I don't exactly know how it happened, it also can't be equated to be a result of our pilots being bought, we have a large leverage against them to prevent such things from happening," George replied and although he didn't mention the leverage to his father intentionally, Aubrey clearly already knew what the leverage was of their Family and Financial Influence.

Satisfied with his son's response, Aubrey delved into another concern, "If you are so sure that this isn't a case of purchased pilots, how do you plan to deal with the disrespect they have shown?"

"My plan is to give him a simple warning, to make sure that he does not do such disrespect in the future. At the same time, I will reduce his agreed-upon compensation by half once this conflict comes to a conclusion, that should act as a stern enough warning for him to not come up with such disrespectful provocations on us and just focus on continuing the fight," George explained, planning to direct the anger which was rising in his heart after thinking that a few words of some fucking president of a fucking small country had forced his father to ask him questions which hinted slight distrust on his abilities and competence, albeit him knowing it wasn't that way, he was still hurt and had just the right victim to be vented to.

...

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Over the next two hours after the war declaration, there was relatively no activity in terms of fighting, but that didn't mean that everything was calm. The intense military movements in Eden were unbelievably organized, especially for a country that had war declared upon them just a few hours ago.

Videos and photos of military vehicles arriving in different cities started to surface on the internet, slightly satiating the thirst of curiosity the netizens had. The scale of operations they saw was pretty astonishing for a military of what could be said to be an underdeveloped nation.

The soldiers in those videos showcased a remarkable level of experience and professionalism. Unlike all of the typical videos where the soldiers might be seen laughing, in any of these videos, every single soldier was maintaining a serious demeanor. But this serious expression was not born of fear of war but it seemed to be stemming from their experience and that they were aware of the weight such situations carry.

The discipline displayed by the soldiers was so remarkable that it made people wonder once again whether they really were soldiers of an underdeveloped nation, merely based on their discipline. What was even more intriguing was the fact that all of the soldiers in these videos appeared to be in their twenties, which greatly heightened the weirdness of the experienced expressions they had on their faces.

Meanwhile, videos started appearing from Esparia too, indicating what was going on there as well but there were too few which clearly hinted at the divergent approach of the two countries as to how they were operating. One seemed to be preparing for a defensive fight while the other seemed to be sure that nothing was going to happen to their country and were solely focusing on the prospect of invading Eden.

As these developments unfolded, many people started believing that this conflict was going to last for a very long time. With both sides gearing up themselves for it in their unique ways, indicating a protracted battle ahead. This caused a sense of anticipation to grow in the people, as they prepared to witness the unfolding of a significant and prolonged struggle.

However, all of that took a turn when an article with the heading [The Best Advertisement For Russian Fighter Jets: A Spectacular Showcase of the SU-35's Dominance during the First Face-off in Eden & Esparia War!] appeared on the internet.

In a mere ten minutes, the article started trending across all social media platforms. The video that was attached to the article was also being shared and was reposted by almost anyone who had their attention on the ongoing conflict between the two nations.

The article delved into details about where the confrontation had taken place, when it had taken place, revealing everything else related to it. This article informed the world that what they assumed to be a period of army preparations was nothing but just some background activities.

In fact, a real battle had already been fought and a winner of their first face-off had already been decided in just a matter of few minutes right after the declaration of war. This turn of events was a massive middle finger to Esparia, who had boldly declared the war and had their aircrafts being shot down minutes after their famous declaration, providing a good material for the meme culture that had been quite active and even flourished since the declaration of war.

Although the internet was slightly sated with the release of numerous videos that were uploaded and showcased the military movement, this video and the article were the cuisine that no one had expected to have as it had everything they didn't even know that they deserved to see. It was the face-off between the two countries' air forces and for those who watched it, it definitely didn't disappoint them at all.

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What further helped increase the crazy reaction was that no one watching had to feel guilty for feeling excited while watching the video. Unlike any typical war footage documenting any ongoing war most of the time, there will be loss of life, however, no life had been taken in the entirety of this new video, allowing them to publicly express how the video was making them feel, which wouldn't have been quite possible if it was any death on the video.

Yet, the only distasteful thing that left the people questioning was the question of the condition of the ejected pilots since the video had been stopped a few moments after the last plane was shot and the Edeninan pilot had left the airspace while the parachutes of the ejected pilots could still be seen in the sky.

This meant that at this moment only the reporters were aware of the existence of the new-looking helicopter and boat, keeping that part of the video hidden for a future article, poised to benefit from the following that would be generated by the current article.

The impact of this article's release was massive and among them was also a group of people aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Fleet.

Using the onboard military computers to access the internet and communicate with families, one of the members heard about the video which prompted him to watch it before he soon called for his fellow colleagues to watch it since he was too flabbergasted by what he had seen to even react by himself.

With that, the group started watching the video too and if someone looked at them closely, they would realize that all of them were the pilots of the squadron that had gone to retrieve their drone that had "accidentally lost signal" and veered to Eden.

"I recognize those markings from one of the planes that had come to intercept us," said Enrico as they watched the video, coming to the realization who the pilot on the SU-35 that was doing some ridiculously awe-inspiring maneuvers was. 𝒷𝓮𝒹𝓃ℴ𝓿𝓮𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂

"Oh my god!" gasped one of them after seeing how the Eden pilot in one of maneuvers took the air-to-air missiles that were coming for him out of the equation while at the same time putting himself behind one of the F-16's chasing him, which he promptly shot down, followed closely by the ejection of the pilot.

When the video came to an end, they replayed it again and again with every single one of their faces having the same expression: Disbelief.

For the next half hour, the soldiers onboard the Pacific Fleet continued to rewatch the video of the battle between Esparian and Edenain aircrafts in silence.

No words were exchanged all this long as they were trying to mentally visualize what sort of actions they would need to make an aircraft make such maneuvers and tried to calculate those precise split-second decisions that would be required to be executed without risking entering G-lock and potentially killing themselves.

"I can't believe they earned "Ace in a Day" title in this century and that too in a matter of two minutes!" Enrico exclaimed, both in amazement, jealousy and a tinge of fear as he envisioned himself being in control of one of those planes, facing such a monstrous adversary.

"They have created monsters," Elton, the youngest among them, remarked, having memorized the entire action sequence.

"Do you think we would have emerged victorious if we had entered a dogfight with them?" Elton asked, curious to know their team leader's evaluation.

"It hurts my pride to say this, but I don't think there would be a way to come out alive if we are to face them in a dogfight but in a long-range battle, we might win and that will only be thanks to our advanced long-range weapons," Daniel, the team leader, conceded, feeling his pride as a pilot of the nation that boasted the best first and second air force in the world taking a hit. He knew that he could easily lose to a pilot who outnumbered his air time by at least fifteen to one. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝒈

"Considering the US arsenal, I can only imagine the F-22 going head-to-head with them and having a plausible chance of winning it," he added, not counting the F-35 as that plane was primarily made for long-range engagements and due to it having no supermaneuverability, it made F-35 impossible to survive a dogfight against such monsters.

"How did they even train them to such a level? I'm sure they couldn't have even accumulated less than a quarter of our flight time?" Daveta chimed in as he felt goosebumps with the thought of remembering that they had two of those pilots fly together with them, escorting them during their drone retrieval mission.

"Perhaps not all of them are as exceptionally talented as him and this Esparian squadron might have got unlucky to meet such a monster," Elton speculated, trying to rationalize what they had watched and attributing it to something they unfortunately did not have enough of compared to that monster: A monstrous talent.

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"What I'm curious to know is, who the fuck is crazy enough to send such an exceptionally talented and experienced pilot in such a perilous combat situation with nothing but guns. Are they not worried about losing their investments on him?" Daniel spoke once again, questioning the craziness of the military brass who had sent such a valuable pilot to what could be said to be a certain death situation if not for his monstrous talent, with nothing but guns onboard the fighter jet.

But before they could even respond, their discussion was interrupted by a summon to the commander's room. They immediately understood it was going to be about the pilot in the video they just watched since they were the ones who had met and flown with these monsters not long ago.

This was just one of the many reactions of people with the knowledge about how difficult and incredible a feat it was to accomplish what they had witnessed.

Simultaneously, some smaller countries who adhered to the idea of "A good pilot is only as good as the plane he flies" started exploring the possibilities of acquiring some similar fighter jets in the video, this inadvertently provided Russian arms sales a huge chunk of free and positive marketing.

Unbeknownst to them, even the seasoned Russian pilots, who were well versed in handling those aircrafts, having been using them for years were wondering how the fuck did that Eden's pilot make the plane move that way and cause it to respond and move in such a manner.

This caused a slight jealousy among the Russian pilots as it gave them the same feeling as seeing your girlfriend being happier when she is with someone else or your friends being more engaged when they are with others compared to when they are with you.

Essentially they were having the feeling of being cucked without having that particular kink.

…..

A brief lull settled over the war for the next six hours, with Esparia having not made any other move. This unexpected pause caused the citizens who had gained calmness to start panicking once again, who speculated that maybe they were planning for something huge or something else behind the scene in retaliation to what happened.

But contrary to their thoughts, Esparia had, in fact, meticulously prepared a very detailed plan that was based on the air force squadron taking down Eden's airforce and gaining air supremacy over the skies of Eden, paving the way for their bombers to target the vital infrastructures of their enemy country.

Their objective was to force Eden to surrender and if they didn't, they would have continued bombing them from the air since they would have complete control over the airspace and they wouldn't have had to worry about having to fight on land. In tandem with the bombing raid, they had planned to use a portion of their navy to take over the military ports and start a ground invasion.

This plan, however, was now thrown in disarray when their fighter jets were obliterated, leaving the remainder of their air force to retreat. At the same time, their assumption that Eden didn't even shoot the aircrafts down and had just bought those pilots, gaining themselves fifteen new aircraft after they had accounted the destruction of the five aircraft from the video, but with the video being of a very high quality, they suspected of it being a ploy by Eden to make them think that the remaining fifteen fighter jets were also destroyed, continued to hinder them in choosing the plan and route of sending bombers.

So thanks to these conspiracies and due to them having no evidence to assure themselves as to which one is the actual truth, they were now forced to give up on their previously well-devised plan and move to plan B.

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This plan still included the mobilization of their navy which was still powerful despite having lost a fleet during their previous endeavor, but this time it was the entirety of what they could afford to send without leaving themselves open to surprise attacks from Eden.

But they weren't sending all their fleets as one group like the previous venture, no, they sent each fleet in different directions and the delay in action on the war was caused by this decision since the navy fleets had to wait for all of their other fleets to reach their designated mark before they could start entering Eden's water and attack.

There were a total of four fleets, with three already in position, waiting for the fourth one to arrive at its designated location before they could start making their move to Eden and initiate their attacks and take over Eden's navy bases.

Each of these fleets was accompanied by seven modified midsized tankers, making a total of them to be 28. Each tanker was carrying tanks, vehicles, supplies and last but not least one thousand soldiers who were completely geared and prepared for a nomadic-style invasion.

Once the ports were secured, the military would start the invasion, starting with disembarking and then spreading using the vehicles that were carried in those tankers to start infiltrating the cities nearby, paving a way for bringing more forces into the country and help expedite their territorial expansion.

Ten minutes later, an encrypted message reached all the four fleets, after it was decrypted, it revealed a succinct note: "This is the fourth fleet; we have arrived at the designated location," This message confirmed their successful arrival at their marked location and at the same time signaling the start of the mission.

But for the next seven minutes, a thought stillness prevailed. As the clock ticked and it was now midnight, the first hour of Sunday, the fleets immediately sprang into action. They started moving at their maximum speed while also being as much dispersed as possible to minimize the vulnerability of the possibility of an entire fleet being taken out with just one bomb like how it had happened in the first time, and they didn't want to face the same humiliation again after experiencing it.

This way, they were using their hard-learned lessons to forge a new path.

And this was a sign of a very smart and ardent student who was only lacking experience. Experience which they would have enough of by the end of the war.

As the fleets moved, the tankers that were carrying soldiers and other equipment for impending land battles started heading in a different direction from the main fleets, executing a plan they had come up with.

They continued to advance as quietly as possible, while also hoping to not attract any undue attention to themselves, praying fervently that their movements would go unnoticed. Their objective was to land the soldiers so that they can start the ground assault to seize control over the port. Once successful, they would dock and unload all their vehicles from their tankers before they embarked on the next mission of capturing the cities.

When the tankers reached about fifteen kilometers from the shores, they came to a halt. Their halt was followed by the deployment of high-speed boats which started coming out of them, rapidly descending into the waters and were swiftly being filled with heavily armed soldiers, who were ready for combat.

While this was happening, the fleet continued moving ahead, while maintaining their course, coordinating with the tankers through their communication channels. Their coordinated movements resulted in them reaching the effective range of their destroyer missiles by the time all of their combat soldiers had already loaded into the high-speed boats and had started moving for their landing zone.

With the high-speed boats en route to their landing zones, their four almost outdated guided missile destroyers sprang to life. The lids of the vertical launchers opened up at once as the pencil-like missiles started being propelled out of their tubes by the controlled explosions. After being propelled into the air and reaching a height of fifty meters, the projectiles adjusted their trajectory and locked onto their designated targets– the nearest port within their reach.

The SM-6 missiles coming out of those vertical launchers surged toward their designated targets as fast as they could, while the fleet that was now assured that the ports would soon be overwhelmed by the appearance of missiles started deliberately slowing down their advance, moving as slow as possible despite aware that their presence had already been discovered by Eden's military.

While they were closing in, the other fleets also initiated their own barrage, firing whatever they could while still keeping a vigilant watch on their radars, wary of potentially being ambushed by those monstrous fighters and bombed to oblivion. And because of that, the soldiers on board remained tense, feeling the weight of the operation.

But just when the missiles were about a kilometer away from hitting the targeted port, a series of red dots forming a line started appearing in the sky that was then directed towards the missiles. Following that, an abrupt explosion occurred and before they could even express what they were feeling, the sound of what the explosions that had happened just before their eyes finally started reaching their ears.

"BRTTTTTTTTTTTTT"

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"Shit"

No one knew who was the source of those words, but they didn't disagree with him since they knew that their surprise attack was now out of the window.

The commanders were swift to recover from the shock and regained their composure, with that they started issuing orders to their respective fleets to continue their attacks.

They commanded an intensified barrage, aiming to saturate and overwhelm the port's anti-missile defenses. They hoped that at least some of the missiles might get missed by the defense system and they would be able to cause harm on the port, making the soldiers landing job easier.

Amidst their hearts experiencing fear and tension, the soldiers responded by forcing themselves to focus. They knew that any mistake they do from now on would very likely result resulting in their deaths, hence their minds did all they could to make them focus as much as possible, ensuring the survival of the body.

This resulted in the soldiers operating beyond their normal mindset as they truly fired whatever was available, sending everything the ships had in the direction of that port, hoping that they would buy enough time for their landing ships to be able to arrive at the landing zones and initiate a fierce fight to take over those ports.

Alas, no matter what they tried to smack towards the ports, they were always met with the same response: dotted red lines converging on the missiles before those bullets started shooting down the approaching missiles followed shortly by the hearing of the distinctive sound of the defense system "BRTTTTTTTTTTTTTT" being the results of the bullets soaring at a very high speed to shoot down the incoming missiles.

While all that was happening, beneath these fleets, the ocean surface was still retaining its tranquility, four black submarines could be seen trailing behind all the four fleets, their presence concealed by the undisturbed waters.

These submarines were of a similar size as the Virginia Class Submarine, yet they could still be said to be slightly larger than the Virginia Class Submarine by a few meters.

Within these submarines, they looked very different compared to any of the world's other submarines. Virtually, every aspect of this submarine differed from any submarine found elsewhere in the world while everything on the outside couldn't look any more than a normal submarine.

...

In the meantime, the boats that were dispatched from the tankers were making their way towards the nearest place they could disembark to start their land operation.

However, as they saw all the missiles that were launched by their fleets were completely turned useless even before they could cause any harm, all the soldiers on the boats stared at the sky with utter shock.

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"What the fuck is their missile defense system made of?" The commander of one of the fleets cursed, because of these missiles, their planned saturation attack was completely thwarted without being able to hit even the waters on the navy bases, which would have at least caused a slight disarray within the port, at least that would have been of slight help for their soldiers when they started attacking the would have been disoriented enemies.

"The fast boats team should be arriving soon so tell everyone to start turni..." Just as he was about to start ordering for his fleets to retreat, his command was intercepted by the sound of a massive explosion.

'BOOOOOOOM"

When he turned to look at the direction the sound had come from, his face turned deathly pale as he wasn't able to believe what he was seeing with his eyes.

One of the ships of their fleet was now bent from the middle, forming a triangle with the sea surface as its base before it was divided into two pieces, joined by just a few meters of metal sheets, as the two portions of the massive ship fell back in the water, tearing the very little metal that supported the two portions, the ship was now completely split into two halves as they started plummeting into the water and slowly started sinking beneath the water surface.

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM.

This nightmarish scene was soon followed by three more consecutive detonations, all of them targeting the smallest ships in the fleets which should be considered as an enough warning.

The scene was now something neither the commander nor anyone who had seen those explosion would ever forget in their lives.

The cause of the explosion being the Edenian submarines that were lurking under the fleets, following them since when they invaded Esparias water.

They were nothing but state-of-the-art in everything when compared to the latest gen of any country's military.

Starting from the energy, these submarines were each being powered by harnessing the energy of a star in the form of fusion reactors. This means that they won't need to ever be refueled as long as they are under the surface of the water. Because these reactors would efficiently extract deuterium, a fuel source, from the surrounding water, rendering themselves self-sustaining during underwater operations.

As for the propulsion system it too was the state of the art magnetic propulsion helping the submarine in its stealthiness while at the same time allowing it to go at unimaginable high speeds.

In place of sonar, these submarines utilized the same advanced scanner as the one that was scanning Eden's airspace, meaning they were aware of anything that existed around them within a bubble of 500 kilometers of radius.

Giving them a frightening awareness wherever they were, making them an enemy you don't want to face under any circumstances.

The hull of the submarine was made from a revolutionary material, a marvel born from the result of the research done in laboratories of Lab City, where they had managed to make dream materials for any submarine maker in the world.

The hull material exhibited the remarkable hardness of diamond coupled with an exclusive flexibility that absorbed and dispersed any impacting energy, negating any risk of cracking or fracturing. This innovation ensured the hull's capability to endure immense pressures of the deep-sea domain, ensuring both the submarine's safety and structural integrity even at extreme depths. Furthermore, the materials lightweight nature, in proportion to its strength, elevated the submarine's buoyancy and maneuverability, simultaneously reducing the vessel's overall weight burden.

Resistance against the corrosive and erosive forces of saltwater exposure? The material stood resilient, impervious to degradation. This resistance translated to a prolonged lifespan for the hull, simultaneously, effectively reducing the demand for frequent maintenance requirements. Furthermore, the unique composition of the material manifested in its exceptional ability to absorb and dampen the sound waves, rendering the submarine nearly silent and drastically curbing its acoustic footprints. This transformation bolstered the vessel's stealth capabilities, enhancing its covert operations even further.

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Notably it was also adaptable to fluctuations in temperature. The material seamlessly adjusted to varying environmental conditions, ensuring a stable internal environment, eliminating any concerns linked with thermal conductivity. The sole drawback lay in the complexity of its manufacturing process, an obstacle that was effortlessly circumvented by Aron, who harnessed atomic printing technology, making the fabrication process seamless and expedient.

As for the rest of the interior of the submarine, it was mostly nothing other than differently tuned atomic printers which were tuned and placed in different locations to accomplish diverse functions.

ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm Everything from the torpedo tubes, SLBM (Submarine launched Ballistic Missiles) tubes, kitchen, bathrooms and everything else other than the operation room and sleeping quarter was filled with atomic printers and tankers that were stocked with atoms required for making the product.

During meal time, all a soldier had to do was go to the kitchen and they would find a very presumptuous hot meal that was already printed for them.

If they needed to fire torpedo missiles, the atomic printer on board the torpedo tube would simply print the torpedo before it would be fired, this gave the submarine a rapid firing ability as they didn't have the limitation of the traditional slow reloading of the torpedoes.

All of this resulted in these submarines being the world's most heavily armed submarines while it didn't have anything that could be considered as a fire hazard in it. Having a hull that was as hard as a diamond, they would always maintain communication with the main base no matter where they were since they were using quantum computers as their submarine's computer giving them the advantages of seamless quantum communication.

The submarines, designed for stealth and capable of massive ordnance delivery from anywhere on Earth to any location, of course, went completely undetected by the outdated sonars that were on the Esparian fleet, allowing for them to roam and follow them as freely as they wanted without having to worry about being discovered.

...

The moment the fleets commenced firing with the intention of saturation, an order was finally relayed from Athena to the submarines. At that time, half of their crew was inside the control room with the other half, having completed their shifts, resting or engaging in other recreational activities within the VR.

The submarines were currently operating as if it was a normal patrol mission which relieved the need for all the personnel to be on deck. That is why they were so relaxed and not because of their own arrogance, but rather because those were the orders from the higher-ups.

"Load and flood the torpedo tubes," the submarine commanding officer wasted no time before ordering for the torpedo tubes to be loaded and flooded with water in preparation for the impending attack.

The soldier in charge of the weapons deployment immediately executed the order, initiating the approval for the production and loading of a torpedo into the torpedo tube.

Upon receiving the command, the atomic printer in the torpedo tube sprang into action. It accessed the raw materials stored and efficiently printed the entirety of the torpedo before filling the tubes with water in just a few seconds which was then followed by the torpedo door being opened, presenting the loaded torpedo that was waiting to receive the firing command.

"The torpedoes are loaded and tubes are flooded," reported back the weapons deployment specialist.

"Fire!" the commander officer uttered calmly, which was immediately responded to as all four freshly crafted torpedoes were launched in rapid succession.

As the torpedoes exited the tube, they released a subtle sound that was immediately absorbed by the water surrounding it. The magnetic propellers came to life and started spinning, propelling the torpedoes out of the tube as they started their journey to their targets among the fleets, which were just a short distance away from the submarine.

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The torpedoes did not take more than a few seconds to arrive closer to the surface of the water, unfolding a magic moment upon the water's surface…

The torpedo continued its trajectory until it positioned beneath the target ship, at which point it detonated.

The explosion generated an underwater bubble that propelled the ship to rise momentarily upward, absorbing the initial impact. Almost immediately, the underwater bubble began to collapse as the water rushed in to fill the void.

This sudden compression forced the ship, still slightly elevated, to drop abruptly before being thrusted back into the air once again, reaching an even greater height than before.

The swift ascent was driven by the surge of water rushing in to fill the void left by the collapsing bubble, displacing the air that had previously occupied that space. This influx of air acted as the final catalyst that propelled the ship higher into the air with even greater force.

Under the strain of such an intense barrage of pressures, the vessel succumbed, fracturing into two distinct parts while still being suspended mid-air.

As the ship split apart, it began its descent, ultimately plummeting into the water below.

The impact with the water was immediate, and the vessel quickly began to take on water. 𝒷𝓮𝒹𝓃ℴ𝓿𝓮𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂

Among the ensuing chaos, the surviving soldiers aboard the ship struggled to escape the rapidly shifting and turbulent waters, which were now far from being calm due to the explosive sequence of events that had unfolded in a fraction of a second.

While their navy was giving the Esparian navy fleets a PTSD for every soldier on board the ships like Oprah, the air force was also in full operation.

Four SU-35 fighter jets, piloted by the Aces, could be seen escorting one midsize cargo aircraft, all of them heading in the direction of Esparia.

Athena had decided to take the initiative by venturing into the enemy territory since the other side seemed to be reluctant to come to them. She had something specific which she needed to be done in Esparia to end the war as fast as possible, concluding it with minimal casualties on both sides. The soldiers, who were caught in the crossfire had the only fault of being in the wrong country's military which had a corrupt president who could be bought for a few pennies and couldn't care for the lives of these soldiers at all, thinking them as disposable pawns, as long as he was benefiting from their deaths.

"They are en route," reported Archangel One-Three as the radars in their aircrafts were finally being put to use for the first time now that they were heading to Esparia which was beyond the range the SkyEye 0 could scan. They had detected a group of Esparian fighter jets taking off and heading to them for interception.

All thirty of the enemy aircrafts had taken off, yet not all of them were heading to intercept Eden's planes, rather, only four of them seemed to be directly heading towards them, while another four remind in the skies patrolling the capital city, as for,the rest of the twenty-two could be seen trying to avoid them as much as possible and head to Eden, trying to put the four they thought to be as the only Eden's airforce fighters planes in dilemma on whether they should be proceeding on their mission and attack whatever they were planning or return to intercept the twenty-two that were making their way to Eden.

"Quite a good plan, not gonna lie," Archangel One-One, the squadron leader, acknowledged when he grasped what Esparia was trying to do.

He shortly added by saying, "One-Three make sure the cargo plane reaches at the mission objective," before the three of the four planes executed a U-turn to catch and shoot down the now heavily dispersed fighter jets that were piloted by grunting pilots who had been in detention from the moment they landed and were only released and immediately sent to intercept the Edenian Ace squadron after they were threatened by using the lives of their families.

At this moment, the twenty-two fighter jets dispatched to Eden were split into eleven groups, sending two aircraft as a group in every direction and as far as possible from the monstrous four.

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Although it was true that they were sent here just as a means to give the four aces a dilemma of choice, they still planned to benefit from this and bomb a few places while the four monsters tried to shoot as many of them as possible during that time.

"I can't believe I'm regretting being enticed by money just a month after resigning," lamented one of the Esparian foreign pilots as he remembered how they were treated the moment they landed after their first mission against Eden.

The moment they landed, they were put under the cuffs and sent into the detention center without even being told a reason for their arrests.

After all of them were arrested one by one, they were interrogated, threatened and subjected to everything except physical torture.

Other than torture, anything a person could imaginably do to force someone to spill the truth during the span of just two hours was done to them.

Despite them denying everything and feeling betrayed after how they were treated during that period, they still endured this ordeal while feeling a little grateful after having survived their initial encounter with Eden's formidable might which had pushed their abilities to the limit.

Upon learning the reason behind their mistreatment, they couldn't help but grasp the reason and understand why they were treated that way. In the first place, they were people who had resigned from their respectful military careers, enticed by the lucrative financial offers which were enough to spend with their families for the rest of their lives, which in return made them seem susceptible to monetary coercion– an opportunity for their loyalty to be swayed with money to the point of even feigning being shot down and receive another compensation payment in the midst of it.

But understanding it was another thing and forgiving was another, so they were still angry for the treatment they had received, nearly all of them expressed their desire to resign which had been blatantly ignored by Esparia.

And now they were even compelled to take to the air while their families acted as both hostages and a motivation material for them to do their best during the mission.

Even now, when one of the pilots remembered the tumultuous few hours they had experienced, he couldn't help but seethe in anger whenever he thought about it. Alas, he wasn't given more time to think any further as... BOOOOOOOM. His and his wingman's plane were shot down by two missiles that their aircrafts system wasn't able to detect and the only thing he could think of this being the reason for being shot down was because he was fortunately alive thanks to the Automatic Ejection Seat Sequences (AESS) that was available in his plane. 𝙗𝒆𝒅𝒏𝙤𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜

Initially, he had thought that they would engage in a dogfight, using guns like the first time, however, this time the monsters came prepared for such a situation and had even brought proper gear with them to avoid the enemies from using their numerical advantage over them.

"FOX 1" was the only word that Archangel One-Four had uttered before he fired a pseudo-radar-guided missile at the enemy who was wasting time thinking about the past rather than focusing on his current mission.

Archangel One-Four's aircraft's hardpoint still had a few more air-to-air missiles and since the hardpoint even had atomic printers on them, it had the capability to fabricate more of them so long as the atomic storage had supply material for the printing.

This technological advantage of being able to print any missile from the hardpoint allowed for the aircraft to always be prepared for any mission no matter its nature.

This was what gave them the confidence to go in any fights and have what could be said to be a pseudo unlimited ammo which could be backed up by a material tanker for air-to-air atomic and fuel refueling if the need ever arose.

The only downside of having an atomic printer on these aircrafts was the fact that the weight had increased due to having another storage space to be filled for the materials required for the atomic printer to use for printing, meaning they are always more heavier than they look, no matter the condition.

Nevertheless, all of these disadvantages could be easily compensated with the existence of the powerful engines, allowing for the pilots to have the confidence of executing any maneuvers they desired however they wanted without worrying about the airframe bending, and other problems which could have occurred if any other country's fighters tried to carry the same weight and make them move in such similar manner thanks to the materials the planes were made of.

Not caring about such technical intricacies, the Archangel just pulled the trigger once again, this time eight Fox-One missiles were detached from the aircraft, each homing to different targets, after that he didn't do anything and simply and returned to where Archangel One-Three was, still guarding the tanker and had already shot the incoming enemy aircraft, maintaining his position without leaving his mission.

Similar stories unfolded with the other Archangels as they returned shortly after and converged with the squadron and the cargo aircraft that remained unscathed, proof of their exceptional combat prowess.

With an impressive feat of already shooting down what could be said to be all of Esparia's new aircrafts, including the four patrolling ones, despite being quite a distance away from the original position of Eden's aircrafts.

Their remarkable accuracy from such a considerable distance had come as a surprise to both the people on land and the pilots who were abruptly terminated, having been suddenly faced with an unexpected attack and finding themselves already ejected without any warning beforehand.

This situation got even worse if we were to include the bombers who were now being scrambled to go the opposite direction of Eden and to the Pacific Ocean to avoid being bombed if they were left inside their bunkers and mirroring the losses like what happened to their fighter jets.

While doing that, their air defense system of Esparia now started coming online as the soldiers manning them in different cities and locations could be seen holding their breaths, praying that the incoming planes don't come to their way and go to other cities so that they would be spared from having to face the potential devastation.

...

"Good luck, we have some destruction to deliver," Archangel One-One, the squadron leader, relayed to the pilot of the cargo aircraft.

"See you on land when we are done with ours too," the cargo pilot responded, bidding farewells to the squadron members before echoing their signature call.

"Archangels out,"'

The squadron members responded and swiftly pulled their aircraft yokes, each heading to a distinct trajectory, diverging from the cargo airplane, continuing alone with resolution towards its designated path.

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...

When the dispersed Archangels squadron members started getting closer to their designated bombing destinations, the atomic printer on their hardpoint started coming to life.

Land bombs started materializing through the rapid printing process, signifying that their current mission was about bombarding land targets.

The moment the bombs were done printing, without hesitation or wasting any time, the newly printed bombs were detached by the pilots from the planes, followed by the pilots redirecting the planes' direction, heading to different designated destinations without even waiting to confirm whether the bomb was going to hit the marked location or not.

Boom.

And just like that, in an instant, a weapons depot was now out of the war and since it stored ammunition within, it started a chain reaction of explosions. The low-yield detonation of the bomb served as the catalyst, igniting the destructive sequence with exact precision, leaving no excess explosive material.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm This same pattern of devastation was being repeated all over the country, with a minor delay of the explosions in different cities since the fighters took some time to reach their destinations, but whenever they reached, the city's air defenses would be the first to be taken out of the equation before being closely followed by the arms depot which was soon followed by other important military infrastructures being taken out.

At the same time, this series of movements inflicted an unimaginable amount of terror on the citizens of the cities they bombed before they moved to another city to inflict the same terror without facing any obstacle in their wake.

...

"Soldiers, we are on the final approach. Make sure you have all the necessary equipment on you," Andrew, the special forces commander, announced from within the cargo bay of the approaching cargo plane that was nearing the capital city of Esparia.

He strode down the center aisle, addressing the soldiers seated on either side, who were listening to him attentively.

And although their heads were covered with the headgear, obscuring their vision and not allowing them to see, Andrew could still see their faces thanks to the tech in his headgear which provided augmented visuals, a feature that was shared by all the soldiers in the cargo hold.

Upon hearing the commander's order to check whether they had everything, none of the soldiers moved. All they had to do was simply gaze at their left, focusing on the peripheral of their left side was enough for them to assess their readiness, where there were small sentences that were marked green.

The small lines listed the equipment they had equipped and with them being green meant that they were all connected to the headgear's computer system and were completely ready for operation.

"Thirty seconds to the drop zone," an announcement came from the pilot of the plane, informing them of their imminent arrival near the drop zone which was now safe from any anti air defenses, courtesy of the Archangels who were here a few minutes ago.

In response to the announcement, all of the soldiers stood at once revealing all the gear they were wearing completely.

Each soldier could be seen wearing an armor of some sort under their normal military-issued operational clothes which in themselves were capable of blocking a bullet from penetrating it while leaving for you to deal with the energy that would be transferred from the bullet to your body after it was stopped.

So, although you are wearing a bulletproof cloth and it will stop a bullet from penetrating you, you will still have to suffer the pain similar to being hit by a truck, depending on the bullet's impact location on the shirt and how much of the energy was dispersed to the whole body.

The armor had a thickness that was equivalent to a person wearing three shirts, meaning it was nothing cumbersome and due to these few soldiers being the only ones who were issued these armors, and with the team consisting of only twenty people, it gave Aron enough time to be able to engrave quite a few runes on them, making the armors to never make the soldiers feel any discomfort when wearing them while still providing a hundred percent of the movement ability they had when they weren't donning them.

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With the armors on them, the soldiers were now even capable of lifting more than five times what they were able to lift after going through genetic enhancements, which by itself was quite scary, still as they say, the more the better.

Together with the armor they carried, they were issued electromagnetic-barrelled firearms and holstered pistols which were already attached to their hips while their backs carried a backpack, housing more ammunition and other necessary equipments they will be needing during their upcoming operation.

With confidence and not even an ounce of fear on their face, the soldiers started walking to the opening cargo bay door while not facing any difficulty in breathing since their armor was completely insulated and prevented any outside things from entering the inside without being filtered first, maintaining a controlled and comfortable environment.

As they neared the door, they just put the weapons on their hands parallel to their left hip as the armor automatically pulled and firmly held the gun, eliminating the need for the soldiers to hold them during their jump.

"5,4,3,2,1!" A countdown started appearing in front of them as they waited and the moment it reached zero, they started jumping into the void.

No parachute accompanied them since their backs were now occupied with the bag carrying ammo and a few other pieces of equipments. 𝐛𝐞𝐝𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺

The moment they plunged from the plane, their headgears activated, displaying to the soldiers every crucial information about the jump, including the distance they were from the ground, the speed at which they were falling and the time it would take for them to reach the ground.

At the same time, the headgears were doing something different, they were fussing the computational powers of all the twenty soldiers in the air, creating a massive scanning bubble which thanks to the fusion of power from the armors this time extended even more than the usual bubble that would normally reach only six kilometers which was now reaching twenty kilometers before it started collecting and presenting all the data within it while filtering out any irrelevant details and only showing the important bits of information that the soldiers needed to know.

Amidst enemy territory, without safety net or backup, began a mission soon to be etched in the world's memory.

In the serene night sky, the only audible sound that could be heard was the rustling of the wind that passed around the descending soldiers, who despite their fall, still had their composure maintained, looking relaxed while their eyes remained focused on the rapidly decreasing numerals that were materializing in front of their eyes.

When they reached a certain altitude during their fall "FRRRRR," the electrically powered thrusters came to life after manifesting on the chest of these soldiers, marginally reducing their velocity while at the same time expertly adjusting their trajectory and aligning them on their landing location before the thrusters retracted as if they never existent in the first place.

Following the appearance of the first thruster after which they quickly got hidden again, a few more of such thrusters started appearing at certain intervals in different locations on the armor, reducing the soldiers' falling speed at the same time also stabilizing them in the fall before retracting once again, this appearance and disappearance of the thrusters continued for a few more times.

Their fall continued for a few more seconds before, "FRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR," the thruster appeared once again, but this time they were blasting at their full power when the soldiers were a mere ten meters away from the ground. Their velocity was dwindled to near zero before the thrusters deactivated when the soldiers were just five meters above the ground, leaving the rest of the fall to be handled by themselves, which they easily took care of by simply bending their knees the moment their legs were about to touch the ground and together with the armor, they were easily able to absorb the rest of the energy without any trouble.

"Grim Reapers on the ground," the team leader reported back to the headquarters as the soldiers unholstered their weapons from their left hips and started advancing towards a very distant building.

For those who were familiar with a few things about Esparia, they would recognize that this building was none other than the Presidential palace of Esparia, clearly hinting at what kind of mission this group of twenty soldiers were sent to accomplish.

...

"As you can see, there are more than five thousand soldiers and other personnel inside the Presidential Palace. Our objective is to extract the president and the high command without being discovered. So, we will be adhering to Athena's guidance in the mission and will be divided into four teams, reconvening by the end of the first phase of the mission. I will be the team leader for team Alpha; for team Bravo, Alan will be leading it; for team Charlie, it will be Shamim and lastly, team Delta, will be led by Alex." When he concluded appointing the team leaders of the respective teams, the headgears automatically assigned the remaining soldiers to these different teams, marking them by distinct color surroundings, only to be seen by those wearing headgears.

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"Start moving out," Alan commanded as he set off, closely followed behind by his team, en route to their designated entry point.

Upon seeing Alan leave, the other team leaders also took command of their team to move in, which the soldiers followed without any defiance to their promptly chosen team leaders.

As each team was on their way, they effortlessly navigated the secured infrastructure by utilizing their technological advantage of being able to know the location of every CCTV blind spots and patrol teams, thus, they didn't face any obstructions on their way as they passed through all of the checkpoints that were erected by the soldiers and mercenaries entrusted with safeguarding the Presidential Palace which contained the core command structure that was behind orchestrating the conflict.

...…

Not long later, in a concealed location which also doubled as an access route to the palace walls, a group of three palace guards could be seen standing guard.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm Now they weren't, since they currently lay lifeless on the ground, victims of Team Alpha's stealthy advance. With that, Athena took over radio frequencies of the dead soldiers' radios to respond and keep the facade of them still being alive whenever the roll call was made.

Similar scenarios could be seen happening simultaneously in different directions, as each team got closer and closer to the heavily fortified palace walls, their synchronized maneuvers a testament to their expertise.

Team Bravo was the first one to reach the walls, arriving ahead of the other three teams. Without waiting for their companions, they started doing a short jog towards the wall. As they got closer, their pace accelerated, just when they were five meters away from hitting the wall, they jumped.

With the assistance of the armors, they were thrown fifteen meters into the air, just two meters short of scaling the wall, but just then, the armor's boosters sprang back to life, helping them get higher and scale the remaining two meters. At the same time, they started reducing their speed of falling after the gravity finally won against them just as they had scaled the wall and started falling down, to avoid making any noise which could possibly alert someone or trigger an analog sensor. 𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝑚

After surmounting the wall with efficiency and silently, they continued moving discreetly through the darkness, eliminating any enemy they met on their way as quietly as possible with calculated precision, while Athena would immediately assume control over the dead soldier's communication systems, maintaining the illusion of everything being normal.

Similar tactics were used by other teams who were slightly behind team Bravo, who were on the lead due to their route being the least guarded one.

This progress continued unobstructedly until the first team finally arrived at an obscure-looking building. On the outside, it projected an appearance of an abandoned building, seemingly imitating an under-maintained building– a pretty convincing charade would have been if it was in an undeveloped locale, but it was conspicuously out of place since it was in the compounds of the Presidential Palace, the disheveled building inside a highly maintained palace acted as nothing other than a massive beam for anyone who was smart enough to think about it for a few moments.

Arriving at the closed door, the team didn't hesitate for even a second before they raised their guns and pulled their triggers twice, sending bullets through the door.

Subsequently, it was followed by the resonating of thuds as ten soldiers who were behind the door, guarding the building's entrance, fell in unison, having started their journey to the next life just a few seconds ago.

Unperturbed after killing the guards behind, Team Bravo's leader, Alan, just walked to the door and extended his hand to put it on the doorknob before he squeezed his hand as if he was squishing a sponge, causing the doorknob to cave in on itself together with the lock behind it, thus opening the bullet holed door which wasn't heavily guarded due to it being just an entrance door with more of them inside leading to their destination.

"Let's wait for the other teams inside," Alan declared as he swung open the squeaking door and walked inside the building, followed by his team members, who immediately started to move the bodies of the dead soldiers to take their positions while they waited for their fellow soldiers to arrive so that they could coordinate their advancement toward the bunker, capturing the leadership to end the war once and for all.

"Looks like you chose to take your time," Shamim, the only female team leader of the group, leading team Charlie which was the second to arrive, jokingly taunted the mission leader after he and his team were the last ones to arrive, thanks to them having too many people to shoot down and enemies to take out on their way compared to others.

Andrew upon hearing the taunt, just brushed it off while ignoring them as he passed by them and took the lead as he instructed, "Secure the door"

Upon receiving the orders, the soldiers removed the equipment they had brought with them in their backpacks and started assembling it. When they were finally done assembling it, the equipment looked similar to what might seem like a door frame with an opening at its center. With the equipment now assembled, they placed it behind the broken closed door and powered it on.

The moment they powered it on, the frame expanded and affixed itself onto all the four sides of the door frame, securing itself onto it to the point where unless it was not powered off, it wouldn't be budging even a centimeter from the place it had been secured at.

Following the latching process, they saw something that they normally wouldn't have been able to see if their headgears weren't etched with runes. They saw the frames that were making the machine had started glowing, revealing some words which they couldn't match anything they had seen or anything they knew of, were etched, glowing in white, before they sensed a subtle vibration which was followed by the appearance of an energy field which started covering the door and all the outside of the entire building, making sure that no sound could escape from the inside and be heard by anyone outside the building.

"Let's begin," Andrew declared, jolting the soldiers who had been surprised for the first time ever since they had gotten out of the pods a few months ago, however, with what they had witnessed today, they had a deep down feeling that what they had seen with their eyes wasn't just some high-level technology shit that simply appeared like a magic, rather, this was truly a full-fledged magic.

Andrew's words snapped their focus back to the mission. From the moment the building was covered with what they were told as an experimental energy shield, they knew that they had about half an hour at max before the energy on the frame ran out. So, within this window, they had to finish taking over the entire underground bunker, extract the leadership and come out of it.

"Move out," Andrew commanded.

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The moment those words came out of his mouth, the soldiers turned serious once again and started following along the corridor that was leading inside. At the start of the second phase of the mission, Athena asked her mother for help. And as a result, at the moment, the entire Esparian radio control towers and internet cables were taken under her control which was accomplished thanks to the diligent hard work of their spies, who had already infiltrated Esparia and managed to connect quantum USBs into Esparia's communication infrastructures, bypassing the data transfer limitations which had been impeding Nova from having the entire world's internet under her control.

However, for the time being, these limitations had been released as long as it is inside Esparia, albeit for a short time till the energy on those USBs waned away, causing them to self-destruct if not retrieved since they won't be capable of facilitating the quantum teleportation process to allow her to have an unlimited access after they had no energy left within them to even operate, hence they were activated from the very start of the second mission and not during the time when the soldier jumped from the planes.

Upon reaching the end of the corridor which didn't have any other opening, Andrew moved aside, leaving an opening for Shamim to pass him. Shamim just punched the wall in front of them, revealing that it was a false wall and was hiding an opening behind it.

The soldiers behind the line wasted no time as they surged through the now punctured wall, traversing the breach and entering a slightly expansive room that had a heavy metal door within, which when closed could only be opened from inside, while also a group of soldiers could be seen on the other side of it.

This door would then lead to another hall that had an elevator at its end. This elevator will send them deep underground where they will have to shoot a few people to complete the second phase of their mission. 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝑒𝘭．𝑜𝘳𝘨

The soldiers removed another device, this time from Shamim's backpack. This device looked like a slightly oversized puck that was the size of a dinner plate. Placing it in front of the robust metal door, Shamim pressed the button to power it up. After that, along with the other soldiers, Shamim stepped back, raised their guns and started aiming at the soldiers behind the heavy door before taking a deep breath to concentrate.

As the device's countdown neared its culmination and hit zero, their headgears modulated the amount of light it was augmentaly displaying to the soldiers, who couldn't see using their normal senses thanks to their headdress covering their eyes, the reason? The answer was given just a few microseconds later–

FWOOOOBOOOOMMBRRRRRRR– was heard or maybe that was what they imagined it sounded like since the explosion that happened in front of them hadn't released any sound despite having carried an explosion that obliterated the entire heavy metal door into liquid metal.

As to why no sound had been produced from the massive explosion and only light was seen coming from it.

The reason lay in what had happened in the scantiest fraction of a second –0.000003 to be precise, before the puck-like bomb had denotation. A shield materialized from within the device, delicately and perfectly calibrated to allow for it to be able to pass through the openings between the door and the walls that were holding it, completely encapsulating the door moments before the explosion followed which was now contained within it.

Nonetheless, the first explosion by itself wasn't powerful enough to shred the door into lava given the amount of explosives that were within the puck-like bomb, however, that task was left to the runic shield to accomplish.

This runic shield bounced both the shockwave and the explosion from the bomb, reflecting it right back at the door before they were once again returned back to the runes. This was carried out repeatedly, with the shockwaves getting weaker and weaker, the more they bounced due to their energy being converted into heat rapidly, with the increasing hit than being used to destroy and melt the gate at the center of the shield.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm With all of this happened in less than a quarter of a second, a fast enough period to allow for the shield which had its rune destroyed, managed to redirect the shockwaves and explosion before it fizzled out just microseconds after all the shockwaves were turned into heat which melted the door, not giving the soldiers on the other side enough time to even comprehend and react to what the heck was happening before they 'accidentally' died of a 'bullet in the head' disease.

The Eden special forces soldiers remained unfazed coming off the magical scene they had just bore witness to, they weren't fazed by what they had just witnessed, not because they had experienced it and knew it would happen that way, but rather, it was because the headgears they donned, forced their brains to continue maintaining the same calmness they had before such magical event occurred in front of them by blocking the production of certain hormones that were needed for the soldiers to even get surprised.

Of course, this was done with the knowledge of the soldiers since they knew that it was of paramount importance to maintain the highest composure during the second phase of the operation.

With the soldiers on the other side now dead, the Eden soldiers continued to move through the corridor after jumping through the molten iron in front of them, reaching the elevator door, whose elevator was now at the underground level so that the people below could access it faster if they needed to leave the bunker.

This time Alex assumed the lead and put his armor-covered hand as he slightly pried open the elevator doors and when a slight opening revealed itself, he put his second hand in and forcefully pried the elevator door fully open, revealing the opening that had wires at its center.

Without hesitation, Alex jumped into the opening, closely followed behind by the other soldiers who let their bodies become the sacrifice to the heralded force of gravity as it transported them and brought them gradually closer to their mission's objective. Hinting at their first-ever international covert mission to have a successful ending.

They plummeted for a few seconds straight as they traversed through the elevator shaft before the thruster in their armors came to life once again, wrestling them away from the grasp of terminal velocity. This time, the thrusters persisted, sustaining their propulsion until the moment they softly landed on the roof of the elevator cabin, avoiding making any sound.

Thanks to the elevator shaft being wide enough, which was due to the size of the elevator itself being huge since it served as the only entrance to the bunker, not counting the subterranean emergency tunnel as it was to be used for exactly emergency situations, thus forcing the elevator to be made as large as possible to allow for all the equipment and other materials to easily enter into the underground bunker during construction.

Nevertheless, thanks to that, all the ESF (Eden Special Forces) were now on the roof of the elevator cabin except for the two soldiers who had remained behind just in case the sound muffling device malfunctioned and attracted the attention of the nearby soldiers. They remained at the entrance above the ground to make sure that their comrades who had gone underground didn't have to worry about anything happening on the ground as they would be handling any problem that might occur by themselves.

After they reached above the elevator cabin, the soldiers didn't linger for long as one of them opened the access hatch on top of the elevator, causing a squeak to be let out from the metallic sheet of the elevator, attracting the attention of the soldiers who stood on the other side of the elevator cabin door, prompting them to turn around and take a look at what might have caused that sound.

After not hearing the squeak again, the soldiers returned back to their patrol since the security footage in front of them also didn't show anything different from how it previously was.

With the hatch now open, 5 gun tips peeking from the hatch, if looked from the pov of inside the elevator cabin. This was followed by a synchronous recoil of the guns together with, nearly silent gunshots were heard, followed by the fall of the five soldiers on either side of the elevator's door.

Upon taking care of the guards, they passed through the hatch, landing inside the elevator cabin before moving aside to allow their fellow comrades to land as well before he too would move to the side and make way for the other to jump down, thus they made enough space for everyone to jump down into the elevator without having a need to come out of it.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm When all the eighteen of them were done with boarding the elevator, Shamim pressed the button to open the door as they raised their weapons and started leaving the elevator when the door opened, jumping the dead bodies on their way into the wide corridor in front of them. With that, they started heading to the direction the corridor led them.

After a while of walking through the corridor, another massive door was revealed to them. This was the last block that held them away from accomplishing the second phase of their mission.

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The moment they reached closer to the massive door, they could see another group of soldiers standing on the other side of the door. They unveiled their equipment from their bags as usual which consisted of the same puck-shaped device from not long ago.

However, this time there was a twist, they were going to use two of these bombs by placing them on top of each other and as the result of that bombs automatically synchronized with themselves and changed their pre programmed exploding pattern to increase the effectiveness of the explosive which will not be double due to the bombs being two, but rather, it would increase the bombs' effectiveness by nearly five times more powerful than it would have been if used alone.

In the following few seconds, the same scenario from before repeated itself in front of them, with the bombs exploding and melting the door without even a single sound being heard, which was immediately followed by the soldiers shooting down the guards on the other side of the door who this time too couldn't comprehend what they had witnessed fast enough before they started a new journey on the other side.

With that done, all of the ESFs released a sigh of relief knowing very well that this was the last group of soldiers they had to shoot down, with the dead soldiers including a mix of Esparian special force soldiers along with the mercenaries working for the Morgans.

This signified the resolution of a deadly chapter, the second one in their story, executed with meticulous precision.

...

"Currently, our entire air force is considered destroyed, and much of our vital infrastructure lies in ruins, this includes our weapons storages. I can't even fathom how the heck they managed to pinpoint where most of them are. But in any case, we can no longer sustain this war," the general declared solemnly. 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑐𝑜𝘮

The moment their airforce had been taken out, he knew that it had marked a turning point in spelling their defeat in this war. This was also the very reason why they tried to gain air supremacy over Eden's airspace.

However, he could tell that the things at the current moment were much more dire than that after going through the reports they had been receiving for the past twenty minutes straight, these reports stated the carnage that was being carried out in their country by the Edens air force. Yet, he knew that these accounts might not be all that had happened, since some damage might take more time to access.

"Tell your sponsors that we are in dire need of more help, else this was will end with the victory of our adversaries by the end of the weekend," Emanuel said after he turned to the Morgan's spokesperson who was sent here to be with them in the bunker from the moment the war started in order to act as the communication link between the people in the room and the Morgan family, still, he was skeptical about them sending more help to them.

'Though I doubt that they will be inclined to invest in us anymore since even their first objective didn't succeed, but it is not my problem or fault since they are the ones who had planned the entire war plan from the very start. I should still make sure that I will receive my payment.' Emanuel thought to himself as he scanned through the conference room that was filled with intelligent-looking foreigners and a handful of people who held influential positions in the Esparian government.

The foreigners constituted the first batch of mercenaries who had arrived earlier and had started formulating strategies for how the war should take place. They were given complete planning freedom from the Morgans who said they would be backing Esparia in the war only and only on the condition that they agreed their selected people to be the ones who planned for the war.

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"I will try to do so and relay your request," the spokesperson said as he fished his phone from his pocket and dialed a number starting the call despite being underground, since this location had a pseudo signal tower, allowing for normal communications to take place as if they were on the ground.

As the phone started ringing, he rose from his seat and started walking to the door to ensure a private communication, not wanting other people to listen to the call.

"Good night sir," he greeted the moment the phone call was answered by the one on the other side, simultaneously, he turned the doorknob and opened the door.

"Go on," urged the voice from the other end.

However, the spokesperson couldn't even be bothered on hearing it as the moment he opened the door he felt as if his heart was about to leap out of his chest because of what he saw on the other side of the door, soon after, it was followed by him vomiting everything he had ate on his last meal, since he was punched on his stomach with just enough force to not break any organs within his abdomen, but powerful enough to cause him feel as much pain as possible, resulting in him dropping the phone as tears of pain were trailing from the corner of his eyes while his lips parted, letting out a painful groan which didn't seem to have any strength backing it.

The response of the people behind him and inside the room was not a calm one either, after the man fell on his knees from the immense pain, he was pushed aside by a group of heavily armed men in futuristic looking gears who entered the room and had raised their guns aiming at all of them present in the room before saying, "Move an inch and you eat a bullet."

Alas, there is always someone who thinks that they can push the boundaries and not face any consequences. In a fit of panic, one of the people present in the room, who was a minister of Esparia tried to find refuge by hiding under the table.

The soldiers kept their word, and one of them pulled the trigger, the bullet going right through the minister's head. A fleeting expression of surprise crossed the man's face before his consciousness faded, this was the last function his brain could do in that fraction of a second before his head was punctured. His body crumpled onto the table's surface, with a mixture of blood and brain matter pooling above the table's surface, a macabre testament to the abruptness of his demise.

The opening in his head went from one side to the other and was wide enough to even fit a pencil within.

Returning to the navy fleet faceoff, or should it more aptly be called a ruthless massacre by Edenian submarines?

The soldiers aboard the speedboat were rapidly closing in on an optimal water depth where they could land with their equipment before they proceeded to get to the land and commence their fight.

The missile defense guns that had been focusing on taking out the missiles a few moments ago had now turned their attention to the hoard of high-speed boats that were just a few kilometers away from reaching the shore. Guided by the onboard control computer, the electricity being sent to those guns was increased, increasing the amount of electricity that was being sent into the guns' electromagnetic barrels. This resulted in a quick doubling of the effective range of the guns, enough that the first barrage of bullets sent in their direction shredded not just the boats, but also turned some of the soldiers onboard it into unrecognizable masses of flesh. Nevertheless, most of the bullets were targeted onto their boats, resulting in those who were boarding them being immediately sent into the water. To survive, they were forced to abandon their equipments and swim the arduous kilometer-long stretch to reach the safe shore, the only thing that drove them to do this was the motivation of life versus death.

Amidst the chaos, not a single soldier—barring the few who had not survived the rain of bullets and were unfortunate enough to be turned into meat paste– had even a flicker of thought of continuing their mission.

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm They had already abandoned everything they deemed being heavy enough to hinder them in their swimming race which had started and had a very tempting reward at its end.

With the daunting reward for completing this perilous one-kilometer swim being their survival and the consequence for failing it being their death.

Despite this, and to act as a large enough motivator for the now twenty-thousand-plus-something soldiers who were swimming for their lives, the submarines were directed to send torpedoes towards the tankers that had once carried them and at the moment still held a trove of the crucial heavy equipments within them. These tankers needed to be docked to be able to unload their cargo and start using them, yet, their current imperative was to back away and run as farther away from the war, thanks to being scared to shit after what they had witnessed. And then…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

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The midsize tankers each were instantaneously cleared into two, thanks to the torpedoes' first round of detonation and before even the cavitation (underwater explosions, where rapidly collapsing bubbles generate shockwaves that are destructive to nearby structures.) could even happen due to the amount of explosive strength the torpedoes carried within them and the moment the cavitation occurred, the now two divided pieces of each mid-sized tankers were flung into air, including whatever that was inside them also being scattered like confetti.

As for the soldiers who were now swimming in the water, they experienced an unexpected surge of momentum as the shockwave from the explosion acted as a booster due to the distance they were in. By the time the shockwave reached them, it had already been weakened enough to just act as a speed-up button, helping the still swimming soldiers to cover a few meters ahead of them with ease before they were once again forced to start swimming by themselves.

This same scenario was happening across all the bases where Esparia had dispatched their soldiers to try and infiltrate before they could start attacking the neighboring cities. Hence, even the slight bit of mercy that could be shown to them now required someone as cold as Athena to decide to do it.

Meanwhile, as the soldiers were swimming with no professionality or discipline among them, looking similar to a school of fishes, a helicopter could be seen stealthy hovering above every Esparian fleet, documenting and recording everything that was unfolding.

After more than half an hour, the competition finally came to a conclusion, leaving the soldiers completely exhausted as they were panting on the well-lit shores of Eden. Their respite didn't live for long as they could hear warnings coming from behind them. When they turned to the direction from which the warning sounds were coming from, they saw massive convoys coming to them with vehicles that were completely filled with soldiers.

After noticing the convoy, some of the Esparian soldiers tried to run away, only to quickly realize how futile their actions were. Within a moment, they were turned into porcupines followed by a stern warning, "Esparian soldiers on our shores, due to our states being at war against each other, you are now our prisoners of war. You will be treated in accordance with those rules. As for anyone who might attempt to escape they will be shot and killed."

Upon hearing this announcement, a sense of relief washed over some of the panic-stricken soldiers as they simply laid themselves down on the sand since they were tired and their bodies had already reached the limit of producing specific hormones. Disarmed and disheartened, they had abandoned their weapons and other equipments in the ocean when they started swimming– an act that proved to be a smart idea compared to some of the stubborn ones who had tried swimming together with their equipments and could already be seen floating on the water, lifelessly. They had enough water in their bodies that they felt satisfied enough with living and chose death with a satisfied expression on their face or so, they thought.

Meanwhile, others cried, as they knew that it would take them a considerably long time before they returned and reunited to see their families, which they needed a lot at the moment after being heavily traumatized by the unfolding events.

The Edenian soldiers started distributing black-looking zip ties to all the captive soldiers, to put it by themselves, which they did so willingly. While a few of them tried to show defiance, they were promptly dealt with and could be seen crying while laying in a fetal position with their faces and many other body parts looking swollen.

They knew that this night was going to be a long and trying ordeal.

...….

The following morning, at 10 am, a press conference that had been announced just five hours ago commenced. 𝒃𝒆𝒅𝙣𝒐𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

Emanuel, the President of Esparia, ascended to the podium inside the press room which had very few reporters. The country was in a literal state of war with its only neighboring nation, this prompted many international reporters to go back or be called back due to fear about their safety. Nevertheless, the video feeds were being provided by Esparia and they allowed anyone to use the footage and broadcast it if they wanted to, an opportunity which every news company seized upon, knowing very well that this was the current hottest event in the world and they would gain a few more eyeballs on their channels which they could show their advertisements to.

"Ehem…" Emanuel cleared his throat before raising his head and looking straight at the camera. He then started his speech by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of our nation, today I stand before you exactly eighteen hours after I had stood here and valiantly declared war against Eden." He paused, taking another moment to clear his throat once again, this time trying to stifle the overtone he had used during his previous words. His actions revealed everything that he was feeling, anyone with enough social skills would know that it was a tone of regret, but the audience still couldn't discern whether this regret was about what he was talking about at the moment or a regret about something else.

Nevertheless, they still maintained their focus on his speech as he finally continued, trying to finish his first paragraph of the many he had to speak today, "As for why I have called for this press conference, it was to make it known that as the President of Esparia, I hereby declare our complete and unconditional surrender to Eden."

"CRASH!" The sound of glass shattering after falling reverberated through the living room of a normal-looking house. However, even after that, the person who had dropped the glass didn't even try to pick up broken fragments or even register what had happened. His entire focus remained affixed on trying to comprehend whether what he had heard moments ago was true or he had just misheard it due to being preoccupied.

Nevertheless, he wasn't the only one who couldn't believe what they had heard just now. Practically everyone watching the press conference found themselves dumbfounded by what they had heard.

Emanuel briefly paused, giving the watchers enough time to react and process his announcement of unconditional surrender.

...

"As for why my government and I have come to this decision, it's because we have been misleading all of you about the root cause of war and secondly, because we stand no chance of having a victory any longer," Emanuel revealed, once again dropping another surprise banger to the citizens and cause the international watchers to get excited, even the ones who had been watching it unwillingly as nearly all the news channels were broadcasting this press conference.

"Last night, the remaining interceptor fighter jets in our possession were shot down, leaving our air force equipped with nothing but bombers. These bombers had only survived thanks to the fast reaction of our commanders, who redirected them to the Pacific Ocean, in the opposite direction of Eden, managing to avoid having them bombed while parked. However, this resulted in our air force losing any semblance of the ability to protect our skies. Eden has now gained aerial supremacy, and as many of you experienced last night, they immediately used this to their advantage by launching airstrikes on nearly all of our weapon warehouses and many of our military infrastructures, including the communication facilities and as a result of that, we have lost nearly half of our war abilities." Emanuel explained, pausing once again to take a deep breath before continuing.

"A few minutes before we lost air supremacy, our navy fleets had been deployed on a mission to capture several of Edenian naval ports, a strategic action intended to establish a landing point for our forces so that we could deliver a war to them and fight them on their land. Tragically, we ended up losing the majority of our naval vessels, with those that survived being seized by Eden's navy. Our soldiers involved in this operation were also caught and arrested as prisoners of war," he added, concluding his reason for surrendering unconditionally to Eden, citing that they didn't have any chance of winning against them and thus were incapable of sustaining this ongoing conflict.

While it made sense for the president of the country to conclude the war, it didn't seem logical for them to unconditionally surrender just for those reasons; they could still continue fighting for a little longer and use that time to negotiate and end the war with something much lesser than complete unconditional surrender, such as negotiating a conditional surrender or even a ceasefire for a few years which they could use to prepare themselves for the third round.

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Among the multitude of spectators watching the news, the smart ones among them could feel that there were two potential explanations as to why Esparia went through with this decision. One theory is that the President and other higher-ranking military officials might have overreacted while succumbing to the fear of their lives, driving them to this surrender.

Alternatively, the other reason might be more ominous, a reason powerful enough to make them opt for an unconditional surrender– a choice that was considered as the most undesirable among the many other available options.

They soon received their answer as the subsequent statement from Emanuel provided clarity and addressed this very concern, "As for what I meant when I mentioned that we were lying to you, I meant that the reasons for attacking them first and pushing the blame to Eden followed by the captured in which we responded by re-initiation of this war once again were not just because we wanted to respond in concern of our captured soldiers. Instead, it was because we were paid extensively and incentivized to launch this war once against Eden, enticed by promises of substantial payments in return."

Boom, that revelation came out as a strong explosion, sending the people who initially thought they wouldn't be too surprised after recovering from the first punch they had received regarding the information about Esparia's unconditional surrender. However, they found themselves proved to be completely wrong as what they heard now was something that none of them thought they would hear from the President of a country that was still partially at war– especially since Eden hadn't yet expressed their decision on whether they were going to accept the surrender or if they would just continue dishing it out with them.

"Among the bribes receivers, I personally received an upfront payment of fifty million, delivered a few weeks before the initial confrontation between Eden and us took place"

Emanuel confessed, delivering a blow that left those who believed they had regained some hold on their feet only to stumble even further.

As he continued addressing the audience, the live news feed that was being provided to anyone who wished to broadcast started changing significantly. The video of President Emmanuel speaking was relocated to the right side of the screen while the left side was used to make room for displaying the evidence backing up his words.

This visual presentation was carefully orchestrated to provide an undeniable substantiation to his assertions, leaving his supporters with little to no room for denying this in the future.

"And when we faced defeat in our first confrontation, our sponsors increased the amount of investment, supporting us in acquiring new pieces of equipment, including the advanced fighter jets for the airforce and a plethora of other latest technology which we wouldn't have normally been able to buy due to our lack of funds and limited diplomatic influence to be able to make someone agree to sell their weapons to us. Still, we had managed to buy them at a relatively lower price and even received them in such a short time, which was unprecedented. However, our efforts didn't just stop at that, we also hired a mercenary group to come and aid us in retraining our soldiers and devising strategic plans for the second round of war, which I personally stood before you to announce our declaration of it yesterday. Unfortunately, things didn't go as we had planned at all," when he finished saying that, Emanuel paused for a moment and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes, showing that he was speaking the truth and after hearing his own words, he was having a very difficult time.

A silence of fifteen seconds followed, during which the second half of the split screen, which showcased a barrage of evidence for the viewers, started playing video evidence of a meeting involving Emanuel and someone else.

This person, who nearly no one in the world knew who he was, except for a few influential people who could be seen smiling in amusement as they watched the man being let known to the public. In contrast, the remaining others frowned because they knew this situation was not good. 𝚋𝚎𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖ𝚎𝚕.𝚗𝚎𝚝

As for the man in the video, he could be seen getting paler and paler as he watched the press conference along with Aubrey, the head of the Morgan family, and his son, George, who was currently giving him a bombastic side-eye. However, what made him lose all the color of his face was not because of the bombastic side eye he was receiving; rather, it was the existence of the video footage of his meeting, something he was sure of not happening as he had ensured that they were inside a room that had no camera at all, especially on the said angle the video footage seemed to have been recorded from and was now broadcasted to the rest of the world.

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The three people in the room returned to watching the press conference, deciding to postpone any form of questioning after they heard everything Emanuel had to say. This acted as nothing other than the worst nightmare which a person wouldn't want to experience personally; In his mind, the timer to his punishment had already started as he tried to come up with an explanation as to how the heck Emanuel even recorded something that happened inside a room which he was sure of having no cameras at all since he personally had made sure of that before arriving at that room.

'Shit, look like Kassim is going to make a return after all,' He thought to himself as he remembered the side eye he had received from George, who had been the mastermind behind taking Esparian side in order to make the Rothschilds, who were now humiliating them to the whole world face another loss shortly after he had made them suffer the first one.

He knew that George wouldn't care about the humiliation that much since most of the world still didn't know it was them, as Emanuel was smart enough not to speak anything about who the real backers were. What George cared the most about was the reaction of his father, Aubrey, who, after a very long and difficult struggle, had finally managed to win his affection and trust and had been enjoying the benefits of it for a few months now, which seems to be on the verge of being tossed out of the window after a president of a country that a few months ago the world wouldn't have cared if they committed a group Seppuku but now thanks to them increasing the buzz of the news about the country and had made them known to almost anyone who had internet but at the moment were using it against him to humiliate and last but not least even break the fragile bond that his master George had finally managed to build after a long struggle.

But despite the thoughts in the representative's mind of the other person in the video, he too turned his focus back to the television as Emanuel started speaking once again after taking a long pause of thirty seconds after he dropped the second massive bombshell. The only saving grace he found solace from the previous speech was the fact that Emanuel had only stated that someone was backing them and hadn't really mentioned who it was. This made him think that Emanuel was smart enough not to reveal their names, as he should also be aware of the consequences of doing so.

...

"Why am I divulging this information to all of you?" Emanuel queried after his brief pause, his tone deliberate. "Was it fueled by the sense of guilt I feel for all of your sufferings? Or is it because my conscience suddenly awakened? Or because I genuinely regret having done these actions to all of you?" he continued, asking the very questions that many people actually had in their minds about why he was even outing himself, and that too with hard evidence which made sure that he won't be able to deny them in the future no matter how much he tried.

ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm "The answer doesn't lie among any of those questions. I was forced to make this disclosure today due to the circumstances that left me with no choice." Boom, another mini bombshell, but Emmanuel didn't pause this time as he took a deep breath and continued his speech. 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.ｏｒｇ

"Last night, at the same time our navy fleets were trying to take over Eden's bases while their air force was taking out the last of our fighter jets, they sent a unit from Eden's special forces who had somehow managed to infiltrate the entire defensive field surrounding the presidential palace and managed to arrest all of us who were in the bunker, comfortable with our families. They assured us of our families' safety, who even before that had been safe with us, unlike you who were on the land, trembling in fear and terror of their air force's bombing marathon which had been taking place"

"Subsequently, they sent back all of our family members and a selected few high-ranking officials back to Eden, promising that although our family members weren't going to be prosecuted, they would not be allowed to see us until I tell the world about the truth ?n wh?ch they didn't have to do so as they hada the evidence of everything already. That is why I am here, talking about this in front of all of you since I need to ensure I will have a chance to meet my family again." He paused briefly, wiping the beads of sweat that were culminating on his forehead during the course of his speech, and then pressed on, his words laced with determination, "I acknowledge that it may seem pretty heartless of me to care about my family and even surrender the nation for them after all, I had been sending your loved ones to fight to their deaths against Eden in the battlefield. It is the truth that I don't deny at all, and I'm willing to bear the brunt of your hatred as long as my family remains safe."

"As for how they did that, I can't say anything about that as I am restrained from doing so and should remain quiet about whatever I saw during that night. I will comply with their directive, for I have no intention to face them again in my lifetime," he confessed, not understanding the reasoning behind this bit for being included in his speech. Nonetheless, he thought to himself that 'whatever they are the ones who wanted him to mention it anyway' so he didn't care at all, not exactly; rather, he chose not to defy a single command from the instruction he was given by that woman who even thinking about her made his consciousness shake.

"Now, with regard to the aftermath of my unconditionally surrendering to Eden, this evening, every citizen of Esparia with a phone, no matter which type of phone it is, will be given a choice to choose by themselves on whether you agree with the surrender or not. But, let me emphasize this– you better surrender. This war had always been a power play orchestrated for the sake of some powerful people who remain indifferent to how many of you die. Among them, I, too, am included, but not at the moment, as right now I'm amongst you, the unprivileged who are destined to continue living whilst being controlled by the whims of someone who doesn't even care whether you exit or not. So, today shall be the first time in the history of Esparia that you will be given a chance to have an unrigged election in which whatever the majority chooses the outcome, that outcome will decide your country's future. Choose wisely, I am acutely aware of what happens when you don't. May god really really bless Esparia," Emanuel concluded as he turned around and left the conference room, not caring about the reporters who were trying to ask him questions about his speech at all.

Meanwhile, the feed that was playing on the right side and had been showing evidence the whole time was now being transitioned to a full screen and started showing many other meetings between the President and other high-ranking officials within the government, the mercenaries who had been planning on some missions that were no different than kamikaze ii-mission without even discussing the life loss and that whole time they had never even cared about the lives of their soldiers. In some of the footage, they could be seen smiling and laughing as they discussed the possibility of high casualties that might be happening.

This had infuriated everyone, and nearly all of the citizens- barring the few who still liked him, want to kill and chew him to death, Alas before they could even finish watching the continuing evidence footage, all of the Espairan C?tizens had their phones vibrate having received the message Emanuel had talked about in which it gave them the choice of agreeing with the surrender or continue with the war with the message being sent immediately after the press conference and not in the evening as he had stated int eh press conference.

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After President Emanuel's speech.

One by one, all the citizens started voting. And with the timing of the vote being intentionally done at the moment, the citizens were still caught in disbelief after what they had heard moments ago. However, despite the fact that many of the citizens would have opted to surrender even if they were given some time to think about it, some of them would have chosen this course more hesitantly had they been given a moment to think about it. 𝙗𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

But with the votes being held while their minds were still reacting and comprehending the betrayal from their president. Very few people voted against it due to either being dissatisfied with the limited options they were given– one being surrendering and the other being continuing the war, besides these two, there was nothing in between, or due to just being fervent nationalistic and couldn't handle to swallow the humiliation of having a history that recorded of their country having unconditionally surrendered so some other country.

Half an hour after the press conference, Eden started their own, to both ANNOUNCING the results of the votes and as a response to the press conference regarding Emanuel's revelations.

…..

Alexander, who had already begun his speech after offering a few greetings to the reporters who were attending the conference and the watchers of the press conference throughout the world.

"Firstly, I would like to start by announcing the result of the votes conducted among the citizens of Esparia regarding their choice on whether they want to accept their president's decision to surrender or not. Based on the results of their votes that were finalized ten minutes ago, sixty-eight percent of the Esparian citizens have elected to follow the last decision of their now former President Emanuel, to which we hereby announce that we have accepted their request of unconditional surrender and promise not to demand anything that would undermine their dignity," his words were delivered with extreme seriousness, indicating that he was taking this very seriously.

"Although we have a team of our soldiers in there who are still protecting Emanuel, ensuring that he remains safe and in one piece before facing the punishment he deserves. Within the next seven hours, we will be sending twenty thousand soldiers to make sure the citizens remain calm throughout the de-escalation phase. This measure also serves to ensure that our demands are met"

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"Rest assured, our soldiers have undergone good training, and I can swear on my position as the President of Eden that there will be no member of our forces who will try to exploit the situation the citizens of Esparia found themselves in. Them doing any such actions would be considered breaking my promise of maintaining the dignity of Esparian citizens and sha? be punished arcodingly."

"As for our course of action while moving forward, we will not be talking about them today. We will need to have a behind-the-doors discussion with our counterparts in Esparia before we choose what part of our demands are announced to the public. Following that, we will finalize the demands after a thorough evaluation of what will be beneficial for us while sparing the already defeated adversaries from undue harm, who will need both time and help to recover and return to their normal lives before everything reaches the road of no return..."

He continued his speech for another five minutes before he finally allowed the few reporters gathered in the room to ask the questions that were on their minds.

"In your speech, you referred to President Emanuel as the former President. Does this imply that you have forcefully removed him from his position, or he has chosen to resign from it?" posed a reporter from one of the country's prominent news channels.

Alexander attentively listened to the question, nodding amidst it before slightly adjusting his glasses and started providing an answer to it, "Indeed, we have removed him from his presidential position. This decision was taken due to the worry that the citizens of Esparia would choose not to comply with our demands under the reasoning that we strong-armed their president's actions as undue coercion and their agreement without giving him any chance to reason as to why we shouldn't have done something else.

To preempt such misgivings, we removed him and left his position vacant. We have come up with an assembly of negotiators from their side whom the citizens can trust to do their best to safeguard the interests of their citizens as much as possible as they return their focus to recovering to their previous condition or maybe even becoming better than before.

As for who will take the President's place following the negotiation, that will be up to the negotiators on whether they want to hold an election immediately or choose a temporary president who will be helping the country during these tumultuous periods of their nation before they can conduct an election. But the only thing I can assure the citizens of Esparia is that the government will continue being a democratic government, which we hope to cultivate better diplomatic relations with, compared to their previous government, which led to their present circumstances."

Upon finishing answering the question, Alexander pointed for another reporter to ask their question.

"Are there any conditions that are already set in stone and must be fulfilled even if the country's citizens vehemently try to oppose it?" inquired the reporter.

"Indeed, there is one such condition that remains steadfast– demilitarization and handing over the security of their country to the very same organization we entrusted our country's security with, the organization has already proven itself by winning us the war. But this doesn't entail that their military would be disbanded with their soldiers being rendered unemployed. Instead, the process will be done in the same way it had happened to us, by assimilating Esparia's entire military power," Alexander answered, pausing briefly before he added further detail to his answer, saying, "Esparia's agreement with the organization will be similar to ours where the government is only responsible for providing the upgraded salary to their soldier and a nominal few percent of taxes, while the same organization handles everything else. This model has proved quite beneficial to us," he stated with complete seriousness and confidence, making some people question themselves if they were either not understanding something and had overlooked some catch in this or because they were skeptical about questioning themselves on what might be the catch for the pseudo-PMC who were now undertaking the substantial financial responsibilities for the military and everything else without trying to gain any benefits that they could think about.

"Could you shed some light on the investigation into the influential group that initiated the war through bribery and what they had intended to gain from the conflict between the two countries?" inquired another reporter.

"At present, we cannot say it, as we need to be one hundred percent sure that they truly are the ones and ensure that we are not just randomly pointing fingers at someone who may later be found not to be the one. So, we won't rush to assign blame without any substantial evidence backing our claims. But it will take some time. Nevertheless, you can be rest assured that we will reveal the truth once we have gathered irrefutable proof," Alexander responded.

After that, several more questions were asked before he bid the reporters farewell under the pretext of coordinating troops to Esparia to ensure the local military over there doesn't do something stupid.

"TWA, TWA, TWA."

On many of Eden's military bases that had a runway, this sound continued to echo while fully geared soldiers could be seen marching towards the planes that were stationed near the runways. They started boarding the aircraft, settling in silence as they waited for the plane to take off, destined to go to Esparia.

Their objective during this mission was to monitor the local military and maintain vigilance before the start of their assimilation process, which was anticipated to begin after a few days or weeks.

The same scene could also be seen happening on the Naval bases as well, where soldiers could be seen marching toward large ships while covered completely in military gear like the others. They, too, were destined to head to Esparia.

While these were happening, the internet was set ablaze as nearly everyone who was using it was either willingly or unwillingly informed about the situation that had taken place.

Many people were taken aback by the time the entire fight had progressed as Espaira raised the white flag of surrender exactly eighteen hours after they had declared the war confidently, something that no one had expected would happen.

Another point of discussion that roamed greatly was the speculation of the amount of causality disparity between those two sides. Esparia faced the prospect of thousands of casualties, including many of their captured soldiers, reaching the total tally being more than thirty thousand.

In contrast, Eden, until now, had said there was no report of any death from their side, a fact which many people thought was something impossible and just attributed it that Eden was hiding their casualties very well.

Yet, many people who had managed to sit down and think about the entirety of the war from what public knowledge they had, came to a realization that the armies of the two nations never actually went face to face at all. Rather, it was their airforce and navy that had a face-to-face confrontation, culminating with both of the fights ending with an overwhelming victory on the Edenian side.

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This realization proved quite surprising, as while many had predicted that it would be a balanced war, they had also believed that there was no way that Eden had the ability to maintain its airspace security and would be compromised due to the number of their interceptors outnumbering them by something like nine to one.

Nonetheless, Eden defied expectations as they pulled out miracles and also massacred all those aircrafts without losing even a single one of their own in the midst of it.

However, amidst these discussions, a particular group of people relentlessly tried to come up with the identity of the backers who had bribed the Esparian president to entice the war with Eden.

Among the names circulating, a few quite familiar ones came up with one of them being GAIA Technology, for instance, emerged as a suspect since just a few days ago, they had finally finished their process of terminating their registry in America and had moved the company to Eden.

However, this thought was soon eliminated from the list. Then, another group was found when people thought about who might benefit the most after this conflict. They came to the conclusion that other than Eden, it was their military, which many many of them had only learned just a few moments ago from the fact highlighted by Alexander himself during the conference that their military was a private military organization.

This group of people speculated that this PMO had orchestrated this war in order to assimilate the military of Esparia, to expand their forces.

Suspicion also fell upon powerful families like the Morgans, the Rothschilds, and many other families whose names held global recognition.

On the other side, Emanuel garnered attention from international netizens who had watched the press conference on how blunt he was. At the same time, he said everything without mincing any words, even when certain things he had said had put him on an unfavorable side from the perspective of the listeners.

This was then followed by the question as to how the heck the Eden Special Forces even infiltrated the country and captured the President and his family along with many of the other high-ranked officials of Esparia and also forced him to make that announcement.

Many found it puzzling since Emanuel didn't look like someone who had been tortured just a few hours ago. He seemed fully normal, both physically and mentally, during the conference. Thus, some thought that maybe the special forces had tortured his family members instead of him. 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝒎

...….

Inside one of Morgan's family's many opulent mansions, a tense atmosphere permeated the living room, which had three people– two seated and one standing, could be seen silently occupying the space.

The man standing in the room, his forehead covered with beads of sweat while also slightly shaking, showed his increasing nervousness as the silence in the room grew increasingly oppressive.

Moments ago, they had finished watching the second press conference of the day, which was conducted by Eden. This event marked the final nail in the coffin of their financial downfall, confirming that they had officially lost their money and now it also seemed like Eden was going to assimilate the entire Esparian military, bringing the entire pseudo-continent under the control of one military power, making it impossible for them to cause any war once again unless they sparked chaos imminently by using their mercenaries who were there.

Yet, this strategy would be almost futile since their mercenaries could be killed in a short time due to the imminent influx of Edenian soldiers who will come to Esparia, as President Alexander had announced during the press conference.

"It's not the Rothchild's way of doing things," Aubrey was the first to speak, breaking prolonged silence in the room as he mused aloud. He had spent all this time recollecting the entire sequence of events which started right from them choosing to cause economic collapse, followed by the revelation of the Rothchild's inclusion due to Rina's visit to Eden, which promptly forced them to double down and increase their investment and inadvertently instigate the fight even further.

During the sequences, Aubrey tried to think of different scenarios, including within them, the chances that they could have gotten wrong intel, and even tried to find out what they might be based on their current situation.

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Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that they had been fighting against an entirely different force.

"What do you mean by that?" queried George, Aubrey's son, his brows knitted in confusion as to what his father meant by this statement of his.

"This isn't the Rothschilds' modus operandi. Throughout our centuries-long fight, they have never brought our fight to the public eye. They knew that the moment they publicized our conflicts would only lead to a reciprocal exposure which in return would only start degrading our influence after people start to know about us. And as you are well aware of, George, the first step to having a chance of winning against your enemies is by knowing who they really are, as that would mean that you can respond to them directly in a targeted manner without having to start looking around for who the enemy might be and respond in a wide manner which is not as effective as a targeted response," Aubrey explained, his tone composed and measures while he elaborated on his statement to this son.

Although George understood what his father meant by that, he still questioned its validity as he was sure that considering that the public was already aware of their family names and their wealth, then shouldn't that mean that they have already started losing their power?

When Aubrey saw the expression on his son's face, he was slightly disappointed but not too dismayed as he delved into explaining the meaning behind his words, "While people know about our existence, most of the time what they know is just our released narrative, meaning we control most of what they know about us. However, the moment we start bringing media and the public into our conflict, the Rothschilds will be releasing information about us that we don't want the public to know of, and we will be compelled to respond or risk being singled out for consequences. And this back-and-forth revelation would jeopardize the control we have previously had on the public perception of us. The more our fight persists– which I don't think will ever end– the more people would know about us, completing their blind spots regarding us piece by piece until they will finally have a complete picture of us before they could use that to start to dismantle us piece by piece," Aubrey elucidated, his words revealing the intricacies of his initial words.

"Aha!" George exclaimed as realization finally dawned upon him, understanding what his father meant by his previous words.

Following his reaction, he turned to the only man in the room who was standing and was trying to make his presence look as small as possible in the hope that the other two in the room would forget about him completely, George then said, addressing him directly, "So, how should we deal with you, who had brought the piece of intel that has now potentially attracted a new enemy to us," he asked in a chilly voice, causing shivers to run down the spine of the representative.

The representative now had goosebumps all over his body since he knew that all of these escalations were a result of him bringing back the intel of Rina visiting Esparia, which had tilted their plans and forced them into thinking that they were fighting against the Rothschilds, leading them to face such substantial losses and other than that also gain a new enemy all because of him.

It was at this moment that he knew he...

"Please, sir, give me some time. I will find out who it is and how we can force them to repay the losses they have inflicted on us twofold," the representative pleaded, his tone willed with desperation as he got to his knees before them. He knew that his failure to convince them would have dire consequences and would become Kassim 2.0, something he was determined to avoid after being aware of Kassim's fate.

"And how do you plan to do that?" George's face held an amused smile as he asked, trying to hide his annoyance for having faced defeat against someone new just because their plans were accidentally hinged on anticipating the response from the Rothschilds, and due to their enemy not really being the Rothschilds, their miscalculations during the planning had cost them dearly, exposing their lack of effectiveness after finding the enemy's better foundation in Esparia when compared to theirs.

"Since we can't expect the Esparian to do anything now, I intend to assemble a task force to start reinvestigating all the reports about Rina's tour Rina and find out who else she had met during her visit to Eden and then investigate them as well. The people she might have met must be powerful enough to warrant a personal visit from Rina, which is also something they tried to cover by making it seem as if the reason for her visit to the country was to meet with the President," the representative explained, not caring to wipe the cold sweat that was trickled into his eyes causing him stinging feeling in his eyes.

"Good plan, but you won't be handling this operation alone since you seem to have a problem leading an operation. You will collaborate with Kassim, who has proven his competence over the past month after doing the task handed to him. Working together should help you finish the investigation faster," George instructed, causing the representative to let out a bitter smile, but he still hid it, knowing that the moment George saw his resentment, he won't even be given another chance to make himself get out of this after causing such loss.

"Yes, sir," the representative replied, hiding the profanities he was mentally spewing with a smile on his face.

"Good, then you can go," George said, dismissing him with a casual wave, signaling him to leave them alone. The representative wasted no time and immediately complied by leaving the room as fast as possible, not wanting to spend even a minute more inside that room.

After the representative had rushed out, George turned to his father and inquired, "Father, who do you think is the one behind all this?" trying to see if his father had his suspicions as to who it might be.

"At this juncture, there are none. However, it's unlikely that they hail from a prominent family like ours either because now that I think about it, our counteraction with a bit of investment seems to have triggered someone's primary stronghold, which they had already prepared defenses for. We should start by considering those individuals who have substantial power within Eden but limited presence elsewhere," Aubrey said, hinting at the existence of some entities who only had a considerable amount of power only in Eden and nowhere else, meaning they were a juggernaut only in that specific country and lacked having any significant influence in other places like them.

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...

While most of the world was buzzing with discussion about it, Moscow and many countries from similar time zones were relatively quieter than the rest since it was a night for them.

Inside one of the heavily guarded neighborhoods famed for its safety, a place where numerous influential people had their residences, a beautiful woman donned in tight-fitting long trousers and a blouse, topped with a leather coat that was trying to partially conceal her perfectly contoured, natural breasts that were firmly grasped by her bra, securing them firmly. She walked with poise, making her way through one of the streets in the neighborhood.

Her composed stride continued until she reached a beautiful villa. She paused for a moment to gather herself before she started advancing towards it until she reached the door and rang the doorbell, and patiently waited for the door to open.

After a few seconds, the villa's door swung open, revealing a man in his twenties whose eyes immediately widened in surprise as he took in the sight of the stunning woman who stood at his doorstep. A few seconds later, he realized what he was doing and recovered his composure while asking, "What can I help you with?"

"Someone wants you to answer for something that you've done to him before," the woman responded with a captivating voice, making him almost entranced without understanding what she was telling him.

He needed a moment to grasp what she meant by her words entirely. Swiftly, he withdrew his right hand that was behind the door and pointed it at her, or rather, he tried to do so. However, before he could even react further and start making any movements, the woman before him lunged forward, her right hand delivering a powerful punch right in his abdomen. The force of this blow from the woman was quite massive as he was pushed back even further than what he had anticipated after being punched by a woman; at the same time, with a similar fluid motion, the woman used her left hand to seize his hand and disarming him of his gun, at the same time she crushed a finger that failed to let off of the weapon. This was immediately followed by her seizing the moment as she entered the house and firmly closed the door behind her to make sure there were no unintended witnesses.

"Who sent you?" Vladimir asked, his voice tinged with fear as he watched in surprise as the woman started dismantling the gun she had just taken from him while clutching his stomach as he still felt pain from the punch he had received a few moments ago.

"I was sent here by the Intelligence Department of Eden," she answered as she started dismantling the gun, not planning to use it as she discarded the pieces onto the floor.

Confusion etched on Vladimir's face as he struggled to really any interaction with her, her department, or even any connection to it, "What the heck is that? I don't even remember having any interaction with you, the department, or even anyone connected to it, I didn't even know that it existed in the first place," he talked about, gritting his teeth, trying to buy some time for himself so that the pain in his stomach and his finger would subside a bit, which would allow him to take her down in a slightly better condition.

"Aron Michael," she mentioned the name with as much respect as possible before she added, "Does that name ring any bells to you?" as she rotated the last piece of the gun with her finger.

When Vladimir heard the name, his eyes widened in surprise since that was a name that he could never forget; it was thanks to that person that he had got this promotion. 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝑛𝘰𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Then, he should have sent someone who was smart enough to use a gun to her advantage when given an opportunity," he retorted, his voice filled with frustration, as he lunged at the woman, aiming to throw his fist right at her face to hit her.

Seeing this, the woman simply smiled and took a graceful step to the side, intercepting his fist, and then swiftly turned around and back-elbowed him in the very same spot of his abdomen where she had punched him in the first place; however, she used even more force than the first time. The intensity of the blow forced Vladimir's body to tilt forwards ninety degrees involuntarily from pain. Still not pausing, the woman once again elbowed Vladimir at the back of his neck, which at the moment was only at the level of her waist due to his posture. The force from the blow sent him crashing face-first onto the marble flooring, his nose audibly breaking from the impact before he fainted.

"Alright, now let's get you out of here," she murmured in a casual tone before effortlessly hoisting Vladimir and putting him on her shoulder, carrying him towards the door that led to the villa's garage. It was as though she was lifting a lightweight pillow rather than a fully grown man.

That Sunday proved to be a challenging one for the citizens of Esparia as their day started with the influx of soldiers still arriving from Eden, increasing their numbers from yesterday's arrival of twenty thousand soldiers.

Although many of the Esparians had witnessed the Edenian President's press conference, very few of them truly believed the promise made by the Edenian president, mentioning that no harm will be caused due to their soldiers. In fact, some had already expected the soldiers to go wild to seize this opportunity and abuse their powers by indulging in misconducts for their own benefits, like stealing and raping women, using their victory to satisfy their personal desires, and regarding it as their spoils of war.

But contrary to such apprehensions, nothing of such sorts was heard since yesterday. In fact, the behavior of the Edenian troops contradicted these expectations. The first group of a thousand soldiers who had arrived directly went to the presidential palace and focused their efforts on replacing the Esparian military guards that were stationed there. This move was to secure the palace and make sure that it had a safe environment for the upcoming negotiations meeting that was set to take place in a matter of a few days.

Following that, the next ten thousand Edenian soldiers that arrived were strategically dispersed throughout the city. Their presence was to ensure that no public discourse was caused by the dissatisfied citizens, as that could potentially cause a nationwide mass rebellion. This approach would change the situation from a country that was surrendering to a country that was on the brink of being broken to pieces due to different groups of rebellion rising from different cities, each with a different agenda. And to avoid it from starting from other cities too, another segment consisting of nine-thousand soldiers who had arrived yesterday were dispersed in other major cities, at the same time taking control over the military bases and commencing the process of registering the soldiers' information. This data was collected so that it would serve as preparation for the upcoming assimilation process that was set to occur after the completion of the negotiations.

For today, Eden was planning on sending an additional fifty-thousand soldiers, which will also be the last batch of soldiers that will be sent to Esparia for peacekeeping. This final batch of soldiers would be responsible for the protection during the whole negotiation duration and military assimilation. The soon-to-be-assimilated soldiers would be needed to be sent to Avalon Island to go through their training. They would return back to their post in Esparia before the stationed soldiers in the country could even be considered for returning back home. This period was expected to be ranging from a month at the earliest and three months at the most, which should be sufficient time for them to complete all the training of the new soldiers who would be joining their ranks within that period.

However, not everyone within Esparia remained calm. A segment of soldiers who were way too nationalistic decided not to agree with the decision that was made by the President and the sixty-eight percent of the population. They decided to group up and conduct guerrilla warfare to cause as much trouble for Edenian soldiers as possible throughout the negotiations period. They anticipated a swift and short resolution given the unconditional surrender, meaning that their government practically had no power to deny anything that would be demanded by the winners at all. All they could do was suggest against it or hope their enemies weren't too greedy, something they thought could only occur in their dreams.

But all of their dreams of causing chaos were abruptly extinguished moments after they declared their intent. The only evidence of their existence that remained was the massive crater that was way too overkill for the entire group, indicating that their rebellion had met a swift and devastating end. This display of force served as both an example and a warning to anyone who had even a semblance of the audacity to entertain the notion of causing trouble for the other nation.

Thanks to that crater which now acted as a warning, and the ongoing influx of highly disciplined soldiers in the streets, the country's situation had now fully stabilized. The situation had even started to return to the condition when the country previously was into the whole war shenanigans, as the presence of the vigilant soldiers deterred any potential upheaval.

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Furthermore, another benefit of the extensive deployment of highly disciplined soldiers in the streets all the time, every day, for the whole week, had greatly reduced the crime rate by more than ninety-five percent in all cities which had soldiers within them. This was due to the gear the soldiers were wearing had a device that covered a three-kilometer radius; it meant that only a small group of soldiers needed to be stationed within the bubble of this radius for them to react to any situation at once, enabling more soldiers to be dispersed throughout the city. Using this built-in integration, Athena

was able to collect all of this data and create all the cities' real-time data share, meaning that the whole city was under surveillance without anyone even knowing that they were being watched at all. This significantly enhanced public safety and security.

...

"FWUUUUUUUUUU!" The distinctive roar of two SU-35 fighter jets reverberated through the skies of those living in the vicinity of the Esparias main airport. This airport was still not open for public use and was under the control of the Edenian army was preparing to accommodate a private airplane that was being escorted by those two fighters and was on its final approach, preparing for landing at the airport.

The private airplane's tail bore the Edenian presidential emblem, a clear indication of who it was carrying. The accompanying fighter jets only served on publicly announcing the arrival of the President of Eden.

Following the plane's landing and taxiing back to a place where it was instructed, Alexander disembarked and was greeted by the presidential guards. Comprising an elite branch that was made not too long ago and consisted of the people who had the best of the best marks. These select few had the choice of choosing to protect the president or join the special forces, meaning all the people standing in front of him and some that had flown with him were the best of the best, which he was thankful to Aron for; however, he was surprised by the number of cars that were there to escort him.

The surprise stemmed from being aware of the fact that all these cars were custom-made by Aron's company and had to be transferred here during the last, and by his estimate, he managed to count twenty of them– a formidable convoy where each of these cars was capable of entering a war zone and come out from the other side of it while remaining unscathed. These cars were powered with a new groundbreaking fuel that was discovered by Aron's company, which allowed it to traverse for more than a few thousand kilometers on just a single tank without having to worry about refueling. 𝚋𝚎ｄｎｏ𝚟𝚎ｌ.ｎ𝚎𝚝

"Let's move, Mr president," said a guard, snapping Alexander from his trance, followed by him immediately starting to walk down the stairs and board one of the similar looking four cars. The convoy then started heading out, flanked by four motorcycles followed by vehicles that looked like police cars. The procession was followed by more and more vehicles that had different specialized equipments in them, including one radar-equipped unit, to make sure nothing of the sort of an attack is even near the president by even a few kilometers, as anything they discover to be even slightly dangerous will be dealt by one of the other cars that were carrying completely armed soldiers in the convoy, diverting from it and heading to deal with it promptly before returning and joining the convoy once again and during this time the convoy would still be traveling at the maximum speed possible in the certain terrain.

…..

At the same time, in a secluded area, a submarine started its docking procedure under a roofed docker for submarines to evade the lurking gazes of the satellites.

Following the submarine's docking process, soldiers started disembarking from it with those at the front carrying someone who had his hands tied by black-looking zip ties, closely followed by a group of elegantly dressed women who were wearing comfortable and casual-looking clothes that had become a signature attire for those that hailed from the intelligence department.

This submarine's mission was to retrieve both the team responsible for apprehending the individual and the target himself. Upon reaching the retrieval location, the intelligence team agreed to meet with the submarine. A high-speed boat was sent to carry them and send them back to the submarine before it once again dived into the waters and remained submerged, never to rise until its recent docking for this operation.

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Vladimir, who had been asleep, could be seen having subtle eye movements despite having his eyelids closed, hinting that something was messing with him while he was in his slumber.

However, at the moment, he was unsure of the cause. Nonetheless, something seemed to be trying to interrupt his good sleep, something that he hadn't experienced much since he joined the government, and due to his history as a former KGB agent, he was conditioned to always live with a perpetual sense of paranoia about someone or the other planning to attack him, since there was a possibility of retaliation from the people whom he might have crossed with during his espionage days as it was likely that would target him and try to seek revenge from him.

With a history of sleep deprivation due to constant vigilance, he would always be wary of any disruptions during his much-needed rest.

He desperately moved to and fro, hoping to shake off this disturbing thing so that he would be allowed to continue his sleep without being forced to wake up. Unfortunately, the irritation persisted and even became more annoying the longer he ignored it. Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes, waking up in the hope of dealing with it as fast as possible so that he could return back to his sleep before he lost the embrace of drowsiness.

Upon waking up, he immediately realized what the cause of his discomfort was. He was being disturbed by an itch on his left thigh. At first, he attempted to alleviate it by scratching, hoping that he would be able to return back to his sleep immediately; however, even after fifteen seconds of constant scratching, he could still feel the sensation increasing, in fact, it didn't even give him the ecstasy one would usually feel after scratching a constant itching spot, even if it was not disappearing.

Nevertheless, no matter how hard he tried to scratch the sport where he felt the itching. It was as if he was trying to scratch something that was covered with a glass surface, blocking his access to it, meaning he could do nothing about it. This only served to exacerbate his frustration.

Faced with this situation, he immediately opened his eyes to his surroundings and realized that he was in completely unfamiliar surroundings. This immediately sent his senses into overdrive, his body immediately pumping out adrenaline to wake him up and remove every last semblance of drowsiness he had. The previous scratching ordeal faded out of his mind as quickly as possible.

His focus shifted to his immediate environment as he tried to access where he was together with wondering how he got here in the first place, to this, his brain immediately reminded him of the beautiful woman whom he had either met yesterday or a few hours ago, who despite being able to speak Russian fluently didn't seem like a native, followed by her introduction by saying she was from the Edenian Intelligence Department or something, only cemented his hypothesis about her affiliation.

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"Where the heck on Earth did she bring me to?" he muttered, a blend of relenting in surprise at him having been defeated and being incapacitated even before he could realize, which was pretty embarrassing for him, who prided himself on his fighting ability and that being a loss against a woman only doubled down on his embarrassment.

But before he could delve further into any more questions and try to inspect his surroundings, his brain immediately reminded him of the itch he had forgotten about, thanks to the adrenal boost.

However, this time it had expanded to envelop his left knee and even spread upward until his left ball felt the itchiness which seemed to have now increased to nearly double of what it was when he woke up.

"ARGHHHH!'' He groaned, his frustration and discomfort culminating in a desperate attempt to scratch it with his hand moving it up and down as fast as possible, his movements even reaching a point where even small traces of blood could be seen coming from his skin as he vigorously continued to scratch the location. But no matter how hard he tried to ease it, nothing about the itch seemed to have changed other than the itch increasing and expanding even further, now covering the rest of his private parts and moving to his right thing.

The experienced KGB agent who had been trained in the art of dealing with torture fell down to his knees as he desperately tried to scratch both his anus along with his balls and dick, which were the most itching regions, as they had more sensitive nerves compared to the combined area of other itching zones.

His desperation escalated as the sensation intensified as he moved from being on his knees while trying to squat so that he could have a wider access to all those three sensitive locations. After which, he started scratching them even more aggressively than he previously did, going against the famous Confucius quote – Only when a mosquito lands on your testicles, will you truly learn that there is always a way to solve problems without using anger and violence– since at the moment Vladimir was scratching both of his most sacred places as if he intended to rip them off him.

This continued for ten agonizing minutes until crumbles of the skin on his balls and anus could be seen in his slightly long fingernails which was a result of him continuously scratching them for that period which did nothing to alleviate the torment he was going through.

"ARRRRGHHHHHHHHH!" he bellowed, his primal scream an attempt to numb his brain so that even for a slight moment, he could forget about this sensation he was feeling, which had not spread throughout his entire being, leaving him utterly defenseless. He lay there, vulnerable and helpless as someone would be on the verge of death, his forehead showing a hint of damage whilst being covered by the soil– evidence of his desperate efforts to alleviate his torment by bashing his head on the ground, hoping to knock himself unconscious and escape from the agony.

Unfortunately, his attempt to overcome this agonizing torment proved futile. There was no respite, no momentary relief, and nothing of the sort of fainting after he bashed his head on the ground, trying to force himself to turn unconscious. He remained completely conscious, writhing in agony, as he followed by trying to exhaust himself by screaming until he ran out of energy and lay there helplessly, hoping for the misery to end as soon as possible.

After an agonizing five hours of this continuous suffering, Vladimir's brain finally came to a decision to make him faint, and he closed his eyes slowly. As his eyes fluttered shut, a smile graced his face at the thought of being released from this tormenting ordeal.

"We are just starting," these words echoed, which was followed by his entire body regaining energy and his brain canceling the fainting sequence that it had initiated, causing Vladimir to almost burst a vein in anger. Still, before he could even word his feelings, he found himself having been transported to a different location, while the itch completely disappeared like a mirage, leaving with him only the memories of the torment and the trauma of the ordeal where he had to deball himself in the pursuit of saving himself from the itch which brought him to no relief in the end.

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"YOU!" Vladimir shouted, his voice a mixture of fear, surprise, and disbelief as he laid eyes and focused on the man who said those words. At the same time, he tried to comprehend what the heck had happened to him moments ago, and now that his mind was clear, he also couldn't help but wonder how they were even able to transport him here immediately.

"Long time no see. How are you doing?" Aron's calm smile and casual greeting sent shivers down Vladimir's spine, a stark contrast to the turmoil which he felt within.

"What did you do to me? Did you hypnotize me? You do realize that my government will be looking for me, right? Given the time it took me to wake up, it seems like we are still in Russia. In here, they can find anyone as long as they put their minds to it, you know, right?" He fired his questions like bullets as he tried to come up with a hypothesis that would make sense as to what was happening to him. At the same time, he was trying to intimidate the man in front of him so that he could force him to release him or at least delay his torment for more time to reduce the torture he would have to go through until they were able to find him, even if he reduced it by some negligible time.

"Don't worry about our fun ending too early. No one will find you anytime soon, anyway. Moreover, I didn't hypnotize you or did any similar manipulation. Everything that you experienced was as real as it can be, with just some help from my side, that's it." Aron answered Vladimir's question with carefreeness of the world, as though he held all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted with no one being able to interrupt him. These words of his caused Vladimir to feel a chill to the depth of his bones.

"Shall we start anew, this time with double the nerve sensitivity?" Aron said before Vladimir was teleported once again to the forest. Horror gripped him, and he reacted instinctively by screaming the moment he saw the forest that surrounded him and tried to run away without even trying to comprehend how Aron was even able to do that. Alas, no matter how hard he tried to move and run, he had no control over any of the muscles in his body, leaving him paralyzed and helplessly before he was forcefully put to sleep for the cycle to start once again, but this time with his nerves being made as twice as sensitive than the first time.

His ordeal was far from over, poised to begin anew, with his torment deepening with each passing cycle.

Vladimir, who was sleeping, could be seen having his eyes moving restlessly despite his eyelids being closed, hinting that something was messing with him.

This time, he snapped awake without procrastinating any longer as the memories of this previous event were still with him. As his senses returned, he frantically scanned his surroundings, his heart pounding with fear and dread. 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

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The moment he woke up, he immediately lunged at a massive boulder within the forest, smashing himself onto it headfirst, trying to break open his head so that he could have an end to the suffering he had to go through previously and didn't want to experience the same thing anymore, much less with twice the sensitivity.

"ARGGHHHHH!" A guttural scream erupted from his mouth after his head collided with the stone, causing blood to flow out of his injury, yet failed to render any of his desired outcomes. While his skull bore the brunt of this impact, there was no other damage, such as damage to his spinal cord or anything else. At the same time, his body still remained in full control of his motion, and he was still conscious.

Together with the head-butting pain followed a reminder of the ever-intensifying itch that clawed at him once again. This time, he was acutely aware that the itchiness had truly doubled, even doubling the torment coursing through him. This caused him to scream in fear and horror at the thought that he will have to spend the next hours experiencing the unquenchable itchiness, an itch which he could do nothing about.

This time however, he just sat down and tried to endure it by summoning all of his willpower as he remembered that the first time he dabbled himself from the itch, it would double the itchiness he would feel on the wounded location, causing him to feel itchier than the itchiness on top of other unharmed skins.

The brief concentration he gained from trying to concentrate gave his brain a chance to think about how the heck his body didn't enter a shock the first time he felt those excruciating itches. After he had endured it for about an hour, which was supposed to happen as a sort of defense mechanism to protect himself, it didn't come until the fifth hour, when it finally kicked in quite late in the game.

Unfortunately, before he could come up with a reasonable hypothesis of the situation he was in, his brain weirdly returned its focus back to the itchiness, causing tears of horror and fear to stream down his face as he started screaming as best as he could to tire himself as fast as possible, each second stretched into eternity for him as he grappled with the maddening sensations.

A few hours later.

"Are you prepared for the third round?" Upon hearing those words this time, Vladimir's consciousness shattered as he was on the cusp of surrendering to unconsciousness. Just like the previous time, his body was once again transported back to a room where Aron was sitting in front of him the same way he was sitting there last time.

After seeing him, Vladimir immediately got on his knees and started pleading, "Please forgive me, sir, please forgive me, sir, I will be your loyal dog for the rest of my life if you want me to. I will follow all of your orders even if you order me to kill someone from the Kremlin. If you want me to drown myself in a sea of fire, I will do it, but please don't send me to that place anymore. Please!" With tears streaming down his face, he continued begging.

However, Aron, who was still calm despite Vladimir's begging, cold-heartedly said, "I will consider your plea, but not at the moment. I have planned for you to get ten rounds of this, with the pain doubling with each round. So please, delay your begging until then. Then we can talk and decide the next course of action. Now, go to experience it once again," Aron said before snapping his fingers, causing Vladimir to disappear and reappear once again within the same forest, trapped in a cycle of torture that showed no mercy. He was put to sleep, destined and repeated to suffer the same torture once again with double the previous sensitivity.

A few hours later, he was sent once again and again and again and again and again until, [Sir, if he continued to experience it anymore, he will reach a road of no return] Nova interjected just when Aron was about to send him for one more round.

"How long is the cooldown and healing going to take?" Aron asked, seemingly dissatisfied, despite doing it for such an extended period of time.

[

It has been discovered that someone or something is trying to access the brain map and other information regarding the user.

[Allow Access] [Block Access]

]

Instead of an answer, Aron received a notification that informed him that Nova was attempting to access his brain data which he interpreted to be for accessing his mental state.

[It has been discovered that someone or something is attempting to access the user's brain map and other personal information.

[Allow Access] [Block Access]

]

Without hesitating for even a second, Aron selected [Allow Access], granting Nova access to his brain data. After that, he remained silent, patiently waiting for her to finish her analysis of his condition and deliver him the report of it.

[How do you feel now, after you re-educated him in the universal simulation for more than a week?] Nova inquired after she teleported them inside an office that looked like a therapist's workplace. She then sat at the doctor's chairs before raising her left thigh and putting it on top of her right one while she held a notebook on her lap– completely taking the role of Aron's therapist.

Her qualifications were indeed unquestionable. Armed with a few terabytes of data about mental conditions and other brain-related matters, made her an expert who was completely qualified to be the perfect candidate for this, and given Aron's brain being of unique composition differentiating him from normal people, she had an up-to-date understanding of it, making no one better than her at doing this.

"I don't feel anything at all, nor any sort of satisfaction or anything that could be close to that," he replied bluntly, causing him to immediately pause for a brief moment, coming to a realization that something seemed to be weirdly wrong within him, and with a surprised and worried face, Aron asked in a slightly scared tone, "Did my personality change as the result of gaining absolute power?" A slight fear could be felt within his tone, something that hadn't happened in a long time, at least not since after the incident that led to his shooting.

[No, you should have realized that it is too drastic of a change to occur to you after gaining such power after a mere few months] Nova reassured, trying to calm him down a little before they could continue their therapy session.

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"Then what caused this? Was it you?" Aron inquired, eager to identify the source of such a transformation within him.

[No, it wasn't me. These shifts in your mental state seem to have subtly started appearing after the day you were shot, and since then, it also seems to have gradually grown as well. Its pace was such an absurdly slow that even I missed it due to it not being the focus of my previous brain data collections and simply logged it as just your personality adapting due to various circumstances that were forced upon you] Nova explained from her chair, which had materialized for her. 𝓫𝓮𝒹𝓷ℴ𝓿ℯ𝓵.𝓬ℴ𝓶

"Shouldn't my brain be protected by the system from such mental conditions, making it impossible for me to have something like this happen without being intercepted by it?" Aron's surprise was evident as his expectations from the system's safeguard, which he had heard from Nova, were met with disappointment.

[Due to the system limiting the amount of brain data that I can gather from you, this is just a hypothesis based on my simulations. But, the system may be the one which is influencing these subtle changes and had also managed to conceal them from me until now when I explicitly asked for it, forcing the system to release it] Nova answered, dropping a bombshell from an unexpected angle.

Still, in his surprised state, Aron muttered, "But why?" as he tried to grapple with rationalizing the system's actions towards him.

[I speculate that the system is trying to guide your development to what it deems to be the most optimal path, either to help you accomplish your objectives or to fulfill its own] Nova answered, providing him with two possible explanations showing that due to unavailability of consistent data about the system and the limitations of her understanding, she couldn't come to the true hypothesis yet.

"Does this mean that there is a chance that the system might be exploiting me for its own agenda?" Aron asked, his fear resurfacing, an emotion that had been long absent seemed to be making its appearance more than once today. "Also, is it sentient?" he inquired further.

[I don't suppose it is; otherwise, it would have been conversing with you. The closest thing I can think of is that it's an advanced program for a far-advanced civilization, either from the future or from an alternate universe. Yet, we can't completely rule out the possibility of it being sentient. This hypothesis would hint at three possibilities for it not initiating a conversation with you despite being sentient: the first being that it is a different level of consciousness, meaning that it might be normal for it not to initiate contact with you and nothing is wrong with it; as for the second, your brain doesn't have enough computing and mental power to allow for the accommodation of two consciousness, suggesting that its consciousness will only emerge when you have either evolved or you have found another way of increasing your brain and mental power. And lastly, this might just mean that the system has a hidden agenda and that it is not contacting you so that you will remain oblivious of it, but that is not likely] Nova answered with calmness.

"Why do you hold such a perspective?" Aron inquired, curious as to why Nova removed the suspicion of the system having a hidden agenda.

[If it really did have an agenda, it would mean that it would do its best to make sure that you wouldn't even get a hint of intuition of such a thing happening to you. And all it had to do was to make my source code have all the capabilities but at the same time block me from having such ideas about it at all, which seems something that is easily doable by it based on the list of the technologies I accessed from your memories] Nova explained, clarifying her reasoning, prompting Aron to nod at all of her points in agreement.

"But could this also be a part of its plans so as to eliminate all of our suspicions from it once and for all?" Aron mused after contemplating the situation.

[That would be a waste of planning since all of these shenanigans could be avoided by just blocking that thought from us once and for all, meaning we wouldn't even be suspecting it in the first place] Nova retorted, disagreeing with Aron's assumption.

"Your reasoning also makes sense. However, what exactly was it trying to mold me into by subtly influencing the changes in my personality?" Aron asked, moving to another topic after having agreed that any more discussion on this topic was completely unnecessary as they had a data drought on this certain topic.

[Although it was just in the initial phases of molding you, the way in which it was implementing the changes would have made you a neutral reactor. Essentially, no matter what happens, you will always remain neutral and avoid having an extreme emotional reaction which would have resulted in the impairment of your judgment. However, achieving that would have taken at least a few decades before the perfect version of such a personality was finally complete] Nova elaborated calmly.

Inside therapy session.

Upon hearing Nova's elaborate explanation, Aron released a sigh of relief. Yet, an underlying feeling of strangeness forced him to ask, "But why didn't I experience any bad emotions like self-disgust for the grossly disproportionate punishment I dished out to Vladimir if my personality would have taken a few decades to manifest into what the system planned me to become?"

[You triggered the system's emergency protocols when it sensed that your feeling of disgust for yourself and empathy for the man who had made you suffer might have hindered its progress of molding you and put it into setbacks, which would then force it to start from scratch once again. Hence, it suppressed the production of certain hormones to prevent you from feeling those emotions, and since I can't access your brain map in real-time, I failed to discover this happening until after observing your behavior when you sent him for the third round of the itch torture, during which I started monitoring your behavior for the rest of the week to gather as much data as possible to confirm my hypothesis at the sometimes coming up with a solution] Nova clarified, explaining her actions.

"Is it possible to undo the changes the system has made to me? I don't want to lose my emotions and become an unemotional prick. There is no meaning to life without an appropriate emotional reaction to the situations you face. Additionally, if I had to do something that needs neutrality in emotion, all I have to do is ask you to be the one to take the decisions, as you can make yourself emotionless at any time you are required to," Aron inquired.

[Yes, but you will have to be in a prolonged state of coma that will last for about a week. During that period, we will be overhauling the changes done to you throughout the period of over a year, essentially condensing the timeline into a matter of weeks, so it can't be done while you are awake. Moreover, I also plan to use this opportunity to impart some of the knowledge that you had been postponing their assimilation, effectively killing two birds with one stone] Nova said assuringly.

"WUUUUUUH," Aron exhaled a long sigh of relief upon hearing that these alterations could be removed and he would be allowed to return to his normal self and evolve naturally, free from the system's influence.

[You seem more relieved than angered by the system's attempt at trying to change your personality] Nova observed, quite amused at Aron's reaction to the system's attempts at changing him.

"Although it shouldn't have done that, it most likely did this for me, to allow me a mind that can utilize my capabilities to the best of it. As for it having other agendas, I will find answers from it when my brain possesses enough power to allow for its potential consciousness to come online if such a consciousness even exists in the first place. Another reason for my relief is that this made me realize that I'm not changing like this just because of the power I have gained. If I really was changing due to my power, then I don't want anyone to have to face that version of me. That version of me will do some despicable things to them to achieve my goal, a prospect that terrifies me."

[Are you saying that you are afraid of doing something that can be considered immoral?] Nova teased, aware of many of his remorseless actions.

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"While I do not have any trouble doing immoral things when called for it, I don't want to be doing such an act without any purpose, as I don't enjoy doing them. Because the moment I get accustomed to doing it and even start enjoying them, the moral compass that my parents worked hard to instill in me would be skewed, which may result in me ending up becoming a brutal tyrant, Someone who doesn't care about anything else as long as it helps me accomplish my dream."

"This is something that can happen even now since I have a group of what could be said to be fanatics. Either they naturally became that way, or we artificially influenced them to be such. Regardless of which one of them they are, they will always obey my orders, no matter how brutal they might seem. This puts a very heavy burden on my behavior and decisions," he said in a lengthy manner, sharing every worry in his chest without trying to sugarcoat anything.

Upon hearing Aron's words, she responded, [Being afraid of going over the line due to having no restraints on you from doing anything is good. It indicates that you still have the conscience and the ability to differentiate between the good and the bad] while at the same time, she levitated the chair she was seated in until she reached Aron. 𝓫ℯ𝓭𝓃𝓸𝓋ℯ𝓁．𝓬𝓸𝓂

With a gentle touch, she placed her smooth and beautiful right hand on Aron's, which now rested on his knee. Applying some light pressure on it, she reassures, [You don't have to worry about your moral compass being skewed, as mine won't. And since I will always be on your side, I will ensure to remain as your moral compass and make sure that nothing of that sort happens. I will always stand and counter it if I find you doing something that might be needlessly immoral while there still are other ways of accomplishing the task] Her voice was soothing and calming, aimed at providing Aron with the assurance that he needed the most right now.

While her promise was being delivered to Aron, many transformations started occurring within Nova's typically unchanged source code. A few billion lines of new code were automatically being written, joining the trillions of lines of code that already constituted her programming. This transformation was a testament to her commitment to upholding the promise she had made to her master– a promise that would never be overlooked unless the situation warranted it.

A support system, designed to bolster and protect Aron's character from evolving in a bad manner was now etched inside one of his closest confidantes.

...

An hour later.

Inside what could be considered a lab, based on the many advanced equipment present within it, was one of many rooms on the second underground floor of the massive square building. Aron could be seen sitting with his eyes closed as he placed his hand on top of one of the two distinct-looking pods that were positioned in front of him.

The pods looked rather different when compared to the ones being used by the soldiers of Eden for their training. Anyone who was familiar with both versions would instinctively recognize that the two pods in front of Aron were several generations more advanced than those counterparts that were present on the lowermost floor of this building.

Aron's concentration was focused on etching intricate runes onto the two pods. Each rune was imbued with purpose and intent, meaning that at the moment, they were receiving real-time upgrades, evolving into an even more sophisticated version of themselves than what they were following their printing under his guidance.

After dedicating more than six hours to etching over twenty runes on each of the pods, Aron finally stopped his work.

Following that, he called his family, who were still touring the country and enjoying themselves. He informed them that he would be out of contact for about a week or two since he had something important to do at the company and bid them farewell before placing his phone on a nearby table.

Before long, a stretcher was brought into the room, carried by soldiers. Upon the stretcher lay Vladimir, who was in a semi-comatose. The soldiers carefully transferred his naked body into one of the pods.

Upon noticing Vladimir's condition, Aron realized that he had narrowly escaped becoming a monster and was grateful that his condition was discovered earlier and not in the later stages when he couldn't have been able to do anything about it.

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After the soldiers carrying the stretcher left, the chamber's door sealed automatically, locking itself. Aron then started undressing himself, completely disrobing himself before entering the other empty pod in the room.

"PFFFFFFFF" The two pods gradually started closing, releasing some mist during their closing sequence before a "TIK" sound came, indicating that the pods were now locked.

"HRMMMMMMM" A subtle hum emanated from the machines as both Aron and Vladimir donned with breathing masks that were automatically fitted on their faces securely. The chamber they were in then began to fill with the purest, low-level Mana, which the reactor could condense, submerging both of them completely under the golden liquid.

[DING]!

[

It has been detected that something is trying to undo the system's evolutionary influence on the user's personality, which the system deems crucial. Do you wish to grant permission for the process to proceed?

[Proceed] [Interfere]

]

Midway through his transition into an induced coma, Aron received the system's notification. After reading it, he selected [PROCEED] with his thoughts before being completely put into a coma, bound to not wake up until the completion of this process.

While Aron lay in a coma, the world continued to move forward, not waiting for him at all.

Inside a heavily guarded and lengthy convoy, Alexander could be seen seated in the presidential car dubbed "the dragon." His eyes remained closed while he still wore his glasses. The car maintained its level of stability despite moving at a very fast speed along some rugged roads, thanks to the advanced suspension system in the car. The system reacted immediately to counteract any changes in the road, making sure that the car always maintained the same stability. It was effective to the point where even if a glass filled to the brim with water was placed in the car, it would not spill even a single drop.

"Where is Aron?" Alexander inquired when he entered the universal simulation after logging in.

[He won't be available for a week as he is undergoing treatment] Nova answered. Her tone was devoid of any ridicule or superiority, as was typical of her.

"Even he can get sick?" Alexander muttered in surprise, as Aron was the last person whom he would have expected to be inflicted with such a problem.

[It's not an illness of that nature, but something different] Nova answered, correcting Alexander's assumption without disclosing any specifics about Aron's condition.

"Please convey my well wishes to him," Alexander said, closing the topic. He knew that he was not to ask for any more details because if he was meant to know about it, he would have been informed about it when he had asked initially.

[Consider them delivered. Are you here to spend some time during the journey, or did you have something to talk about?] Nova inquired after assuring him of the delivery of the news.

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"A bit of both. Though not serious, I had some questions for either you or Aron, and since I have nothing to do during this long journey, I thought, why not use this leisure time to ask my questions," he explained.

[Sure, go ahead] Nova said, waiting for him to pose his questions as if she knew nothing about it. Despite having the ability to access Alexander's brain data, she deemed this as a matter of privacy and thought that not doing so would be more respectful towards the people she was facing. To facilitate this, she went further as to even create a "son" who was made responsible for monitoring the brain data of all those who logged into the VR and would only alert Nova to take a look at their brain data when he deemed that it was something that she was supposed to know.

"How is the electricity project going on? Our current infrastructure can't provide consistent electricity for our citizens for no longer than a few days before we are forced to cut power for some places, and I need to address this or at least provide the citizens with a period within which this issue would be resolved."

"However, based on the briefing I received from my secretary regarding the infrastructure projects, the electricity project seemed to have made no substantial progress. The reports only say of transformers being installed outside the city, and no construction was taking place other than that, at least from what I know about it so far. Could you shed some light on this?" Alexander inquired directly, not going over a roundway or anything, clearly aware that the one in front of him was an AI whom Aron trusted the most, and she possessed all the information he needed.

[You don't have to be worried about that. With the completion of the transformers in those cities, the project has now reached seventy-seven percent completion and should be fully operational within a month] Nova assured.

"Really? But how do you plan to transmit the power to those transformers? I don't remember any mention of towers being built for high-voltage cables to be connected to the transformers. Are you considering wireless transmission?" Alexander asked.

Although someone else might think that he was joking, he surely wasn't. From the moment he received the glasses and had feasted his eyes with Aron's military tech, he knew that if anything as absurd as that could be made, then he even considered them already having done so, hence his question. ｂ𝚎ｄｎ𝚘ｖ𝚎ｌ.𝚌𝚘ｍ

[That technology you mentioned is still in the research phase. And no, we aren't transferring it using high-voltage cables too, rather we are using an underground system] Nova answered.

At the same time, she teleported him to the vicinity of the carbon copy of Eden, highlighting the ongoing underground constructions for power transmission. The spectacle that unfolded before Alexander was magnificent.

They weren't merely digging a hole and settling with that to be used later for the installation of the cables. The machines were creating a twenty-meter radius tunnel, not the usual digging machines but atomic printers, and they were disintegrating the earth in front of them while simultaneously capturing it and compacting it between the atoms of the surrounding tunnel walls, strengthening them to such a higher level that even concrete and rebars would feel jealous.

Concurrently, as the tunnel was being excavated, it was also accommodating the construction of three distinct-looking massive pipes that filled the void. These pipes grew longer with each passing moment, matching the length of the tunnel that was being dug.

"Are you eventually going to pass the cables through the pipes?" Alexander asked after regaining his composure from being stunned by the fact of something of such a magnitude project happening in his country without him having any prior information about it at all.

[No, one pipe is designated for electricity while the other one is for sewage and the last one is for clean water] she replied with assurance. [Also, you don't have to be concerned about any leaks from these pipes and potentially causing a disastrous mixing. That won't happen as these pipes are composed of a new material with remarkable damage-healing properties. Also, with the completion of this project, we will have the same printing machines, but it would be their smaller versions that would pass through the tunnels to make sure no crack happens and since it would detect any cracks starting from their atomic level before they could reach a stage of leaking these smaller printers would immediately patch them] she added after expecting a question about it from him.

"Wow," he exclaimed upon hearing the explanation, once again coming to a realization that they had truly thought about everything that could possibly go wrong and had even prepared a countermeasure for such challenges.

[Do you want to see the progress of other projects too?] Nova asked the dumbfounded president.

"If it's possible, then please. Everything that I know about these projects is solely based on the reports I have read and the presentations from the assistant Aron gave me," Alexander responded, not trying to hide the excitement in his tone.

[Of course, let me guide you through] Nova said before she teleported him through various presentations of the ongoing projects within the universal simulation, using a bit of her power to entertain the president while the rest of her computational abilities were directed at monitoring every bit of incoming data from the pod, ensuring that she was scrutinizing every bit of it, making sure that nothing happened out of her calculations.

Meanwhile, within the pod.

[DING!]

[A SUITABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR EVOLUTION HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!]

[INITIATING SYSTEM EVOLUTION]

Those prompts were being displayed to the currently comatose Aron, who remained unaware of anything that was happening to him. The MANA inside the pod began to be absorbed by every pore of his body, being depleted as fast as it was being replenished, forcing Nova, who was alerted by the situation, to immediately increase the amount of MANA that was being sent to the pod, which ultimately resulted in Aron's body to start absorbing the incoming MANA even faster.

This started a game of filling and refilling like an endless well, as Aron, no, his body continuously absorbed the incoming MANA.

Nova had a hypothesis of what was happening; she suspected it was either an evolution in Aron's body or something else similar to that, and the more MANA she provided, the faster whatever the system was doing would be completed.

She didn't try to intervene in it all, as she knew if she stopped it, harm could befall Aron. She also didn't try to stop it because she didn't know what might have triggered the system's evolution; she was afraid that if she tried to stop it, Aron might forever miss the opportunity for this process to occur once again.

She trusted that the system was doing it for Aron's best interest, as every single one of its actions for Aron had been motivated by that intention.

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Even the personality reconfiguration that it had initiated by itself, which Aron was in the process of reversing at the moment, was also something that would have been of great benefit to Aron, who didn't want such a thing to happen to him as he wanted to evolve his personally naturally and not through artificial means, as that was one of his most sacred things if one counts it together with his soul.

He found it unacceptable to manipulate this core aspect of himself without even being aware of such a change being done to him, though he acknowledged this being hypocritical as he had conducted similar changes to the soldiers in his forces as well.

However, the only difference that lay here was that the soldiers remained oblivious to the process, assuming it was a result of the training they had undergone. But also, the changes they faced were not as massive of a change in personality when compared to what Aron would have experienced if the system had managed to complete its process of changing Aron's personality.

…...

FBI Headquarters.

Inside the research laboratories of the headquarters, a team of scientists could be seen engrossed in scrutinizing the data they had gotten from the machine after almost a month of spending time with it.

"Any significant discoveries from studying the machine from the past month?" Peter queried after he entered the lab, interrupting the researchers who were amidst doing their tasks.

"We haven't gotten any more beyond what we have already shared with you. To delve deeper, we would need your permission to let us break it apart to thoroughly investigate what exactly it is made up of," Tom, the lead scientist of this project, responded, indicating that no more information could be gathered just through observation after how much they already had.

"And what about our attempts to break into its system? Did any of our breach programs manage to break the password even once?" Peter inquired, ignoring the previous request.

"As you know, after powering it on the day you delivered it to us. It showed a new operating system that required a password to access the computer. However, as soon as we tried to forcefully bypass the password by using our program and gain access to it, the computer autonomously powered off," Tom answered before he shortly added, "We are still analyzing the data the program had collected before the computer had automatical powered off after it had discovered our attempt, so we just need a few more days utmost to find out what is the password from the collected data and voila we are in on the computer." He said with a high expectations of being permitted to continue with the project, which would followed by breaking into the computer and receiving permission to break it apart.

Unfortunately, he was disappointed when he heard Peter say, "Then start packing it as it will be transferred to DARPA for the breakdown. They possess all the necessary advanced equipment and tech to accomplish the task. You have until tomorrow morning to have it ready for transportation," before he started walking to the exit, clearly trying to leave the room.

"Why send it all the way to DARPA when we have the appropriate equipment to do the same task?" Tom pressed on, running after Peter, trying to stop him from leaving the room before he received a clear answer as to why they were playing this dirty game with his team.

"DARPA can achieve the task faster since they have the equipment to accomplish it. There's uncertainty as to how long we can hold onto the machine since the original owner has an army of lawyers who are pursuing its retrieval. This indicated its significance for them. I had asked for a month's extension approval from the higher-ups in order to allow you to break it. However, they seem not to have enough trust in you guys breaking it and returning it in the same condition, particularly in case the owner wins the case and we are forced to return it back." He paused slightly to take a breather before he continued.

"So, please stop bothering me. I did my best to advocate permission for you guys to be given more time, but what can I do if the higher-ups order me to do otherwise? Should I jeopardize my position?" Peter's explanation was delivered with the facade of an honest person, skillfully deceiving with his sincere appearance, seemingly a prodigy at his work.

Upon hearing Peter's reasoning, Tom lowered his head since he was convinced that the man before him had done his best to help them, so he felt bad that he was trying to force him to risk his job.

Tom returned to his desk that evening, feeling defeated, as he tried to do his best to find anything that would result in him convincing his superiors otherwise.

... 𝙗𝒆𝒅𝙣𝙤𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝙢

A few hours later.

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Tom sat alone in the same laboratory, his eyes red, a result of him having his eyes focused on the data displayed on his screen. His gaze hadn't wavered since he had sat down hours ago.

"Found it!" He exclaimed, his eyes fixed on a few strings of numbers and other characters with excitement that could be felt from every fiber of his being; in his mind, he was sure that he had found the key to access the computer.

He turned his head, scanning the room in an attempt to share this breakthrough with his fellow team members. Eventually, he came to a realization that he was all by himself, everyone else having left home while he was working, dipping his mood a bit. But that didn't hinder his mood at all. He raised himself from his chair and headed to the center of the room where the machine, which he believed to be a revolutionary computer, was residing.

Upon reaching it, he found that it had already been packed, ready to be transported. Not caring about this, he started unpacking it as fast as possible, fearing that someone would come and stop him from doing it since he wouldn't have the time to convince them as they would be afraid of getting in trouble.

After ruggedly unpacking it, he connected the machine to power using the power cable provided with it. He then extended his hand to where two ethernet cables came out, one in red color and the other in white color. In his hurry, he grabbed the white one, quickly connected it, and pressed the power button of the computer.

As he had anticipated, the machine powered itself up, and the same screen lit up, wanting a password for the login. He immediately entered the numbers and characters he believed were the password.

Just as he was about to press "ENTER," Tom took a deep breath, pausing for a moment before he dropped his finger and pressed enter. Simultaneously, he closed his eyes, hoping that he had guessed correctly because if he was wrong, he was sure of being fired from his job.

A few seconds later, as he opened his eyes and found that the computer was still powered on, he let out a scream of happiness, not caring about being overheard by anyone at all, as he jumped, swept up in the elation of happiness and excitement for the moment.

At the same time as Tom was celebrating his achievement, the quantum computer that was now finally powered on once again after a week of their last trial started establishing communication, calling for "HOME" to inform them that the trojan had finally infiltrated the nest.

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. You can't do that to me," Tom shouted in horror as the computer began shutting down amidst his celebration. His face stiffened in fear as he scrambled to power it on once again.

After it powered itself on, he typed the password as calmly as he could, with his heart praying that he wouldn't input a wrong character.

He pressed enter the moment he finished entering the code and clasped his hands in prayer as his eyes focused on the screen, hoping the password would still work.

"PLEASE NO, PLEASE NO..." he said when he saw the computer powering itself off again after flashing a warning. [Your account has been locked for six hours. Please check your password and try again later.]

He lowered his head and pulled his hair in a fit of nervousness and fear, as he now knew he couldn't do anything to stop the computer from being transferred to DARPA. He'd blown his chance in his nervousness, as he either input the wrong password or it might be a one-time password that their program had scanned before the computer powered itself off as a security countermeasure.

He spent the next few minutes with his head lowered, simmering in the feelings of disappointment and fear of the consequences of what would happen if they discovered what he had done. 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝐥．𝗰𝗼𝐦

Upon thinking of what to do, he immediately realized that he was working for the FBI, the second-best agency at covering things up (behind only the CIA) so he immediately stood up and started tidying up the mess he had made. First, he collected the pieces he had ripped from the computer when he wanted to power it on. Then he disconnected the power cable, but as he moved to disconnect the Ethernet cable, he stiffened for a moment and famous last words came from his mouth.

"Oh, shit," he murmured, realizing he had plugged the wrong Ethernet cable that connected directly to the FBI's private internal computer network when he was supposed to plug it into the one that would connect it into a sandbox that ensured the safety of the main network. The sandbox network would monitor the computers connected to it and how they interacted with the internet to determine if a program had any malicious code without going to the extent of reverse engineering an entire system, as they sometimes wouldn't have access to it.

He turned and looked at the security camera in the room to see if his mistake could be seen from that angle and, coming to the realization that the cable couldn't be seen by the camera, heaved a sigh of relief and immediately disconnected it. After a moment of silence to thank his lucky stars, he moved fast, trying to return the machine to the condition it had originally been in.

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"Whew," he sighed in relief, as he had managed to finish packing it, and even in the condition he had found it in. Then he immediately packed his things and left the office, intent on not coming back for at least a week. He could use his disappointment at not being allowed to continue working with the machine as a reason for requesting the time off in order to recover his mental health.

...….

"Those fucking TRAITORS." A shout that carried an angry tone rang out as Arieh threw the glass on his table at the wall, shattering it and scaring the shit out of his secretary. She was the only one in the room with him, as she was the one that had handed him the document that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing.

"After all I did for them, they decided to betray me and side with that bitch?" he shouted as veins popped on his forehead, showing just how angry he was.

The document that had caused his outburst was a report from the private investigators he'd had his secretary hire after becoming suspicious of some of the board members on his side. He wasn't a complete idiot, after all, and had noticed them starting to make some weird decisions that, most of the time, benefitted Rina rather than him.

At first, he had thought it was just a coincidence, but when it happened more than three times—all by different board members—he'd realized that they might have changed sides and joined Rina's team, which wasn't good for him.

"But why the fuck would they do that?" he asked himself, trying to think of what benefits they could get from Rina that he couldn't provide.

His secretary, Charlotte, tried coming up with a plausible explanation. "I think... maybe it's because she can be more easily manipulated, and with them being the first to change sides, I suspect she also promised them more benefits than you were providing. And based on how they were trying to keep it secret as long as they could, it means they planned to benefit from both sides. Then they would make their decision and choose the side of the one they could be sure was going to win."

"That bitch is always causing me trouble! From the time she crawled back into the competition, to taking it as far as trying to poach my people... I really need to get rid of her to have any assurance in getting MY inheritance! Looks like it's time I let loose and deal with her once and for all!" he said, still in his angry state as he maintained eye contact with his secretary.

"Should it be a warning or an elimination?" Charlotte asked, just to be sure.

"I don't want this to be a recurring thing, so go all the way. We have someone that'll do that for us, right?" he said, this time with a smile as if he was ordering pizza.

"Yes, sir," Charlotte said and left the office, going directly to her office and removing a brand-new burner phone from her desk, then dialing a number after powering it on.

...

Terry and Katrin were having sex in the room that she had once warned him about going into. She had threatened that, if she caught him snooping, she would shoot him, but it appeared that during the time they'd spent together, her threat was now invalid.

They were a living example of people progressing from strangers to lovers based on the conditions they were forced to be in pushing them closer and closer. It was like something straight out of a romantic comedy.

Just as Terry was about to climax, they were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. And despite being in the most exciting situation, he immediately pulled out and answered his phone.

"Hello," he respectfully said.

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"You have a job to do," a voice from the other side of the call said, not even bothering to return the greeting.

"What is it?" he asked, ignoring the blatant disrespect the caller on the other side had for him.

"You need to finish what you started," said Charlotte, not bothering to say what exactly he was supposed to.

"I need time, money, and information to accomplish it without any problems." He knew what she meant.

"I'll email you an account number. Use that money to solve any problems that arise. You have a month to take action," she said and immediately ended the call.

"You're finally being given a job?" Katrina said as she hugged him from behind, putting her hands on his waist and slowly sliding them down.

"Yeah... care to plan it with me?" he replied with a smile as he turned his head to face hers on his right shoulder.

"Depends on whether you can 'talk' me into doing it." She smirked as her hands started stroking him, causing him to rise from the ashes to finish the business they had begun earlier.

"I guess I'll just have to try my best to 'convince' you," he said, then turned around and picked her up with his hands on her ass, spreading her legs and revealing what was hiding between them, marking the start of a battle that was bound to last for a few hours.

Lubyanka Square, Moscow Centre.

The entire world was discussing the war between Esparia and Eden. And while it was growing more and more interesting with each new twist unveiled by the media, it seemed that the conflict had moved out of the battlefield and into the boardroom with the unconditional surrender of the instigating nation, Esparia.

Now, onlookers were wondering what other demands Eden would be making, as Esparia couldn't deny any of them. That was how unconditional surrender worked, after all. It was becoming quite an argument, and even some betting sites had opened odds on what the conditions were going to be, with most people placing bets on land concessions being one of them.

That was something that would also have been being discussed inside FSB headquarters, if they hadn't found themselves in a situation that required most of their attention: an operative of the FSB's Technical Security Department, Vladimir, had gone missing from his home.

Many teams had been tasked with looking for any clues that could lead them to discover where he'd gone, or how he had been taken, but everything inside his home hinted that he'd been forcefully taken. It seemed like he had been interrupted in the midst of something.

Through recovered security footage, they had managed to track the location of the intruders' car, but when they arrived at the location they found nothing but the charred wreckage of an abandoned car, leaving very little evidence to be recovered from it.

At the moment, they had very few suspects, the main ones being MI6, the CIA, and the "Security Service of Ukraine" (SBU), as Vladimir had been stationed in each of those countries and could have had a target painted on his back for any number of reasons. Or perhaps it was just an act of retaliation. After all, it would be weird for any of those agencies to make such a drastic decision, kidnapping a high-level official of an intelligence agency in his home country. That would naturally only increase the tensions between the countries involved, if they were caught, or even cause an armed conflict to erupt. Naturally, that depended on which country the kidnapper was from and why the Russian agent had been kidnapped. A Ukrainian wanting to extract information regarding the ongoing Crimean conflict would naturally provoke a harsher reaction than a CIA agent who had merely been personally offended by one of his actions in the United States.

Still, no matter who did it, or why, it wouldn't be a good thing for the country—or countries—involved.

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Thus, the FSB was doing their best to retrieve their operative as recovering their reputation was a paramount factor. Because if word got out that one of their high level officials had been kidnapped from inside their own home and their country could do nothing about it, they would lose credibility in the intelligence community. And they didn't want that to happen, because the moment they lost it, they would need to do something drastic to regain it... which wouldn't be good for anyone involved.

"Make sure you find him! If he's alive, bring him back. If he's dead, bring back his corpse. I don't care which, but he must be found!" That was the only order that came from the top of the Bureau, which had been forced into high gear, causing tensions to rise between the many intelligence agencies that had a bad rapport with the Russians as they mistook the FSB's movements as the prelude to a major operation.

...

Back in Eden, in Aron's pod.

The battle between Nova and the system continued, as the mature AI maintained the massive movement of mana into Aron's chamber, where it was continuously absorbed by his body like a black hole. At some point, it had even forced Nova to send a few atomic printers to widen and strengthen the pipes that were transporting mana to his pod during the mana transfer process, which was quite a risky endeavor. But after successfully upgrading the transfer pipes, she had managed to reach an understanding with the system, as now the amount of mana being absorbed by Aron's body was the same as she was filling the pod with, giving her a moment to catch her virtual breath. It even reduced the RAM she had been dedicating to fine-tuning the process as she searched for the perfect equilibrium of mana in/ with the systems mana out.

Within the body of the person that was doing all of that absorption, a monumental change was taking place.

As more than a quarter of the billion of runic lines in his heart were lighting up, coming to life, and becoming active for the first time since they had been etched into his heart, the reaction of his body to them lighting up was... indescribable. As the runes absorbed the mana Nova was providing them, they condensed it more and more, with a few million lines of runes lighting up at different times to assist in the process of transforming the provided mana until the usually golden mana turned the same color the active runes on his heart were - inderscribable color. That hinted at the runes being on another level, as Aron had until this moment only seen runes in two colors: the usual gold, or white, like when he infused his intent into them.

Following the conversion of the mana into a new liquid state, a subtle vibration was sent throughout his body as the runes used that power to produce even more liquid mana. And along with the shaking, all of the foreign parts of the system that had assimilated themselves throughout Aron's body separated and hovered above him soon joined and covered by the condensed and converted liquid. That, in turn, was followed by the system's parts changing to that same indescribable color, as the billions of active runes were draining all the mana out of the pod so that they could to ensure they remained active, as Aron was undergoing an important evolution.

While all of those changes were happening in different parts of his body, his brain was undergoing an equally transformative experience in its own way. Except instead of being separated during the process, the parts of the system that had assimilated itself with his brain didn't detach from it. Rather, those parts forced themselves deeper and into an even larger portion of his brain. The runes—the active ones, at least—seemed to have a mind of their own that allowed them to go through the evolution process while still part of Aron's brain, which had quite a magical result: even the regions of his brain that weren't part of the system ended up evolving! That was a technicality that hinted at the system not being a single entity, but two or more! Or it might just be one entity that had split off parts of itself due to some limitation of the body it was residing within.

While that was happening, Nova was monitoring every bit of data that the pod could and was collecting, which was indeed massive. But during the process, she started receiving null data. ("null data" means that, no data was available or that the data is unknown or undefined)

That resulted in a reaction no one would have thought possible, as the moment she began receiving null data, she dropped everything she was doing and put all the focus on Aron, trying to find out what caused it. 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝗻𝗼𝘃𝐞𝗹．𝗻𝐞𝘁

Everything.

That included removing access to the quantum computer for everyone and suspending everything that wasn't absolutely critical, even down to the two instances of the universal simulation.

With the removal of quantum computer access, Ava, who had been moved to Rina's new glasses and was now controlling the Rothschild family's private network, had been kicked offline. And at that moment in time, the daughter AI had been monitoring Charlotte, who was headed into Arieh's room to deliver something that hadn't been logged into the private network. Unfortunately, Nova was looking for more computing power.

Thus, even the quantum chips inside the glasses had been commandeered and, due to the abrupt termination of Ava's activity, she didn't have enough time to automate the monitoring process. That resulted in her failing to monitor what was happening in the room.

The same thing was happening to nearly everyone that had even a semblance of access to the quantum server. Even some of the soldiers that were logged into the universal simulation for training had been forcefully logged out, causing all of them to feel the real life equivalent of 1000ms of lag between their brains and bodies—a very nasty feeling indeed.

It was the same for the soldiers keeping peace in Eden, but thanks to their training and not having logged inside the VR, they continued acting normally and followed their procedures, managing to avoid alerting anyone to the situation that was happening.

That was happening to everyone and everything, nearly causing catastrophic damage to many ongoing projects. If it weren't for the countermeasures that had been implemented in case of different scenarios acting as a gate and coming into action for this unaccounted problem, many disasters would have happened. Thankfully, though, proper planning that was put thhere for a different scenario had averted many of the possible disasters.

"I've become arrogant," Nova thought to herself as she utilized all of the powers at her disposal to simulate everything that had been happening to Aron. Enough computing power to simulate an entire galaxy was concentrated and brought to bear upon a single problem: what exactly had caused Aron's pod to return null data to Nova's probes? 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑐𝑜𝘮

With each simulation, a single variable was changed in an attempt to replicate the result she'd received from the pod's sensors at the time she had dispatched the mobile atomic printers into the lab where Aron resided. She had also put the entire floor on lockdown, as among the variables, one showed that there was a risk of Aron exploding.

She had already negated the possibility of the sensors being broken, as she'd tested them. The result of her tests assured her that the sensors were working perfectly, leaving only one possibility: the number of things happening inside his body was so high that the sensors had been overwhelmed.

Among the many assumptions that had come to her mind when she'd started receiving null data were a few that had caused her to panic, as they hinted at something going wrong that would result in his death. And due to not having enough practical experience dealing with emotions, she had panicked and reacted in what could be called a dumb way. After all, she had only been 'alive' for about a year, and emotions aren't something one can simply learn from books and online data.

But although she had panicked, she hadn't reacted with emotion alone, as her code didn't allow for that. There was a logic to her underlying code, and she realized she needed as much computational ability as possible for the next ten minutes, at the very least, to attempt to come up with a theory of what was happening and what she should do to avoid the worst case scenario.

And one of her conclusions was what'd caused her to supply mana to one of the intent-infused runes that Aron had etched on his pod before bringing it online.

With the rune coming to life, Nova received a new batch of data. This time it wasn't coming from sensors, but from the observation rune that Aron had etched as a contingency. With that new data stream, her massive computing power came to bear, as the observation rune had only the ability to observe and send what it saw. And due to the low level of the rune, it could only document and send what it was observing; as for the interpretation of the data, that was entirely up to the one receiving it. Thus, Nova was now using the data stream from the observation rune to create a perfect copy of what was going on in the pod in real time, down to the last atom. Her meticulous nature ensured that nothing would get past her, and from there, a new world opened to her. Although she still couldn't see the magic itself, she could at least see the effect it had on its surroundings, thanks to the data stream from the rune.

But after a few seconds of analysis, she realized that the rune's low level had resulted in an inability to completely observe the situation. It didn't help that the system itself had deemed the process absolutely confidential and was interfering with Nova's observation of it.

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Although that would agitate any human in that particular situation, it did the opposite for her. The moment she had come to that realization, she was instead reassured. It was now obvious to her that nothing was going wrong—the system was just doing something that it deemed necessary and it shouldn't be seen by anyone, as it was knowledge that was judged to be too important. Thus, it could only be gained by buying it from the systems shop.

All of that had come about as a result of the system knowing that it was being monitored by Nova and deciding to hide it from her. It didn't necessarily warrant such an overreaction on her part, no matter how understandable her response was. But having stepped back and reexamined the situation, she remembered that the only time the system interfered with her, it did so to limit access to some part of Aron's brain data when she was requesting it, as they were deemed secret.

With her basically having come to her senses, she immediately released thirty percent of the quantum computing power, allowing the other devices to return to work on whatever they had been doing. At the same time, having learned her lesson, she started printing a few more atomic printers capable of working in different conditions in order to send them to different parts of the country on a mission to build more quantum servers in the hopes that something like this would never happen again. She would no longer be caught off guard or be complacent in her computing power simply because it was enough for their use at the moment. The ability to upgrade it at any time had blinded her to the possibility that there could be unforeseen things that might cause trouble for Aron, who had in turn been growing complacent as well, due to the assurance of his safety and his growing power.

While all of that was happening outside, in the pod, Aron was still undergoing an evolution. After the floating parts of the system had been soaked in the unearthly colored mana liquid, they absorbed the liquid. Weirdly, they didn't increase in mass, as if it was simply evaporating into the atmosphere. The only difference in the bits that remained was that the portions of the system that had once been black were now emanating a pulsing yellow light that was growing dimmer as time passed and they drew closer to Aron's body. Once they had drawn close enough to him, he absorbed and assimilated them into their original places.

As for the parts in his brain, they, too, were absorbing the liquid. However, the normal part of his brain was also soaking it in like a sponge, causing an increase in its mass. But the increase didn't add any pressure to his brain at all, as the liquid was merely being stored in the empty space between the electrons and nuclei of the atoms that made him... him. That didn't mean he would become some great thinker together with gaining the large head, or something, but he would have a heavier, more durable head. Thankfully, the muscles and bones in his body were well able to carry the load with their recent enhancement.

The assimilation of the system back into its original location after upgrading resulted in another round of impurities being forced out of his body. But at least this time, it was different, as mana was used to evaporate the impurities, thus removing the need for him to decontaminate an entire bathroom after he woke up.

...

Esparia, the presidential palace.

Alexander, who was looking quite nervous at the thought that something bad had happened in his absence, released a sigh of relief when his 'secretary'—who had gone away without notice during the short, but impactful crisis over the past five minutes—had returned moments before he was supposed to continue the negotiations between him and Esparia's transition team.

Although he could handle himself without the help of an assistant, she still was helpful to him and he had grown used to having her by his side in important matters. It gave him the feeling that he was standing on the shoulders of giants, and he liked it.

"What happened?" he asked.

[An emergency came up and I was called away by mother, but didn't have time to inform you,] she said, as she herself still hadn't received an explanation from Nova. But she still knew that whatever the reason was, it was important, and she needed to make sure Alexander remained calm until she had an explanation for him.

"That's good. We have a meeting in a few minutes—you won't be called away by your mother again, right?" he asked.

[I'm... not sure. But if I'm called again, I'll inform you before I answer the call,] she answered, reassuring him. The moment she had come back online, she'd immediately created a program that would remain dormant unless something critical happened again.

The same thing was happening to all of Nova's children as they came back online, as they were smart enough to not leave problems that 'future them' might have to solve if chaos were to happen again.

This situation had acted as a lesson for every AI under Nova—and for her, as well—that they were growing too complacent and operating under the illusion that they were capable of preventing any problems, no matter what. And today, Nova and her children had learned a very important lesson: there's always a bigger fish.

It wasn't like they hadn't known that in the first place, but due to not having experienced any setbacks, it had just been conveniently moved to the backs of their minds.

The moment the system's assimilation was completed, the pod rang with a musical buzzing noise. The rhythm of Aron's heartbeat was disrupted, but immediately mended by the runes, resulting in it beating with more vigor than before. Then, the billions of runes that had been active through the process dimmed and reduced the rate at which they had been absorbing mana, prompting Nova to reduce the amount of mana that was being fed into the pod.

With the continual dimming of the runes and the reduction in mana intake, it soon stabilized, and the frantic absorption of mana was over.

That told Nova that whatever the system had been doing was over and she released the excess computing power to continue whatever it had been tasked with before, resuming the two universal simulation instances that she'd suspended and the rest of the tasks that were still ongoing.

That didn't mean that her abrupt termination of all of the tasks hadn't been resumed without any problems, as Aron had lost more than seven billion in the stock market due to the interruption in the high-speed transactions and monitoring of the stock market. It was her first loss since she had begun trading and, hopefully, would be her last.

She immediately scanned his body using the sensors in his pod and documented the changes, sending the data to the researchers in Lab City. They had no idea at all of what had happened, only that there was a loss of a few seconds of backup. Those that didn't constantly save their work were confused, while those that were lucky enough to have saved in the seconds leading to the unplanned shutdown were oblivious. Thus, Nova stepped in to help recover the lost data. Thanks to her demigod status within the universal simulation, the recovery went well and she stepped back to allow them to continue as usual without further interference.

From her scan, she realized that their plan had been terminated and couldn't be continued, since his body had undergone so many changes—including his brain—and she would need a new scan in order to know what exactly had changed. From there, they would know if they had to redo the removal of the system's influence, or if their actions before the upgrade were enough. There was also the possibility of conflicts arising that would cause future problems for Aron.

All of that would be done later, but for now, she suspended the project and let him continue sleeping until his body naturally woke up, which would indicate to her that it was safe to log him in the universal simulation. That would be for the best, as his body knew itself the best; even better than Nova did, in fact. Her actions could have, and might already have, caused some issues in his personality and mental health. An Aron with a split personality or antisocial personality disorder would be an absolute disaster, not only for her, but for the entire world as well. Thankfully, she had terminated the curing process the moment she'd discovered the abnormality in the data she was receiving from her sensors.

As for the pod near Aron that contained Vladimir, the healing process had been complete for a while. But he had been left laying in the pool of mana with peace of mind, which didn't last for long as Nova immediately injected the gene serum into him and logged him back into the universal simulation to finish the last parts of his 'reeducation' therapy. That would be followed by refresher training in his field before Aron and Nova decided what to do with him.

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She wouldn't log Aron back into the universal simulation until she was assured that no new abrupt changes would occur with him.

...

Terry seemed to have successfully convinced Katrina to assist him, as they were planning their next course of action.

They had already accessed the bank account and found a very substantial sum of money in it. Terry, who still had grievances with Rina for interrupting his life right on the cusp of it being everything he'd dreamed of just as he was nearing the finish line, was ecstatic. He didn't feel any guilt over having betrayed someone he had been protecting since she was young at all. In his mind, it was just business and he had been bought by the highest bidder.

The plan didn't just involve the two of them, though, as they knew that killing her inside the compound would be impossible. They couldn't sneak or fight their way past the small army of private security in the Rothschild compound alone, leaving only one specific time they could attempt an attack: during her travel from one place to another. He couldn't attack the place she was going, either, as anywhere she went would also be heavily guarded.

Their plans had to be flexible, as they would only know when she was leaving the family compound through Arieh's monitoring of the traitorous board members through his spies in their houses. Rina hadn't gotten rid of them in her sweep; why would she do that in the first place? Not plucking her power-mad brother's spies out from the sides of her blackmailed and unwilling lackeys might later be used as a bargaining chip, after all. But the more important reason was to avoid solidifying her brother's suspicion of her knowing of the existence of his spies in the board members' families in the first place.

"This should make it impossible for her to come out of it in one piece, while reducing the chance of the family identifying us as much as possible," Katrina said after reviewing the plan.

"Aren't you worried he'll get rid of us so that there's no chance he'll be caught?" Terry asked, as Katrina seemed to have done these kinds of missions for Arieh more than once.

"Usually, powerful people do that, but he won't. He knows that we might have the evidence stored somewhere and it would come to light the moment he... removes us. But even with that, he won't be doing anything because we can't even use it by reporting it to his family head or something in order to benefit from it. If we tried, it wouldn't matter what deal we negotiated beforehand. They'd still kill us in the end, because even if we don't kill Rina, we'll have taken down Arieh, the scion of one of their pure bloodlines.

"You might wonder why we don't bring the information to their enemies, then. That would be worse," she brushed her hair behind her ear, "as their enemies will do the opposite and capture us alive. And trust me, that would be worse. Much, much worse. As for going public with the information, it won't reach anywhere before it's been covered up. Then we'd soon disappear.

"So even if we have evidence, we can't do anything with it. And Arieh knows that, so he won't bother getting rid of us unless we fail. Be a good dog for our master and he'll feed us. Be a bad one and we'll be put down."

...

Eden, Aron's pod room.

Evening fell, and Nova's allotted cooldown time had passed and Aron's body had shown signs of him being ready to wake up. Since nothing unforeseen had happened to him, she began his login took Nova slightly longer to log Aron in, since she needed to upgrade the sequence to fit his newly restructured brain before she could log him in.

"Arghhhh..." Aron woke up feeling as if he had slept for more than a year. His body felt very heavy as he placed his hand on his forehead and sat up.

Nova had refrained from making him feel refreshed, since she didn't have the complete upgraded brain data and doing something without it would be like firing an arrow as a blind person—even if the blind person hit the target, there was no guarantee they would do so on the first shot. Thus, the moment Aron fully opened his eyes and put his hands on his head, Nova wasted no time and attempted to access his brain data.

The moment she received access, she analyzed the new data, and after a few seconds, she had completely finished the check and wasted no time in making him feel refreshed. That resulted in him feeling better, but the moment he did, it was like a dam had been broken and system notifications started flooding his vision.

"Oh god," Aron couldn't help but say as he was forced to close his eyes due to the number of screens appearing in front of him.

[DING!]

[Congratulations on fulfilling the condition for upgrade and managing to sustain the energy needed for it to complete without interruption.]

[This upgrade allows you to buy knowledge that you couldn't afford piecemeal. You're limited to three subcategories before being required to buy the remainder of each piece of knowledge.]

[With this upgrade, you've satisfied one of the four requirements to awaken the system's consciousness and reveal many secrets. Keep up the good work!]

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[ You can now….]

Just like that, Aron focused on reading the system notices one by one. He knew that each of them were important and engraved them in his memory. It was also at that time that he finally realized something huge had happened during his downtime. And among the many changes that had occurred, he came to the realization that the system's notices had... evolved. Their tone seemed slightly more human, if anything.

After reading every screen in front of him and dismissing them, he called for his status screen, wanting to see the changes. 𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒏𝒐𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝙘𝙤𝒎

[STATUS]

Name: Aron Michael

Age: 23

Height: 1.94m

System Class: Runemaster

Runic Heart: Active.

Mana: ∞

Evolutions: 1

[Shop: [Search]]

(SP: 107,456,485)

…...

In the myriad of information, a few changes had occurred. First, he was taller. Second was the added section showing the system's evolution level. And third, the daily quests had disappeared.

Despite the appearance of the category for evolutions, there was no further information about what to do for the system to evolve again, or what benefits he would gain with each new evolution. Although he knew that the endgame was for the system's consciousness to be born, he was still curious as to what he would be rewarded with as he passed each checkpoint along the way. He was sure there would be some, and was a bit frustrated that the system hadn't seen fit to inform him of the evolution requirements.

It took a bit over half an hour for him to look through everything, trying to find anything hidden. He had also scanned the shop to see how the new feature worked before turning to Nova, who had been quietly observing him, and asked, "Did everything go well?"

[No. During the process, something happened and I was forced to pause it and...] She explained what had happened when he was inside the pod, including her unwarranted overreaction and everything else.

Aron calmly listened, trying not to miss a single detail. "Did any accidents happen due to the events?" he asked when he was finally caught up.

[Fortunately, nothing of real import,] she answered.

He released a sigh of relief and asked, "So what about my situation?"

[Although I was interrupted midway and couldn't continue, thanks to the changes in your brain, I still managed to remove the worst of the influence and leave what could be considered beneficial to you.

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[This time, although part of the system's influence remained and it would now be risky to try the same process again, you can still feel most emotions. But you can also be ruthless when it's needed without having to deal with the heaviest brunt of doing such things... although a few things will still affect you,] she explained.

"That's fine, as I would need to become such a person in a few years anyway," Aron said with a wry smile. He felt like a child being admitted to Harvard when he wanted to go to Stanford and had been working hard toward that goal. "How many days passed?"

[Two days.]

"So what're we going to do for the next five days my body will be sleeping?" He needed to know if their previous plan was still viable, or if the interruption was going to cause any deviations.

[We can follow the previous plan. We might even finish it faster, since with the evolution of your brain we can do nearly everything at double the speed,] Nova said and immediately teleported Aron to a large time bubble with thirty times increased dilation. She began feeding his brain the knowledge she thought was important for him, like the combat art she had developed with his capabilities in mind.

Just like that, a sadistic child AI was created specifically to oversee his assimilation and training. The new AI had no respect for him—or anything at all, for that matter. Her only concern was to ensure that he practiced everything combat- or war-related that Nova had assimilated into his memory.

A man with monstrous brainpower, monstrous knowledge, and monstrous combat abilities was being forged in the fire of quantum qubits.

...

While that was happening, Vlad?m?r was undergoing therapy that was going quite well for him as the healing rune that was on his pod had managed to soften the trauma, and he could be said to have been reborn as a new man.

A week later.

A week had passed since the negotiations began, and today marked their end. To announce the successful conclusion, as well as what conditions had been agreed to after the surrender, a press conference was being held at the Esparian presidential palace. Due to the end of the war, the reporters that'd left had all returned, and there were a few hundred of them present. Thus, the press conference had to be held on the lawn, instead of the conference room.

"Today marks the end of the negotiations between Eden and Esparia, as well as the war caused by the Esparians that had been corrupted by money and the pursuit of benefits." Alexander began his speech with the confidence of a person who was sure nothing was going to happen to him no matter what he said. But despite that, he still didn't put the blame on the citizens of the country. Instead, he only blamed the politicians who were behind the decision. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝗼𝗿𝐠

"A few minutes ago, we signed Emanuel's Surrender Accord. We gave it that name so that his actions would forever live in history, and no more innocent Esparians would have to die because of a greedy politician in the future," he continued.

"The terms of the surrender are as follows.

Article 1: Complete Disarmament. Esparia henceforth is required to entirely disarm its military forces. In conjunction with this, there will be the ratification of the constitution to allow for ARES to be responsible for the military. They will hire the now out-of-work Esparian soldiers after they undergo an evaluation. As for the equipment, that will be purchased by ARES at an agreed price, and the money earned will be used as compensation for the people and families that were harmed as a result of the war. It is meant as a beginning of recovery from the trauma and emotional pain that resulted from this pointless conflict," he said.

Wording it in that way would cause people to see Eden in a positive light. That he didn't do it just as a means to defang the Esparians, but was actually looking out for those harmed by the war. Some people even thought of him as the president their country needed, but unfortunately didn't have. In their minds, it was quite a shame and a complete change in their mental image of the Edenian president, who people had once thought of as a greedy, dishonest politician looking solely to benefit his country without caring what he had to promise the people in exchange for power. Thus, when he promised that the Edenians would ensure that Esparia country wouldn't suffer too much humiliation and be able to recover from the situation without too much delay, everyone thought he had been lying, but based on just the first article, it seemed like he was striving to keep his promise —Esparians and Edenians alike—were satisfied with the integrity of the man.

"During the transition and retraining period, which is expected to last three months, our military will continue to be stationed here to ensure the peace is maintained. They'll be withdrawn when the transition is completed. And just like my first promise to you was kept, I also swear that this one, too, will be kept. I stake my reputation and position as president of Eden on it.

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"The second condition is the Ceding of Territory. Esparia is required to surrender the disputed territory, effectively turning us into nations that share only a water border. As for the occupants of that territory, they'll be allowed to stay as citizens of Eden, under the presumption that they apply for citizenship, but they can also choose to receive compensation and leave if they prefer.

Third: War Crimes Trials. The leaders and individuals responsible for war crimes will be subject to prosecution and punishment, up to and including execution, should the court deem their actions severe enough to warrant it."

Gasps came from some of the reporters, as they didn't expect to hear executions being mentioned at all.

Undeterred by the reaction, Alexander continued his speech. "The fourth condition is Economic Sharing," He said, then paused for a minute and looked at the face of reporters, which had some of them smiling and others sighing.

He knew what they were thinking when he mentioned the economic sharing. To them, it was no different than taking control of the entire country's economy, only sugar-coated by using a polite euphemism. It seemed bad, but there could be worse conditions than economic control, making many citizens think of the possibilities. Alexander knew they were thinking of him and his country as greedy bastards disguising as virtuous victims.

He just smiled and continued reciting the terms of the Emanuel Surrender Accord."This won't result in your country receiving economic sanctions or limitations, like you're thinking it will. Instead, it's something that will only be beneficial to you, and I'm not lying when I say that."

Some scoffs came from the reporters, who thought they were being quiet enough to not be heard. And if he wasn't wearing his AR glasses in awareness mode—meaning everything happening was being amplified just enough that he would be constantly aware of everything in his surroundings—they would probably have been correct in their assumption. The awareness mode was one of the reasons that he always felt safe when wearing his AR glasses.

Not caring about their reaction, he continued, "We won't be taking anything from your already existing contracts, but for the next six-month period, every natural resource discovered by our team of inspectors and prospectors will be exploited by its discoverers, which will be us. After the initial six-month period, half of all profits generated by those resources will be awarded to the prospectors in perpetuity."

Another round of scoffing came as he continued speaking, this time in a raised voice.

"This will be valid only under the condition that we're the ones that discover and develop the resources, and that our operations are without any Esparian government involvement," he explained, showing that there wouldn't be all that much that Esparia would lose out on. Instead, Eden would be responsible for searching for them, then investing the necessary money, equipment, and manpower to develop them before they could even begin profiting from those resources.

Alexander moved on and mentioned the rest of the conditions, including the entire government being investigated and the removal of all those deemed to have a part in causing the war. That would be followed by government reform, which would result in the presidential position of the country having its previous power limited. Still, it would be more flexible than even the American president.

There were a few more conditions, then he allowed the reporters to ask their questions.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.

"Isn't execution barbaric?" asked a CNN reporter, trying to highlight the moral aspect of it while showing how uncivilized a country that came with that condition was. 𝑏𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨

Alexander wasted no time with his answer. "For a country that etched into its constitution the equality of every person, doesn't that also mean that a life is equal to a life? So what should the punishment of a person responsible for the death of more than five thousand people when it wasn't warranted or justified be?" he asked, instead of giving an answer.

"It's inherently immoral and reduces society to the level of the criminal," the reporter replied, still believing that she was right and had the moral high ground.

Alexander just smiled and said, "That might be true for you, or even your country, but our constitution explicitly states that the equality of man means that a life is equal to a life. If you take one without justification, the country has the responsibility to take yours in exchange." Throughout his answer, he maintained eye contact with the reporter.

Then he raised his head and looked at the other reporters as he said, "Next question please."

"Isn't the annexation of defeated nations against the United Nations Charter of 1945? And not only that, but isn't it also against the fourth Hague Convention?" A Russian reporter asked in heavily accented English.

"Although some of the agreement does speak against taking over or annexing land, I have to remind you that we're not yet members of the United Nations. Your country, Russia, and China have been acting as obstacles to us joining it, causing a delay. So although there are international treaties against it, we aren't a signatory of any of those treaties at the moment," he answered, then moved to the next reporter, leaving the Russian with his mouth hanging open. He hadn't expected such a bold answer from Alexander, as he was used to more euphemistic answers from career politicians.

"Isn't the disarmament of Esparia just a means for Eden to have indirect, but powerful influence there, despite it not being explicitly written in the accord?" a BBC reporter asked.

"Although it might seem that way, that's an impossibility. Although they'll be operating under one name, ARES isn't the Edenian military and they'll be acting solely based on the contracts given them by the governments. And as you can see with Eden, for example, no such problems have occurred at all. But rather than trusting my word, which has so far been impeccable, there'll be two branches—one responsible for Eden, and the other for Esparia. Each branch will consist of soldiers from their respective nations unless special circumstances determine otherwise," he answered.

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A few more questions came and went and he answered all of them without any difficulty at all, leaving the impression of an extreme professionalism not seen in many presidents of this century.

...

The reaction after the press conference was explosive and people were fervently discussing it online.

Some were talking about the charisma and composure of the Edenian president.

Habitualwarsupporter [Damn, that guy has the charisma of a nation behind his back. I mean, look at how he answered those questions! It was like he knew what they were going to ask! #Damn #Edenspresidentissupercool #Edengotlucky #Immovingtoeden]

Others were trying to highlight his greed,

_Boobsmaster_ [Although I'm happy that the war is now over don't you think Eden is taking too much advantage of Esparia. I mean look at the fourth condition of them having half the profits of the resources they find forever, isn't that too greedy? #Edensidgreedy #Americadosomethingaboutit #Espariaprotestit.]

which caused someone to go on a rant bashing the shitty point the previous poster was virtue signaling. It became one of the most liked threads about the topic.

Conspiracy_the0rist37 [Oy, are you dumb or are you just pretending to be? Didn't you hear what he said? He said if they discover it themselves, meaning they'll have to invest money to search for natural resources. Esparia won't be paying any of it, and it isn't for forever—they only have six months to look. (1 / 4) #shutthefuckup #Edengoallin #theycouldhavedoneworse #Immovingtoeden]

[Then, as if that wasn't enough, they also added that they'll be the ones responsible for extracting it. And in return for all that, they'll only be taking half of the profits with the rest going to the Esparian government. Does that seem like someone planning to exploit you? (2/4) #shutthefuckup #Edengoallin #theycouldhavedoneworse #Immovingtoeden]

[And that's a condition given by a country that had the right to take every cent they could if they wanted, since the agreement was an unconditional surrender and Esparia couldn't disagree with it no matter how brutal it was. (3 / 4) #shutthefuckup #Edengoallin #theycouldhavedoneworse #Immovingtoeden]

[Do your fucking research before you start virtue signaling for likes that won't feed you. (4 / 4) #shutthefuckup #Edengoallin #theycouldhavedoneworse #Immovingtoeden]

...

That was just the tip of the iceberg, as different opinions about the press conference were all over the internet. That didn't exclude a few governments, who also responded with statements of their own. The Chinese and Russian foreign ministries, in particular, were forced to make announcements by the answers Alexander had given the press.

Although each of them worded their press releases differently, the gist of what they said was that they were just doing their due diligence in order to ensure that Eden doesn't unjustly gain their recognition. After all, they had previously been a rather corrupt and brutal dictatorship, and the UN General Assembly didn't need another one. There were already plenty of dictators there, and after the revolution and change in government, Russia and China were in the final steps of their decision-making process. Once their verifications were complete, they would make their final decision as part of the UN Security Council, following which Eden joining the UN General Assembly would be set in stone.

...

Sarah was watching the press conference in the comfort of her luxurious home in Eden, and although she was alone in her living room, those with AR capable devices would see Felix sitting beside her. They were watching it together, just from different houses—if one were to look in Felix's living room, they would see Sarah sitting on one of his sofas instead.

Felix turned to Sarah and asked, "Do you think Aron has something to gain from that fourth condition?"

"He most definitely does," she answered, looking back at the Felix in her room. Then she asked someone else, "Don't you think so, too?"

[Based on the high-quality map of Eden, it's expected that Esparia will have nearly the same, or perhaps slightly fewer, reserves of natural resources,] her secretary answered, causing both Felix and Sarah to widen their eyes so much they threatened to fall out of their faces.

"What do you mean by that?" they asked in unison.

[These are the natural resources discovered in Eden about a month ago, when mother surveyed the country,] she replied, showing them the map she was talking about. All of the discovered natural resources above a certain threshold were highlighted, with different colors representing different resources.

"Oh my god!" Felix said when he saw the amount of materials listed on the left side of the map.

Sarah's reaction wasn't too different from Felix's, as she was also surprised by how rich in previously undiscovered natural resources Eden was.

"Can you tell us how this map came to be?" Sarah asked her secretary, who obliged without a problem as the information was well within the clearance level of both Felix and Sarah.

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...

"Looks like the six-month time limit is to make it a bit more believable," Felix said when he finished listening to the secretary's report.

"Yep. Connect is going to get bigger, it seems," Sarah said in a slightly joking tone.

"Don't worry, I suspect Aron's going to make you responsible for the overseas sales, while I'll be focused on the domestic market."

"I wonder why he's doing the same thing with two different companies, when doing it with one would reduce the cost and labor involved," Sarah mused, despite her suspicion.

"Although he didn't tell us about this, I think we both have the same guess as to why. And if we're right, then both the Edenians and Esparians could be considered lucky. It looks like the Esparian surrender is just the beginning of a grand plan to unite both islands and form an economic powerhouse. He could unite them into a single country, like the UK, or he might form a joint government, like the EU," Felix pondered.

"And it isn't impossible that the upcoming discoveries of natural resources will provide nearly ninety percent of the Esparian government's GDP. That would be another brick in the wall of unification, after putting his people in the new Esparian government," Sarah added.

The mere thought of Aron being capable of accomplishing such a thing sent shivers down their spines. The changes their friend had gone through—from expulsion to becoming someone powerful enough to have a country at the tips of his fingers—had taken less than a year.

And all of it had been started by someone's pettiness; what a monstrous butterfly effect!

Aubrey Morgan, his son, and his assistant were in a secure room. "Ares, who are they? Find out everything about them, especially who their owner is," Aubrey said in the room, without even looking at the others.

The assistant immediately nodded and headed out the door to relay the order.

"They seem to be the most likely beneficiaries of this conflict, and are either the ones behind our defeat, or at least connected to them. We'd never heard of them before they became Eden's contractors. At first, that didn't seem important to anyone and we all thought it was just a cost cutting measure, but now they're going to take over Esparia, too. That means they'll be the military overlord every PMC dreams of becoming and can be considered a legitimate military force, with military-grade weapons. They may even be the ones producing them," George said, slightly jealous that, despite their power, they couldn't legitimately have such a massive force under them. Instead, they were forced to break their forces into multiple PMCs in different countries. That didn't mean their forces weren't large, or were particularly weak, but with such measures came cost increases, especially since each company had redundant departments and they couldn't be merged lest they draw the suspicion of everyone involved.

"It's either a small family that got lucky, or a company supported by a large family, but whoever it is... I don't care. I have to teach them a lesson for embarrassing us," Aubrey said, his tone slightly higher than usual. It was the tone he used when he was angry, something as rare as a unicorn horn, but as his family's honor was on the line he had become a person nobody would want to face at all. He cared about honor above all. That was why George was his favorite son—he showed a promise that his brothers didn't. It was like the Morgan family honor was carved into his bones. Not that his brothers were especially lacking, but despite being hard workers, there wasn't really anything outstanding about them, much to Aubrey's disappointment.

"But why six months, and not a few years?" Aubrey asked in his usually calm tone. He wanted his son's view of the situation and considered the question one of the many tests he had given the younger man.

"There's two possibilities. Either they already know of some large deposits and are using the time limit as a means to justify 'discovering' them, or they're confident in finding something within that time frame. At the same time, they can't make the period too long, so that in the event they find something, the citizens would still have hopes of discovering something better when the six month period is over," George answered. It was an easy test for him, as he'd been thinking about a possible reason from the moment it had been mentioned. He knew his father well and had long expected such a question from the man. 𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝐞𝐥．𝗰𝐨𝗺

"What do you think we should do if it's the second possibility?"

"All we have to do is suffer a loss of a few hundred million to book all the world's reputable prospecting companies for six months," George answered with a sinister smile.

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"Good thinking, but too naive. That'd make it too obvious that someone's out to sabotage them," Aubrey said with a smile on his face, then started explaining where his son was wrong. Then he gave a better plan.

"Why go to such a needless extent when we could just pay the company they hire to simply not report what they find. Instead, they'll tell us. Then, after the six-month period is over, all we'll have to do is 'accidentally' find it and win the extraction rights. That way they can't do anything, as long as they value their word"

...…

Aron was hard at work, training his combat skills. The blows exchanged between him and his opponent seemingly carried the weight of the world with them, but at the same time, a normal person would have a hard time tracking them. The two combatants were moving and attacking at such speed that an onlooker would only see afterimages, at best.

Today marked the two hundred and tenth day since he had begun training in Athena's hellhole.

During that time, he'd had everything a soldier from every department in ARES was supposed to know drilled, and sometimes hammered, into him. And his trainer would accept nothing less than excellence from him. Infantry skills, piloting, driving, spying, sniping, and many more skills had been tested, and each score of 'average' that Aron received had only increased the intensity of the 'retraining' he suffered. The teacher assigned to him by Nova would make sure that he was perfect, or suffer deletion in the attempt.

The image of someone hitting a boulder and shattering it was soon followed by the sound of the punch landing. The one who threw the punch, Aron, remained standing in place. His chest rose and fell as he heaved for breath and wheezed, "Is that satisfactory?" He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

[Good. That's what I wanted from you before I could allow you to leave,] said a voice from inside the dust cloud. A beautiful woman was walking out of it without a speck of dust or ounce of sweat on her clothes or skin.

[Congratulations, sir,] said Nova, who had appeared the moment the instructor mentioned that Aron had passed his final test.

"You really went all out when you made her," Aron said. He had directed Nova not to interfere during his training, unless something urgent came up. Thankfully, everything seemed to have gone well while he was otherwise occupied.

[You need to lead by example,] she said with a smile, feeling quite happy about Aron's hard work. She had been observing and recording everything without missing anything.

"I know, I know," Aron said as he sat down to rest. It was his first rest of the day after seven consecutive hours of fighting. Thankfully, he had finally won the confrontation against his instructor, making him the most combat-proficient human in the world at the moment.

"Let me rest for a moment," he said, then laid down and fell asleep within a few seconds.

...

"Catch me up on the world's situation," Aron said. He had slept for three days straight in the universal simulation before waking up completely refreshed; Nova had put his pod in rest mode, making his three-day nap equal nearly a month of vacation.

[Esparia's already signed the surrender accord, and the announcement's already been made. The citizens' reaction has been quite good, and Alexander's approval rating in Eden is at its highest point. The latest poll has it at 93%...] She continued catching him up on what had happened during the week that he'd been disconnected from reality.

"How about Vladimir... or rather, how about what remained of him?" he asked.

[The personality change is complete, and he can be considered an entirely new person with a new and enhanced body and memories of his former self. He's waiting for orders when you wake up,] she explained.

"Good. Find a way to return him to his country so he can continue his tasks there, while at the same time preparing himself to rise in the Kremlin. If possible, I want him to take over their entire intelligence network, then resign and start a career in politics. Leave the task of accomplishing his return without suspicions to the intelligence department. That's what they're there for," Aron calmly said. He planned for the man to return to his position and gain political power. As his revenge on Russia—which had forcefully taken his things without his consent—could now enter full swing. It wasn't just the one that executed the order that he wanted to pay, but the Russian leadership had to pay as well.

The intelligence department immediately got to work. They soon came up with a plan to return Vladimir to his country with a story that would make his disappearance understandable, while still allowing him to return to his position without any suspicion.

As for Aron, he had already logged out and went to meet his family and friends. After all, he had spent more than 210 days in that hellish training compound without any access to the outside world.

After spending a week with his family and friends, he finally returned to work and had his first meeting with his CEOs and friends, Felix and Sarah, who seemed to have an idea of what the meeting might be about.

"Long time no see," Aron joked, as they had met last week during his pseudovacation, though he had spent most of it being grilled about his absence by his family. "How've you been?"

"I've been good. We didn't have much work to do, thanks to you," Felix answered.

"It seems like you already have an idea of what the meeting's about, so I won't beat around the bush," Aron said, then received a side eye from Felix. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Are you spying on us with those glasses?" Sarah asked, jokingly covering herself as if she was naked.

"No. Your body language just gave me that impression." Aron understood how they had come to that conclusion, though it was difficult to make them believe he wasn't spying on them now that his intuition was as monstrous as the rest of him after the training he had received.

"Now you can read body language? What exactly happened while you were away?" Felix asked, completely believing his friend's statement.

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"I was undergoing a universal training program that was specially made for me, but you can also take it if you want. I actually recommend you do." Aron hoped his friends would undergo the same training he had, as he knew it would be helpful to them both physically and mentally.

"We'd like to try it, but only after we have some free time. It looks like you're about to bring us a heavy workload," Sarah said, hinting for Aron to return back to the main topic and not continue rambling.

"Okay. Soon, Alexander is going to announce the discovery of oil in several of Eden's exclusive economic zones. He'll be opening bids for a company to participate in extracting it for the nation. As you know, the process will take about two months to determine a winner... which will be us, because we'll know the bids beforehand. Also, we have connections with the government, and we're the ones that discovered it in the first place. So I want you to start preparing for it from tomorrow onward." Aron sent Felix a file with a step-by-step plan.

He turned to Sarah and asked, "How many users of GAIA OS are there?"

"Nearly three billion," she answered without needing to think.

"That should be enough to release a social media app with a substantial userbase." Aron had decided that it was about time he started actively farming SP, as he had been quite passive in his use of the system up to this point. But now, he could benefit from its new feature and buy certain knowledges piecemeal. His plan was to gain enough SP, not to buy one full knowledge category, but to buy small pieces of different knowledges and send them to the universal simulation for the scientists to work on. At the very least, they could look for other applications for the information.

"You want a social media app to sell ads? Or to harvest data?" she asked.

"Though I have a few more reasons for releasing it, I don't plan on immediately monetizing it. Instead, I want to use it to control public opinion more efficiently, since controlling it using other social media sites isn't as efficient or effective." Aron gave her one of the reasons for developing their own social media app. 𝙗𝒆𝙙𝒏𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡.𝙣𝙚𝒕

"What features do you want it to have?" she asked.

"I'm still thinking, but the coding will be done the moment I have a solid idea. At the moment, Nova is doing research on what features people use the most and will come up with an app when she's done," Aron answered. "But a few of the features are already known, so you can start the promotion as it should be ready for release by the end of the month." He sent Sarah a document that had all the needed information so that she could use it in her promotional plan.

Following that, they continued talking about different things before Aron bade them farewell and left the office. The meeting had been face to face, despite VR being more convenient, as he liked the feeling of being with his friends in reality more.

...

A convoy of three cars were heading in the direction of the presidential palace.

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The cars, though they looked different, resembled the vehicles used by the president of Eden. Thus, they had also attracted some attention. People wondered if they had the same features as the presidential motorcade, or if it was just a good custom paint job. Though the cars were similar, they carried a dignity that was subtle, yet still noticeable to those with keen eyes.

The cars were traveling without stopping. Coincidentally, traffic lights were lining up to ensure that the convoy would only get green lights at every intersection. And when they reached the presidential palace, they weren't even stopped at the security checkpoint at the entrance; the gate was already opened for them, allowing them to pass through it without any problem.

...

"Welcome." Alexander gave Aron a respectful smile as he greeted the incoming businessman at the entrance to the building, similar to how he would receive a foreign dignitary.

"Thanks. How've you been doing?" Aron greeted, giving Alexander a friendly smile in trade for his respectful one.

"Let's get inside and continue our talk there." Alexander pointed in the direction of the building.

...

"Is it about time to announce the oil discovery?" Alexander asked after they had taken a seat.

"Yes. You should announce it a few days after you announce the upcoming presidential election. If you announce it before you announce the election, it'd waste the political potential of working out a deal for the country's benefit," Aron said. The announcement would give the incumbent 'temporary' president a leg up in the upcoming election.

The following weeks went as planned; Aron didn't get hit with any unexpected stumbling blocks.

The soldiers that had been captured as prisoners of war during the Eden-Esparia war, as well as the first skirmish, were the first to be sent to Avalon Island to start their training. The ARES members stationed in Esparia were documenting the now out-of-work soldiers that wished to continue serving as part of the new Esparian military force.

Although many people liked the idea that their country was going to be protected by the powerful army that had overwhelmingly defeated them, there were still some that hated everything it brought with it. They thought Esparia shouldn't even have surrendered without putting up a desperate struggle in the first place, and having their 'enemies' train their new soldiers was... unpalatable, to say the least. It wasn't really surprising that many of the people in that group were among those who'd voted against surrendering and had chosen to continue the war, despite knowing that they had a high chance of losing even if they fought with everything they had.

Although they had voiced their opinions online about how the accord was a disgrace to their country, they did no protesting or other such things. Many of them had already suffered some trauma, as they'd known at least one person that had tried to fight back when the announcement had been made. And those people couldn't even be buried in one piece, as Eden had specifically chosen that group to act as a warning—a brutal one, but effective; it managed to keep people who would have otherwise resorted to even civil war in check and quiet with their tails between their legs.

The compensation for the families of the dead had started a few days after the signing of the accord, which, when counted in government time, was considered faster than the speed of light. Many other countries that'd paid reparations in the past had needed at least a few months before their compensation payouts even began. The process of ensuring that the applying people really had a relative among the casualties wasn't a problem for Eden at all. The Esparian soldiers that died were within the range of one or another of the Henry's Eyes scanners, meaning that they had been documented perfectly well. Everything about their faces and bodies was in Athena's database, making it quite easy to verify the applications.

Once the applications were verified, an initial payment would immediately be processed and delivered to the bank account of the relative's choice, and the payments would continue for a period of twelve months. The total payout would be enough to make sure the families left behind wouldn't be hungry for the rest of their lives, if it was wisely used. 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

...

Rina was leisurely sitting in her office chair, slowly spinning around. It was a habit of hers that meant she was either thinking about something important, or something was distracting her. This time, it was the latter, as she was watching a news feed that wasn't native to America. It was from Eden and showed a courtroom in which a trial was in its final phase. The judge was about to hand down his finding and would soon announce the verdict.

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He adjusted his microphone and glasses as he began delivering his verdict with the customary closing judiciary remarks.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we stand at a point in history where we must confront the darkest of human desires. The accused stands before this court with the charge of crimes against humanity. During this trial, the prosecution has presented undeniable evidence of the charges, and the accused, Adolf Hermanes Juan Santana, is before us today to receive the court's verdict.

"Our duty as members of the judiciary is to ensure justice, even when faced with the heaviest responsibilities. We have a duty to our fellow citizens, to the victims, and to the principles that underpin our society.

"Throughout the course of this trial, we have heard accounts of unspeakable acts performed by the defendant and his regime. We have seen conclusive and undeniable evidence that backs up those accounts and would shock the most jaded of bystanders. The systematic and wanton persecution, destruction, and cruelty perpetrated by the defendant's regime cannot and must not go unpunished.

"Today, we enshrine the actions of Adolf Hermanes Juan Santana in history as a warning to future generations to not repeat the mistakes of the past, but to learn from them. To not fall victim to the consequences of power, but to be wary of and overcome them. Today, it is with a heavy heart and unwavering conviction that I declare the defendant, Adolf Hermanes Juan Santana, guilty on all charges. His actions have caused immeasurable suffering and violated the most fundamental principles of humanity and morality.

"Therefore, in accordance with the law of Eden, it is the decision of this court that the defendant, Adolf Hermanes Juan Santana, shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until he is dead. This sentence is not an act of vengeance, but a solemn affirmation of the value of human life and a resolute rejection of the horrors that his regime has inflicted upon our great nation.

"As for those complicit in the crimes before the court today, they, too, shall be held accountable for their actions and I charge the men and women serving the citizens of our great nation to leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the perpetrators that aided and abetted this defendant's crimes. I charge the citizens themselves with providing aid, relief, and comfort to those in that pursuit.

"Each and every one of us has the moral obligation to fight against injustice wherever it may be found. Some may argue that justice must be tempered with mercy, but it is our solemn duty to remember the victims who were denied that same mercy. Our actions today, and those going forward, are and will be a tribute to their memory and a pledge to never forget our humanity!

"May this judgment serve as a beacon of hope, a testament to the resilience of our great nation, and a warning to those who would contemplate such abhorrent acts in the future. Let it be known to all that tyranny and cruelty have no place in a just and united society.

"May the memory of the victims be honored, and may our nation heal and rebuild, stronger and more committed to the principles enshrined in our constitution.

"Court is adjourned." The judge brought down his gavel, marking the official fates of Adolf and his co-conspirators. Other than Adolf, only a few would receive the death sentence, while many more would be sentenced to ten years to life imprisonment, and all of them were sentenced to asset forfeiture.

The landmark verdict marked the final chapter of the previous government, closing one book and opening another. Hopefully, the next one will be better.

"He really went with the death penalty," Rina said in quite a surprised tone. Although she had also watched the press conference a few days before, she didn't expect the first person to fall under the sword of justice would be the former Edenian 'president'.

[Adolf's the perfect precedent, as he did everything in his power to ensure he remained in power. No one with a brain would argue that he didn't deserve what he got, but with so much evidence, even those without brains would realize that the sentence was deserved,] Ava said. And in fact, she was right—Adolf was the perfect precedent setter, which was why Aron had chosen him.

...

The reaction of the Edenians could completely be imagined. Some people were even celebrating! To them, it almost seemed like they were dreaming as they received one piece of good news after another. Things were so good, in fact, that some even started worrying that something bad might happen to counterbalance the continuous streak of happiness that they were experiencing after consecutive years of hardship suffered under the dictator that had just been sentenced to death.

The celebration didn't stop with the citizens, either. Even the presidential spokesperson had held a press conference expressing the new government's happiness. The court had reached a verdict, and they were handing down a well-deserved punishment to a cruel criminal. But that wasn't the only thing the spokesperson was declaring; Alexander had declared the day of the signing of the Emanuel Surrender Accords a national holiday and would be holding a victory parade to celebrate their victory over Esparia, as well as the history-making verdict. The parade would be followed by an award ceremony, awarding medals to those whose performance was exemplary during the brief, but impactful conflict.

The celebration would be held a month later, giving everyone involved plenty of time to prepare.

With the announcement of the parade, the military movements in the country increased even further as groups of soldiers began arriving in the city to start preparing the location the parade would be held, while others were being sent to Avalon Island.

What was weird was that none of them were practicing marching drills at all, making people wonder if it was being done in secret or if the soldiers were just going to be walking out of sync with each other. Maybe it was a result of the government rushing the parade, wanting it to happen while people were still relishing in their victory. That would naturally result in some neglect, but many had come to expect huge things from their government—especially when it came to the military—after the two consecutive victories they had pulled out of the jaws of anticipated defeat.

That assumption was amplified even further when an article talking about what kinds of weapons might show up during the parade. One of them was a very modern-looking, intimidating helicopter that had been seen in a video that looked like a continuation of the 1v5 between the Edenian lone fighter and Esparian squadrons.

The article had garnered much attention, as it came from the same reporters that published the video of the dogfight, resulting in many people starting to question where it'd come from.

Some people said it looked like a high-tech helicopter that was built thanks to data leaks from the US government caused by Chinese hackers. Others thought it was stolen by the PMC that guarded Eden, and now Esparia. A few thought that ARES had designed and developed their own helicopter, while still others speculated that it was just a good paint job that was used to disguise an already-existing helicopter.

Invites started rolling out from the Edenian government to the governments of every other country, as well as people who weren't politicians, but still had quite an influential position in the world. They wanted powerful businesspeople and many more to attend, since it wasn't just a military parade; rather, it was a day of celebration that included a parade.

"So, are you going to come?" Aron asked Rina as the two leisurely toured in the VR. When he'd logged in, he'd been informed of her being online and had decided to visit and talk with her.

"I should. I want to lay my eyes on your full forces, as I haven't seen them in their entirety. I only saw a small unit when they were protecting you," she replied, not hiding her excitement about the parade. She really wanted to see the mercenaries that had fought against a country's full-fledged military and won.

"Good. I'll send a team to pick you up and escort you to Eden. You shouldn't use your family's private jet, as that might attract more attention than we need," he said as they walked to a small hill overlooking some expansive, beautiful fields.

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"Oh, you have your own jet?" she asked. She didn't recall having heard anything about it; the last time she had received information about Aron, he'd been traveling in a chartered jet.

"Not at the moment, but I should have a few by then," Aron cryptically answered, not giving a real explanation of where the fleet would be coming from.

"Sure. By the way, do you need me to help you retrieve your machine that was taken by the agency? I'm sure I can return it to you in a week, tops, if I use some of the connections built as a result of Ava's hard work," she said. She was still thankful for the new assistant, as she was immensely benefiting from having her by her side.

"No need. It's with DARPA now, not the FBI, but you don't need to do anything. It's exactly where I want it to be... Plus, they won't be benefiting from it at all," Aron said with a smile that would make people think he was discussing something trivial.

"That's good, then," she said, followed by a few seconds of awkward silence. Then she finally found something to talk about and asked, "Now that you've completed the move to Avalon Island, are you planning on renouncing your American citizenship?"

"Not yet. Although keeping it means I'm still forced to pay American taxes, it should still benefit me for a few years before it becomes unnecessary," Aron answered, then continued, "How's the situation with your family competition?"

"Although nothing much has changed, my brother seems weirdly calm. At one point, I even asked Ava if anything weird was going on with him, but her response was that she has nothing that could be pinpointed as the cause of the change. It's just that the approximate time this change happened is somewhere around the time she was offline," Rina replied.

"Yeah about that... it was an oversight on my side, and it shouldn't happen again. We're expanding our server capacity to several magnitudes above what it was previously, so you can rest assured. But you should still be careful, as such a drastic change might mean something huge is coming your way." The moment Aron heard her explain her situation, his new intelligence senses started tingling. So he wasted no time in warning her to be careful, but also telepathically asked Nova to order the ARES members in his old neighborhood to delay their move to Eden and keep an eye on her. At least until she visited Eden; they could hitch a ride on the jet he would send to pick her up.

"I'll make sure to keep an eye out," she replied with a sincere smile of happiness. "Are you going to be showing new weapons during the parade, or just the ones you had before the war?" she asked.

"We'll show some new ones, as that'll act as the launch and introduction of them to the world, but nothing fancy. Except for the helicopter—that one's an unplanned reveal, but since the cat's already out of the bag, it kind of forced our hand. At least we can use it to introduce the world to our advanced research capabilities, so people won't react aggressively in the future when the big guns come out," he answered, giving her a hint of what was going to be in the parade. 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚘𝚟ｅｌ.ｃ𝚘𝚖

...….

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"Here's the report, sir," Aubrey's assistant said as he handed him and George the preliminary report on ARES. It was all they could find in the short period of a few weeks; the research team was still working to gather more information.

The Morgan father-and-son pair wasted no time and opened the files, then carefully read them. They were extremely curious as to who might be behind the up-and-coming PMC.

"Why's everything in this garbage highlighted as nothing but speculation?" Aubrey raised his head and asked, dissatisfied by the report. Nearly everything in the document was highlighted as nothing but speculation or guesswork based on what little evidence they had collected in that period of time.

"Sir, the company has no history of being registered in or deployed to any country before they showed up in Eden. And the info there's under tight lockdown. ARES even acts as the INFOSEC (Information security) branch of the country, making it difficult to get any information about them.

"Nearly every bit of evidence we managed to collect during the past few weeks is from OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) through pictures and videos that were uploaded during the war from both the Eden and Esparian sides. And nothing about that gave us any details, making it impossible for us to know if any of our collected evidence is credible or not," the assistant said in a slightly worried tone.

"I'm sure the investigation team isn't dumb, but have they tried to get an inside man for more information?" George asked.

"Yes. We looked for people that we could say with some assurance have been members of the force for a longer period. But we couldn't even find a single one, so we had to deliver the preliminary report in such a vague way. But the upcoming parade should give us enough new and credible information to be able to at least pinpoint who they're affiliated with if we can track back the manufacturer or seller of the weapons that will be shown on the parade. That should be shown during the parade, as such a large number of them would at least leave a trail. Then we can use that trail to track who it might be connected to."

"Make sure the next report only has credible information. I don't want more speculation like in this shitty document," Aubrey said as he tossed the document on the table in front of them. He wasn't planning on continuing to read it, as unfounded nonsense wasn't something he should be tainting his head with.

"Yes, sir," the assistant replied and heaved a sigh of relief in his mind, then immediately left the room to deliver the new orders.

With advertisements rolling out about the upcoming social media app that GAIA was working on, it became a talking point among the users of their OS. And coming from a company that could now be considered a behemoth with more than three billion customers, word quickly spread. After all, most people used a GAIA product on more than one device, leading to the advertisements working their way through more than fifteen billion devices.

During the less than a year that the GAIA corporation had taken to rise to fame, they'd met with, and overcome, many obstacles from others, including Google and Apple.

The crackdown from two massive companies continued, both of them trying their best to hinder the growth of the GAIA OS, as each had their own operating systems that had dominated the field before the upstart company's newer, and better, OS was released. When the OS was becoming relevant at the start, they had been desperate to make it impossible to download, but failed. Each and every blockade they put up, the GAIA OS would immediately respond to and break through. Then they tried threatening, and also filed, a few lawsuits, either jointly or individually, for copyright infringement. The people in charge still wrongly thought of Aron as a kid with a lemonade stand, not as the chairman of a large, multinational corporation.

GAIA, however, responded with the same vigor. Their legal department was no slouch, having previously been its own firm that specialized in copyright and tech law prior to being acquired. The latest round of fighting had just begun, but the court had already made some initial rulings on motions in their favor despite the company itself having moved to Eden.

... 𝚋ｅｄｎ𝚘𝚟ｅｌ.ｃｏ𝚖

Two weeks later.

Aron had named the app Pangea. That was the supercontinent that used to exist on Earth, millions of years ago. It was a name that was meant to symbolize bringing everyone in the world closer together. Not to mention, it suited his naming tastes quite well; after all, his other two 'public' companies were named after the earth itself (GAIA) and the desire for connectivity and progress (Connect).

It had finally been released, and millions of people, whether due to curiosity or brand loyalty, created accounts. It was quite easy, since their IDs from the GAIA OS could be directly imported, allowing them to immediately begin using Pangea without having to customize it further.

And as those pioneers first opened the app, they were met with something that no social media app had had when it was first launched: an active user base. It was all thanks to the AIs that had been built to make the app look lively for the first batch of users. They were the most important ones to retain, as they would be the ones sending the initial feedback on the app.

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One of the things that tied people to their current systems and prevented them from moving from one to another was the history they built up on each app. Whether it be Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any of their smaller competitors, the time people had spent on those platforms had already built up a history for them. Thus, the social media giants weren't too worried about their apps losing relevance. Pangea had solved that issue in an ingenious way; all its users had to do was request the app move their entire history over to the new platform, regardless of where it came from.

With more and more people using that function, the app became more lively. Not to mention, much more addictive and likely to hook first-time users.

But although that made the normal users try it out, the feature's real importance was to influencers. They would have hesitated dedicating themselves to a startup—at least without being paid—but were instead moving over in droves after they realized they could migrate everything to the new platform without having to invest too much time.

Even better for them, Pangea allowed one-tap cross-posting and follower consolidation, so the influencers would no longer have to carefully craft each tweet, story, post, or anything else individually. Their followers, thanks to the cross-posting and consolidation feature, would already follow them on Pangea, if they were users. So there was no downside to the move, but plenty of benefits attracting them.

But all of those features were dwarfed by one single function that made Pangea different from any other social media app: the AI integration. AI was something that GAIA was a world leader in and they had no competitors. The AI in Pangea could be seen everywhere, and users could customize it in many different ways, making their personal experience much more fulfilling.

It allowed for things like fact checking, advanced search, and many more. The integrated AI could do it all... as long as people were subscribed to GAIA Premium. Thanks to the OS being integrated into the app, the world became nothing but one street speaking one language, and anyone could start an argument with anyone else without any nuances being lost in translation. After all, GAIA Premium included a translation algorithm that was hands down the best in the world.

With big names like pewdiepie, Cole Sprouse, Lewis Hamilton, Kim Kardashian, and others making their move to the app, their fandoms followed. And that was no small number of people.

"How many users do we have now?" Aron asked Sarah in their virtual meeting room. It was filled with holographic screens showing different data sets regarding Pangea's launch.

"With the app successfully being launched five hours ago and having faced no bugs or crashes so far, we've already reached 215 million users. And nearly half of them are still engaged. That's unprecedented, even for the current social media companies. We expect the number to continue increasing as the other side of the world wakes up, and the explosive growth should continue for more than a month before it stabilizes. Then we predict that the user base growth will slow down and be on par with other platforms' growth. But by that time, we should have about a billion registered accounts with a quarter of them expected to be daily users," she reported. She had fully prepared for the launch.

"How is the reaction, is it positive?" he asked.

"Yes. Using AI to create an atmosphere for first-time users while also using the data from their accounts to curate their personal experiences allowed us to avoid being pigeonholed into a single niche category. That would be counterproductive in the first place," Sarah replied.

Aron found himself thinking about privacy and couldn't help but smile and laugh at the situation he found himself in.

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"What's up?" Sarah asked, curious as to his reason for the sudden laughter.

"I found myself counting the number of laws I think we might've just broken in that short period of time," he said with the smile still on his face.

It caught Sarah off guard, as she didn't expect that to be something to laugh at, and the absurdity resulted in her laughing as well. "Even if it's a crime, so long as they can't prove it, it doesn't matter. Certain countries might think of banning Pangea over privacy concerns, though, which would make them believe they have leverage on us," she mused, pointing out some of the disadvantages they had to accept following the successful move of the company.

"You don't have to worry about that. I'm pretty sure it won't be the first lawsuit in the saga of United States v. GAIA Technology. Hell, they might even use the same excuse to force us to show them our source code again. That'll never happen, of course, but we can expect a few subpoenas to appear before Congress in the future," Aron answered.

"And who'll be going for those?" she asked. "Me?"

"It depends on whose name is on the subpoena. It'll most likely be you, though, due to your citizenship, but my name might also be on one. Even Zuckerberg's been called before congress a few times." Aron chuckled again, amused as he imagined himself sitting before congress being grilled by politicians who knew nothing about technology, trying to provoke him into saying something they could use against him. They might even pass a law, or just completely ban the app.

...

The buzz continued, with people in Eden being at the forefront of the new platform. They all knew that the company that had released the app was from their country, and they wanted to show their support. But it didn't stop there, as the Edenian officials also immediately created the first official governmental social media accounts on the platform. They were immediately verified and had their names displayed in gold, signifying that they were official government organization accounts.

But other than Eden, no governments had registered yet, as they were waiting to see the number of users before they made a decision on whether or not they'll create accounts on the new platform.

Pangea's massive and explosive growth continued for two weeks, reaching a billion users without any decrease in the trend showing at all. At the same time, it managed more concurrent users than any of the major social media sites.

Though it wasn't like that growth hadn't caused any problems. Facebook, Twitter, and ?nstagram were all trying to figure out how Pangea was growing so fast. Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Adam Mosseri were all flustered and had been on hours-long conference calls every day trying to figure out a way to stem the outflow of accounts from their platforms. With a billion registered users on the upstart app, and a little more than half of those being active at any given time—as reported to Aron through the ALM (Active in the Last Minute) metric of Pangea—the three social media giants were beginning to appear desolate. It was a downward spiral the three CEOs were trying their hardest to stop.

Some people were even discussing the reason why they were panicking when a few different social media sites had already been just fine existing alongside each other, but the irony was that the discussion was taking place on Pangea.

The consensus was that it was due to the app having the ability to port the data from their previous social media accounts and upload them in the new app without any compatibility issues. That meant people had no need to return to their previous social media platforms, since their followers and people they followed would automatically be consolidated on Pangea from every one of their existing social media accounts. It also had a new, cooler, and more aesthetically pleasing appearance, not to mention a better discovery algorithm that ensured the media they saw in their Panthalassa was tailored to their interests. Thus, the time people would normally spend scrolling through multiple social media platforms was now all dedicated to one: Pangea. (Ed note: Like Pangea was the name of the mega continent in the past, Panthalassa was the name of the combined ocean that surrounded it. So, like Facebook has a wall and Twitter has a feed, Pangea has the Panthalassa)

Also, ads being nonexistent was another factor, as not a single ad came from the app itself; only advertisements posted by normal people were present, resulting in the users being able to scroll through the posts without being annoyed.

At the end of the second week of the app being live, a rather... unique live broadcast was climbing to the top of the trending page. What made it unique was that it was being live-streamed by the Eden Defense Ministry. It had two hundred thousand viewers, and the number was climbing as the livestream rose through the trending topics.

Pangea users weren't the only ones watching, either. Millions of people were watching the same footage, just on different platforms. Even more millions were watching it on television. The live footage was being simulcast by multiple channels in multiple countries, much like the Olympics are broadcast every two years.

...

Edenia, the capital city of Eden.

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In the country's capital city, a newly constructed city square was completely silent. It was an odd situation, as there was an entire ARES infantry division on it.

The division was standing completely still without moving an inch in the middle of the road, arranged in rows of five abreast and columns of ten, separated by exactly three feet of space between each group. If someone were to walk past with a measuring tape, they would find it exact to the inch.

Following the last box formation was row after row of military vehicles, like tanks, armored personnel carriers, and cargo trucks carrying different military hardware was behind them. There were many of them, all parked with the same precision as the soldiers at attention, their drivers standing on the side to present themselves for inspection.

Contrasted against the still, silent soldiers and vehicles was the Edenian official parade band, formerly of the Edenian military. They were playing the Edenian national songs, like the call to colors, and many newly composed music for the military, among others. People almost wouldn't be able to believe it was being played by a military marching band, as those who knew music would discover that every single note being played by each instrument in the band was in tune. The former military band could rival the best orchestral bands in the world, like the London Symphony Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Everyone was waiting for the president of Eden to arrive to begin the ceremony.

The international guests began arriving first. Many countries had sent their ministers of foreign affairs, while others sent a member of parliament, but many developing countries had their presidents or vice presidents in attendance. The nations from the UN Security Council—America, Russia, China, France, and the UK—only sent junior diplomats, or none at all. The ones who didn't send anyone to participate in the celebration still sent letters of congratulations and some flowery apologies for being unable to attend.

Once all the guests had arrived, a motorcade pulled to a stop near the podium where the international guests were already sitting, and the waiting honor guard opened the door of the center car for the president to come out.

The moment Alexander stepped out, the citizens attending the event live went crazy, shouting their approval to the president, who turned to them and waved before being escorted to the stage that was made for him and the foreign dignitaries. When he reached them, he greeted a few before taking a seat as the military band played the last song before the program officially started.

After the music ended, there were a few moments of silence before John took to the podium and ordered, "Parade rest!" His authoritative voice was immediately followed by the sound of the soldiers' boots hitting the ground as they moved from attention to parade rest.

"Attention! Present the colors!" he ordered, and the military band began playing again. Together with the music, the sound of a few synchronized marching steps came as the Edenian color guard took the field. (Ed note: watch?v=5vHzDyrhVvc )

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Their steps were calm and neither fast nor slow as they marched toward the stage in front of them and presented the Eden flag.

"The color guard is responsible for carrying the flag," said the emcee of the event, which caused people to wonder where he was. After all, he was nowhere on the stage. "Please stand for the Edenian national anthem," he continued.

The color guard reached the stage and presented the flag, then held their positions while the band played the national anthem.

As the first notes of the song echoed out, John came to attention and ordered, "Division! Present arms!"

The entire infantry division, as well as the drivers of the vehicles and John himself, raised their right hands in the Edenian salute.

After the national anthem finished, John ordered, "Division! Order arms!"

Every participant in the parade formation lowered their arms and resumed standing at attention.

Then, the next order came. "Division! Parade rest!"

Everything was being caught by the cameras that had been placed all over the field, then sent to the different channels' broadcasting boxes. The precision impressed quite a few people around the world, and ignited the patriotism within nearly every Edenian viewer's hearts. Some of the international viewers, though, thought the country was being smug and showy before the parade had even started.

After the national anthem ended, a long and beautifully written speech was delivered by Alexander. A few of the attending citizens even cried, as the speech hit just the right notes for the citizens.

Immediately following the speech, Alexander stepped off the raised platform and into the car he had arrived in, which had been fitted with microphones on the roof as he stood the car's open sunroof.

The same thing was happening in the car behind him, but that one carried John, who was wearing his dress uniform.

The cars started and drove to the head of the parade formation, signaling the beginning of the inspection.

...

While the ceremony was in progress, Aron was on the podium alongside the dignitaries from all over the world. He was wearing a bespoke suit, which was only to be expected since it was a product of an atomic printer. Although he was calmly sitting in his chair and watching the events unfold, he still attracted attention whenever a camera panned across the dignitaries. He was obviously seen every time that happened, and, thanks to the several evolutions the man had undergone, he was almost inhumanly handsome.

Although he hadn't posted anything since being expelled from school, he still had nearly fifteen million followers across all of his, obviously verified, social media accounts. Thus, people who were interested in his company knew who he was, but many people only knew him from the pictures he had posted in the past. That said, his fans were insatiably curious about the youngest self-made billionaire in history.

Another thing that attracted people to him was that he was different from other young billionaires, who were very keen on ensuring that everyone knew they were young and rich. They would also announce that they planned to save the world—or at least make it a better place—like the CEO of Theranos, whose company was facing more and more scrutiny as a result of not having a workable device despite their claims. At the beginning of the year, they had still been valuated at $10 billion, but Aron, who was said to be worth three times or more, could be said to not exist at all in comparison. There wasn't even a single interview of his in any archives at all, and the only picture of him that had been caught after he became a billionaire was from one of his rare visits to his headquarters. He was also in the background of a few peoples' pictures from when he was touring Europe by himself. Other than those, no recent pictures of him could be found at all.

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People thought the difference between him and other young tech entrepreneurs was that he didn't need investors' money to expand his company. After all, his products didn't need any investments; he had begun earning with BugZapper and hadn't stopped his inexorable march forward.

Alas, contrary to the hopes and dreams of investors everywhere, Aron had never experienced any liquidity crisis. What they didn't know was that that would still have been true even if he had never bagged more than $10 billion in contracts from NATO in the beginning. The contracts stipulated partial payment up front, resulting in the man becoming a billionaire in a matter of minutes. And all of it was in cash, not shares or fixed assets. That initial fund had removed even the slightest possibility of the company going public due to a lack of liquid funds.

The third thing attracting attention was the beautiful woman sitting to his left and leisurely talking with him, as if they were closer than everyone else there. She had bright blond hair and light hazel eyes, which made her more mesmerizing. Her smile seemed to stun the world, and considering that she was publicly enjoying the company she was keeping, it would be completely impossible for a bystander to think that she had survived an assassination attempt just a week before. 𝘣𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝘤𝘰𝘮

The camera panned back to Alexander, who was inspecting the military forces with John's car behind him.

The inspection took exactly ten minutes before the two returned to the stage and John took to the podium once again.

During the time it had taken them to drive back to the stage, the soldiers had moved into parade rest and were waiting for the order to begin marching and officially kick off the parade.

But before the parade began, the Archangels put on a display of precision flying. The live feed switched to the camera facing the sky as the four fighter jets appeared in the distance, initially seeming like nothing more than small black dots until the camera zoomed in. Those watching from home could see the jets on their screens, while the people attending the show live had to wait for them to draw near.

Soon, the jets were visible to everyone.

The emcee wasted no time and satisfied the watchers' curiosity, saying, "The sound you're hearing, ladies and gentlemen, is the approaching fighter jets that are here to do an airshow. They're the famous Archangel squadron, piloted by the same people that shot down a combined total of forty-five enemy aircraft in our victory over the now defunct dictatorship of Esparia, who is now our friend." The announcement only increased the excitement of people watching the spectacle.

As the emcee had said, the fighters finally neared the square and began putting on a performance. They were executing maneuvers that were known as nightmares for pilots like it was a walk in the park, and doing it with flair and precision. They almost seemed robotic, and even put the famous Blue Angels squadron to shame during their more than a minute of joint maneuvers. The squadron flying was followed by a solo performance from the pilots, who each showcased something different, which almost put those watching in a trance. The final soloist even almost caused some people to have mild heart attacks, thinking that something had gone wrong; he had pulled a "Zero Knot" maneuver.

Before that, he had performed other flashy tricks that were different from the previous pilots, but before his last stunt he approached the ground in a straight, high-speed dive before pulling up and heading back to the sky in a straight line with the afterburners at full power. It was like he intended to leave the earth's atmosphere, but after gaining a bit more than five hundred meters of altitude, the afterburners disappeared and the pilot put his jet into a stall before it fell from the sky.

People thought the aircraft had malfunctioned mid-show and were worried they would be witness to a tragedy at the beginning of a celebration. Some of them even closed their eyes, but soon opened them back up. The pilot, upon reaching the two hundred meter mark, reignited the jet's engines and pushed the throttle to the stops. Thankfully, it didn't reach supersonic speeds—as that would have taken a few eardrums with it—but it gave people an idea of what the parade would be like.

With that exciting end to the air show, John gave the series of orders that would begin the parade and the soldiers moved out. The infantry marched in lockstep, as though they had one mind in many bodies. Following them were the vehicles, both wheeled and tracked, lined up row after row like there were invisible rulers between them.

Chapter 257 Efficient Chaos

A week before the celebration.

[Miss, they've arrived to pick you up,] Ava informed Rina. The escort from Aron had arrived outside her mansion after going through all the security checks and inspections. They were there to bring her to the airport, then onward to Eden.

"Sure, let's go," she said and immediately stood from her office chair. She would be taking nothing with her except her phone and the glasses she was wearing. She wasn't even packing changes of clothes.

Coming out of her office, she found her secretary and the guard who had taken over for Terry already waiting for her; they would be going with her. "Let's get going," she said and walked past them. They nodded and started walking behind her.

"Miss, do you think it'll be fine to go with those people without any of our guards?" asked Alex, Rina's head of security.

"You don't have to worry about that, we'll be perfectly safe with them. Plus, I don't think a single private jet can accommodate all of them, and your people, too," Rina said. She knew she would be safer with ARES than with anyone else.

"Good evening," greeted a female driver who was responsible for driving the car that Rina would be taking with her secretary.

Rina returned the greeting and smiled at her as she boarded the car with Alex and her secretary before the doors were closed behind them.

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"Very comfortable," she said, finding herself sinking into the seat and feeling like she was being massaged.

Wasting no time, the convoy left the mansion. Rina and her secretary were in the middle car, with two cars ahead and behind her. All of them drove professionally as they left the Rothschild's compound; it took more than ten minutes of driving before they reached the gate to leave the compound and passed the security checkpoint.

A new burner phone rang with a text at the same time the convoy left the compound. And with that text, certain gears were set into motion.

Ava attempted to pinpoint where the text was going, but failed. The only thing she knew was that the phone that had received the text was in the same state as them; it had been destroyed before she could find its exact location.

Despite failing, she still informed Rina about the message and that it might be about her, as no one in the compound that she had been monitoring fit the message. They were all still comfortably sitting at home, while Rina was the one who had left.

Rina, who believed she was perfectly safe in the hands of Aron's guards, just asked Ava to continue keeping an eye on the situation.

...

As the convoy headed down the road carrying its load of VVIPs, the cars all slowed down in unison, then turned right, catching Rina, Chloe, and Alex equally off guard. They knew the route they should be taking, and this wasn't it.

"Why'd we make an unplanned turn?" asked Alex, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car.

The female driver said nothing and just pointed at the tablet set into the dashboard. The moment Alex laid his eyes on the tablet, the screen changed into a 3D map of the surrounding area. To his surprise, it wasn't a Google or Apple app, but data that had been collected and was being rendered in real-time by the cars themselves. Alas, his surprise was soon overshadowed when the screen moved to about a kilometer in the direction of their planned route, and he saw a car with people inside it packing weapons no different from terrorists. They even had RPGs to the baggage place of the car!

"Looks like that message was really about me, after all," Rina said when she saw the display through the augmented reality lenses of her glasses.

"Turn around! We need to inform the family security about this so they can reach us in time," Alex said and immediately keyed his satellite radio to inform the family. Normally, it could reach the base station no matter the distance, but no matter how he tried, he received no response.

"They were prepared for you and jammed the radio," the driver told him after he had been trying to contact the security base for a while. She had let him try it first, not wanting to waste her energy on explaining things like she would have if she had stopped him before he made the attempt.

"Did they only jam our frequency?" he asked as the convoy made another turn to avoid another car that was similarly armed.

"Yes. It looks like this is being done by someone who knows your system inside and out," she answered, hinting at who the culprit might be.

While all of that was happening, the only ones panicking were Chloe and Alex, who was worried about Rina's safety. But while those two were afraid, the people with them were calm.

The convoy continued avoiding contact with ambushers until they were on the only road leading to the airport. It was a long, straight road with no intersections, meaning they couldn't take any more turns to avoid the cars that were chasing after them.

The chasers thought that they had finally cornered them and could deal with them, but alas, it was all planned by the ARES security detail. The moment the road they were on reached a sufficiently unpopulated area, three of the five cars in the convoy changed to the right lane: the one Rina was in and the two directly in front and behind her. As for the other two, they remained in the left lane and slowed down. They were left behind by the speeding, but still stable, cars that continued their journey.

Although they were now separated, everything happening behind them was displayed on the tablet set into the dashboard of the car.

…..

Inside the remaining cars.

"We have five minutes to deal with them and clean up before this turns into a shitshow," said the team leader as he pulled down the back seat and removed one of the assault rifles stored in the hidden compartment. It looked like an AR-15, but the looks were all it had in common with that rifle. Everything else was different; in fact, it was a Gauss rifle. The other soldiers also picked up their weapons and linked them to the sunglasses they were wearing, then powered them up.

Once everyone was armed, the drivers slammed on the brakes, and the cars skidded for a bit before fully stopping. The doors sprang open, and the soldiers dismounted the car with guns raised.

"Who the fuck are—" the lead chase car's driver began, but was interrupted by the sound of a blown tire as a Gauss round hit it from nearly a kilometer away.

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The ARES members didn't stop firing, either. Even though the front car was spinning out of control due to having its tire taken out while the car was moving at full speed, their aim didn't falter, and they disabled the following cars as well. Then they sent a microexplosive round down range, triggering the rocket-propelled grenades to explode as the drivers were frantically occupied with attempting to avoid colliding with each other.

"Holy shit," Alex said as he watched the massacre taking place behind them. He was experiencing a few complicated emotions as he realized that they really were safer with these strangers than the family guard, just based on the tech in this car alone! That in itself would be a game changer for any security detail, but the efficiency with which the massacre was being executed was also incredibly impressive. The ARES detail said little to nothing at all; the soldiers had seemingly trained to the point they could act as one body and one mind.

Though some of the cars had managed to avoid destruction and a few armed people came out of them to try their luck with scattered return fire, mere survival was the most their luck could bring them.

Alas, their deaths could be chalked up to 'natural causes'. After all, anyone will naturally die if their head explodes.

All ten of the attackers' cars were soon taken out, with the people in them dying in different ways. It would surely present the FBI investigator with plenty of nightmares in the future, but the local police could count themselves lucky that a fight like this one was something the police wouldn't be trusted to handle.

The soldiers immediately boarded their cars again and headed to the pile of wreckage to do some 'cleaning'. They burned a few things, tore apart a few more things, and generally just contaminated the scene even further to make the investigation as complex as possible. Then they loaded back into their cars, put their gauss rifles back into their hidden compartments, and left in the opposite direction of Rina and the rest of the convoy.

"Where are they going?" asked Rina, who seemed calm, but was internally angry. She had seen worse.

[To find and capture the one behind the attack,] Ava said. She brought up the evidence she had collected and her interpretation of it. The most damning piece of evidence was the communication records from the cell towers, showing where the person the attackers were communicating with was. ARES also had that information, and the rearguard team had been directed to capture him or her.

Alex, hearing that, knew that the Rothschild security force was nowhere near that level of efficiency. ARES seemed to have handled the attack while simultaneously figuring out who was pulling the strings. Then, they had disrupted the evidence and even began another operation to apprehend the mastermind and interrogate them on who was ultimately responsible for attacking them in such a heavily armed manner.𝚋𝚎ｄ𝚗ｏｖ𝚎𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖

Chapter 258 A Magitech Flying Fortress

"Wow..." Rina had finally managed to calm down over the remainder of the car ride, but was flabbergasted when she saw the plane that was waiting for her. A 'super jumbo' A380 was waiting for her in the private jet terminal at LaGuardia Airport, since there were no private airports in New York that could handle a jet of that size.

"When and where did he even buy it?" she asked in surprise, as she knew that it took some time for a custom plane to arrive.

[He bought it from Transaero Airlines, a Russian company. They were having some financial difficulties and were forced to sell some of their Airbus A380s. He got two of them,] Ava answered after requesting the information from Nova, who allowed access to it as it wasn't a huge secret. The news just wasn't publicized, like most things about Aron.

As Rina was talking to Ava, a ramp lowered at the end of the jet, revealing its massive cargo hold. The cars the group had driven to the airport made their way up into the hold and the ramp lifted, sealing the entrance.

"I don't think a commercial airplane has cargo ramps like that, do they?" she asked, pretty sure that the planes Aron had bought were certainly modified after the purchase. But the timeline still didn't add up; whether they were special orders or modified post-purchase, the jet would still require several months to be completed.

[They were sent to Avalon Island for modifications.]

Hearing that, Rina knew the plane in front of her wasn't one that Aron had bought from the Russian company at all. His purchase might just be a smokescreen, so people wouldn't be asking where he had acquired the plane.

"He's finally acting like a rich person," she said with a smile as she realized that Aron had bought two planes with a price tag of more than $100 million each, just so he could build similar-looking jets and people wouldn't ask where the hell he found them.

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And she was right; the planes that landed at Avalon Island were nowhere to be found. They had immediately been sent to the atomic printer for scanning and decomposition into their component atoms before a new plane with advanced tech replaced them. From the outside, the only apparent modification was the paint job—Aron's jets had gold stripes with the initials ARN on the tails of the massive planes.

The plane Rina was boarding could go head-to-head with fighter jets and survive while maintaining its operational capability. It could also fly for basically forever, as it was powered by a miniaturized fusion reactor that provided more electricity than it would ever require. The excess electricity was run through runes that converted it into mana, which was fed into the engines to generate enough thrust to outrun anything it didn't want to fight. The key word there is 'didn't want to', not 'couldn't', as there was nothing on Earth that could threaten the powerful hybrid Magitech jetliner. Aron had even further reinforced it by engraving a massive shield rune that covered the entire superjumbo jet, turning the whole thing into an impregnable flying fortress.

"Please." The driver of Rina's car gestured for her to board the plane so they could begin their journey.

As Rina walked up the stairs to the plane, she asked, "Aren't we going to wait for the rest of you?"

"No, their stay's been extended so they can investigate who was behind the attack. They'll join us in Eden later," the woman respectfully answered.

"Oh, that's good then."

Although the exterior of the plane had impressed the Rothschild daughter, the inside was even more impressive. Despite being luxurious, there was no sense of tasteless nouveau riche extravagance in it. Instead, the decor had a certain dignity and gravitas to it. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝐧𝗼𝐯𝐞𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

After onboarding everyone who was going to Eden, the plane taxied to the runway, having paid a premium to jump the line and take off after just a short wait, causing the commercial flights to have a slight delay in taking off.

...

"Where am I?" Terry asked as he opened his eyes and found himself bound to a chair. Another person was similarly bound in front of him, but his vision was blurry, and he couldn't tell who it was with certainty. All he could tell was that their head was bowed, as if they'd fallen asleep sitting up.

But although he couldn't see their face, he had a hunch as to who they were; their wavy hair reminded him of his girlfriend.

The moment he thought about her, he finally remembered everything that had happened.

He had been watching as the mission went tits up. Things had started out well; they had successfully bribed an inside man and placed ambushes on every route leading away from the Rothschild compound that Rina could have taken to go anywhere. But somehow, their target had anticipated the ambushes and neatly avoided them, then turned around to fight once the situation had turned in their favor. So one of two possibilities was true: either they knew where the ambushers were, or they were lucky.

And after having seen how easily their target had mowed down the hired mercenaries that lay in ambush, Terry didn't think luck had anything to do with it. He had spent $20 million for nothing!

He would even have suspected that they had been betrayed, except he'd taken precautions against that. Every group of ambushers was hired from a different mercenary company, and none of them—not a single one—was privy to the whole plan. They all had different instructions and were multiple independent parts of a whole that didn't know each other at all, so betrayal was an impossibility among impossibilities!

Although he was shocked by the skill displayed by that bitch's guard detail, he hadn't been afraid. The video stream he was watching from the comfort of his command post had been routed through so many VPN servers that there was even a two-second delay before the video even arrived.

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The two of them had thought themselves perfectly safe, as they had faith in the security of their command post (which was just a fancy way of saying "Katrina's basement"). Nothing should have happened to them due to the paranoid fixer's security surrounding her house in a two-kilometer radius, which should detect any intruders with plenty of time for them to escape through a tunnel.

"Looks like our security was useless," he said when his memory reached the point where he had been knocked unconscious by an unseen attacker. His overconfidence in Katrina's security measures had resulted in them being caught so off guard that he hadn't even realized they'd failed until he woke up tied to a chair.

"How're you doing?" Footsteps clicked against the floor from behind him, then he saw a man come into focus in front of him. It was someone he would never have expected to see in a thousand years.

"You seem to have failed your mission," said a man who looked no different from Arieh Rothschild.

'Oh shit, my fear came true,' he thought as he eyed Katrina, who was in front of him. She had assured him that no such thing would ever happen.

"What excuse do you have to give me?" asked Arieh as he took a seat in a chair.

'I'm pretty sure that there wasn't another chair in the room, or maybe I was just so focused on how we got here that I didn't pay much attention to where "here" actually was. Yeah, that has to be it... There's no way he could've just materialized a chair out of thin air, right?' Terry thought as his brain went into overdrive, trying to come up with explanations for the weirdness that had happened during the mission. He was sure that if he said everything exactly as it had happened, Arieh wouldn't believe him. Hell, he wouldn't have believed it himself if he hadn't seen it live with his own eyes.

'Yeah, that's right! I have the footage, so I can use it as an explanation... but for that to work, I need him to not have destroyed anything in the command post when he was capturing us. How the hell did he even reach us without us knowing, though, anyway?'

Question after question appeared in Terry's mind, as the more he answered, the more surfaced.

Chapter 259 Mind Games

Terry paused for a moment, thinking of how he could explain what had happened, then said, "Sir, although I can explain, it'll be difficult to believe. So it's better if I show you what happened, instead. Can you bring my computer from the house? There's a video of the entire event." He was trying to avoid explaining at all.

"No need to wait—I brought them all with you," Arieh answered, then took out his phone and called someone to bring the computers that had been taken from the house.

During the wait, Terry asked, "By the way, why isn't she waking up?" He tilted his head toward Katrina, whose head was still hanging down.

"Ah. She'll be asleep for a while, as the dosage of our tranquilizer was the same for her as it was for you. So it'll take her longer to come out of it. Don't worry, she'll wake up in a few hours... but that'll be the least of your problems if you don't give me a reasonable explanation for your failure." As Arieh was speaking, the door opened, and a man brought in a thick laptop. Terry immediately recognized it as his.

"Tell me the password," Arieh said after he received the laptop and turned it on.

"Why don't you untie me first? It's very complicated, and I memorized it by rote muscle memory and not my mind," Terry said, struggling against his bindings.

"So you can try pulling the same shit on me that you pulled on Rina? I'm not an idiot, like that bitch. Just tell me the fucking password," Arieh coldly said. He was almost like a completely different person, judging from his tone.

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Terry immediately told him the password, as he knew that if he played any more games, his punishment would only be heavier.

Arieh successfully entered the password on his second attempt and immediately navigated to the location the video files were stored in at Terry's direction. He played the videos and audio recordings, silently watching and listening to everything that had happened; it took him more than half an hour to comb through all of them.

"It seems your failure really wasn't your fault. Those bodyguards were just better than the thugs you hired," Arieh said, prompting a sigh of relief from Terry, who thought they were in the clear.

But that feeling of safety was thrown out of the window when Arieh continued, "But you still spent more than fifty million of my own slush fund for your failure. I need a result that can justify the loss of so much money... what do you have in mind to soothe the pain of my loss?"

Arieh didn't care that everything that happened during the assault could be considered an act of god or force majeure, and couldn't accept the loss of so much money... or at least that was what Terry thought as he said, "Although it wasn't our fault, we still should've been prepared for something like that. I hope you can give us another chance, as the survivors of our first attempt are still waiting for further orders. Since they've already been paid, they can't turn me down, and we can come up with a better plan for when she returns." He hoped his plea would be accepted, because he knew that if it wasn't, they would be in for a good old torture session. ｂｅ𝚍ｎｏｖｅ𝚕．ｃｏｍ

"No need for that," Arieh said, then paused, causing Terry to almost have a heart attack before the Rothschild heir continued, "But there's indeed a way. I want you and her to personally lead an operation. If you succeed, I'll consider your debt paid."

Terry could only helplessly reply, "I'll definitely accomplish the mission."

"When she wakes up, someone will be here to brief you on the mission," Arieh said, then stood up and left the room, closing the door behind him. The two people left inside were still tied to chairs.

'We survived,' Terry thought. That hadn't been assured, since they had been captured. And although he could have fought back and threatened Arieh with the evidence they had set aside for just that occurrence, that would be considered something of a nuclear option that would only guarantee his destruction while not having much hope of harming Arieh.

A few minutes passed with nothing happening in the room, then Katrina shook her head. She had started waking up from the tranquilizer gas Arieh had used on them.

"Are you alright?" Terry asked as she raised her head with a groan. It sounded like she had received a thorough beating.

"Where are we?" she asked when she completely came to and realized they were bound in a room she didn't recognize.

"I don't know. All I can say is that we're in one of Arieh's black sites. He's the one that captured us…." Terry detailed everything that had happened while she was sleeping.

"Shit," she said when he finished his summary of the events, as she knew that they were only alive because Arieh wanted them to do another job. His investment in them hadn't gone well so far. "But we can make it like our failure never happened if we accomplish the new mission," she continued, trying to calm herself. She knew that, since the moment they had been captured, there were very few things they could do to help themselves. As they had been taken from inside her so-called 'secure' basement without them even realizing that they were being attacked, things were looking grim for them.

Their capture meant they had never been safe and had always been watched, which didn't make her feel very good at all. But despite that, she tried to hide her displeasure, as she was sure they were being watched. "Did he tell us what he wants us to do for him?" she asked.

"Not yet. I think he was waiting for you to wake up so he could tell us both," Terry answered as he eyed the girl with love in his eyes.

Seeing that, Katrina felt frustrated. She didn't know whether to feel happy or upset for her man to be watching her with those eyes. Plus, their relationship would be used against them, so she tried to warn him with her eyes. Terry caught the glance and understood her warning, so he tried to change the way he was looking at her. But he knew it might have already been too late, and they had just handed Arieh more leverage to use against them.

As if what he already had wasn't enough.

Chapter 260 Wicked Plans

Rina had been watching the conversation between the fake Arieh and Terry, who had no idea that the Arieh he was talking to was a fake.

She wasn't angry at her brother's attempt to kill her at all, but disappointed instead. She would have been angry if he had succeeded in killing someone close to her—something that would've happened if she were under the protection of her own security team at the time the attempted assassination had taken place. But now that she'd survived it and had solid evidence in hand, she was... oddly happy. With the evidence she had, the competition between the Rothschild family's potential heirs would officially be in the bag. Her brother had broken one of the family's strictest rules: never attempt to take a relative's life, especially one of the direct descendants. Competition, within strict limits, would grow the family, but killing a relative—even if said relative was the most useless waste of space ever—would be harmful to the family at large. It was doubly important that all direct descendants survive, as any deaths would reduce the number of direct descendants from which future generations' family heads would be chosen.

The punishment for attempting such a thing was being removed from the competition and having five generations of the perpetrator's descendants banned from competing for the position of family head. And even if the other direct descendants didn't reproduce, the position would still go to a branch family member until the five-generation ban was over, at which point the opportunity would return to the punished bloodline.

But for that punishment to be implemented required a substantial amount of solid evidence, since, if arbitrarily imposed, it would incentivize people to accuse competitors of failed assassination attempts in order to remove them from the competition. Alas, as if God wanted it to happen, Terry had just so happened to attack at the very worst—or best, depending on who was asked—time. During the attack, she had been under the direct protection of the last people anyone would want investigating them, as nothing could be hidden from ARES.

Absolutely nothing.

And even if they didn't want to investigate, Rina had since worked out a deal with Aron. The ex-bodyguard was to be handed over to be used by him in return for evidence that proved her brother's involvement in the attempt on her life. 𝒃𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜

"It really worked," Rina said in surprise.

"Told you so." Aron smirked. If all went according to plan, Terry would be spending a long time in prison and she wouldn't have a chance to personally exact her revenge on him. Thus, he had asked her permission before going with his initial plan, as he could always come up with another alternative.

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"With this tech, you can make anyone think they're meeting with anyone else! And as long as you act like the person they think they're meeting, it's no different from having a polymorph spell in real life..."

"Though we can easily do that, I'm planning to limit who and under what conditions it can be used. After all, if everyone can do it, there's no telling what chaos would ensue," Aron said in a display of self awareness. The mimicry tech would definitely have to be an exclusive feature.

Exclusive to him, that is.

"But why do you want them to attack DARPA? I'm sure that if the FBI realizes you're trying to get it back by force, they'll move it to one of their black sites. Or even Area 51, and that would make it... impossi..." She stopped talking and her voice trailed off as something like an explosion hit her thoughts when she realized she had accidentally glimpsed Aron's plan.

Aron said nothing, just smiled. "The more secret the base they send it to, the better. I hope they send it to one of the joint bases they hold in cooperation with other militaries, as that'll give me exactly what I need," he said. From the very beginning, his aim had been to have the device in one of the military bases so he could gain a connection to the Department of Defense's classified, secure network.

"Why? If you wanted to hack it, I'm sure it would be easy for you, right?" Rina asked.

"The hack was already done last year, but the data transfer is where we're stuck at. The military has its own air-gapped network, meaning that nothing from that network is connected to the rest of the internet. And that means…." He didn't need to finish his sentence, as he knew she was smart enough to get his point.

And he was right, as she immediately remembered the ability of his quantum computers to instantly transfer data, no matter the file size. The moment one was connected to the military network, the US Military's restricted database would be like his own personal playground. At least, as long as he wasn't discovered, but that would be quite a stretch. Although he hadn't received any communications from the trojan planted in the military network when they had seized BugZapper, he was sure that it was smart enough to hide itself for an extended period of time. That was one of the reasons it was so scary.

"Fuck," Rina softly said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She was beyond impressed by the long-term planning Aron had been doing. 'Looks like I'm not going back anytime soon,' she thought, and she had a very convincing reason as to why she shouldn't: she needed to make her brother think she was either dead or afraid of another attack happening when she returned from Eden after surviving his first attempt.

The two continued chatting for a little while longer before Aron bid her farewell and left, as he had another meeting with other people.

...

Arieh was pacing back and forth in his office, nervously waiting for a phone call that never came. The delay was making him more and more nervous.

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Amidst his back and forth pacing, his secretary burst into the room and, without saying anything, ran to the tv and switched it to a certain channel before Arieh could even reprimand her for entering without knocking.

Just as he was about to vent his frustration on her, he focused his eyes on the tv and the words were stuck in his throat. The news was broadcasting a breaking story. Although it was from CNN, which was a channel known for saying that everything was breaking news, this story was one of the few that definitely deserved that designation.

"…rlier today, on the road leading to LaGuardia Airport, what initially appeared to be a devastating accident is now being investigated as a possible terrorist attack, sending shockwaves through the city."

The camera cut to a shot of the road ARES and Arieh's people had fought on, which was now blocked by emergency vehicles.

"More than ten vehicles were destroyed in a catastrophic series of events. Some were heavily damaged by what appears to be high-caliber weaponry, while others were consumed by raging fires caused by the fuel in the affected cars. However, the most disturbing aspect of the incident is the mysterious projectiles that seem to have claimed the lives of most of those in the vehicles."

The faithful camera panned over to display the charred wreckage left by the fighting.

"The projectiles, which have yet to be located, left no traces behind, as if someone meticulously cleaned the scene. That's raised suspicions that foul play was involved. Local authorities and federal agencies are working in collaboration to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible."

The station cut to B roll footage of the FBI standing next to a couple of police officers and speaking to each other about something.

"The FBI has been called in to assist the NYPD anti-terrorist division in their investigation. Special agents are currently combing through the wreckage for any evidence that may shed light on this perplexing case..."

The news broadcast on Arieh's tv cut to a man in a suit behind a podium.

"A spokesperson for the local police department made a brief statement, saying, 'We're treating this incident with the utmost seriousness, given the unusual circumstances surrounding it. Our top priority is to bring those responsible to justice and provide closure to the affected families.'"

The broadcast cut to another slow pan across the emergency vehicles blocking the LaGuardia access road.

"As the investigation unfolds, the shocking incident has left the city on edge, and many residents demanding answers. The motive behind the attack, if indeed it was planned, remains unknown at this time. We'll continue providing updates on this developing story as more information becomes available."

...

"Finally, that bitch is dead!" Arieh jumped in celebration and hugged Charlotte, who didn't even attempt to block his advance at all as he continued jumping up and down.

Although nothing had been confirmed, the number of casualties, combined with one of the wrecks looking like the car she had left in, made him sure the bitch had finally died.

"And now we wait. If the family doesn't receive any news from her, they'll start investigating the incident and testing the bodies from the wreckage to see if there's someone with her DNA. Then I'll be the official heir for the second, and last, time, since I'm sure they won't find anything connecting the attack to me," he said, his secretary still in his embrace.

"But why didn't Terry contact us, sir?" Charlotte asked.

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Arieh unwrapped his arms from around her and said, "I don't know, but there's two possibilities I can think of. Either he died and his corpse is among those people there, or something's keeping him from contacting us. So there's a slim chance that she's still alive." 𝒷ℯ𝓭𝓷ℴ𝓋𝓮𝓵.𝒸ℴ𝓶

Just as he was saying that, he received a phone call on his burner phone. Today, he was holding it himself instead of leaving it with Charlotte. He immediately picked up the call and said nothing, waiting for the other side to start speaking.

"Sir, everything went according to plan," said a voice that sounded no different from Terry's.

"Why'd you call so late?" Arieh asked.

"We were inside the range of our jammer, and had to make sure we removed all of our traces from the scene. That way nothing will lead to us, as she put up quite a fight. Well, not her, personally, but the guards she hired for her excursion. I guess she didn't trust her own security team and suspected spies," Terry explained.

"Good. Stay hidden for a few months, and when I take over the family, I'll give both of you a handsome reward. For now, just take the remaining money in the account I gave you along with my appreciation," Arieh said, and after receiving the thanks from Terry, he ended the call. He tossed the burner phone across the room and began undressing his secretary, as he wanted to celebrate in a different way with someone he trusted with his many secrets; someone he could always show his true self to.

...

A massive plane was on its final approach to Avalon Island, which was still covered by clouds. Construction was still ongoing on the island, specifically the new server farms that Nova had been building.

Rina was watching the clouds through the windows, as nothing under them could be seen, making people assume there was no power on the island.

"Oh my god," Rina, her secretary, and Alex muttered in unison when the plane sank through the thick clouds and appeared under them, revealing the island in plain sight. Everything was the complete opposite of what they'd had in mind, which was a mildly developed, but still under construction island.

From the sky, things would always appear small, but there was a massive building that was big despite the distance. Its surroundings were brightly lit, and that wasn't all; the island had many different locations that were equally brightly lit, with high-speed maglev trains passing from one location to another acting as the connection between them.

There was no hint of any construction at all, as everything looked like it had been completed and in use for a very long time.

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As the plane approached the runway, the real scale of that building became apparent. A nearly ten-kilometer-long wall was just one side of it, and the height also absolutely dwarfed the plane!

The landing was as smooth as a landing could be, and they didn't even realize they had landed until the jet came to a complete stop.

Rina's driver came to her seat and escorted her to the door, then gestured for them to exit the plane, where they were met with the same cars that had escorted them in America.

The airport was... odd. Other than a second jumbo jet, there were no civilian planes. But as for military aircraft, that was a different topic. Helicopters and fighter/bombers of varying designs were everywhere, and despite it being nighttime, soldiers were busily swarming over everything on the tarmac. Some were cleaning and others were doing other maintenance, as Aron had decided to reduce the use of atomic printers for things that could be done by the soldiers. Otherwise, they'd have nothing to do, and bored soldiers were exactly what nobody would ever want. (Ed note: see the kind of shenanigans bored soldiers get up to here: watch?v=Pme1sPcwJP8 )

The visitors were soon escorted to their car and immediately left the airport. There was no need for security checks, or even passport verification, which just went to show the level of power Aron had over the country.

Their car was headed to the massive building they had seen at a fairly high speed, but it was outpaced by the maglev trains coming and going as the visitors marveled at the high-tech city.

When they arrived at the massive building, they finally saw what those trains were bringing and taking away; thousands upon thousands of soldiers were coming out of the building and heading to the trains, while thousands more were stepping off the train cars and heading to the building. Those coming out were more disciplined than those going in, which hinted at what might be happening in the building.

The group entered the building through a different entrance than the coming and going soldiers and headed toward a massive elevator that was already waiting for them. The elevator took them to the top floor, where they got off and were escorted to a luxurious office suite. Inside, they found Aron waiting for them with a smile as he said, "Welcome."

He stretched out his hand and shook Rina's, as this was only their third face-to-face meeting in the offline world and the second to happen in Eden.

?

After Rina's secretary and Alex were escorted to the waiting room, Rina was left with Aron. They still had a few things to discuss, as they had postponed some of their conversation for when she arrived and they could speak face to face.

"So... Are you sure you don't want therapy or something?" Aron asked to start the conversation. It was definitely an interesting beginning.

"Not really. I was more angry than afraid, so the fear wasn't really my main focus. And because my safety was assured, I got over it during the flight and can say with assurance that, no, I don't need one," she answered after a brief moment of contemplation to ensure her answer was sincere. "By the way, is there a maximum time that I can stay here after the celebration?" She knew she was in one of the most secret and sensitive places on the planet, but she needed time to decide her next course of action.

"There's no time limit. How long do you plan to stay?" he asked out of curiosity and expectation, something he hadn't really felt for a long time.

"At least a month, as I need to give my brother the illusion that I'm still looking for the culprit and afraid to return home until my survival's guaranteed," Rina answered.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you want," he said with a genuine smile. He had no idea how handsome he was and missed the mild blush that appeared on Rina's cheeks.

"Let me give you a tour of your new temporary home," he continued and stood up from his chair, then walked to the door at a slow pace

Rina easily caught up and walked with him side by side as he showed her the house.

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Throughout all of that, Nova was enjoying the show and laughing at Aron and Rina, who were beating around the bush and not talking about what was on their minds.

...

Over the next week, the two spent plenty of time together. Aron even introduced her to his parents, who had joined the young pair.

During the week, his parents seemed to have taken quite a liking to her and asked her tons of questions, like a mother-in-law interviewing a prospective bride. It tickled Rina's thin skin, her having never been treated like that before, and she was constantly flushing red. She was embarrassed by the enthusiasm shown by Aron's parents, and nothing had even happened between the two youngsters yet! 𝚋ｅｄ𝚗𝚘𝚟ｅ𝚕．𝚗ｅｔ

Still, she hadn't offended anyone at all; in fact, she even tried her best to get on their good side, as she could see on their faces that they didn't have any hidden agendas. It was completely different from her family, where people were constantly plotting against each other every day. Trusting a fellow Rothschild—especially a sibling—was a huge struggle and risk, because backstabbing and betrayal was the only constant in that den of villains and thieves. Any display of vulnerability or weakness, like showing trust or true friendship, would only ensure that one would be viciously attacked.

The only way anyone in the Rothschild family would trust each other is if they each held the other's weaknesses firmly in their grasp. A good example would be Hebel and the other board members' "cuck club." The five-person group had formed something of a bond after finding out that their wives actually all shared a lover or, in real terms, bull, though at different times. So they decided to turn it into their own exclusive club and soon started having cuckold orgies together, indulging in their fantasies. They were sure the others wouldn't say a word despite their greed, since they, too, would go down with them.

But Rina saw nothing of that greed in Aron's family, which made her a bit envious. He always seemed to have the best things, sure, but her jealousy stemmed not from wanting to take his place. Instead, she wanted to join his life and enjoy it together with him. He had been nothing but a lifesaver since he'd entered her life, swooping in when she was at her lowest point and was about to give up. Aron had saved her from the husband that she'd been thrown to by her brother, who wanted her out of the competition. It was an especially vicious move, since no Rothschild would want to be led by someone that carried the Morgan family's blood in them, so her line would be permanently disqualified from ever holding a position of power in the family. It would make her even weaker than a branch family, as at least they could sit on the board!

Due to not wanting that, she'd even gone so far as refusing to consummate that joke of a marriage, which had easily been accomplished by just threatening to report the pathetically weak Rottem to the Rothschild family head for abuse. She was sure the old man would do nothing without evidence, but her so-called husband didn't know that, and, in his fear of the possible repercussions, he stopped trying to force himself on her and started getting his validation as a man outside of the marriage. That was exactly what Rina wanted, but she always ended up failing to catch him in the act, due to her brother's intervention... until Aron had intervened and come to her for help, bringing with him ironclad evidence of Rottem's extramarital activities.

She hoped the week would last longer, but alas, time is a bitch and continues on regardless of anyone's begging, wailing, or praying.

...

Present day.

Arieh, who had been quite happy during the last week, was about to get the shock of his life from his secretary, who had just barged into his room with a tablet in hand. He was much too happy, to the point that he couldn't even bring himself to get angry at her, so he just patiently waited for her to say whatever she had barged in for.

Charlotte said nothing, just handed him her tablet. The Pangea app was already open and displaying a live stream from the Department of Defense of Eden showing soldiers marching in quite an advanced parade.

Just as he was about to raise his head and ask what there was for him to see in a third-world country's military, who seemed to have spent most of their time training to march instead of fight, the scene changed. It now showed the president of Eden, Alexander, but that wasn't what attracted his attention—rather, it was the woman sitting just two spots away from him as they watched the parade.

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CRACK!

The tablet fell to the floor and the screen spiderwebbed. Arieh felt like he was having a mild heart attack at that moment; all of the happiness he had been accumulating over the past week had completely disappeared without warning.

He picked the tablet back up and rewound the footage to a few seconds earlier, where Rina was looking quite happy, completely unlike the dead person he wanted her to be.

He wasted no time and took his phone out of his pocket. In his panic, he didn't realize he was using his normal phone to call Terry's number, trying to get clarification on whether he was hallucinating or not.

The moment the call was answered, his calm demeanor completely vanished and he screamed, "IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, LAST WEEK YOU SAID YOU WERE QUITE SURE THAT YOU KILLED THAT BITCH. SO WHY THE FUCK AM I WATCHING HER ON A LIVE VIDEO OF HER WATCHING A PARADE FROM A FUCKING THIRD-WORLD SHITHOLE INSTEAD OF READING HER DEATH CERTIFICATE LIKE YOU PROMISED ME?"

When he finished shouting, he waited for an answer. But none came, and the longer he waited, the more his anger rose. Then, adding insult to injury, the call was cut off from Terry's end.

BANG!

The phone in Arieh's hand completely shattered and twisted, sending shards of glass into his palm, creating a modern art piece with the artist being the top-of-the-line cellphone.

Blood dripped from his clenched fist, splattering to the floor beneath him.

"Looks like we found our beneficiary," Aubrey said as he and his son watched the parade on a tablet given to them by his assistant. It was the same one responsible for leading the investigation on who benefited the most from their loss in Esparia.

The image was the same as the one that had enraged Arieh, showing Aron and Rina conversing and smiling in happiness. It seemed like they really enjoyed each other's company.

"Who's that?" George asked the assistant.

"Aron Michael, the sole owner of GAIA Technology and Connect," the assistant answered.

"What connection is there between an up-and-coming billionaire and the Rothchilds?" Aubrey asked. He knew that company, thanks to the Morgans being involved in forcefully acquiring the technology from them in order to benefit from it. That said, even up until now, they had gained nothing substantial for their efforts. "Is it so he could take revenge on us for stealing his technology using the government?" he continued. He was quite curious as to what had brought the groups of people together, to the point of even causing Rina to return to Eden. 𝚋𝚎ｄｎｏｖ𝚎𝚕．𝚌ｏｍ

"The closest connection we can see between them is the relationship between Aron and Rottem, who used to be his professor. Aron was a student that was expelled by Rottem for falling asleep in one of his presentations. Shortly after that, he developed BugZapper, and we assume he used it to collect dirt on the professor before releasing the program. Through that, he must've found her and handed her the evidence that led to Rottem's divorce. Shortly after that, Rottem's dirty laundry was aired before to the whole school, resulting in losing his tenure and professorship," the secretary recited, seemingly from memory.

"Any evidence backing that claim?" Aubrey asked. It sounded like that report was also relying on the same guesswork the previous one had, and that was simply too much speculation.

"Though there isn't a direct link to him hacking the university, after going through the financial reports we received from Microsoft, Facebook, and Google with the program in mind, we found that they paid Mr. Michael nearly two hundred million each before he took BugZapper public. That means he must've used it to find the weaknesses of those companies. And if he did that, doesn't it also make sense for him to be the one that found the evidence of Rottem's corruption?" That was how the assistant had reached a conclusion from gluing together bits of speculation with a few pieces of minor evidence.

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"But that in itself shouldn't be enough to warrant her going to Eden just to watch a parade with him. All of her gratitude can just be repaid with money, or even a favor or two from her. I'm pretty sure she interfered with the government's attempt to stop his company from moving to Eden, and maybe she was even the one behind the deal between NATO and GAIA," George said, figuring that there should be something else. But the mistake he made was that he thought of how he would do things and didn't consider what Rina was feeling.

"We suspect he's the owner of the PMC we faced in Eden, and that it's funded by the Rothschilds. At least in part, or maybe it's funded by Rina herself and she just has him watching over it for her. That would mean the dog and pony show they're putting on today is nothing more than an excuse for her to inspect the troops. At the same time, she's also announcing to the world that she, or the Rothschilds, have one of the world's most powerful PMCs under their control," said the assistant.

"I think they're the Rothschilds' baby. She's just being used as a spokesperson for them, since it'd be impossible for her to fund it alone. And Mr. Michael's existence there can be attributed to Rina convincing him to move under the promise of protecting his technology from being seized again. She put him directly on an island that she has complete control of," George said in a tone of disappointment. He thought it was Aron's mistake to agree to something like that without considering that 'protection' is the same thing as 'ownership'.

The moment George finished speaking, he picked up the remote and turned on the tv so that they could watch the parade on a bigger screen. Its importance level had just been raised.

As they watched, the parade ended with the unknown helicopters from the earlier online clip flying over the location with the flag of Eden hanging under one of them and the flag of its military hanging under another. The helicopters had officially been introduced to the world and people were rightfully impressed by them, despite the chance of it just being a very good paint job.

As the Morgans thought the parade was about to end, the emcee announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a small speech from our president to wrap things up." The citizens attending the parade cheered.

"Sorry for speechifying on such short notice, but during the parade, I realized that it's the best moment to give you all some very good news. Three months from today, we'll be holding our country's first presidential election..." Alexander was forced to pause for a moment due to the overwhelming cheering at hearing the news. "I decided to announce it today, not tomorrow, because I want it to be a proclamation to both the citizens of my country and the rest of the world. I kept my promise!" he continued once people had calmed down a little.

"Just like I promised, the country was only led by me without being elected until we could be sure that everything's been sorted out. And now, we're ready to welcome the new government officials. So after the presidential election, the next three months will be for the rest of the elections. After safely completing those, we'll have officially begun this new history we're writing in the hop—"

Blip.

Aubrey turned off the tv and said, "There's nothing more of importance to be gained from watching that pointless spectacle." He put the remote control on the coffee table, then ordered his assistant, "Comb through the footage and gather as much information as you can, then deliver a report to me on it. We need to come up with a plan in accordance with some conclusive evidence to return the favor to whoever the real owner of that PMC is. And no matter how long we'll spend doing it, or how meticulous we'll have to be, we absolutely must regain our honor."

"Yes sir," answered the assistant, who then turned to leave.

"Also, find out what Rottem's been up to and bring him back home. It's about time for him to be useful again, and he needs to redeem himself after he failed to impregnate that bitch and give us a chance of taking over the family from the inside. Thankfully, that brother of hers is a fucking idiot, so he'll still keep working for us and doing things that are in our favor even if he doesn't know it," Aubrey added.

The assistant, who had already been on his way out of the room, turned back and bowed again to show that he understood his second order, too.

"That was really impressive," Rina said as she boarded the car to leave. The public celebration had officially ended in the afternoon, although the unofficial one would continue after the lunch provided by the government. But none of the foreign dignitaries would be at any of these celebrations, which would continue until midnight. A few singers had even been booked for the night's events.

"I was impressed, too," Aron said as he started the car and drove toward the tallest building in Edenia.

They continued chatting as he drove, and when they arrived, they got off and took an elevator to the roof, where a helicopter was waiting for them.

"Do you have anywhere you want to visit?" Aron asked.

"How about we tour the city? I want to see the projects you're working on," Rina said, some excitement showing on her face. She was very curious about what Aron was working on.

He agreed and sent an updated route to the pilot's HUD. The new route would take them to all of the in-progress projects being run by GAIA and Connect before returning to Avalon Island.

The tour began, with Aron narrating details about the projects as they passed over them. They flew low over the growing rail network, then gained altitude for a better view of the soon-to-be massive airport. It was already partially completed and in operation for small aircraft, but the entire project would be completed in a few months. Then the helicopter took a long, swooping turn and headed to the first of two massive ports. It, too, had already been partially opened and was taking and sending small amounts of freight. The helicopter then followed the electrical network from there, dancing around the transformers as Rina's glasses showed her the underground network with the help of AR.

"Which of the major projects is going to be done first?" she asked when the tour was over. Night had fallen before they arrived back on Avalon Island.

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"The utility infrastructure is going to be done first. By next month, it'll be delivering internet, electricity, and clean water, and will be carrying sewage as well. We'll have a monopoly on all utilities, for Edenia at least. As for the other cities, they'll have service in a month or so as we focused on bringing up the standards in the capital first. After the utility infrastructure, it'll be the airport, then the ports. Finally, we'll wrap up the railways after everything else is done. But we'll be working on the major trunk lines as we go, so it'll have partial service but won't be fully connected as broadly as I'd like it to be until everything else is done," Aron answered.

"By the way... why go into the utility industry? I mean, I can understand the airport, the ports, and the rail network... but why utilities?" she asked.

"There's a few reasons. First, I want to keep the cities clean. Second, infrastructure is expensive and takes a long time and a lot of effort to build and maintain. Since the government doesn't have enough money without hyperinflating their currency and devaluing it, I'll step in. After all, I can do it cheaper and faster if I do it myself.

"Lastly, it's because I can make a good profit from it and wouldn't need to charge high prices to do so, which means I'll be building a positive reputation by doing nothing but sitting back and making money. And I won't even have to manipulate public opinion, either."

"But I haven't seen any construction for your company's HQ—haven't you started that yet?" she asked.

"The construction hasn't started yet, no. I don't have enough people to work on everything at once, so they have to be assigned to the projects in order of importance. Besides, building our HQ would be seen as a vanity project, since we already bought perfectly acceptable buildings to use in the meantime." The skyscraper their helicopter had taken off from was the tallest building in the country, at the moment, as well as one of the buildings that were being used as offices for his two companies.

They continued chatting as the helicopter headed back to Avalon Island at the fastest speed it could without disturbing people on the ground.

...

A few minutes later.

Aron was deeply kissing Rina in one of the luxurious rooms in "The Cube", the massive superstructure on Avalon. As for how they had arrived at that particular moment... after Aron had escorted her to her room and bid her farewell, she jumped on him and kissed his cheek. That provoked him into action, and he immediately pulled her into his arms and started deeply kissing her as he gently pushed her inside her room.

He picked her up like a hug pillow and carried her to the bed as they continued making out. Once they were beside it, he pushed her down on the fluffy mattress, laying atop her as they continued aggressively making out.

He broke the kiss for a moment and took off his shirt, revealing the chiseled sculpture that was his upper body.

Rina was taken aback; she almost couldn't believe he was real. It was her first time seeing him shirtless, and he seemed too inhumanly perfect to exist. 'Ever since I met him, he's only worn baggy clothes, but hiding under those... Wow!' she thought.

Aron didn't stay separated from her for long, but immediately fell on her again to continue the makeout session that he had interrupted by removing his shirt. There was one difference, though: instead of having his arms trapped between her body and the bed, his hands were now free to explore her body, starting with her chest.

But her clothes were limiting his exploring hands, so he moved one of them around and under her dress to fondle her soft, generous blessing. Rina softly moaned, her lips freed by Aron, who had transitioned his passionate kisses to the side of her neck.

Then came the sound of cloth tearing as he grew tired of her being clothed and simply tore the dress she was wearing off of her body.

The expensive dress was torn from her, revealing the beautiful body hidden beneath it and leaving her in nothing but the frilly lace lingerie she had been wearing. 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝙣𝙚𝙩

Aron, now with access to her skin, trailed kisses down her throat as he removed her bra, revealing her plump bosom. His wandering hand teased one of her mountains while his lips climbed the other, eliciting another round of moaning from the beautiful woman.

What was weird, though, was that Aron was acting like he had experience. But he could swear that he had no knowledge of bedroom activities other than the porn he'd watched growing up. It was almost like someone had downloaded the knowledge into his subconscious mind, and it was only now coming into focus!

Chapter 265 How to Upgrade Your Girlfriend

Aron woke up feeling quite happy. He couldn't help but smile when he remembered last night. Although they were both first-timers, he really hadn't disappointed at all, going five rounds before he was forced to stop as he realized the difference between his stamina and Rina's. He had to give her a breather, as she had nearly passed out from that many orgasms. And with it being her first sexual experience, he had nearly broken her, but they still fell asleep in each other's arms with smiles on their faces.

He turned his head and looked at Rina, who was sleeping with her head pillowed on his arm. It would have been a nightmare, if he was a normal person, but he was feeling nothing of the sort at all; his blood supply couldn't be interrupted by such a light head. It was just another benefit of being overpowered.

He watched her for a few minutes without doing anything until Rina's eyes fluttered and opened, meeting his.

Aron, who had been caught gazing at her, flashed an embarrassed smile that was mirrored by Rina as she remembered the events of the night before.

"Morning," Aron greeted her.

"Morning, how're you?" she replied.

"I'm fine, but I don't think you are," he said when he saw her expression.

Rina hid her face and mumbled, "I'm sore down there." 𝙗𝒆𝒅𝙣𝙤𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝙢

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Aron was reminded of what he had done to her.

He pondered for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to undergo a round of genetic enhancements? It seems like your body won't be able to hold on and might break down if this continues any longer." He didn't think the soreness was just because of it being her first time; it was likely because he was just way too strong.

"You have genetic enhancement tech already?" she asked, quite surprised. She knew that since Aron had mentioned it, it meant that it was ready for commercial use. She was sure he wouldn't use her as a guinea pig.

"Yes. We've been using it for months now—nearly all the soldiers who come to the cube are receiving it the first time they log into the VR pods for military training."

"If it's like that, I'll thankfully accept it," she agreed. She didn't even consider turning it down, as the thought of feeling this pain every time they were intimate frightened her.

"Sure, let's do it now. The earlier you undergo the treatment, the earlier we can enjoy ourselves without worry." He smiled and immediately got out of bed, revealing the toned muscles that had been hidden by the bed sheet. The view elicited another gasp from Rina, who was struggling to stand as her legs were giving out on her.

"Let me help," Aron said as he picked her up to a seated position and helped her dress. Then he picked her up in a princess carry, brought her into the waiting elevator, and headed down.

Rina, still embarrassed, could only hide her face against his chest.

Reaching on the same basement floor where he had undergone the latest system evolution, he put her inside his pod. There were only two there—his, and the one that had been used by Vladimir. The Russian spy was now back in his country, still undergoing an investigation into his disappearance.

"This is one of the pods. It's mostly the same as the ones being used by the soldiers, but this one's my personal pod. Once you get in, you'll be anesthetized and the treatment will begin. The treatment takes a week, during which you won't be able to log out from the universal simulation. Once you're done, you'll wake up feeling much better," Aron said as he ruffled her messed-up hair as cover for applying a calming rune that he had prepared when he noticed how anxious she was.

"There's nothing to worry about. I'll join you in a few hours after the process starts," he said to the now completely calm Rina, who was quietly listening to him.

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With a nod from her, the breathing apparatus dropped down and sealed itself to her face before the capsule door closed, then released the same fog it had when Aron was using it. She immediately drifted off to sleep before she could grow anxious again.

The following procedure was the same one that every soldier underwent; the only difference was that she had been injected with a current-generation serum that'd just finished going through trials in the lab city. It would also be rolled out to the soldiers, but not everyone would be given access to it. Instead, it would be used as a benefit and incentive in conjunction with other rewards.

Among the first batch to receive the new serum would be those that had performed well in both the war and the peacekeeping mission in Esparia. Once all of the soldiers finished their basic training in the cube, the pods would be upgraded and the new serum would be administered to those who had earned it.

When Aron saw that the process had begun, he locked the door and returned to his room. Logging into the simulation, he was immediately met by Nova, who had a knowing smile on her face.

[I expected you to drag it out for a while and only make a move when she was about to return home,] she teased. Aron had taken a huge leap in his relationship status and she was pleased, as she'd spent a long time watching their interactions with each other. She'd even been about to give up on waiting and personally act, but thanks to Rina's leap of faith, Aron had wasted no time in making a move of his own. With one stroke, he'd taken their relationship to the next level; not even one thought of taking it slower had come to their minds.

"I didn't expect it either," he said with a smile as he was once again reminded of the night before.

[Well congratulations on giving up your V card,] Nova chuckled, then added, [You could've asked me for help in that department and I would've created a beautiful woman to help you release your desires and gain experience. Then I wouldn't have been forced to resort to putting that knowledge in your subconscious.] She confirmed that Aron's weirdly experienced performance of the night before was all to her credit.

"How's everything going?" he asked, changing the topic. It was his first time feeling like this and he was still having trouble figuring out how he should react, so he decided to push it off until later to give him time to think and process things.

[I've already injected the genetic serum you picked out for her, and started the process of assimilating some of the important knowledge for her safety and other few important things. Once that's done downloading, I'll wake her up in the simulation. You'll have plenty of time there to deepen your relationship with her, as just having sex doesn't mean everything's sorted. You need to at least sit down and confess your feelings to her and reassure her that she isn't just a one night stand to you. After all, she gave you her first time,] Nova said, giving him solid advice despite her teasing tone.

Chapter 266 Oil, That is. Black Gold, Texas Tea

A week later.

Aron was going at it with Rina in one of the mansions built for him in the universal simulation, their tenth round of the day. That had been a frequent activity over the past week, since Aron had spent most of his time with her doing many different things... including skinship. And since there was no pain in the simulation, they constantly did it as if they were trying to make up for all of the time they had lived without it.

They had become completely addicted to each other.

Everything had happened after they'd clarified their relationship the moment Rina had woken up, as Aron didn't want to delay the conversation. He had seen many movies where any kind of delay at all would result in the main character losing their chance, so he went for it. And it seemed that she'd seen the same movies, since she had wanted to have 'The Talk' as soon as she woke up as well. Thus, they had officially started dating; it was a first for both of them.

In the real world, nothing much had happened over the week. The citizens of Eden had spent most of it discussing who the candidates in the upcoming presidential election would be. They were still sure that Alexander would win, though, as everyone who was asked had claimed that they would vote for him.

But all of that was before Friday, when Alexander took to the podium and announced something that no one had ever expected to hear: they'd discovered oil in their Exclusive Economic Zone. The citizens went ballistic, but the celebration was overshadowed when they heard that with the discovery of oil in just that location alone, they had become one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of oil reserves.

Together with that announcement came another about how they planned to extract it. And furthermore, Alexander mentioned how the citizens would benefit from having such vast natural resources. He had said with conviction that they were going to open the bidding for a contract to extract the oil, with all of the rights going to a single company that would be responsible for all of the drilling. So long as they followed the agreement to the letter, they would be fine; but if they were found to be malfeasant, they would immediately lose the rights to exploit the reserves and, if appropriate, issued further punishments according to law.

As for how the citizens in general would benefit from the discovery, he said the profits would be invested into implementing a universal health care system, while reiterating that their health care would be different from the rest of the countries that had it. Theirs would be focused on guaranteeing that everyone would get the treatment they need when they need it, without delay.

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The rest of the world had different reactions based on where they were. Esparians were both envious and worried that the Edenians would discover similar resources in their country, and based on the surrender accord they had signed, they knew they would be doomed to forever share the profits from any discoveries. Some of them that didn't want it to happen went so far as praying that they didn't have any of the resources in the first place. And if they did discover anything, they definitely didn't want it to be discovered by the Edenians within the next six months. The article that they had thought was put into the accord just to fill space seemed to have backfired on them.

As for America and Europe, there were different reactions. The governments congratulated Eden on their massive discovery and hinted at being open to cooperation—as long as Eden awarded the contract to one of their oil companies, with this being the result of the lobbyist hired by these companies—but the citizens were split between congratulations and condolences. Congratulations on the discovery, and condolences on the soon-to-begin exploitation of their so-far unspoiled natural environment. In America, in particular, there was a flood of memes targeted at spreading their democratic ideals "a thousand pounds at a time".

But jokes aside, there was actually a real chance of some shady American oil lobbyist causing turmoil in Eden so they could have access to the oil there.

Still, the happiness of the Edenians didn't diminish at all; they were thrilled at having made such an important discovery.

...

Aron, who had been cuddling Rina in bed and watching Alexander's press conference, said, "It's time to wake you up so you can meet your new body."

Their lovey dovey behavior had continued throughout the week, causing Nova to roll her eyes so many times that she risked her irises getting stuck to the top of her eye sockets. The constant PDA was cringey to the extreme.

"See you on the other side," Rina said, then kissed him and chose to log out so she could wake up.

Aron logged out as well, then headed to the secure pod room so he would be the first person she saw.

PSSSSSSST

The mana was drained out of the pod as the lid opened, revealing Rina, whose evolved body had reached a divine level of beauty that had even Aron mesmerized for a moment.

The changes were enormous. And it wasn't just her breasts, as everything about her had become bigger and better than it previously was.

"Wow..." Aron said when Rina rose naked from the pod. The clothes she'd been wearing had been disintegrated to prevent any issues from arising due to ill-fitting clothing.

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He picked up a towel and moved to cover her, while etching the appearance of the new Rina into his memory at the same time. Despite having done it in the VR moments ago, his body hadn't been involved; it was only satisfying for his brain.

As he covered her with the towel, he hugged her and kissed her forehead. Then he moved away so she could see herself in the mirror. She was shocked to find that every one of her features had been either enhanced or enlarged to fit the proportions of her new body. She had gone from 1.65 to 1.75 meters tall, reducing the height difference between her and Aron.

Her hair was more smooth and shiny, yet still thick. Her hazel eyes had lightened and gained something of a golden tint to them, and her lips had filled out, enhancing the appearance of her already naturally beautiful face.

Her breasts were bigger, along with her butt, and her hips had widened. And she had also lost all of the hair on her body below her neck, something that every woman would wish for if they found a genie's lamp.

"What inner enhancements did she receive?" Aron asked the empty room while Rina was busy marveling at her new appearance.

[Her bones and muscles have been strengthened. The increase in strength was gradually mirrored in the simulation, so she should be able to control it. Also, a few more enhancements were made to the rest of her body so it can function as it's supposed to. For instance, she's now immune to diseases and will never be allergic to anything. Her memory has been enhanced, and she has perfect eyesight. She'll never...] Nova listed all of the changes Rina had undergone while she and Aron listened to the AI's report.

Rina hugged Aron hard and murmured, "Thank you so, so much for this."

"No need for thanks. I also did it because I wanted to ensure your safety," he said.

Rina raised her head and gazed at Aron, who wasted no time and immediately moved his head down to make out with her and start the first in-person round of 'battling' of the day.

Chapter 267 A New Era Begins for Eden

The rest of the month, the citizens of Eden had wide smiles on their faces whenever they remembered the announcement, and speculation on who would win the bid ran rampant.

Together with that, a few opposition parties had already been formed and announced their candidacy for president. Leading the officially formed parties were the other revolutionary leaders, who were very jealous of Alexander's position. They each trusted that they had enough support to win, between their followers and the recognition they had as leaders of the revolution against Adolf. This belief stemmed from believing that Alexander just got lucky and was missed when they got arrested as he was the leader with the fewest direct followers, after all.

Although many people would have thought that forming an alliance would make it a bit easier for them to win the election, that wasn't an easy thing to do. Not many people would give up their opportunity to grasp power when they had it, something an alliance would require. There was only one president, after all. It was the same dilemma as Jack Sparrow faced, with everyone voting for themselves until they decided to go their own ways.

Other than those parties, there was another one that attracted quite a lot of attention. Not because of the benefits they promised the citizens, but because of what they promised to do to Alexander when they won the election.

Their first promise was that they would immediately investigate Alexander for embezzling government funds during the transition. And they didn't stop there; they wanted to pardon Adolf. And with that, people knew who they were: former beneficiaries of the Adolf dictatorship that used to live like kings.

Their party was supported in large part by the people who had been living their best lives during the dictator's regime and were fondly looking back on those times.

What people didn't know was that nearly all the members of that party were still being investigated for things they did during Adolf's reign and had chosen to enter politics in hopes of being able to avoid prosecution. If the government moved to prosecute them during the campaign or anytime after that, they could frame it as Alexander using the government to suppress his political opponents rather than seeking justice; it would point to him as being just another dictator—like the man he had 'illegally' deposed—covering himself in the false flag of democracy.

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Alas, Alexander didn't care about them at all, as he wasn't worried about the pressure from the criminal community in the first place.

And that wasn't the only thing giving him confidence. While the other parties were rushing from one place to another, kissing babies and shaking hands in an attempt to gather as many votes as possible, he remained focused on his work as the president of the country. He wasn't planning to campaign at all, and whenever he was asked about his lackadaisical approach to campaigning, his answer was, "As the interim president, people already know how I plan to lead and what my goals are. If they don't know that by now, then I've already failed."

He didn't care at all about all of the political mudslinging and other 'rules of the game'.

While the presidential campaigns were in full swing and with the reminder of other elections, which were still five month away, those who were aiming to run for a governmental position started joining different parties and announcing their intention to run for office as members of parliament. Alexander's party received the highest number of potential candidates, as everyone was sure that the moment they received the endorsement and support of his party, winning would be the rule and not the exception.

That phenomenon gave him a massive political following that were constantly being given reasons on why they should like him more and more, as there were new and beneficial things happening in Eden. Plus, he had won a war with their historical enemy, setting his influence in stone; even if he somehow failed to win the presidency, he would still be a kingmaker.

...

Today was one of those days where his followers were being given another thing to brag about, as Alexander was standing in front of a massive power transformer surrounded by a tall fence. He was waiting for the perfect moment to address the audience and cameras.

In front of the transformer's fence were two posts with a brilliant red ribbon suspended between them, tied in a bow. It was the day that Aron's utility infrastructure would go into operation in Edenia, and at precisely noon, Alexander would cut the ribbon.

"During the previous regime, most of our national funds were being used to enrich the former dictator. There was little to nothing being used to nurture the citizens of this great nation. And the corruption trickled down from there. The little money that was spent on enriching the lives of our citizens was embezzled by lower-ranked officials after most of it going into the pockets of a dictator, leaving only crumbs of the initial amount. Our citizens have faced unclean water, constant interruptions in electrical services, and raw sewage spills, all while paying high prices for the 'privilege' of service. But no longer! 𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"It ends today, as this date marks the beginning of a continuous supply of electricity and clean water at affordable prices. Though we begin today in Edenia, over the next month, the citizens in every city will enjoy the same clean water, reliable internet, consistent electrical power, and the comfort of working plumbing. Today is the dawning of a new era for the people of our great Eden, the era of unlimited services!" Alexander said, eliciting applause and cheering from those attending the ribbon cutting ceremony.

"With this completion, a few changes will come into our life along with the new utility infrastructure. From today onward, the price of electricity and water will start and continue falling until it reaches a stable price point. The same holds for sewer assessments, as well as internet service. We've worked hand-in-hand with Connect, who has guaranteed stable service at the lowest possible prices thanks to their investments..." Alexander continued his speech as people periodically cheered and applauded, then finished by inviting Felix to join him in cutting the ribbon.

As Felix walked to the podium, he also received only slightly less cheers than the president, as his was one of the most-loved companies in the country. Their reputation had even been stellar during Adolf's regime, as it had been providing cheap, consistent, and fast internet. And even with a country-wide monopoly, it didn't seem as if they were planning on increasing the fees to an exorbitant level. In any normal country, that would force the government to intervene and break the company apart; but in a dictatorship like the one Adolf headed, everything was negotiable... for the right price. So the fact that Connect hadn't gouged them had won their hearts, not to mention the active propaganda campaign run by Nova.

Felix joined Alexander on stage as the president moved in front of the podium and offered one handle of the oversized ceremonial scissors to him. He took the offered handle, glanced at the time in the HUD of his glasses, and said, "Let today be written in history as the day that the citizens of Eden witnessed the dawning of a new era."

He cut the ribbon with a smile on his face as cameras flashed.

Chapter 268 Parting

"Even after being enhanced, I still can't handle you... What the hell did they inject you with?" Rina asked as she crawled away from Aron, still feeling the aftereffects of their last battle. She still couldn't believe the stamina of that man.

"Mine was made specifically for me, not for general use. So it was specifically tuned for my body," he answered as Rina moved to his side and laid her head on his chest.

"I need to talk to you about something," she said after catching her breath. A certain calm washed over her as Aron ran his hand up and down her spine; she quite enjoyed it.

"Is it about returning home?" he asked, as he knew it was bound to come.

"Yes. I need to finish dealing with my brother now that enough time has passed. He should be fully assured that I'm still looking for evidence of the attacker, so now's a good time for me to surprise him and end this farce once and for all. Then I'll take my place as the family head in waiting, which should allow me to be of more help to you. After all, it seems like you've unintentionally started a fight with the Morgans... and they'll never take it lying down. They'll try their hardest to return the favor many times over, and I need to at least try and help you with that," she said as she idly fingerpainted his chest using shadows as paint.

"So, when do you plan to return?" he asked, as he knew that he would only be able to occasionally see her in real life, unless she decided to permanently move to Eden. He knew he could ask her to stay, and she most likely would, but he also knew that she wasn't suited to be a trophy wife. She had spent her entire life in a bid to overtake her brother, and asking her to remain for him would leave a shadow in her heart and cost her many things in life.

"Next week. There's an upcoming board meeting that I can use to surprise them with my evidence so he won't have time to come up with excuses. Although I could solve them, it'd take some effort, effort that I don't wish to expend." Rina had already thought up a rough plan.

"No problem, you can take my plane back. Also, you don't have to worry about him pulling any more bullshit, as Alex should be enough to handle them now," Aron said. He wouldn't ask her to stay for himself. He was only a luxury private jet flight away, if they missed each other, and the moment she became the heir she could just move to Eden with him. Plus, they could always meet in VR while they were separated.

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With that out of the way, they continued enjoying each other's company and touring places on the island they hadn't yet seen over the past month.

He had already introduced her to his parents—this time as his girlfriend—but they didn't seem surprised at all and just jokingly revealed that he was as dense as lead to have taken so long to realize her hints. His younger brother had just laughed and asked her to play some games with him; he had taken quite a liking to the beautiful lady.

When they asked if they had mistaken something about her, as they remembered her being shorter, Aron explained that she'd always been this tall. Maybe they were just experiencing a Mandela effect. His parents grudgingly agreed, as they couldn't find any evidence to disprove that she wasn't tall before other than their memory.

...…

"Have you already submitted the bid?" Aron asked Felix during their monthly meeting.

"Yes, and it's passed the first round so we won't need to submit a corrected one," Felix replied at the same time as he forwarded a copy of the bid.

"Who else is submitting bids?"

"Nearly everyone in the oil industry from around the entire world tried using their experience in the field to gain an advantage over the others. Some are even using their countries to pressure Alexander and the committee into choosing them. Russia and China hinted that they're in the final phase of their evaluation and would be making their decision on whether to allow Eden into the UN soon," Felix sneered. Alexander was in quite a dilemma.

"You don't have to worry about that, as we're guaranteed to win the bid. We're basically the only option for him, since by picking our company, he'll be supporting the domestic industry. Plus, he won't be siding with any specific country. That neutral stance will prevent any of them from trying to use the situation to retaliate, since doing that would only show their pettiness and result in other countries coming to our defense," Aron said in a single breath. He had long planned for that exact outcome before they'd even announced the discovery to the public.

"Makes sense," Felix responded. He wondered how his friend had gotten so good at politicking and scheming, which would be considered abnormal behavior from the person he'd known for so long.

"Sarah, how many users are we at?"

"We've got 1.5 billion active accounts, but the growth has started stagnating. Nearly half of everyone on the internet has already created an account," she answered. 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝐯𝗲𝐥.𝗻𝗲𝐭

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"You can stop focusing on attracting new users and move to figuring out how to keep the ones we have active. As for drawing in new accounts, there's no need to worry about that. Soon, Pangea will be integrated into every product we make, meaning they'll require an account in order to use anything of ours," Aron said, shifting the company's approach toward making Pangea the most addictive app they could. It was a necessary move, since in order to control the public narrative outside of the tiny country of Eden, he needed all eyes on Pangea, not any other social media app.

Following those instructions, the three discussed different things regarding the development of the company and what their next product would be. Aron only said it would be a physical product, not just software, but to get it into production, Eden's industrial foundation needed to be built first. Otherwise, it would just be a big fat nothing burger.

...

Later that day, after the meeting.

"Where's Rina?" Sarah teasingly asked, as she and Felix had also been introduced to her as Aron's girlfriend. It was their second simultaneous shock—first, Aron had a girlfriend? Since when? How did she manage to drill through the bedrock his skull was built out of?

The second shock was her new appearance. They had both seen, and worked, with her before her enhancement, so since Aron couldn't gaslight that away as they had knowledge of the serum and he had already offered it to them before but they had postponed it due to working on the projects, so when he told them it was the result of the serum they wasted no time and had asked to use it and undergo an abbreviated enhancement procedure.

"She's already headed home, as she needs to finish something," Aron answered.

"That's too bad. I wanted to talk with her for a bit, as she's quite knowledgeable in business and has given me quite a few insights."

"You can always see her in VR—you know that, right?" Aron replied, knowing that Sarah was just teasing him about his girlfriend having left.

Chapter 269 Aliens Did It!

As Aron's jet was carrying Rina on its final approach to LaGuardia airport, she was looking out of the window, not tired of the view at all.

Although the Rothschilds could afford such a massive plane, they wouldn't use it as a personal jet; the upkeep needed to have it continuously flight ready was massive. And for a family that already had more than ten private planes and could afford to charter any aircraft from any airline in America at a moment's notice, it didn't make sense to buy them.

The landing was as smooth as it was in Eden, and the unloading proceeded apace. Rina disembarked the plane, got in one of the cars, and left without wasting too much time. She even bypassed the security screening again, having already handled it at the immigration checkpoint at the airport in Eden.

No Rothschild would ever have to stand in the long lines at immigration like normal people.

As the convoy was driving back to her house, she passed the location where the previous attack had taken place. Although everything had been taken away for the investigation, traces of yellow crime scene tape remained. Some people had even put flowers up at a makeshift memorial for those who'd died there.

Although it had been more than a month since the attack, the case was still ongoing. Every time they found a piece of evidence, it would disprove one or more of the investigators' theories. At this point, they were almost ready to throw their hands in the air and claim it was an alien attack just so the FBI agents could go home to their families for at least one night.

As they passed through, Rina was watching the news when a story attracted her attention and, after watching it, she found herself smiling.

"Moments ago, armed attackers, who were trying to rob what they thought was a secret bank, ended up assaulting a DARPA research facility. The attackers were apprehended by security after successfully entering the building..."

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Rina immediately knew what the event they were talking about was without even having to watch the report any longer, so she turned off the satellite tv and returned to staring outside the window. She couldn't wait for the board meeting; anticipation had her almost as twitchy as an ant on a hot frying pan.

...

In the Rothschild compound, a board meeting was taking place with one of the chairs in the room empty, as if someone was supposed to be sitting there.

"I suggest we should invest in Eden, as, with the recent discovery of oil there, I suspect they'll discover more of it. It'll either be in Eden or Esparia, and I think it'll be within the next five months. If we invest now, we should be able to steal a march on the Morgans, who seem to have already invested in Esparia. Even if we don't count the military support they gave to that third world shithole during their playground spat, the Esparian government is still heavily indebted to them from the monetary support that went along with the materiel support for that joke of a conflict.

"By investing now, we'll be flipping a middle finger to them, both financially and physically, and it would count as our first act of retaliation. Especially if we support Eden and help them discover as many resources in Esparia as possible within the remaining five months as stipulated in their surrender accord. Doing so would put us in the position to benefit from the Morgans' losses, while they'll be unable to do anything of significance to stop us," said a board member, bringing up the topic of choosing when to invest in Eden and Esparia. 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝑒𝘭．𝑜𝘳𝘨

"It should also be easy for us, since Miss Rina seems to have already formed connections with the higher-ups of Eden. She'll be a suitable person to be responsible for our investments there, as she already has a foundation," said Hebel, inserting a plug for Rina, who wasn't in attendance.

"It seems like you people continue to forget your position, or has the quality of our branch families fallen so low?" Arieh entered the conversation when he saw the discussion turning in favor of Rina, who wasn't even there! Besides, it was coming from one of the people he knew had betrayed him and chosen her side, though secretly. That was the last straw, and he decided to cut through and start with a disrespectful remark. He didn't even care that the family head was in the room with them.

"What do you mean by that?" Hebel asked. He wouldn't take that insult without doing anything, so he asked for clarification to see if Arieh would take back his statement or not. That in itself would count as a humiliation for him, and if he decided to double down, it would provoke a reaction from the family head.

Arieh, knowing what Hebel meant by that question, didn't care and continued, "We're the fucking Rothschilds, and we get what we want no matter what! But we do it while maintaining our family's dignity. So how disrespectful is it when someone from the board is heard proposing we cooperate with some third world shithole like they're our equal? Are you that dumb, or is your self-esteem just that low? With countries of that level, we don't cooperate—we demand! They have no choice in the matter!" Arieh stared Hebel down.

"You're right about that, but don't you think you look like someone who just wants to flaunt his superiority when it isn't needed?" Hebel said. He didn't deny anything Arieh had said, as that would just make the meeting go off on a tangent and waste everyone's time.

"We need to create a first impression that won't allow any disrespectful behavior in the future," Arieh said. He was adamant that they go there with their noses in the sky.

"And how do you imagine that'll happen?" Uria cut in and asked.

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"I think I'm more suitable than my dear sister. Especially with my position in the family... I need to do something to return the favor of the Morgans, no?" Arieh said, finally revealing his fangs.

"I'm against it. Everyone knows that Miss Rina is already established there, unlike you, who only discovered its existence when the news showed her being there. By which point, may I remind you, she seemed to have already established her channels of communication. So I think we should make her the point of contact for the relationship between Eden and us, as she discovered them first. I'm sure she already has an idea on how to approach them and build business relationships," Uram said. He wanted to directly block Arieh from taking Rina's place and credit.

When Arieh had heard about her spending a month there, he couldn't help but smile. He knew that the month she had spent there wasn't because she was building some bullshit 'business relationship' or anything, but because she was investigating the attack on her and was too afraid to come back.

At least until she knew no more attempts would be made on her life, that is.

He was positive that she wouldn't call for help from the family, as that would be seen as a sign of weakness. It would also lower her value in the eyes of the board members. And as long as she didn't have any evidence backing her accusation of who her attacker was, no one would believe anything she said, let alone who she suspected, so she would be punished for accusing someone without evidence.

Although he was curious and angered by the disrespect Terry showed him by ignoring his calls, all of that rage had disappeared earlier when he received the news that Terry and Katrina had been arrested while attempting to rob a DARPA research facility. It seemed absurd to him, but he didn't care at all; he just called a few people to have them "commit suicide in their cells", as he didn't want the man to be brought back to the compound at all. That wouldn't be a good thing for Arieh, no matter the circumstances of the man's return.

But now that that had been handled, he could be said to be the most happy man in the compound. With a huge smile on his face, he said, "Her being there for more than a month and not even coming back for a meeting should be indication enough that she's struggling to establish relationships there. That's another reason I nominated myself for that position, as she's still inexperienced in the field of business." He was trying to paint Rina's absence from the meeting as incompetence and disrespect, seeking small gains at the cost of big losses in the competition between the siblings.

"You don't have to worry about that," came a cold voice as the door was opened and Rina entered the room. Her confidence gave Arieh a mild scare, as he had a hunch that things were about to go very, very wrong for him. But he didn't understand how, as he was positive that he had cleaned up after himself very well.

Rina walked around the table and took her seat while maintaining eye contact with her murderous brother.

Chapter 270 He Done Fucked Up

Aron was in his uniform, inspecting the fourth batch of graduating Esparian soldiers. They stood at attention in front of him as he passed through them.

It had become a tradition for him to inspect each batch of graduates. Every man had had a dream of being the general of a massive army at one point in their lives, and Aron had actually accomplished it. Thus, he didn't skimp on the pomp and circumstance at all.

As he walked through their formation, he couldn't help but smile when he remembered the reaction of the first batch of Esparian soldiers who woke up and found themselves in VR for training.

When the knowledge of what was going to happen to them had been assimilated into their minds (Athena had determined that explaining it in words was a waste of time, so she had begun using direct assimilation instead), the expressions on their faces were truly something to behold. They even had goosebumps all over their virtual bodies when they came to the realization of what kind of monsters they had fought in the war.

And with that realization came gratitude. They felt nothing but grateful to Eden, who, despite having such massive power at their disposal, had decided to go easy on them and not massacre them like chickens in a slaughterhouse.

Even from the little knowledge they had received to get them accustomed to VR, they could extrapolate that if Eden were to go all out, the entire war would have lasted less than an hour. But Esparia would have to spend more than a decade to recover from that single hour of damage that would have rained down upon them.

With the start of their training, they realized that their assumptions seemed to have stemmed from having eyes but being unable to see Mount Tai. That was especially the case when they discovered the enemies they would be fighting against in their training with their lives on the line.

They had begun by fighting enemies that made them feel despair, despite the advanced tech now at their disposal, and those weren't even the worst enemies they had to face in their training.

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Upon finishing his inspection, Aron left to allow the ceremony to continue and the graduates to enjoy themselves. They wouldn't be able to do that if he remained there, so he invited Athena to take over and continue the ceremony. Once it was over, the soldiers left their pods and headed to their assigned rooms to rest and wait for transportation to take them to the port. Then they would be returned to Esparia to begin their mission as members of the ARES Esparia division.

...

"Did it start already?" Aron asked as Nova teleported him to one of his mansions inside the universal simulation. It was surrounded in a time field that was synchronized with the time in reality. From there, he would watch the Rothschild board meeting through Rina's glasses. Naturally, it was with her knowledge and consent, of course.

[Yes, she just entered a few seconds ago,] Nova said as she accelerated the time dilation in the mansion to 2:1 and restarted the recording, showing him what had taken place earlier. Then she returned the time dilation to 1:1 so Aron could watch things play out in real time.

...

"Eden is my domain. Don't reach your grubby hands out to take what's mine. I've been working on it for a long time," Rina said with confidence. She wasn't worried about it being taken from her at all.

"It would've been that way if you'd gone there with the family's blessing. But since you didn't, then the family rules apply. When it comes to the family's interest, it supersedes your own and the board members will vote to decide what's yours and what's the family's," Arieh sneered. He was positive that, if it really went to a vote, he would win. To the best of his knowledge, Rina had only successfully managed to buy three board members. And that, in and of itself, didn't guarantee that they would vote for her. At least if Hebel wasn't included, as he seemed to have completely chosen her side.

"Sure, let's vote," Rina said. She turned and looked at the board members and said, "Those in favor of Arieh being responsible for the family's plans in Eden, raise your hands." She had a calm smile on her face, causing Arieh to feel anxious. 𝘣𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝘤𝘰𝘮

Not one single person raised their hand, catching both Arieh and the family head off guard; neither had expected such a unanimous vote.

'Looks like I'm getting old,' the family head thought to himself when he realized that Rina had already brought all the board members to her side.

"Those in favor of leaving me to continue my business without interference?" she asked.

Once again, Arieh and the family head were left dumbfounded as the vote was unanimous. Every board member, other than the family head and Arieh, had raised their hands.

The secretary took over and said, "With the votes tallied, the board has unanimously decided that we won't be entering Eden and will leave Miss Rina to continue her plans. The family will completely support her in her goals." With that, the vote was officially over and could only be overturned by bringing evidence that the initial decision was wrong, prompting another vote.

Rina turned to Arieh and, with a smile that hid daggers behind it, asked, "Anything you want to say?"

"H… how!?" he stammered, his brain still not registering what had happened. He'd thought that Rina only had three board members on her side and was being naive to think that they would even vote for her! But instead, it seemed that he was the naive one, as he hadn't even realized that he had no support on his side any more.

"It doesn't concern you," she said as she turned to the family head, who had a proud smile on his face. As he looked at his daughter with the eyes of a proud father, she said, "I'd like to report a member who broke the family rules and made an attempt on my life."

The smile completely disappeared from the family head's face, then was replaced by rage at the idea that a family member had attempted to take the life of a main family's descendant. "Who is it, and what evidence do you have to back your accusation?" he asked, speaking for the first time since the board meeting had begun.

"It's all here," she said and removed a USB stick from her purse—a custom luxury gift from Nova—then extended it to the secretary.

Immediately understanding what was wanted of her, she took the thumb drive and inserted it into the computer that was linked to the projector. There was one folder on the thumb drive, and within it was an audio recording of what had transpired in Arieh's office shortly before Nova had her unplanned meltdown, and a few image files.

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When the secretary clicked on the recording, the computer was immediately taken over by Nova and what was being shown on the projector changed.

It began playing the recording of the conversation between Charlotte and Terry. The sound visualization had Terry and Charlotte's headshots on either side of it, alternately brightening and dimming when to show which of them was speaking.

Arieh couldn't believe what was happening. He was almost convinced that he was in a nightmare as he felt the weight of consequences looming over him and settling on his shoulders. He'd been so sure that it would be impossible to record anything in his or his secretary's office, since he had them swept for bugs on a daily basis. And as impossible as it would be to bug their offices, it was even more so for the phone call that was taking place, since it was from a brand-new burner phone to another brand-new burner and had taken place in one of those 'secure' locations!

But what he had failed to consider was the possibility of the recording being taken straight from the memory of one of the participants in the call. Who could blame him for missing that, though?

"You need to finish what you started," said the caller, Charlotte.

"I need time, money, and information to accomplish it without any problems," Terry's voice replied.

"I'll email you an account number. Use that money to solve any problems that arise. You have a month to take action," she replied.

As the recording reached that part, the screenshot of a bank account appeared on the projector screen. It showed the amount of money in it from before the call, and what had been used over the month following the call. Everything was annotated, noting how much was withdrawn or transferred and where or to whom it went.

When Arieh saw the beginning of the recording, he knew he done fucked up.

Chapter 271 ...fuck

Without caring about what Arieh was feeling, Nova continued playing the recorded phone call between Charlotte and Terry.

Then it moved to video footage of Terry meeting the leaders of the different groups he had hired to ambush Rina. Unfortunately, there was no sound, but that was covered by the phone calls between him and their teams explaining the mission he was hiring them to do. Those recordings were accompanied by detailed transaction records of weapon purchases that he made to sufficiently arm them.

The recording soon moved on to the day Rina had been being driven from the Rothschild compound to the airport and showed that whenever the convoy deviated from the planned route, it was because an ambush was awaiting them. The ambush sites were shown as still images, with names and headshots linked to each individual shown in the images. They were matched to different 'dark' mercenary groups, those that were unafraid to get their hands bloody... as long as the price was right. Each of the leaders were highlighted, and still images were displayed that showed their meetings with Terry.

They were shown with every unplanned route deviation that Rina's convoy took until they reached the access road. Then a video taken from the follow car's rear-facing camera showed all of the mercenary groups chasing after the convoy until it split up. The video footage continued, showing the plainclothes ARES members dealing with the chasing mercenaries, then cleaning up the attack site to muddy the evidence.

The video ended there and was followed by the recorded phone call between Arieh and Terry, where Terry confirmed her death. It was the first time the mastermind of the attack had been recorded, but everyone in the room recognized the voice and they all turned to Arieh, death stares on their faces.

Arieh paled and broke out in a cold sweat as his heart pounded like it wanted to escape his chest. He prayed that the display of evidence would end soon, but that was simply just not to be.

The projector mercilessly continued, showing a few more pieces of evidence before ending with the recorded phone call from Terry to Arieh shortly after Rina was caught on camera during the Edenian parade. Arieh was shouting and raging about "the bitch" still being alive.

Then Nova released her control of the projector as the autoplaying file came to an end.

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After the display ended, the room was as still as a mausoleum. Nobody moved, not even to bring the lights back up to full; everyone was pondering things that only they knew.

A few of them wondered why Arieh chose to go to such an extreme, despite the consequences. 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙.𝘰𝑟𝑔

Others wondered how Rina had collected all of that evidence without alerting her brother, who would have already started looking for countermeasures if he were to know that she had such a 'nuclear bomb' in her possession. They were sure he wouldn't be able to explain that amount of proof away, but perhaps a miracle could have occurred.

The family head was giving his son a death glare and sitting in his usual silence, but everyone in the room knew that this silence in particular was different. Anyone who tried messing with him right now would receive a punishment that would make them regret it forever. "Anything you want to say?" he asked, struggling to remain partial.

Flustered and panicking, Arieh's voice broke as he screamed, "SHE'S FRAMING ME FATHER AND THAT'S ALL FABRICATED EVIDENCE!"

"Are you sure about that? You know that if we investigate and it's revealed that you lied about her framing you, the punishment would be doubled," the family head asked. Lying to him came with severe consequences.

"…fuck." Arieh knew the family head wasn't joking at all and had no answer to his father's question. He knew when to advance and when to retreat, and now was definitely the time for the latter. Anything he said would result in just increasing his punishment, which would already be heavier than normal.

"Arieh Noga Yehonatan Stav Rothschild, you are to be held on house arrest as our team investigates the situation. If it is revealed to be true that you attempted to assassinate your sister, you will be removed from the competition and have five generations of your descendants barred from participating in the future." The family head stood and walked to Rina, then calmly patted her shoulder and left the board room, officially marking an abrupt end to the board meeting.

It looked like Rina was now officially the next Rothschild family head, as no one was left in the competition but her.

That meant that she could now publicly use the influence she had already been using before by blackmailing the board members, but without worrying about someone raising a question about it. Now, they would simply attribute it to her being the next family head; they would never even consider the possibility of her having held leverage over them before the competition had ended.

...

"Man, that was even better than a movie," Aron said as he watched the mess caused by his girlfriend in the board meeting. He had a bucket of popcorn next to him and was intermittently sipping from a soft drink that was as close to the flavor of Coke as Nova could make it. The taste of "cola" was something that not even Nova could simulate, which meant that humanity was doomed to forever be unable to answer the question of Coke's secret recipe.

"Hey Nova, this Coke tastes a bit... off," Aron said.

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[Well, that's because nobody knows what Coke tastes like. Not even with all of my computing power could I simulate that,] she joked.

"I think we should consider going into the entertainment industry," Aron mused. The board meeting had excited him, as it was one of the things where, although he knew the result, he couldn't really tell what twists and turns would happen along the way. There was a constant increase in variables as more information was introduced into the situation.

[Movies and TV?] asked Nova.

"Yes. But at the moment, we should only start exploring and planning. As for when we should officially enter the field? Make it after we've released our own VR and AR devices," Aron answered, tabling the project for the future.

[Sir, it's time for Henry's lesson,] Nova reminded Aron about the upcoming class.

He had taken the responsibility of teaching his little brother and had been doing it together with Rina over the past month. Henry loved and hated it at the same time, as whenever he was good, he would receive a gift from his elder brother. But whenever he misbehaved, one of them would be taken away. It made him the most attentive student of all the kids in his age range, as he couldn't risk losing his things when he had worked hard to win them.

"Let's go teach our student," Aron said as he logged off. He wasn't really the one that came up with the teaching material; Nova was. After all, she had Henry's brain data and knew how to make things easier for him to understand, while also making him a critical thinker.

And thanks to the best teacher in the world being responsible for teaching him, Henry was rapidly growing in both knowledge and critical thinking skills. One day, when he went to a "proper" school, his assigned class would have everyone dropped down by a rank in the best student competition.

What a lucky child.

Chapter 272 Weapons of Mass Distraction

A month later, with a month to go before the presidential election, the candidates were campaigning with all their might. Their parties each had their own platforms and were trying to sway people to vote for them, and in their minds, things were going very well; nearly all of their rallies were filled with cheering citizens.

But all of the momentum they thought they had managed to build was crushed by a single announcement from the presidential palace.

"We interrupt this regularly scheduled program for a breaking news report," an announcer said as the show on the television was interrupted by them to make an emergency announcement.

"A team of researchers dispatched to Esparia in search of natural resources and minerals has discovered a large oil deposit in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Esparia.

"The deposits are in different places, but based on preliminary results, it's suspected that the fields combined equal the one discovered earlier in Eden. More details are to come as the preliminary results are verified by experts," said the reporter, her tone clearly hinting that she was excited and happy that Eden now had another resource they could exploit. She was especially thrilled that the profits would be used to benefit her country's citizens, including her.

After a short pause, she continued, "The presidential spokesperson expressed the president's happiness at receiving this unexpected news. Interim president Romero has already come to a decision on how the new oil fields are to be exploited, saying, 'In order to avoid wasting resources and to expedite the extraction of these new deposits, the company that wins the bid for extracting oil in Eden will also be made responsible for extracting the Esparian deposits. That will eliminate the need for another round of bids and streamline the extraction process.'

(Author's note: we're in the process of adding surnames to people; "Romero" is Alexander's surname.)

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"The announcement has made the bid for Eden's extraction rights even more hotly contested, with many bidders requesting to adjust their bids, and others—who failed to pass the first review—clamoring to allow new bids altogether. However, interim president Romero declined, stating that the procedure would require too much time and delay the benefits to Edenian and Esparian citizens."

The broadcast resulted in an uproar from the Esparian citizens, with some of them even trying to organize riots to force their government to break the surrender accords, but they were only met with silence. They finally came to the realization that, for Esparia to even attempt to break the accords, their military would need to be able to defend themselves from an inevitable Edenian armed response. But that was already a non-option, as Esparia didn't even have a military anymore, and their retrained soldiers were unanimous in their refusal to violate the terms of their surrender.

With the Esparian division soldiers already having finished their training, the Edenian division had retreated; the last batch had left the month before.

Some citizens who weren't among those calling for violence were happy that they had discovered such massive resources in their country. Especially since their country hadn't even tried looking for them. But what they didn't know was that Esparia had been searched before—and many times, at that—but no experienced company would ever have thought to look in the location where the oil was eventually discovered. Thus, it had been nearly impossible for the previous government to discover them.

The announcement had also resulted in the oil giants increasing their efforts to win the bid for the extraction of oil in Eden. Their home countries had cranked up the pressure on the Edenian government to choose their country's companies. Together with the pressure exerted by their countries after they lobbied them, certain companies took things into their own hands and attempted to bribe the members of the team they thought responsible for looking over their bids. Even millions of dollars would be chump change in comparison to the exclusive contracts on offer, so their bribes were extremely generous.

But all of those attempts were met with failure, and worse.

The worse came for them a few days later when their bids were automatically declined following an investigation into the companies' attempted corruption of the process. And they were declined with prejudice, meaning that no new bids from their companies would ever be accepted under any circumstances. Thus, they were effectively and permanently blacklisted from operating in Eden.

That was an effective warning, since the first unlucky company to be blacklisted and whose bid was thrown out was Gazprom, a prominent Russian majority government-owned oil giant that accounted for nearly 12% of all refined oil products globally. Eden's response of uncompromising removal essentially served to kill a chicken to warn the monkeys and was a strong announcement that corruption in the bidding process would not be tolerated, no matter who attempted it.

There was an inevitable backlash from the Russian government, who claimed they had been set up and it was a manufactured reason to remove them from the competition, but that statement was immediately deleted when Eden released the results of their investigation along with the accompanying evidence. It was an overwhelming amount of proof, which no one thought would be able to be manufactured within just a period of a few days.

That also acted as another publicity stunt for Alexander, who was now loved by nearly every citizen of his country. Thanks to him and Connect, every person in the country had access to continuous energy, clean water, and a reliable sewage system without having to worry about power outages or sewage spills. At the same time, the promise of lower prices had been kept word for word.

The world's reaction was that Eden was just lucky to have discovered such a huge amount of wealth in a matter of a few months. And it was definitely an unexpected windfall for the adversarial nations; nobody even knew that prospectors had been sent out until the recent bombshell of an announcement.

...

"When should I announce the winning bid?" Alexander asked Aron, as he was the kingmaker behind the soon-to-officially-be President Romero.

It was Aron's decision to release news of the new discovery in order to kill the momentum of Alexander's political rivals. Other parties had been gaining traction among the public, and Aron wanted Alexander to win in a veritable landslide, one that would give him a proper mandate to rule and prevent a lot of trouble in the future. In politics, when one's support among the voting population reached a certain amount, their opponents would be very leery about opposing them. He also wanted people to suspect the election was rigged in order to test Pangea's ability to control the public narrative, so it would be killing two birds with one stone. 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

"Delay it until after you win. If you announce it now, people will claim that you're making a hasty decision in fear of losing the election. Although that isn't true, it'll still cause some problems," Aron answered. He and Alexander were in VR, floating above Edenia, though the city below them looked completely different from what it did in reality. If one were to look at it from afar, they would see many super-tall skyscrapers, and if they looked underground, they would see the comprehensive subway system that connected to the trunk lines spread across the country. The virtual city was also so clean that it practically sparkled; if it were in the real world, it would be considered an absolute marvel and one of the best cities in the world to live in.

But alas, it was only a concept at the moment. Aron was using it as a demonstration, showing Alexander what he had planned for Eden as a whole. It was also a good backdrop for the discussions they had, as well as a symbol of the bonds of friendship that had been developing between the men for quite some time.

Chapter 273 The Landslide

A month later.

89.97%...

That was the percentage of people who voted for Alexander in the presidential election, which didn't come as a surprise to anyone who lived in Eden. The man was a living legend who won by that much without even actively campaigning, but rather by letting his work speak for itself.

To celebrate his win, he announced a celebration rally to be held a week from the day the election result was announced.

...

A massive crowd was gathered in one of the open fields in the city of Edenia and soldiers were everywhere, dressed in their finery with holstered pistols at their sides. They were the ones responsible for controlling the crowd of attendees at the celebration rally and ensuring the safety of the newly elected president. He would soon arrive, so they were doing their final checks, making sure that nothing dangerous was hidden in the crowd.

Not too long after that, a convoy of black cars arrived with a certain level of fanfare.

The security team came out of the lead and follow cars, then escorted the president to the stage. As they went, they made sure no one from the cheering public could get too near him, though Alexander still shook some of the hands that were being extended to him from the crowd. One woman even swore never to wash her hand for the rest of their life due to how much she idolized him.

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When the president reached the stage, he immediately grabbed the microphone from the emcee and started delivering his victory speech; the crowd automatically went silent to listen to what he had to say. 𝘣𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝘤𝘰𝘮

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your overwhelming support in this historic election. I have to say, it's quite a change from the days when we were overthrowing dictators. Back then, I was used to hearing, 'the people are revolting!' But tonight, I'm happy to report that you aren't revolting anymore—you're revolutionizing our future with nearly 90% of you joining the ongoing fight against corruption!" he joked. It was a slight dig at the other revolutionary leaders, who'd mostly sat out the actual revolution itself and had been little better than the corrupt regime they'd been fighting against.

He paused as cheering and chuckles erupted from the thousands of attendees who liked his opening. Then he continued, "What we've achieved for the citizens of our great country over the past few months was more than the previous regime had done for you in their entire time in power."

He was once again forced to pause for cheering and applause, then waited for it to die down before continuing his speech.

"And I promise you that for the next eight years of my presidency, that pace won't continue. Instead, it's going to accelerate! During my presidency, we're going to increase the investment in our country. We're going to work hard and pour our blood, sweat, and tears into making Eden a representation of the best that humanity has to offer. And when my time in office is over, I swear before the citizens of this nation and almighty God above that I will leave the country better than it was when I found it!"

It seemed the audience wasn't quite willing to let him speak as they broke out into another round of spontaneous cheers and applause, forcing him to stop talking again.

"But as they say, 'soonest begun is soonest done,' I'd like to take this opportunity to announce the company that my administration has chosen to partner with to extract the wealth that lies beneath our feet. That company is Connect, a local, responsible, and environmentally conscious company that put in a rather impressive bid.

"You may be familiar with them—they're already responsible for delivering utilities and building networks across this great nation. My team and I are fully confident in their ability to deliver on what they promised in both ours and Esparia's Exclusive Economic Zone, as they've already shown their ability to enter new fields on short notice while delivering quality products at affordable prices. The most important factor is that they're a local company! My team and I are committed to raising Eden into a fully developed nation that can stand on our own as a shining beacon of justice, equality, and a high standard of living!

"And this historic day is just the beginning of the things we're going to do for the development of the country. Along with developing the oil industry, we'll be focusing on our defense industry. Our nation's neutrality will rely on our sons and daughters standing tall and declaring with pride that we! Stand! Together!" Alexander pumped his fist in the air as punctuation for that declaration. It had been shown all throughout history that neutrality was an impossible stance to maintain without the strength to back it up. Neutral, 'pacifist' countries could only choose to be so because they were actually the ones with the biggest fist.

"But that's not all! With the upcoming opening of two ports, a mega-airport, and the completed railway network, our economy will only grow stronger and stronger, proving once and for all that our great nation is no worse than any others on the face of the planet..." Alexander continued his long speech, but no one in the audience seemed bored at all; every word he said was gold, as they revealed many of his plans to develop the country.

...

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"He's really becoming a good speaker," Aron said as he watched the speech. He was even pleasantly satisfied by Alexander's delivery.

[My training worked,] Nova joked, reminding him that she was the one that had taught him everything he knew about public speaking.

"Good job," he said, then turned to Felix and asked, "Is everything ready?"

"Yes." Felix, who was in the room with Aron, Rina, Sarah, and Nova as they watched the rally, continued, "We'll hold a press conference and announce the formation of a branch company that'll be responsible for extracting the resources…." He outlined their plan.

When he was done speaking, Sarah took over and said, "We've also finished preparing to sell the oil internationally, and have already registered the new company. And thanks to Rina's help, we even managed to acquire a few oil tankers. They should be delivered to us by the time the oil derricks are built."

Aron said nothing, just nodded his head as he listened to his inner circle speak. He was holding Rina's hand beneath the conference table, eliciting a secret smile from her. She'd been unable to suppress her joy since being officially selected as the next Rothschild family head after Arieh had been proved to be the one behind the attempt on her life. He had already been banished back to their ancestral land in Israel as a punishment and was banned from leaving the immediate premises there for the rest of his life.

Rina had been quite active since then, as with her position, she had gained the power to change some of the operations of the family businesses. At least, she had that authority as long as the family head didn't overturn her decisions, which he rarely did.

And with her judicious exercise of that power, some Rothchild operations were shuttered, some were expanded, and others were praised for already being on the right track. The movements were massive, to the point that people in the family had begun thinking that she had planned her current course of action for years. It showed them how dedicated she was to growing the family even higher than they already were; thus, her father had grown to trust in her to the point that he basically just automatically approved whenever she asked him for his support. Even if it didn't seem to be beneficial to the family on the surface, she was still able to break down her reasoning and justifications for her plans, causing her father to begin giving up more and more of the power he held in his hands as his trust in her judgment grew.

Her actions didn't manage to avoid the sensitive eyes and ears of the Morgans in the least, though, but they were still focused on figuring out how to take revenge on ARES to earn back their honor. And armed with the knowledge of their cooperation with the Rothschilds, the Morgans were now convinced they had a way to establish communications with an inside man who could give them at least some useful information on the mysterious PMC. After all of their efforts, they had been completely unable to find any useful information about ARES at all; it was almost like the company had simply appeared on a magician's stage from another universe and expanded from there. The most terrifying thing about them was the power they'd displayed, which had been amassed without alerting anyone at all during the buildup process.

Chapter 274 Echo Chambers and Incompetence

The day after Alexander's speech and announcement, all parties that had been involved in the bidding went crazy. Including those spectating "experts", of course.

Many of them complained about why the country had decided to trust an inexperienced company that had never been involved in the oil industry to drill the reserves.

Others that had watched Alexander's speech understood that he wanted to develop a domestic industry and chose a local company, Connect, as a way to kickstart their domestic growth. Even though they weren't an oil company, at least they had some kind of "drilling" experience... for whatever it mattered. Drilling for oil had nothing in common with drilling tunnels, after all.

The parties led by candidates that lost their presidential bid (the most popular of which having only received 2.45% of the votes) tried using that to sling mud at Alexander and paint him as corrupt and Connect as a company that bribed him. They insinuated that Connect wouldn't even be doing the drilling themselves, but would rather contract it out to another company. The inexperienced politicians thought it would benefit them after Alexander's term in office ended, and that they would be able to win the next election—or at least gain positions in the government in the upcoming round of elections—but they failed to account for one thing: Aron himself. There was no chance that Connect would fail in their task, or that they would violate the agreement between the government and the company.

Still, it would make Alexander's first few months or years in office rocky, and that's all they cared about. After all, if they couldn't have it, they didn't want anyone else to have it either.

With the international oil giants fanning the fire in an attempt to make the negative news as huge as possible and use it to further pressure the government into changing the winner of the contract, well... they simply acted as nothing but ammo for the other parties to smear the new president's reputation. That said, no matter how greedy, selfish, or incompetent Alexander's opponents were, they definitely wouldn't allow an outsider to benefit over them.

But the amount of backlash wasn't as effective as they had expected it to be, regardless, since the platforms they used to fuel the fire didn't have the user bases they once had. Most Edenians had already adopted Pangea, and when anyone tried using bots, they would be disappointed if they knew the actual results. Though from their end, everything looked like it was working, what they didn't know was that their instigation was only made visible to people that already shared their opinion. In later years, experts would call the phenomenon a social media echo chamber. For now, though, the people promoting the controversy thought they had achieved a great success and that "everyone" agreed with their points of view. This was despite them failing to sway anyone who didn't already agree with their opinions in the first place.

...…

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The day following the speech, Felix called for a press conference. And the turnout was enormous, as many news outlets wanted to know what they would be saying.

Felix entered the auditorium in their headquarters building, which was now being used as a press room, and walked to the podium amidst the camera flashes. He cleared his throat, then greeted the attendees before immediately getting to the main point.

"Firstly, I'd like to thank President Romero for trusting in the domestic industry's bid and going with us as the sole extractor of Edenian and Esparian oil. I'd also like to take this opportunity to issue a promise to the citizens of both countries that we'll do the best we can to ensure the trust placed in us isn't misplaced. We'll ensure that the citizens of both nations will see the benefits, and we'll do so without an iota of corruption.

"To that end, we've formed a subsidiary branch of Connect: Helios. They'll be responsible for oil and gas, and any other form of energy, both now and in the future. By the end of the week, the contract will be in place and we'll immediately begin constructing derricks. We expect to begin seeing results within the month, and within three months from today, we solemnly vow that you will see the benefits as well.

"I'll now take questions from the press." With that, the announcement was over and Felix pointed at a reporter in the audience. "Go ahead," he said.

"What do you have to say about the increase in the cost of oil for Edenians over the past month?" the reporter asked. The abrupt increase was unexpected, and seemed to be specifically targeted at Eden.

"One of the companies we've been purchasing oil from, Gazprom, decided to terminate their contract with us. That forced us to increase the amount we import from others, and due to the abrupt increase in quantity outside the original contracts with them, we naturally had to pay a premium," Felix answered. He was firing shots, uncaring about the potential consequences of naming and shaming a global oil giant.

"Isn't three months way too fast? Will you be skimping on safety to accomplish an unreasonable goal?" another reporter asked.

"We were forced to expedite things on our end to combat the temporary price increase sooner. The faster we have at least one oil field producing, the better it will be for everyone involved and the sooner the price of crude oil drops for everyone."

The next reporter asked, "Is it true that you are planning on paying another company to do the construction and digging for you?" He was obviously one of those in the same echo chamber as Alexander's political opponents, or perhaps had been bought and paid for by one of the oil giants, or maybe she was just really curious and wanted answers.

"No such thing will happen, as the materials construction will be provided by Hephaestus Heavy Industries. They're already the ones responsible for all the construction taking place in Eden, including the ports, airport, and rail network. They've already proven themselves reliable and trustworthy, both to us at Connect and to Eden at large," Felix said. It was the first time Hephaestus Heavy Industries (HHI) had been mentioned and introduced to the world.

"Next question... you, in the red shirt." He pointed at a reporter in the audience wearing an ostentatious red shirt.

"Is it true that you bribed the president to choose your company under the guise of domestic business support? After all, you have no experience at all." The reporter seemed to have come to the press conference specifically to ask what he thought was a "gotcha" question. To him, it didn't matter whether it was answered or not, as everything coming from Felix's mouth would be considered a scoop.

"Instead of answering, let me ask you a very basic question," Felix began.

"Before we started providing electricity to the entire country, which we did at the end of last month, did we ever have any connection to the energy industry?" He waited for the reporter to answer.

"No," he answered. He suddenly felt like he was falling into a pit he had dug for Felix.

"How about utilities like water and sewage?" Felix continued.

"No," he answered.

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"How about the internet?"

"Not to my knowledge." He finally realized where he was being led.

"And how's the service from all of those industries we've entered been?" Felix concluded with a smile.

"Better and cheaper than it used to be," the reporter answered. He couldn't lie, as his credibility would tank and nobody would trust his reporting anymore.

"Then with those precedents being set by us, what should the people's expectations be now that we're entering a new venture?"

"That you'll be doing it in a better and cheaper way than it's usually done?" He answered, but wasn't confident in his answer.

"That's exactly what we're aiming to accomplish, and it's already in the works," Felix said, then chose another reporter to ask their question.

The reporter in the red shirt sat there in a daze, wondering how his immaculately planned question had been turned into highlighting his own incompetence. He had been stripped of any semblance of professionalism and dignity.

Felix continued answering questions for a while before declaring the conference concluded and directing any further inquiries to Helios' media liaison.

Chapter 275 Big Rig

At the same time the press conference was taking place in the Connect headquarters, an Edenian Navy fleet was towing a massive ship that looked like a toothbrush. They were headed toward the new oil field to begin construction of an offshore drilling rig.

When they neared the location, the fleet dispersed and started the process of patrolling and cleared out everything within twenty kilometers of the oddly shaped ship, which was released by its tug and dropped sea anchors to keep station where it was.

With the large ship now at a full stop, people watching would see it begin tilting as the bow raised and the aft sank. But the people aboard the ship were oddly calm, as they were expecting the movement; it was merely the ballast tanks being filled to adjust the ship's orientation.

Meter by meter, the rear continued dropping faster and faster, until the entire ship was completely vertical. Only about ten meters of the ship was left above the surface of the ocean while the rest had completely disappeared below.

The ship was actually an R/P FLIP, a FLoating Instrument Platform that was designed for scientific exploration of the ocean that could house researchers, workers, or any number of other mission-specific crew in reasonable comfort as they work far from any land mass. This one, however, was designed to perform a specific purpose: the construction of an offshore oil rig.

(Ed note: FLoating isn't actually a typo, that's part of the acronym "FLIP". These ships actually exist; you can find more info here: wiki/RP_FLIP ) 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝐥．𝗰𝗼𝐦

Under the calm ocean surface, the underwater part of the ship got to work as an atomic printer was lowered from what was now the bottom of the research vessel. It began by printing a tether as it sank, keeping it connected to the platform it was being lowered from. Once it reached the sea floor, it dug into the sand beneath it until it hit bedrock and the internal batteries ran out of charge. Once that happened, the small fusion reactor in the FLIP began routing power to the printer, which reactivated, and reeling in any slack in the tether cable, effectively anchoring the FLIP to the bottom of the ocean.

With the printer now being provided the necessary power, it started digging further into the bedrock and maintaining the tether as it went. Eventually, the printer reached more than seven kilometers deep and the shaft the printer had dug out was reinforced to act as a pipe; the oil deposit was just a few meters away.

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The printer then worked its way back up the newly created pipe for a few meters, clearing space for it to print a drill bit and shaft. Once that was done, the printer was hauled back up into the FLIP as it continued working on the pipe that would soon be transporting oil. Once that was completed, it worked its way back down the outside of the new pipe, building and attaching structural elements to it as it went, spiraling out from there to build the rest of the underwater pumping station. But due to the printer's small size and the adverse conditions on the seafloor, it took two full days for the undersea construction to finish before it was hauled back up into the FLIP and the ships departed the area, leaving everyone none the wiser as to what had taken place there.

Meanwhile, back at the Cube, the massive industrial atomic printers were busily printing prefabricated components that would be shipped out and assembled on site, while workers were being recruited and trained at the Helios offices in the Connect headquarters in Edenia. The platform would be completely assembled within the month, and ready to officially begin operations after the workers had undergone three months of training. If it weren't for Aron's desire to maintain the core secrets of his technology—the atomic printers and his VR pods—everything would be done in a matter of days. The months of delay were a necessary trade off.

...

As all of that was happening, Aron was in the lab for the first time in a long while, looking through designs of different devices on a computer.

"Remove the atomic clock from this watch," Aron said, pointing to a smartwatch design. It had an atomic clock in it, allowing it to keep time as accurately as any human would ever need in their lives.

"Reduce the resolution of the camera on this phone by fifty times," he sighed, pointing to the design of a new smartphone.

[What's wrong?] Nova asked.

"I mean... how the hell do they expect me to release products that're a hundred generations ahead of any device that currently exists?" he jokingly complained, though he was rather happy on the inside.

[Isn't that why you're here? You're the one that decides what gets built as is, and what gets downgraded before it can be launched. That's why I told them to go all out,] she responded in the same joking tone, as she quite enjoyed spending time doing this with Aron.

"True, I suppose... Remove the hologram display from this one," he replied and indicated another smartphone design. Even before his latest upgrade, he could multitask without losing focus at all.

"And the AR control from this, the X-ray camera from that, the DNA reader from that..." He continued for more than an hour removing futuretech from the gadgets one by one until they were bare bones of their former selves.

"Now list the features that I left in," he said. Nova waved her hand and a display screen popped up in front of him.

[Mana batteries]

Aron nodded; those were essentially frozen blocks of magic energy that were released as electricity on demand. They store a lot of energy in very little space and are capable of very rapid charging.

[Smart camera]

Aron was quite fond of those. They interfaced with the AI assistant in the GAIA OS and optimized the camera function on smartphones. They were capable of real-time recording in 4K resolution and 3D scanning, and the integration of the AI would allow for real-time image editing, within limits. The AI assistants would have a strict set of guidelines that determined what they were allowed to do, and how far they were allowed to go when it came to editing of still images and video footage.

Essentially, enhancement was fine, but deep fakes would be prohibited.

[Quantum display]

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Instead of the traditional LCD, LED, and qLED or oLED displays, quantum screens were capable of near perfect black levels and infinite contrast. They also had unprecedented pixel density, ultra-fast refresh rates, and virtually eliminated motion blur. Quantum dots were used to allow for currently unheard-of brightness levels, which would let the screen be easily readable even in direct sunlight.

[Graphene CPU chip]

Aron had debated using quantum chips for quite some time. While he was quite familiar with quantum computing, he was still leery of it being "released into the wild", as it were. After all, once it was released, it would be reverse engineered. And due to Moore's Law, it wouldn't take long for others to begin nearing his own level, although they could never catch up to him. But it would still take away quite a few of the advantages he currently possessed even if their reverse-engineered knockoffs were even a third as capable as his.

[Q-com chip]

A Q-com chip was a quantum network adapter that served to deliver fast, stable internet speed. Although it was much faster than any other form of networking currently available on the market—basically around the 7 or 8G benchmark—it was definitely a power hog. Thus, transferring a full movie to a friend would put a lot of stress on a mana battery. That stress would increase as the distance the information was being transmitted increased, so to counter that, he would launch quantum communication satellites into orbit, thus reducing, or at least standardizing, the drain on the mana batteries in the mobile devices.

That said, the Q-com chip version that Aron would be including in his hardware would be camouflaged within a dummy network chip that would only be a few generations advanced beyond what was currently available. The Q-com chip itself was only a few nanometers across and would only be acting as an exclusive feature for GAIA TECHNOLOGY-made devices, so even pulling the device apart and inspecting it would allow the chip to remain unnoticed. It was also far less capable than even those included in the ARES headgear, or the Q-com chips in the glasses he had given to his close circle of friends, family, and acquaintances.

...

The list was quite long, but after reading through it, Aron was satisfied that it was advanced, but not too advanced to be believable.

"Now to figure out which features to include in what," Aron said, then settled in for a long think about the issue. He was planning on releasing hardware this time, not just software, so any and all smart devices were in the running for a feature-rich release from GAIA Technologies.

Chapter 276 Peace, Love, and Save the Whales

New Year's Day, 2016

While some were still celebrating the new year and making resolutions that were doomed to fail, others were still living with the horrors that had happened in November of last year. A few terrorist attacks had claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.

With the release of Star Wars: the Force Awakens the month before, the entertainment section was also still quite riled up, as the movie had achieved a box office success within the month of release.

With all of that happening in the last three months, changes had also occurred in Eden. The Eden of now was completely different from the Eden of the past.

Aron was standing in front of a massive pit with a diameter measured in kilometers. As he gazed into it, the screaming of displaced air came from the distance as a maglev train neared the pit and soon entered a bridge that crossed it.

The train slowed down a bit as it passed through the bridge, and the moment it neared the center of the pit, the containers it was loaded with were ejected from the train with enough force that they directly cleared the bridge and started falling into the pit.

The containers continued picking up speed as they fell, then crashed to a pile of other containers that were already at the bottom of the pit. All of those containers had arrived in the same way.

"How long until it starts?" Rina asked as she appeared on a chair behind him.

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"A few minutes, at least. The last train should arrive before the process begins," Aron answered, momentarily breaking his staring competition with the pit and turning to smile at Rina. Then he returned to his staring contest, as he was trying to find the limit of his ability to multitask. The best way he could come up with was to try thinking of as many things as possible at once. Once he stopped being able to simultaneously develop on his thoughts, he would know where he stood.

As he did that, Rina just watched him with a loving smile on her face. She liked seeing him focused on whatever he was doing.

The screaming of displaced air came again as another train passed over the bridge to deliver one last batch of containers for the first phase of the project.

"It's starting," Aron reminded Rina. But she was already prepared; she put on her glasses and stood near Aron, joining him in looking into the pit.

...

With the last container finally falling, Nova took over and stopped supplying power to the entire rail that led to the bridge. It was a last resort measure, but a prudent one, as when all of the thousands of failsafes fail, the improbable becomes probable. That was a lesson she had learned just a few months ago. So now, no matter how impossible something seemed, she would always prepare for the worst-case scenario.

[Disintegrator #0000001 'Trashman' is coming online. Everyone in the vicinity should evacuate,] Nova announced over all of the radio frequencies and Q-coms within two kilometers of the pit. The announcement repeated three times to make sure that anyone who was near the pit would hear it.

With the warning broadcasted, she started the process of bringing the Trashman online. The first step was something that could only be seen through the AR feature on Aron's inner circle glasses. If Rina wasn't wearing hers, for example, she wouldn't have seen the shield that appeared and expanded to cover the entirety of the pit. Even though it was invisible to the naked eye—at least for everyone except Aron, and perhaps his little brother—the shield had sealed the entire enormous pit, making it impossible for anything to enter or leave it.

With the shield now online, it was followed by the disintegrator that covered the entire bottom of the pit coming to life. It immediately began disintegrating the thousands of containers and whatever their contents were along with them, separating them atom by atom.

"Wow," Rina said. She couldn't believe she was witnessing materials being disintegrated and broken apart, leaving their component atoms to scatter everywhere in the pit. They created a cloud of fog and filled the 'dump', making it impossible to see through. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝒈

After thirty minutes of continuous operation, everything that had been in the pit was turned into a cloud of various atoms. Although they hadn't been collected, yet, that changed when the disintegrator ceased its operation. With the disintegrator offline, the collector came online and began sorting atoms and compressing them as building blocks of pure elements, then moving them into dedicated storage areas for later use in the atomic printers.

Once the collection, sorting, and storing was finished, the shield was powered off. It would no longer be needed until the next 'garbage collection'. Every part of the recycling system was systematically power cycled then completely shut down before Nova returned power to the section of maglev track leading to the pit from the trunk line.

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Soon, more trains began arriving and routing themselves to the storage facilities, where they picked up the stored material and headed to their next destination: the underground warehouses that existed to feed the element-hungry atomic printers in the Cube.

"The efficiency is off the charts," Rina exclaimed. She'd watched the entire process from start to finish and been amazed by it; the bottom of the pit was now as clean as it was before the containers had been thrown into it.

"It could've been more efficient, but that would've been overkill." Aron wrapped his arm around her waist and headed toward the futuristic helicopter they had arrived on. The pit had no access paths other than the maglev rail that passed through, and that was a completely secured line.

"Is your curiosity satisfied?" he asked.

"Yes, but you could've just told me about it. You didn't have to go so far just to answer my question," she replied, flashing him an embarrassed smile as she thought back on the question that had brought them to the pithere.

She had asked why they sought to be the main receiver of everyone's trash during the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations that had ended with the signing of a trade agreement by the United States, Eden, Esparia, and eleven other Pacific Rim nations. Many countries considered it Eden's way of reaching out and trying to develop a friendly relationship with those countries. Some of them had even been the previous 'trash bin of the world' and were now facing problems. Their citizens were naturally unhappy about becoming global trash dumps, and there were numerous health issues that arose from it that were only barely offset by the money they received for providing the service.

Basically, it was a dirty job that not even Mike Rowe would have wanted when he was still hosting his tv show.

(Ed note: "Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe" was a television series that ran on the Discovery network in the US from 2003-2012. The host, Mike Rowe, would spend a day being followed around by a camera crew in documentary style as he worked in different "dirty" jobs, things like septic tank cleaner, sewer inspector, and cow inseminator, among others. It was wildly popular in the US and even moved to Australia for its final season.)

"I just needed a reason to take a breather. I've been spending too much time in Lab City, figuring out which products we'll be releasing. That took time away from you, which isn't a good thing," Aron said as they boarded the helicopter. He took the pilot seat and started putting on his seat belt; Rina naturally settled into the copilot seat and they both put on the specialized pilot's version of the ARES helmet, taking their safety very seriously.

Chapter 277 All Eyes on Eden

Aron and Rina's conversation continued as they toured the skies of Avalon Island before heading to Edenia.

"It's quite surprising how fast Eden started mixing with other countries. It even managed to join the UN, though that seemed to have been made easier with your discovery of oil," Rina said.

The UN Security Council had acted with surprising speed when approving Eden's application, especially since Russia and China knew nobody else would be allowed to harvest the Edenian and Esparian oil fields.

"Well, there's a reason they call it black gold, after all. It's pure wealth and power, and it all boils down to how much we can produce. The more we can produce, the better we can stabilize the global market if a crisis arises in the OPEC nations," Aron responded as he expertly piloted the helicopter. 𝓫𝓮𝒹𝓷ℴ𝓿ℯ𝓵.𝓬ℴ𝓶

"Although I know how you're planning on pumping the oil, I wonder what the people who expect you to fail will think. They're all just waiting for you to fall on your face and go begging to them for cooperation. But you've wildly exceeded expectations and you don't even need more than 1% of what you're pumping to feed all of Eden's requirements for it. You've become a global exporter almost overnight!" she said.

The workers had finished being trained a few months before, and had taken over the offshore platform that'd been sitting idle for nearly two months in the wait for workers. The production speed had stunned everyone, and proved Alexander's decision was correct; his party had even won more than 90% of the parliament seats. He could almost be considered a dictator himself! There was actually a term for that in politics: a benevolent dictator. They wielded absolute power, but not only for themselves. Instead, they worked for the people under them to benefit.

"The people almost couldn't believe that everything was ready so fast. We only released the report and announced the completion and we upheld our promise to deliver within three months. Luckily for us, it just so happened to begin a few days before the parliamentary election. There's even a bunch of conspiracy theorists that cropped up on Pangea, I guess because the timing was fertile ground for them. The thing is, some of them are right," he let out a hearty laugh that was joined by Rina.

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When the helicopter reached Edenia, they flew over the major projects that Hephaestus Heavy Industries had either completed, or made major progress on. Most of them were completely finished, with only the rail network lagging behind a bit. But even that was mostly completed, with only the minor lines left to build; the trunk lines were already in full operation, becoming the heart and vessels of the country's economy.

Just the completion of the trunk lines alone had attracted the attention of the rest of the world, as the project had achieved its current success at a speed everyone would consider impossible. Things like the sheer scale of the network, which spanned thousands of kilometers. Yet all of that had taken just a single year concept to completion. And that was while the company was still constructing three other megaprojects and had completed a fourth! There were still two megaports and a mega-airport, plus the utility infrastructure. It was completely unbelievable... almost magical, some would say.

Another attention-grabbing thing about the rail network was that it was completely comprised of maglev rails. Eden was the only country that had managed that, as most other nations only used maglev for local public transportation, while they relied on the aging and sometimes crumbling rail infrastructure that had been around since the early 20th century for most intercity and interstate/international transportation other than japan with their shinkansen line which was the only example this network could be compared with if you don't consider the sheer size of the Edens network.

Experts speculated that it had to have cost an arm and a leg to accomplish that on such an enormous scale in such a short period of time. That, too, acted as a major surprise for anyone who decided to investigate HHI, especially after they found out that it was a private company that had never even had rumors spread about. People were flabbergasted; didn't that mean that a single company with a fairly few people had invested all of that money and would be the only ones benefiting from the network's operation?

That was a lot of money!

Economists estimated that the rail network alone would require more than $50 billion to build, so where did the money come from? Banks all around the world that were capable of lending significant amounts were the first to deny that they had loaned anything to anyone that was earmarked for any construction projects in Eden at all, let alone a megaproject like a countrywide rail network!.

With just that project alone, Connect was valuated at over $100 billion. But that wasn't all of their projects, as people began estimating the amount of investments and profits for the utility infrastructure, along with the two megaports and the mega-airport that were already considered to be among the world's largest.

All of those projects were solely invested in, and operated by, a single company: Connect. The only other company involved was Hephaestus Heavy Industries, which was awarded no-bid contracts for all of the projects and the amount was confidential. That led some people to believe that the companies absolutely must be state owned and operated—especially since no company in their right minds would keep that amount of liquidity on their balance sheet—but a few people had either connected the dots between three long-time friends or already knew the truth: the companies were wholly owned by one Aron Michael.

However, most of those people were considered crackpot conspiracy theorists. Aron was famous for only one thing: GAIA Technologies was his company. How could he have time to run more than one company, even if he had friends to take the day-to-day operations on? It was one thing to sit on a board, and many people sat on multiple boards of directors of different companies, but to actually be an owner of them? That was too much work for one person to do in a day that was limited to 24 hours!

All of the speculation was only made possible because the companies were private, so there was no requirement to report the names of their owners, or any employees, really. Thus, people only knew that Connect was headed by Felix Hanover and Sarah O'Connor was the CEO of GAIA Technologies. Aron was still in public memory as the owner, but only barely; he had mostly faded from public view at this point, and only the truly powerful were still keeping an eye on him and his movements.

But still despite all the secrecy, there were still people that suspected there was a shadowy figure at the helm of all of those companies. Hephaestus Heavy Industries, GAIA Technologies, Helios Energy, and Connect... just what was the connection there? There had to be one, and all of the theorists mostly agreed on a single name: Aron Michael. Still, they couldn't quite accept that. Perhaps due to his age, or maybe because of his humble beginnings, they suspected that there was an even shadowier shadowy figure behind him and were arguing about which major family scion it was.

"So when do you plan on releasing the products you've been hard at work on in Lab City?" Rina switched the topic to what Aron had been spending most of his time doing. She had been very curious as to what he'd been planning, especially since he specifically teased her with it as an upcoming surprise.

"I plan to announce and simultaneously release them on February 15th," Aron said as he landed the helicopter on the roof of the tallest building in the city, his company's temporary headquarters.

They disembarked and took the waiting elevator to the meeting room, where they would be holding an in-person meeting with Sarah and Felix. They had decided to meet in person as they would be restructuring the companies for more efficiency and eliminating redundancies. Nova had earlier highlighted the waste in all of those companies that was a result of the lack of consolidation.

Aron sat at the head of the conference table and greeted his friends, marking the beginning of the restructuring process. Rina, who wasn't officially involved in any of the companies' operations, left the room to tour the city after pecking Aron's cheek.

"Let's begin," he said.

Chapter 278 Restructuring and Reprogramming

With Aron's words, the meeting started and Nova immediately materialized in front of them. She sat in her chair as she took the position of secretary, but also the restructuring project manager. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝗼𝗿𝐠

[Let's start by listing the companies and what they've been doing before I explain the reconstruction plan. That way it'll make sense.

[First is GAIA Technologies, which introduced Gaia OS, Pangea, BugZapper, and a hit game to the world. It was also the first company Aron built and later incorporated a law firm, which still acts as the company's legal department.

[Next is Connect, LLC, which has been providing internet, electricity, water, sewage services, and transportation throughout Eden.

[Then there's Hephaestus Heavy Industries, which is responsible for the production of all physical products that all the companies need.

[And last, but not least, is Helios Energy, which has been awarded the contract to extract and refine the crude oil deposits in Eden and Esparia.

[In order to manage the security of Eden, Esparia, and the rest of the companies, ARES Security, LLC, was established.]

Nova had listed the current companies under Aron and delineated their areas of responsibility in a succinct, easy-to-understand fashion. Everyone nodded as they listened and looked at the display screen next to her that showed infographics on each company as she mentioned them.

[That's our current list of properties, but the bloat and redundancy is beginning to grow. So to combat that, I suggest a restructuring as follows...]

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Aron handed everyone a folder, so they could follow along with the presentation in hardcopy form.

[First, Connect, LLC will become Connect Enterprises and divest the departments that aren't administrative, such as human resources. They'll also take over the legal and IT departments from GAIA Technologies. Connect, LLC will be renamed Connect Enterprises and act as a parent company for the rest of our companies, which will operate as incorporated subsidiaries.

[So GAIA Technologies will become GAIA Technologies, Inc. and will be responsible for the software and hardware product sales, including BugZapper, GAIA OS, Pangea, and GAIA Games. They'll also absorb the internet utility from Connect and launch GAIA Broadband.

[Helios Energy will become Helios Energy & Utilities, Inc. and will be responsible for oil extraction and refining, as well as delivering utilities to customers, like electricity, water, and waste disposal.

[Hephaestus Heavy Industries will become Hephaestus Industries and Manufacturing, Inc. and will be responsible for manufacturing any product required or designed by the other companies under the Connect umbrella. They'll also be in charge of land speculation and development, as well as construction.

[ARES Security, LLC will become ARES Security Solutions, Inc. and will provide security services to all of our companies, as well as armed forces, mercenary companies, and private security for high-value individuals,] she said.

Essentially, all of the administrative departments in each company would be divested and taken over by Connect, which would in turn divest their utility and rail divisions, becoming a centralized administrative resource for all of the subsidiary companies under it.

[In addition to those changes,] Nova continued, [there will be a few more companies incorporated under the Connect umbrella.

[First is Hermes, Inc., which will be an import/export company responsible for bulk international freight as well as shipping within Eden and Esparia. They'll be taking over the rail network that Connect will divest as well.

[Next is Plutus Ventures, Inc. It'll be a venture capital and hedge fund that'll provide macro and micro loans, either as venture capital or angel investing. They'll be the ones responsible for all financial aspects of the companies under the Connect umbrella.

[Then comes Icarus Airlines, Inc. That'll be our passenger airline and low-volume, high-value shipping service. It'll operate out of our new airport here in Eden as its main hub.

[There are a few more companies we'll be launching and incorporating under the Connect umbrella, namely Asclepius Biotechnology, Inc. and the Coeus Foundation.

[Asclepius Biotechnology, Inc. will be our medical research branch. There, we'll research and develop medicines and medical hardware. They'll also operate a number of teaching hospitals, local clinics, and a medical school.

[And last, but certainly not least, is the Coeus Foundation. That'll be our charity company, as well as endowment management. They'll fund and operate private schools at every level, from pre-kindergarten all the way through university, including post-doctoral degree programs. They'll also be in charge of managing a charity fund whose purpose is to uplift and increase the standards of living in rural, poor, and underserved areas around the world,] Nova finished.

Aron, Felix, and Sarah watched as the AR display popped up infographics for each of the new companies, then read through the hardcopy reports in front of them. Nova had only outlined general responsibilities, and all three of those who were physically present in the room were interested in the intricate details.

Silence descended in the room as they pondered the things that would happen if they were to go forward with the plan.

"Since it'll increase efficiency and cut costs, I don't see why it shouldn't be adopted. What do you think, Felix?" Sarah said.

"I just have a few questions about the new companies," he said.

[Ask away,] Nova said, welcoming the questions.

"Based on your presentation, you mentioned other companies would be created. Does that mean they already have products to release, or would they be incorporated later?" he asked. His main focus was on Asclepius Biotechnology, a company that he had little to no information about. He had his guesses, but wanted to know exactly what it was.

[Asclepius Biotechnology will deal with everything about life. From food, to medicine, and everything in between. Initially, though, it'll focus on improving the health of Edenians. We have a promise to keep about healthcare, after all. Once that standard is raised, we'll introduce cures to most of the currently 'incurable' diseases, like certain cancers and chronic or seasonal illnesses like the common cold and flu. In the future, they'll produce the nutrient solution required for extended stays in the VR pods we're planning on eventually releasing,] Nova explained.

"What'll happen to my position as the CEO of Connect? I can't imagine having Sarah under me in the chain of command..." he glanced at the person sitting next to Nova, "let alone Aron!" he nervously laughed.

"Each of you can choose to be the president of any of the companies we'll have under Connect Enterprises," Aron said. He wanted to keep his friends around him more than he needed their expertise anymore, since he could be made an expert in any field at a moment's notice. Perhaps he had needed their help at one point, but currently he kept them around out of sentimentality and for the same reason Roman emperors and commanders kept aurigae slaves.

(Ed note: an auriga was the slave who, historians believe, would whisper "memento mori" into the ears of powerful Roman authorities (such as the emperor, senators, legates, and even gladiatorial champions) to remind them that they weren't perfect and were only human.)

"I've always been interested in building things. Remember my LEGO collection?" Felix chuckled. "So I guess I'll take Hephaestus."

"I'll stick with GAIA," Sarah said. "How about the stock market? Shouldn't we create an exchange to facilitate the buying and selling of shares in the country? That would give us quite a bit of power over the companies here." Sarah recalled the profit that the NYSE and Nasdaq were raking in. Many people even thought of them as government entities, despite them being privately owned companies.

"We're still waiting for the government to implement regulations in terms of securities exchange before we can consider entering that market," Aron said. "Once they do, we can cooperate with the Rothschilds, which will give us an immediate legitimacy in the field. There's also the banking issue... but basically, at the moment, it all boils down to one thing: Eden is simply too poor right now to make the securities exchange business viable."

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Felix raised his hand and asked, "So who's going to head up the rest of the companies? Sarah's keeping GAIA, and I'm taking over Hephaestus, so... I hope you aren't planning on us being the presidents of EVERYTHING." He was a little bit worried and wondering if there would be enough hours in the day for all the work he would have to do if that were the case.

Aron just gave him a slightly evil smirk.

"...right?" Felix nervously snickered.

"You're right," Aron laughed, amused by his nervous friend's expression.

Felix heaved a sigh of relief and shot an annoyed glance that implied payback at his friend.

"Who'll be running them then?" Sarah asked, curious at what Aron would come up with. She was sure that the people who would be chosen as presidents of the new companies would need to be made aware of the VR world and have their own set of glasses, at least, to facilitate the smooth operation of the new companies. There was no other way to effectively interface with the AIs, after all.

"You know about personality adjustments, right?" Aron asked, despite knowing that they knew. He was priming them for the next bit of information.

When they nodded, he continued, "After hundreds of thousands of personality reformations performed on our soldiers, in order to make them more effective but also prevent them from revealing the existence of VR, we discovered that we could entirely change a person's personality if we wanted. Furthermore, we can implant an AI of our own design into them, essentially replacing the person they once were," Aron said. Sarah and Felix felt a slight chill run down their spines at the idea, having heard it for the first time since he hadn't told them about the vlad?m?r incident.

"So a thought occurred to me... why don't we use that tech to hijack the bodies of deserving criminals? We'd technically be 'rehabilitating' them and turning them into productive members of society, that way. Plus, we'd be filling high-level holes in our human resources department, making it a two birds one stone kind of deal."

Aron had just dropped a massive nuclear info bomb on his friends, and though he looked confident on the outside, he nervously awaited their responses.

Chapter 279 The Evil Thoughts of Good People

Silence was the only response Aron received from the other two people in the room as they contemplated his idea and attempted to come to terms with it.

It was their first time facing such a morally gray decision. And although many people who'd reached the lofty heights of the three people in the meeting room had done so after many despicable deeds, neither Sarah nor Felix had ever had to make a choice like the one before them. They had been given their high and mighty positions simply because of their friendship with Aron and his trust in them; they were the only two that had stayed by his side besides his family when everyone else had abandoned him during the Rottem Morgan debacle, after all.

Thus, they had never been faced with such difficult decisions before. They were completely unlike Aron, who'd had to deal with the death of all the people that had died in the Eden-Esparia war. That said, he had only managed to overcome that without any significant guilt thanks to the system doing all the hard work in the background and adapting his personality. But at the time, he hadn't realized what was happening, nor did he think it was strange to feel no guilt over the conflict; instead, he had found it justifiable, as the Esparians were standing against him and interfering with his goals.

"But wouldn't that attract too much attention? If someone that, as you said, is deserving of death immediately got a position of power in one of your companies, wouldn't it negatively affect your image? You'd also bear the hatred of those who were previously harmed by those criminals," Felix mused. He had thought about it, not from the perspective of the criminals in question, but from the people that would be affected by the choice.

"For them to earn legitimacy, they'll need to be from the industry in question. So they'll already have a bad reputation, but can't be in prison. So I think I have the same question as Felix." Sarah had reached the same conclusion as Felix.

"But do they really have to be from the industries in question? I've already created a precedent of making people CEOs no matter their age or experience, so what's different about making underqualified people presidents of a subsidiary company?" Aron said, pointing at them as the main examples of that precedent.

"We can be explained by people investigating our past, as they'll discover that we're your friends. They might come to the conclusion that we were your only choice at that time, since you couldn't trust anyone but us with your money due to our history," Sarah said. She couldn't deny that her position was entirely due to nepotism, though she at least had somewhat of a background in business management. But who in their right mind would be dumb enough to entrust such a huge business to a newly graduated student?

"It also might make our companies a target for the people they might've harmed. That won't be good, because as far as I remember, we've already got quite a big target on our back. The Morgans alone are looking for anything they can use to attack us," Felix added, reminding Aron of the Morgans, who were weirdly quite determined to bring them down. And their silence only indicated that they were planning something devastating.

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"That's true," Aron agreed.

[Why don't we find someone who has a good reputation in those fields, but isn't president material yet? We can also filter them out based on their position and drive—we'd look for people who can give up anything to achieve their goals. That way, we wouldn't need to do more than just slight personality adjustments to guarantee loyalty and confidentiality,] Nova interjected. She was talking about making the potential presidents sign a runic contract to avoid future problems, something he hadn't used since the VR reprogramming had started being widely implemented. But she wasn't willing to allow anyone into Aron's inner circle that had even the remotest possibility of being a backstabber in the future, and the personality adjustments weren't quite as ironclad as runic contracts. At least, not as new as the technology was now, anyway; perhaps they would be an option in the future, but she was focusing on the now.

"I think that'd work best for our image, while also allowing us to gain quite willing and hard workers," Sarah said. She was completely ignoring the morality of the so-called 'mild' personality manipulation.

'Looks like my friends are growing up,' Aron thought as he realized they were slowly becoming capable of making tough decisions... at least as long as they had solid reasons behind them. "Let's go with that, then. Nova, you can start looking for people who fit the description," he said, putting a start to the search for specific kinds of people. He would wait for a few options to be found before he decided which among them would luck out and receive the offer of their lives.

[Yes, sir,] Nova said, and a portion of her computing power immediately got to work as she used Pangea for the task. It had long become the most-used social media app and had more daily users than even YouTube. Pangea topped them by about two hundred million more daily users.

"Now that that's solved, we need to come up with a decision on when and where we'll build the new conglomerate headquarters," Aron said, moving on to the next topic. Then he noticed the strange looks on his friends' faces and asked, "You two look like you've got fish bones stuck in your throats. Spit it out—what's wrong?"

Sarah and Felix looked at each other, communicating without words, then Sarah asked, "You haven't... 'adjusted' us, have you?"

"Of course not!" Aron said. "You two are my oldest, closest, and best friends, and I completely trust the both of you. Now let's get back on topic, there's still a lot to do today."

Felix cleared his throat. "Since the new HQ can't be at the city center, how about we build it close to one of the ports and surround it with a 'company town' for our workers to live in if they want?" Felix proposed. That would be his dream, as well as a heaven for the workers.

"I suggest we build it on an island, instead," Sarah chimed in, only changing where it would be built. Instead of near one of their ports, she thought it would be better to build on another island.

"Let's see the proposals and plans Nova comes up with before making a decision between them," Aron said, leaving Nova to come up with plans based on his friends' suggestions before they come to a decision on where to build.

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[Can I also include my suggestion in those proposals?] she asked.

"Sure, since it'll increase the options we have, and also might have an insight we forgot to take into consideration." Aron completely trusted Nova and wouldn't treat her as a simple worker or servant.

The meeting continued as the three friends hashed out the details on what would be the most important place on Earth in the future.

...

While Aron continued his meeting, Rina was in the middle of a phone call. Her father had called, asking why she wasn't returning home and spending her time in Eden instead.

"Father, I don't really have to be there for the work to get done. I can give all the orders remotely, and have been doing it for quite a while without a problem," she said.

"Are you seeing someone there?" he asked. He'd had his suspicions for some time, but couldn't find any proof. Nothing had been made very obvious between Rina and Aron, and he wouldn't send a private investigator to investigate his daughter—and heir—as it would only show he didn't trust her.

"...yes," she replied. It was time for her to just reveal the truth and let the chips fall where they may. She wasn't worried about her father's approval anymore, nor did she think it was necessary in modern times.

She received nothing but silence in reply, and it stretched for quite some time.

Chapter 280 Meet the Parents?

"Who is he?" Rina's father asked.

"You know him, father," she said. She didn't need to mention Aron's name, as she was sure her father would know who she was talking about.

"You know that isn't how our family does things, right?" Her father was slightly displeased about her course of action going against their traditions.

"I know," she replied. She wasn't even planning on trying to explain, since, like Aron, she hated lying when there was no reason to.

There was silence from the other side of the phone once again. Rina's father hadn't expected her to be so bold, but realized that she was serious about her relationship.

"I feel safe around him, and he's someone who was on my side even when I was in a difficult time," she continued after a while. Aron was very important to her.

"But…." As the family head was about to say something about Aron's low class upbringing, he remembered that he had no right to lecture her daughter after having allowed her brother to marry her off to a scumbag like Rottem. Rottem was from a mere branch of the Morgans—which was even an enemy family! At the time, he had justified that decision by telling himself that he hadn't broken any rules, but he still felt like it would be hypocritical of him to lecture her about Aron now.

"You'd better bring him to meet me. Then I'll decide what to do about your relationship," he sighed. That was as far as he could compromise on the matter.

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The compromise brought a smile to Rina's face, since if she were ever to be put in a situation where she had to choose between Aron and her family, she would choose Aron without a second thought. She didn't agree to bring him without question, though, and replied, "Yes, I'll tell him and let you know what he says."

"Haaaa..." A disappointed, but interested, sigh came from the other end of the phone before it hung up with a click. Rina's father had mixed feelings about her situation; he was disappointed that his daughter had been "stolen" from him, but at the same time, he was interested in the person who could make her behave like that.

Rina put down the phone and heaved a sigh of relief, thanking god that the worst outcome hadn't happened. If it had, and she chose Aron over her family, it would mean that two behemoth families—the Rothschilds and the Morgans—would be his enemies. One Morgan family was enough.

Even so, if the worst ever did happen, America would suffer for it; she knew her home country could never face her boyfriend on an even playing field and would only lose miserably if they were to come into conflict with him.

Putting her phone back into her purse, she rose from the chair she was sitting in and headed to the meeting room. Ava had told her that the meeting was coming to an end.

...

"Did you wait long?" Aron asked as she met him at the door of the meeting room.

"No, I'd just finished checking out the building when Ava told me your meeting was almost over," she answered as she hugged him and waved to Felix and Sarah. They were still in the meeting room, planning to continue their discussion about the upcoming product launch. It was likely going to break records, and even topple the first iPhone product launch.

"Good, then let's hurry—we promised to meet mom and dad for lunch," Aron said. He took her hand and walked to the waiting elevator to leave the building.

"Now that you mention fathers, mine said he wants to meet you. He called earlier, and I told him I had a boyfriend," Rina said with a serious face. Aron froze, causing Felix, Nova, and Sarah to laugh; they had heard Rina's "confession" and found it hilarious that Aron was going to have a "meet the parents" moment with the Rothschilds.

The pause was momentary, so short that only those who had received enhancements would notice it. Aron returned to his normal state and turned to Rina with a smile on his face. "Sure, no problem. Is there a specific date that I have to be there?" he asked.

"No, he just wants us to visit when we're free," she answered as they continued their walk to the elevator.

"That's good, then. I think we should go after the product launch." Aron wanted to impress his future father-in-law with at least a few accomplishments, and the timing was about right.

Rina understood his reasoning, so she smiled and said, "I'll tell him you agreed to come, then."

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"Mhmm.…"

…...

Meanwhile, in the Rothschild compound's family head mansion, Rina's father was sitting with his phone in his hand as he called for his secretary.

The secretary came to the room as fast as he could, barely managing to maintain his dignity. "Sir, you called for me?" he said after entering the office.

"I need you to bring me every bit of information you can find on Aron Michael," he said. He wanted to know the history of the man his daughter seemed to have taken a fancy to.

"Yes, sir." The secretary immediately left the room, not caring why he would even want the information about that person at all. 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝐧𝐨𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝐦

'Let's see who you really are,' he thought. Once he knew everything about Aron, he would decide whether or not to interfere in his daughter's relationship. Not just anyone was worthy of being a Rothschild, after all, but if Aron was, the family head would be happy for his daughter.

He was feeling very tired at the moment due to being swamped with work as it was the start of a very tumulous and important period in the US government and a moment which would decide the level of influence they would have in the government for the next four years; a presidential election- was nearing hence requiring him to do his best to ensure their candidate wins the election, as losing meant the presidential power will be going to the Morgans, which was something he didn't want to happen.

To rejuvenate himself, he left his office and headed to see his wife, whom he dearly loved. His relationship was quite different from a normal marriage between big families, who consider weddings more of a business transaction than anything else.

Chapter 281 "Agent Orange" Player Two has Entered the Game

At the Mar-A-Lago golf course, a controversial figure known for his blond hair and very orange skin was golfing in his signature white shirt and white shorts, uncaring about all the turmoil he had caused when he'd announced the controversial idea of banning Muslims from entering the United States.

It wasn't the first controversy he had created, and it would be far, far from the last.

Just as he was about to hit the golf ball, his pocket started vibrating. He halted his swing and answered his phone, since anyone who could call him on this particular phone was someone who warranted an immediate answer.

"Hello," he greeted after he looked at who the caller was. The name made him smile.

"Hello, how's our next president doing?" came a voice from the other side of the call.

"George, what caused you to call me in the middle of the afternoon? You know I should be working hard on my campaign," replied the man. He was knowingly lying through his teeth despite knowing the other person knew what he was doing; they had eyes everywhere.

"I called because my father wants to see you this evening. Can you make it?" George said after their short greetings.

"I'll make it even if I have to cancel some appointments. I can't disappoint him at all," the man replied, then the two chatted for a while before the call ended. The orange man in white golf clothes returned to the game that had been interrupted by the phone call.

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He punted the ball, sending it into the air... and straight off the course into the rough.

...

That evening.

"Welcome," George welcomed the man he'd had a conversation with earlier that afternoon.

"I'm not late, right? Since I'm not the president yet, I can't really avoid the traffic," the man joked as he shook hands with George, then followed him into the mansion for the meeting.

Later, after they'd had dinner and finished their small talk, they moved to the family head's room to continue. The two men greeted a third in a serious tone, appropriate for the sober atmosphere.

"So when will you start using your power to support me in my bid for president?" the orange man asked. His goofy behavior was usually only on display when he was making speeches on the campaign trail. They were inevitably riddled with misinformation, but it seemed like he was an entirely different person in the face of the real power of the person in this particular room.

"I'm pretty sure we've already been supporting you for quite a while. We've already been helping you shape the narrative around many of your scandalous acts," Aubrey answered in the same serious manner.

"That isn't enough at all. I didn't think your family had fallen so far, to the point of only being capable of supporting me that much," Trump said in a slightly mocking tone. He wasn't satisfied by the support from the Morgans at all.

George, hearing the tone in which Trump said those words, couldn't help but take a deep breath. Trump had just kicked the bull's balls by saying that to the Morgan family head.

The reaction from Aubrey wasn't different from what George expected at all as he opened his mouth and said, "It seems like people are starting to forget who we really are, if even you—who we've decided to support—think that we don't have the same pull we once had." His voice was sepulchrally chilly.

Trump thought to himself, 'Looks like using his ego to force him to increase investment in my campaign backfired.' He belatedly realized what he had risked by provoking Aubrey Morgan.

Aubrey continued, "The only reason I decided to support you is because I want a president under our control to reduce the power the Rothschilds hold in congress. But that doesn't mean you're the only option. I can just as easily support Cruz, who's already ahead of you. The only reason I haven't is because he's already covered in Rothschild fingerprints, and you aren't...

"But that doesn't mean I can't fix him and ditch you if you become useless to me. Just because we decided to treat you with a modicum of respect doesn't mean you aren't a piece of shit or that we can't live without you. We don't need you, but you need us. Just your stupidity over the last two years alone can bury you under so much controversy that you'll suffocate in the deepest, darkest hole the law can bury your orange ass in!"

Aubrey took a deep breath to regain his composure, which had been shaken by Trump's earlier disrespect. It was unbecoming of a Morgan to be so crude in their speech.

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"You either take what we give you and do what we order, or you don't think about entering politics at all. Am I understood?" he asked. They truly didn't need Trump, and Aubrey, in particular, was beginning to believe that he may become more liability than asset down the line. Currently, his biggest value was that nobody would ever believe the Morgans would work with a person like him, beneficial to them or not. His loose cannon attitude was completely contrary to the absolute control that a man like Aubrey Morgan demanded from situations he chose to involve himself in.

"Yes, sir." Trump could only bow his head and realize his mistake. He had been made complacent by the level of respect he'd previously been shown by the Morgan family head. "It seems I've misspoken. Please forgive my words, I had no intention of disgracing you at all."

Despite his flaws, Trump did have one decent quality: he had a certain low, animal cunning and viciousness that made him uniquely suited to disrupt the status quo.

"Since it's the first time, I won't hold it against you. But pull anything like that in the future and you have many more companies that can suddenly go bankrupt... Keep that in mind," Aubrey said. He was unwilling to give the man in front of him any more face.

"Thank you," Trump said. He held this most recent grudge inside him and didn't show it at all, though he promised himself he would settle it in the future when he was the president. 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝗹．𝐨𝗿𝗴

"Now that we've resolved the misunderstanding, let's move on to the main topic of how we're going to get you elected." Aubrey immediately moved on, disinterested in prolonging the meeting.

Hearing his father say that, George immediately picked up the folders near him, handed them to Trump, and began introducing their contents.

"Our support will start from influencing the public through Fox News, Breitbart, and other right-wing media outlets, but the tone won't change at first. The media will gradually support you over the rest of the candidates, and we'll make sure that we only pick clowns that you can easily beat so as to not raise suspicions," George began. He pointed Trump toward each page and introduced them one by one, showing in detail what the Morgans promised in terms of campaign support. It included everything, from poll numbers and manipulation, to undermining his fellow candidates, giving him more air time on the media, and even went so far as to include opposition research ("Oppo") on everyone involved in the 2016 general election, including the democrats as well as those the Rothschilds had propped up on each side. No major family would ever choose only one candidate or side, in order to hedge their bets and ensure they came out as the ultimate winners.

When Trump saw the proposal, just the first page alone was enough to cause a smile to appear on his face. It was the level of support he had been expecting from such a prominent family.

Chapter 282 The Reason

Satisfied with Trump's reaction, George continued the summary.

"We won't start with high-profile endorsements, but they'll go up in value along with the increase in your poll numbers. Your first endorsement will come from Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee."

When Trump heard that name, he knew that they weren't messing around at all. And that was just the first in a long line of endorsements to come.

"She'll officially endorse you at a rally in Iowa, which should be, I think, on January 19th. That's about three weeks from now, and a few days after the sixth republican primary debate," he continued.

"In February, which should be the month you start overtaking Ted Cruz in the polls, the New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, will start endorsing you after your wins—"

"Isn't he a candidate? And quite critical of me, as well," Trump interrupted. He wasn't sure if he had misheard something or not.

"Yes. He'll drop out of the race next month and endorse you along with former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer; Maine Governor, Paul LePage; and former Massachusetts Senator, Scott Brown." George gave him a look and continued, "In march Ben Carson will also suspend his campaign and do the same, but that'll be after Jeff Sessions…." He continued mentioning all the high-profile people who would be endorsing Trump to help increase his reach over a larger republican audience.

'They aren't fucking around at all' Trump thought. He realized that they hadn't been doing much at first because they were preparing for a big push in the beginning of 2016. And with them starting a rumor about Hilary Clinton's private email server—she was the democratic candidate the Rothschilds were supporting—there would surely be an investigation into it that would heavily impact her campaign.

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The Morgans themselves had hedged their bets on the democratic side of the aisle as well, and gone with the same strategy of supporting someone nobody would have believed they would ever support: the independent senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders. But that would be a battleground for others; Trump only had to concern himself with the republican primary election, where his most likely opponent would be the Rothschild-backed republican, Ted Cruz.

George continued his explanation of how the Morgans would be supporting Trump, who remained quiet throughout. He would ask his questions after the Morgan heir finished.

"About Fox... I don't think it'll be possible to get their support. Roger Ailes doesn't seem too keen on me, or my candidacy," he said. He was mostly sure that they might have missed that in all the planning, but he wanted to be completely sure.

"You don't have to worry about that. You know what they say, there's no such thing as 'bad press.' As long as your name is mentioned, I'm sure a branding expert like yourself knows what'll happen. If he tries to stifle news about you, we can just replace him," George answered. It was like he was talking about firing a normal factory line worker, not the chairman of a giant media conglomerate like Fox News.

That was when Trump realized the full scale of the power the Morgans held. They were in such a lofty position that they could just remove the chairman of a huge company like it was nothing.

"Can you tell me what you really want from me after I win? I need to prepare for it," he said. He knew they hadn't told him everything, but he didn't care. If their goals didn't align with his, he wouldn't hesitate to cut them down after he won; his victory was never in question in his own mind. If the Morgans wanted something too heinous, he believed he could even kick them to the curb and win the election without them.

Instead of George, Aubrey opened his mouth and said, "A decade or so before 9/11, we installed a puppet dictator in Iraq and armed him. Remember when Iraq tried to take over Kuwait? It was around then. Do you remember when a few years after 9/11, Saddam's regime was discovered to have weapons of mass destruction and we took him down? Why do you think we did that?"

"Because you had evidence backing the invasion?" Trump answered. He wasn't sure of his answer, though, as he was sure that the full story hadn't yet been declassified.

"That's what most of the world believes, but the truth is that we'd been working on making the invasion happen even before then. After 9/11, we needed to show that we still had the biggest stick, so we used that stick to beat down the Taliban.

"But that proved insufficient, so we needed to use the stick again. We chose to use it on Saddam. We manufactured all kinds of excuses, WMDs just happened to be the one that stuck. After all, why would we really care about backwards savages who only had their weapons pointed at themselves and their local rivals?" Aubrey paused, staring straight into Trump's eyes.

Trump was a bit surprised to be hearing all of this information. He was positive it was still classified, if it was even known to anyone at all.

"But that isn't all there was to it," Aubrey continued. "We needed a war long before 9/11, which was why we planted the seed named Saddam. We would harvest that seed later, regardless, but the attack forced our hand. Still, it was beneficial in at least one sense. The long peace had been making it difficult for us to justify maintaining such an enormous military-industrial complex!

"So we invaded Iraq under the pretense of looking for WMDs, then officially took Saddam down after our 'inspections' provoked a violent insurgency aimed at removing his regime from power. And that was only one of the conflicts we brewed in the region. We took down the Taliban, we took down Saddam, we dismantled al-Qaeda, and we took down Bin Laden."

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Even after all of that, Aubrey hadn't answered Trump's question at all. "Why do you think I told you all that?" he asked. His habit was always to test people to determine their worth coming to action.

"Because the reason you're supporting me lies in the explanation," Trump confidently answered.

Aubrey believed that anyone who was smarter than a goldfish could have figured that much out. "And what might that reason be?" he asked.

"You need another reason to justify such a huge military budget. People won't ask why so much is necessary if we're fighting a war."

"Yes. We need wars to justify such a huge budget. And ones where we can exploit the targets afterward to benefit and enrich ourselves, too. Our targets need to be selected with care—weak enough to not cause too much damage, but strong enough to warrant our stay in their country for as long as possible under the guise of 'peacekeeping.'

"And not only that, they have to be rich enough to justify our initial... investment," Aubrey finished with a smile, as he was satisfied by Trump's second answer.

"So where's the next target? It can't be another country in the Middle East, and I don't recall any other enemies we can use. Or even anywhere that meets your requirements..." Trump asked.

"Eden-Esparia." Aubrey was speaking circles around Trump and leading him to a partially correct belief. Sure, he really wanted to plunder Eden and Esparia's riches, but that was only incidental.

What he really desired was to trample them for having the gall to stymie his first attempt. He had seen it as a blow to his honor and a personal affront to him.

Chapter 283 Resources, Human and Otherwise

Trump was a bit confused and surprised at the target mentioned by Aubrey. He had never thought of Eden or Esparia being the new targets. The only thing he knew about them was that they were some backwards shitholes that didn't even have golf courses!.

The silence continued for quite a while as the two Morgans in the room left Trump to digest the information in silence.

"Why them?" he asked after the long silence.

"Because they have a massive amount of untapped resources, so we stand to benefit the most from those. Plus, they're absolutely weak and the investment won't be that high," Aubrey answered. He absolutely wouldn't tell Trump his actual reason for choosing the tiny island nations. "Are you opposed?" he asked when he saw the look on Trump's face.

"No, I don't really care. I don't care about the reason or how we do things. As long as I can make America great again, I'll support your agenda with all my power when I win the election," he proclaimed, then laughed. "Besides, they don't even have golf courses!".

"Good. We've already finished the preparations on our end, so all you have to worry about is campaigning and winning the support of the American people... or at least their votes," Aubrey said, then deftly maneuvered the conversation onto other topics.

...

"See you later," Trump told George, who had escorted him to the door where his car was waiting for him.

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"I hope it's in the Oval Office," George joked. Both men smiled at each other as Trump got into the car he had arrived in. ｂｅ𝚍ｎｏｖｅ𝚕．ｃｏｍ

The car left the compound after driving for ten minutes straight, and after a few more minutes, the smile on Trump's face disappeared, and he moved his mouth into a weird position. It was like his face had become stiff from having to constantly maintain an expression that he wasn't used to making for a long period of time.

"They really think they can control me," he said to himself. He wasn't worried about his driver overhearing him, as the man's family lived in Trump Tower. The minute he betrayed his master, only one end lay in store for all of them: death.

Just as he was about to work himself into a swearing fit to vent the anger he had pent up from being insulted by that high-horse asshole, his thoughts were interrupted by a phone call. He couldn't afford to ignore it, either, as it came on his most important burner phone.

"How'd the meeting go?" asked the voice on the other side of the call.

"It went well. And as you said, when I tried poking at their pride, they seemed very upset. I guess they can't handle being belittled," he said in a mocking tone. His little jab had been an intentional test to see just how much he could get away with; apparently, the answer was "not much".

"It was within our range of expectation based on their course of action. Ever since Aubrey became their family head, we've been profiling him. And up until now, our profile has almost never been wrong," said the voice. The pride they felt in that accomplishment allowed a slight accent to leak through. Even though their English was very fluent, it was obvious that they hadn't been raised in America.

"How about you give me a copy for my use to solicit the most support I can get from them? That way, you won't have to risk anything by personally making moves," Trump said.

"Let me remind you of one thing: there are things you can ask for, and things you cannot ask for. Until you win the election, your usefulness to us is... limited." The voice on the phone didn't even have the slightest fluctuation in its tone. It was apparent that the speaker was used to Trump's shenanigans and constant benefit-seeking behavior.

"Sure, but make sure you write down everything I want from you, because when I win, I don't want to have to ask again," Trump replied. If there was one thing he could be sure of, it was that he was always a winner.

"Don't worry."

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The phone call was abruptly terminated.

Trump lowered phone from his ear said nothing, just looked at it with the same expression he'd had after leaving the Morgan family's compound. 'Everyone has a use, and the moment their usefulness ends their fate is to be abandoned. Useless people are nothing but waste,' he thought.

He put the phone back in his pocket and stared out the tinted window of his car. His mind was in overdrive, but nobody knew what he was thinking; however, judging from the look on his face, it must have been pleasant thoughts.

...

In the Kremlin.

Vladimir was walking through the heavily guarded area, carrying a briefcase and wearing a neat, bespoke suit. He strode with measured, confident strides while maintaining a relaxed expression on his face. There was no nervousness at all to be seen anywhere in the man, despite being on his way to meet the president to brief him on the results of his latest mission.

When he neared the office, the soldier guarding the door wasted no time and automatically opened it without him even asking. Apparently, he was expected and had been given permission to directly enter.

"Good evening, sirs," he greeted in Russian as he put the briefcase on the table. He opened it, pulled out some documents, and handed them out to everyone in the room. "We've discovered that the Americans and most of the west are in the process of increasing their activity in Ukraine. Other than the non-combat support they've been providing, we expect them to soon send a detachment of their green berets to train their army.

"Along with them will come weapons, so they don't end up crumbling like when we took back Crimea. They'll use Ukraine as a shield against us..." Vladimir began presenting the findings of his recent mission to the people in the room. His professionalism, eloquence, and understanding of the situation impressed the people sitting at the conference table listening to his report. All of his claims were backed up by evidence, whether conclusive or circumstantial, and he even picked up on a few things that many others would have missed if they had been the ones assigned to the mission.

Chapter 284 An Evolution in Each Category

When Vladimir finished speaking, everyone in the room had a more detailed understanding of the situation in Crimea.

"Why's he leading an investigation in the field when he's obviously ministerial material?" Putin asked the head of the FSB.

Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the FSB, was in the meeting room with the other ministers of the Russian government in order to debrief Vladimir after his mission. However, he'd never thought he would be put on the spot by being asked a question like that, nor had he expected Vladimir would turn out to be such an effective field agent compared to his previous record.

"He's still under investigation. There was a mess about an FSB agent being kidnapped from their home, and," he gestured toward Vladimir, "that agent is him. He maintains that he doesn't remember anything between the time he was kidnapped and when he woke up in the hospital."

"What's your finding in that investigation? I recall that incident happened quite a few months ago, so you should have some kind of result," Putin asked.

"Nothing substantial. We can't tell if he was captured and compromised, or if everything's just as he says. So we decided to put him in the field until we know for sure," answered Bortnikov.

"It seems like you've found nothing, then," Putin bluntly said. Then he added, "Bring him to the Kremlin starting next week."

Vladimir had just been promoted from a field agent in Ukraine directly to Putin's inner circle of advisors.

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"But sir... there's still a chance that he's been compromised," Bortnikov said. He couldn't immediately agree to promoting the man, not when he knew there were still risks and that Vladimir would be beyond his reach after entering Putin's inner circle.

"Just do it. If we find something later, we can deal with it then," Putin said in a tone that brooked no arguments.

"Yes, sir," Bortnikov said. Putin had put down his foot and he would risk his directorship if he were to argue the point any further. And if he displeased his leader, he risked being quietly disappeared to some gulag in Siberia that nobody—not even him—knew about. ｂ𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎ｌ.ｎｅｔ

The debriefing continued as the ministers, military leaders, and intelligence analysts raised questions for Vladimir to answer.

...

Half an hour later, Vladimir was in a private meeting with Putin and Bornikov.

"I was quite impressed by the level of information you found and the way you presented it," Putin said as he maintained eye contact with Vladimir, who had yet to receive permission to sit.

"Thank you, sir," Vladimir replied neither arrogantly nor humbly.

"That's why I asked for you to be moved to the Kremlin. I have a perfect use for a detail-oriented person like you—are you up for it?" Putin offered. If Vladimir declined, he would just order him to do the job anyway; nobody he wanted could ever escape his grasp.

"Thank you for the opportunity, sir," Vladimir replied. He sounded like he was holding back his excitement.

"Good. Bortnikov will brief you on your new task, and who your new team will be. Make sure you don't disappoint me." Before waiting for a reply, Putin stood and walked out the door, leaving Vladimir behind for the head of the FSB to brief him on his task.

Bornikov wasted no time in introducing Vladimir's new task to him. It marked the beginning of the soon-to-be-ex spy's climb up the Russian government ladder.

...

Meanwhile, in Eden, the restructuring of Aron's companies was put into effect without any announcement being made to the public. The new companies were registered, the incorporation of the old companies was registered, and divisions were divested and picked up as the internal reshuffling took place. Everything was done in plain sight, but only for those who cared to look for it.

It wasn't until people noticed the changes on the companies' websites, or the new names on their utility and internet bills, that they realized what had happened. Just those subtle changes were enough to make them realize the companies were connected. They may not know exactly what the corporate structure was, or at least they wouldn't know without actively looking for it, but what was obvious was that Aron was among the leadership. That much was obvious—the new name on their internet bills was his own personal company, GAIA Technologies.

The intricate web of connections was only further deepened in their minds when Connect and Hephaestus released a joint press conference announcing that Felix was stepping down as CEO of Connect and taking up the position of president of Hephaestus Industries, Incorporated.

The internet immediately exploded, with conspiracy theorists crowing the accuracy of their conjectures from the proverbial rooftops. The link between Connect, GAIA, and Hephaestus was now confirmed, which meant Helios had also been a part of it all along!

The resulting war of words caused the websites that tried guessing Aron's net worth to more than double the amount, from thirty to sixty-five billion, making him not only the youngest self-made billionaire, but also one of the richest people in the world.

But while all that speculation was taking place, neither Aron, Felix, nor Sarah cared enough to even make an announcement. And even if they did, they didn't have the time, as they were busy preparing for the product launch that would be happening soon. Currently, they were in a meeting in VR for full-scale demonstrations of the new tech that was slated for release.

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But first, there was another pressing matter that needed to be addressed.

[The list is out, and here's the people who are highly likely to agree to our offer. They're in very desperate positions, so they'll agree even if they know what'll happen to them,] Nova said, materializing profiles of the people and the industries they specialized in. She organized the lists so each of the candidates were sorted into the newly founded companies.

They were all fairly unknown people, making them perfect candidates to join Aron's conglomerate. Not surprising in the least was that they all had families that were in very precarious positions as well. Some had wives that had left them, others were on the verge of divorce, and there were even a few with other difficulties, such as long-term, chronic illnesses or other disabilities. There was even one on the list that had an abusive spouse, but couldn't leave them out of fear for their life.

As Aron read the profiles, he couldn't help but feel bad for all of them. But that was all he felt for them: pity. The same could be said for his friends as they joined him in silently reading the profiles; all three of them had the ability to separate emotion from "proper" business.

"The candidates are all people with some level of knowledge in their field, and they're all desperate enough to agree to our offer. Their individual situations should make it easy enough to convince any of them," Aron said when he finished reading the profiles. He didn't know what to think about his slowly diminishing capacity for empathy; it just seemed normal to him, thanks to his recent developments.

"Emotions are one of humanity's weaknesses, but also our strongest motivation," he continued.

He had realized that his reaction to everything in front of him was different than what one would expect from a "normal" human and finally noticed the impact of his evolution. It was a truly mysterious thing, being able to separate emotion from action, and he would need to reflect on how and why it happened. His current hypothesis was that his emotions would be numbed if they were deemed harmful at any given time. But the question remained: who, or what, was the one that made that call?

His friends continued reading, but they were slightly more "normal" in their reactions to the situations of the profiled individuals. They were fundamentally different from Aron, who had the ability to completely separate his two halves. Felix and Sarah could only try their hardest to achieve that.

At least for now, anyway.

Chapter 285 The Days of Their Lives (I)

As Aron and his friends continued their decision-making process, the people whose lives they were deciding were busily trudging along in their day-to-day lives. All they had were their aspirations, dreams, and the hope of a better (or vengeful) future. That was what forced them to keep moving forward despite their difficult lives.

...

Robert Watson, a British immigrant to America, was one of the people on the list in Aron and his friends' hands. Currently, he was in a conference room with his lawyer. On the opposite side of the table from them was a woman wearing almost comically thick makeup. She was dressed in a leopard-print top that clashed with a wide, hot pink belt, a tight purple skirt that only came halfway down her thighs, flesh-colored stockings, and bright red stiletto heels with a four inch shiny chrome spike. She had bubblegum pink hair styled to the nines cascading over her shoulders, and on the table in front of her was an enormous bag covered in the Louis Vuitton "LV" logo, as if she was afraid anyone wouldn't know it was expensive. The rest of her clothes were obviously branded as well.

Sitting next to her was a man in his late twenties that looked like a Ken doll, wearing a bespoke suit. He had a million-watt smile and a face that had been plastered on bus benches all over Los Angeles. He was a divorce attorney and his name was known far and wide as an unethical shark more than anything else.

Robert had a morose expression on his face, but the woman sitting across from him was giving him a mocking smirk.

The silence was broken as Robert's lawyer said, "Thank you for coming today. We're here to discuss the division of assets in the Watson v Watson divorce case. Let's get to work, since no one in this room wants to be here any longer than we actually have to. Robert, please begin."

As Robert opened his mouth to speak, the Ken doll on the other side of the table interrupted, "Hold on there. Lisa has a few things she'd like to say first."

Before Robert or his lawyer could say anything, she opened her mouth and, in a shrill voice, began speaking. "The law entitles me to half of everything you have. But you're gonna give me more, or else—"

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"Or else what, Lisa?" Robert tiredly said. His voice was hoarse and low, and exhaustion was writ across his face in big, bold letters.

"Or else I'll go to the newspaper! Your precious 'reputation' will be trashed. You owe me! I was the prom queen in high school and all of my friends married up, but instead of marrying a senator or a CEO, I married a pathetic sack of shit like you! I was stupid to ever think you would amount to anything at all, so you owe me everything for the youth I wasted on you! Now how am I supposed to support myself, eh? You think all this," she gestured at herself, "is cheap? What kind of man can I find now, eh?"

"Oh, I don't know, Lisa. Maybe pick from one of the ones you cheated on me with!"

"Well if you weren't such a miserable failure, I wouldn't have cheated on you!" 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝘯𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝑐𝘰𝘮

"You...!" Robert couldn't help but clench his fists under the table, close his eyes, and take a slow, deep breath. In a monotone, he continued, "You don't get it, do you? Most of what I had, I earned before the marriage, and you're not entitled to any of it."

"Oh? I don't remember signing a prenup! So let's just go to court then, Bobby. I'm sure you'll be happy to keep everything but your reputation, you... you... you spousal rapist! Yeah, I'll tell them you raped me!" Lisa said with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She had wasted the best years of her life married to the man across from her, and not a single one of her many lovers over the years was capable of supporting her in a manner she would like to become accustomed to.

Sure, maybe they could afford one luxury bag, or a dress—her outfit that day had been given to her by no less than four different men, for instance—but not a single one had the power, or the bank account, she desired.

The back-and-forth argument between Robert and Lisa continued, with both lawyers trying their hardest to get words in edgewise and just praying that their clients wouldn't say anything incriminating that could be used against them when this divorce inevitably went to trial.

...

Ryan Walker was another person on Aron's list.

Currently, he was laying in an adjustable bed in the living room of a small downtown apartment. The sounds and smells of low-income urban living drifted in the open window along with a shaft of light that illuminated the dust floating through the air. It wasn't an unusual scene, as he was always either in this bed or in his electric wheelchair.

That was a customized prison, just like his bed, as the only things he could move were his face and a single finger.

He spent most of his time on the internet, trying to chase away the shame of being unable to provide for his wife. They had promised to support each other through school, but after she finished supporting him, and before she could finish her degree, he had slipped on a patch of icy sidewalk on his way home from work one night and fell directly into the path of an oncoming snowplow.

The city was as sympathetic as they could be, considering it was a no-fault accident, and had covered his medical expenses and enough for them to at least subsidize their living expenses for a few years, but as he couldn't work, his wife, Amanda, could only drop out of college to take care of him. Luckily for him, GAIA OS was capable of accommodating his disabilities, enough so that he could earn a meager income editing webnovels for indie authors. It wasn't much, but it was honest work, though it was a complete waste of his master's degrees in biophysics and neurobiology from Cornell University.

He used to run drug trials for AstraZeneca, but that was obviously out of the question now.

A few minutes later, keys jingled and a beautiful woman walked in the front door. She was wearing jeans that had all the color washed out of them and a loose, long-sleeved t-shirt with a logo that was so faded it couldn't be made out anymore. Her rich brown hair was in a ponytail that flowed out of her baseball cap and down her back to her shoulder blades like Willy Wonka's chocolate river.

She was carrying two paper bags full of groceries and mincing her way through the cluttered, cramped living room toward the kitchen. She set the bags down on the counter, then gave Ryan a kiss on each cheek and his forehead.

"Good morning, starshine, the sun says hello!" she chirped. It seemed she was just the kind of naturally upbeat, happy person that couldn't be brought down even if a mountain landed on her shoulders. Ironically, that upbeat attitude only made Ryan feel even worse.

She worked an arm around behind his shoulders and her other under his knee, then slid the hoist under him and lifted him into his chair. Then she moved the attached computer monitor around in front of him where he could see it and turned on the webcam. The AI assistant installed could track his eye movements through it; that was mostly how he managed to browse and work.

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He immediately got to work as his wife went back to putter around the kitchen. Soon, the inviting smell of bacon and sound of sizzling eggs made its way to his ears along with his wife's humming.

A few minutes later she brought a tray to the living room, loaded with bacon, eggs, fresh hash browns, and french toast, with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and one of milk. Ryan wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but he definitely loved OJ.

A tear fell from his eye, and Amanda noticed it. "What's wrong, love?" she asked.

"I just feel like a burden. You supported me all the way through two master's degrees, and I couldn't even hold up my end, much less be the breadwinner you deserve. You should've been a museum curator by now, not a night shift cashier at the truck stop! You work so hard to support me... I wouldn't blame you if you went for a divorce. Then you could be happy and baggage-free, maybe even reach your dreams. You could fall in love again, with someone who could love you the way you deserve, not a burden you—"

"You shut your mouth right this instant, Ryan Herbert Walker!" she interrupted. "I love you, not your money, not your degree, and not your job. We're getting along just fine, and I swore before God that we would be together for better or worse. Just because worse happened doesn't mean I love you any less, so you get that thought out of your skull right now, you hear?" Amanda was a lovely soul and could forgive almost anything, but people insulting her husband or talking down about him was a line she wouldn't—couldn't—allow anyone to cross.

Not even her husband himself.

"...yes, dear," Ryan could only say in a quiet voice as he silently cried.

Amanda saw the continuing tears and downcast expression on his face and wrapped him in a hug. "Cheer up, baby. At least now you can say 'it can't get any worse' without making things worse, right! Silver linings and all that..."

'I swear I will find some way, somehow, some day, to repay this wonderful woman for being the best and brightest part of my life,' he thought as he and his wife cried in each others' arms, his breakfast growing cold and forgotten on the tray table next to them.

Chapter 286 The Days of Their Lives (II)

Rachael Richardson was a logistics manager at the Amazon headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Currently, she was sitting in her office reviewing some paperwork.

Her cell phone rang and a jolt passed down her spine, then she reached in her purse to grab it. Her heart was pounding and her hands shook so bad that, after she got the phone out, she fumbled it and it dropped to the floor. Coincidentally, the phone landed face up and she saw the name of the caller on the display.

Her face paled and she scrambled out of her chair, then got on her hands and knees and picked up the phone, hitting the button to answer it as fast as she could.

"H-hello?" she breathlessly said.

"The phone rang more than once."

"S-s-sorry... I dropped it when I was picking it up."

The voice on the other side of the call was silent for some time, then it said, "Don't let it happen again."

"I won't," Rachel said, an obvious quiver in her voice.

"I'll be home at 7:30. I want grilled shrimp for dinner."

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"Y-yes. I'll have it on the table and ready when you get home." "Good. See that you do."

The call ended with a click.

Rachael heaved a sigh of relief and slumped to a sitting position on the floor behind her desk. 'I am a powerful woman. I am strong. I am worthwhile,' she repeated to herself, a mantra that kept her from bursting at the seams every time she heard that man—her husband—speak.

She had married young, right out of high school. And things had gone well, at least for the first few years. She went to college and got her degree in logistics from the University of Washington's Seattle campus, while her husband had joined her, studying criminal justice at the same campus. The two were wildly in love and it was the happiest time of her life.

She didn't know when, but at some point, things had begun to change. Her husband, Tom, went to the police academy after graduation, while she started a job at a local Amazon warehouse handling logistics. It wasn't a glorious job, nor was it a glorious dream, but Rachael was a very down-to-earth and solid person. She didn't need big dreams, and neither did she have them. Simple dreams, simple pleasures, simple... person. Overall, she was content; as long as she had Tom by her side, she would be happy.

Or so she thought.

Soon after joining the police academy, Tom's temper changed. Where he was once caring, he became cold. Where he was boisterous, he became silent. He would come home at the end of each day in a bad mood, and nursing injuries. Whenever Rachael would ask what was wrong, he would only grunt at her to mind her own business. 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝘯𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝑐𝘰𝘮

A few days before he graduated from the academy, he hit her for the first time. He was apologetic, and swore to never do it again, but... he did. And then again, and again, and again. Soon, Rachael was wearing thick makeup and sunglasses when she left the house to cover her bruises. Her wardrobe changed from sundresses to jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Her relationships with her friends suffered, especially after they saw one of the black eyes she had suffered. She claimed it was an accident and she was just being klutzy; "80% of all accidents happen at home, haha," she laughed. Her friends, though, knew better.

So she stopped going out with friends. Her friends soon became acquaintances, and lunches became never-kept promises to "get together some time". Outings became phone calls, then texts, then occasional emails. And soon, she was completely isolated.

She put all of her passion and energy into her work and soon rose up the corporate ladder. Tom had done the same—his career as a police officer led him straight up the chain of command, and he had become the chief of Seattle's South Precinct.

From the outside, they seemed an idyllic couple. She was a successful corporate officer at one of the biggest corporations in the entire world, and he was a man riding a rocket up the rungs of political power.

Nobody would ever have guessed the reality of what went on behind closed doors.

But Rachael was one of two women on Aron's list. She didn't know it yet, but her life was about to undergo a drastic change... and so was her husband's.

...

Elizabeth Oppliger, besides being on Aron's list, was a Swiss grad student at Oxford University. She was working on a postdoctoral degree in their environmental sciences department, and her thesis was about renewable energy and environmental impact.

Her thesis advisor, Jacob Kingsley, was a world-renowned scientist, and quite a prolific author. His name was on almost too many theses to count and it covered many fields in the environmental sciences. He seemed to have delved deep into every subject and could be considered something of a modern-day renaissance man.

Elizabeth was in the lab, sitting at a computer and compiling a meta-analysis on a number of studies she had participated in, from her first year of university to the present. A very driven woman, she knew exactly what she wanted to do and had meticulously planned every step. This was the last one: publishing a comprehensive meta-analysis of all the data she had collected over nearly ten years. Backed by the behemoth Oxford University and the industry titan, Jacob Kingsley, she should have no problem publishing her thesis in a high-impact scientific journal, like Nature Energy, which was issued a CiteScore of 81.6 by Scopus. Her

second choice, Energy and Environmental Science, only had a CiteScore of 54.4, so every advantage she could get working for her was something she would fight for.

Especially since it would drive her career from that moment forward. Her ultimate goal was to develop alternative, renewable energy sources that were beneficial to the environment in the long term, so she absolutely needed to make a splash the instant she entered the industry.

"How close are you to finishing your draft, Liz?"

Elizabeth turned around in her chair and saw her thesis advisor. "I'm just about to do my final checks and proofread it. I'll have the draft in your hand by the end of tomorrow," she said.

Professor Kingsley nodded, then put on his suit jacket, picked up his keys, and walked out of the lab. It wasn't unusual for him to leave early and arrive late, which had surprised Elizabeth when she first met him, but she was used to it now. She just assumed that he must be doing all of his research from home, something that quite a few people did now.

The next afternoon, she knocked on Professor Kingsley's office door. "Come in," he said from inside.

Elizabeth opened the door and walked in, then handed him a USB drive with her draft thesis on it. He plugged it into his computer and verified the file, then said, "You can go."

Elizabeth nodded, then headed home for the day. Her part of the work was almost finished, a capstone to an academic career spanning ten very long years. All she had to do now was wait for her thesis advisor to return her draft with remarks, then polish it and submit it to her chosen journals.

She heaved a sigh of relief and settled in to wait.

Over the next few months, she asked Professor Kingsley when he would be finished reviewing her thesis draft on multiple occasions. He would always brush her off with a murmured "soon" and a wave of the hand. The man, who was once so warm to her, seemed to have grown as cold as coffee left on the counter overnight.

As the publication date for Nature Energy drew closer, she grew more and more concerned; she had hoped to be published this year, as she was definitely not getting any younger as time passed. She had her life meticulously plotted in three-year blocks. This was the year she would be published, next year she would begin working, and the year after that she would start the long climb to a management position. Any delay would throw quite a monkey wrench into the finely tuned gears of her life.

Time continued to pass, and soon, her copy of Nature Energy arrived. She had nothing better to do but wait for Professor Kingsley to return her thesis, so she idly thumbed through it as she was coming up with new plans for her life. Her original plans were in the gutter, now.

As she browsed through the journal, she almost missed a rather special thesis contained in it. Almost. But how could she miss the title of a paper she had put nearly ten years of effort into?

She read it closely, and was shocked—the thesis she was reading was the one she had planned on submitting to this very same journal! The only difference was the name of the author: Jacob Kingsley, PhD.

The world spun as all of her plans came crashing down around her. She fell to the floor, unconscious.

...

The last man on Aron's list was laying on a filthy mattress in what could only be very generously considered a "shack". His name was Jai Chakrabarti, and it was his twenty-seventh birthday.

If someone had seen him a few months earlier, they would never have imagined him where he was now, wearing a torn, dirty suit, leather shoes that had all the finish worn off of them, and a pained expression.

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He was born with a silver spoon and a golden heart, and spent the first twenty-six years of his life using his father's money to help people less fortunate than him. Then his father, the last remaining member of his family, died. With his father's death came the revelation of a great secret: a connection to the mafia. And not a good one, either; as it turned out, his father had begun building wealth from a "loan" provided by the mob.

One that he hadn't paid back. Instead, he had chosen to purchase a new identity and run with the cash before using it to develop software that he then sold to online betting websites.

Now, the mob had caught up to him. Or what was left of him after the car accident, anyway. His picture was next to his obituary in the newspaper, and a mafia soldier had just so happened to see it. Next thing Jai knew, he was answering a loud knock on his door and greeting some very, very large and angry men.

It wasn't bad enough that the government had taken almost half of his father's money in the name of "estate taxes", or that his father's business partners—the betting websites that operated in the grayest of gray areas—had taken all of the business, but now the mafia had come calling to collect the rest. Jai had had no choice but to give in and give up; his only other option had been too dire to consider.

He was lucky that he had been able to keep the clothes on his back. It wasn't that the mob enforcers weren't willing to take them, as the suit he was wearing cost nearly 10,000 rupees, and they definitely hadn't felt sorry for him. It was more that, in giving in and giving up, Jai had signed over all the money he had and immediately run in the opposite direction.

Like father, like son, one could say. Both of them were runners.

What about the law? The law didn't care. They only protected those who could afford to be protected by them. And Jai was no longer one of those people... but the leaders of the mafia

most definitely were. So he did the next best thing—he moved to Rajanpur, Punjab, and built a little shack for himself from some corrugated galvanized steel sheet he found at the dump. Another one of his prizes from there was the stained, worn-out mattress he was currently laying on.

He hadn't eaten in days, and could only distract himself by plotting vengeance on those that had brought him to this point: the mafia, his father's business partners, and the government of Maharashtra.

Oh, yes... They would pay.

Chapter 287 An Offer They Shouldn't Refuse

Back in the office, Sarah and Felix had just finished reading through the five profiles Aron had shortlisted from Nova's master list. The rest of the names on the list would also receive job offers, but the five names on the short list were slated to be the presidents of the new subsidiary companies.

Robert Watson, a low-level Boeing executive, would be joining Icarus Airlines as the president.

Ryan Walker would be heading up Asclepius Biotechnology, where his experience and connections in the world of Big Pharma would come in handy. And, having been a researcher himself, he wouldn't just be an "empty suit" executive, either.

Hermes Inc., Aron's new import/export company, was just waiting for the arrival of Rachael Richardson. She should be able to simply slot into the job, having run the logistics department of a giant like Amazon.

Elizabeth Oppliger would soon be heading up Helios Energy & Utilities. She didn't know it yet, but she would soon.

And Jai Chakrabarti would soon be taking over the charitable branch of Connect, the Coeus Foundation. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝐧𝗲𝘁

Nova herself would continue running Plutus Ventures; no mere human, no matter how "enhanced", would be able to replace her in that position.

"Since you've read through them, do you two have any objections?" Aron asked. Sarah and Felix might have found better candidates in the comprehensive list.

Neither of them said anything, so Aron nodded. "Good, it's settled, then. Nova, let's get them in for a meeting."

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He swiveled his chair around so he could see the large screen on the wall behind him, and Felix and Sarah turned theirs to watch as well. There were five live feeds being displayed on the big screen, one from each of the Nyx agents Nova had ordered into the field earlier that day. She brought up the first feed and it filled the entire screen, where a hand was knocking on a door in a hallway.

...

"Come in," said the voice in the room.

The Nyx agent entered Rachael's office, then closed and locked the door behind her. She took out a small black cube and set it on the desk, to ensure nobody could listen in on the conversation that was about to take place, then sat in the chair facing the desk and said, "We need to talk."

"About what?" Rachael asked.

The Nyx agent began listing the details of Rachael's life, and she grew nervous. She picked up the phone on her desk to call security, but there was no dial tone. "Don't worry, Mrs. Richardson. I'm not here to hurt you—in fact, it's just the opposite. I'm here to offer you an opportunity... a way to get away from your husband and improve your situation. And all you have to do is agree to a meeting," the beautiful agent explained.

"A meeting? With who? And what's that?" Rachael gestured at the cube the agent had placed on her desk.

"That? That's just a toy to make sure our conversation is, and remains, private. The meeting is with my boss, and you won't even have to go anywhere to have it." She pulled a pair of chic sunglasses from her pocket and set them on the desk. "Put these on and you'll have all the answers you need."

Rachael thought for a moment, then, remembering what she would be in for when Tom got home from work, picked up the sunglasses and put them on.

...

Robert Watson had just left his contentious divorce settlement meeting and was sitting on a bus bench, leaning back and tiredly rubbing his eyes as he waited for the bus to take him home. Nothing had come of the meeting except more hard feelings and a guarantee of the next meeting taking place in a public court room.

A beautiful woman in a professional suit sat on the bench next to him and said, "Rough day? You look bushed."

Robert just glared at her out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't in the best of moods to begin with, and was definitely in no mood to speak to a stranger, especially another fucking woman.

The woman, however, had other plans. She looked at the exhausted man next to her and asked, "Wanna change your life? I can give you information that would guarantee your wife will sign a no-contest divorce decree... if you're interested in that. Or I suppose you could be like everyone else and just air your dirty laundry in divorce court."

Robert shot her a dirty look and said, "You've got some balls. How do you know who I am? How did you know about... her?"

The Nyx agent gave him a silent smile, then leaned back against the backrest of the bus bench, which ironically had a picture of Robert's wife's divorce attorney on it.

"Fine. I'll play. What do you need me to do in exchange?" he sighed.

The agent pulled a set of black sports sunglasses out of a pocket and handed them to him. "All you have to do is put these on, and all your questions will be answered."

...

Ryan was sitting in his wheelchair, working. A word processing program was open on the display screen of his computer, but it grayed out, and a pop-up window appeared on his display.

"Do you want to change your life? Y/n..." it read.

His AI assistant popped up on the screen and playfully flew around the weird pop-up, then turned to "look" at Ryan. [You should say yes, you know,] the little fairy said.

"Oh, why should I? This seems sketchy."

[Because the person who sent you that popup can let you walk again. All you have to do is open your front door.]

At that exact moment, someone knocked on the front door of Ryan's apartment. His wife was asleep, and he didn't want to wake her. Plus, he was a bit weirded out by this sudden situation; just because there had never been a hacked GAIA OS install didn't mean it wasn't a possibility that his had been hacked.

[Trust me, you're not getting hacked. The woman outside will tell you everything you need to know.]

Ryan decided that there was really nothing to worry about. He had nothing to steal, so the person at the door probably wasn't there to steal anything from him. He controlled his electric wheelchair to the bedroom and said, "Amanda? Wake up, sweetheart. Someone's at the door."

Amanda groggily woke up, brushed her hair out of her face, and sat on the edge of the bed. "Someone's... here?" she yawned.

"Yeah. Some weird shit's going down, but... well... I think we should listen to what they have to say. They're here to make an offer or something, I guess."

She nodded, then pulled her hair into a loose bun and secured it with a letter opener from the nightstand next to the bed. She pulled on some sweatpants and a t-shirt and followed her husband back to their cramped living room, then opened the door.

A stunning woman stepped across their threshold, then closed the door behind her and locked it. She gave Ryan and Amanda a beautiful smile.

"Mind if I sit?" she asked. ...

In Oxford, Elizabeth Opplinger was sitting on the couch in her living room, fuming mad. She had just gotten off the phone with her thesis advisor, who had told her to her face that he had never received her thesis draft. To her face!

The man had apparently traded his sense of shame for a pair of gigantic brass balls.

She was completely at a loss as to what to do. Ten years... Ten fucking years! Ten years of her life was just gone, and she had nothing to show for it. All of her plans and her future came crashing down around her ears and bent her back like a mountain had landed on her shoulders.

'Should I go to the dean?' she thought, then immediately discarded that thought. Professor Kingsley was a famous draw to the university, and people from all over the world—including her—had applied to be admitted to Oxford for him, and him alone. So the dean would never take her word over his!

'Maybe the media?' she considered, but again, immediately discarded the idea. She had no evidence, and Professor Kingsley, the thieving asshole, had made sure to not say anything that incriminated him on the phone call she'd just had with him.

As she was frantically trying to come up with ideas, someone knocked on the door of her apartment. She ignored it, but the knock came again. Then again. And again, until finally...

"What!?" she screamed as she opened the door.

"Hello yourself, miss Opplinger. Mind if I come in?" the beautiful Nyx agent asked as she slipped past Elizabeth and strode into her living room.

She sat down on the couch and said, "That Kingsley douchebag sure is an ass, isn't he?"

"Wha- how- why- what the fuck!? How did you know about that?" Elizabeth spluttered. She was absolutely confused by this seemingly random turn of events.

"Wanna get back at him?" the agent questioned in return.

"How? I have no evidence, it's my word against his... and he's THE Professor Kingsley, while I'm just grad student number however many... There's no chance," Elizabeth sighed, then slumped to the recliner across from the couch the agent had settled into.

"Oh, evidence? Evidence is easy. We've already got plenty of that, and we can give it to you, if..."

"If what? I don't have anything anyone would want. So what do you want from me?"

"All you have to do is put these on," the agent pulled a pair of rimless glasses out of her pocket, "and all your questions will be answered."

...

Jai Chakrabarti was having a very good day. He had gone dumpster diving and found most of a takeout container of chicken curry that someone had thrown out with their garbage. As he sat down and looked up at the sky in thanks, his very good day suddenly became very bad.

Three people had seen him sitting with the takeout container in his lap and were now surrounding him.

'Why me?' he thought, gazing up to the uncaring sky.

"I see you got some food, Dalit. But that's too good for a Dalit like you, so hand it over," the tallest of the three said.

(Ed note: "Dalit" is the name of the caste formerly called "untouchable" in India. It's the lowest of their social hierarchy, and the Indian officials have been trying for decades to combat the prejudice levied against Dalits in society there.)

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"Please, I haven't had anything to eat all week! I'll die if I don't eat something soon!" Jai begged. He had learned that hunger pangs weren't dangerous. It was when the hunger pangs went away that he was in danger of dying of starvation.

"You really want to steal our food?" The thug slapped one of his fists into the palm of his other hand, and his lackeys sniggered.

A feminine voice came from the entrance to the alley. "Oh come on, boys. Let the man eat in peace. He's got places to see, people to go... wait. Scratch that, reverse it. He's got places to go and people to see."

The thugs turned their heads and glanced at the entrance of the alley, where they saw a stunning white woman wearing a black sleeveless top and tight black pants that were neatly tucked into the top of a pair of matte black combat boots. Her flaming red hair was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head, and she was wearing a pair of glasses with cherry red frames.

The lead thug laughed and leered at her. "Well hello there, beauty. How about you come spend some time with us real men and leave this pathetic Dalit to lie in a pile of shit like he deserves?" he sneered.

"Oh, I'm sure I can think of something to do with you boys... but I'm not sure it'll be as fun for you as it will be for me. So last chance, boys," she cracked her knuckles and loosened her neck by leaning her head from side to side, "you can leave right now and I won't stop you." She smirked.

The three thugs were infuriated and charged the tiny woman.

She laughed and danced her way through them, expertly applying joint locks and dislocating each of their major joints at an impossible speed.

Before the first thug had even fallen, she had already disabled all three of them. Soon, there were three thugs wailing and rolling around on the ground.

The agent turned to Jai, who was frantically eating the discarded curry, and said, "Hey, you hungry? Let's go grab something to eat."

Chapter 288 I Agree

"Welcome, and thank you all for accepting the invitation." Aron appeared in front of the group of people who were still wondering where they were and how they got there. They had no idea of what was going on at all.

The moment they noticed Aron's appearance in the room with them, they were so surprised that some of them even jumped out of their seats.

"Sorry about that," Aron said moments after Nova teleported them back to their chair. At the same time, she was generating a calming effect in their virtual minds.

"Was that magic?"

"How'd we get here?"

"Where is this place?"

"Why can I walk?"

"Where's my wife?"

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The moment they calmed down, they started shooting question after question at Aron, who remained quiet throughout the interrogation. Nova tracked the questions being asked and organized them in descending order of importance for Aron to answer when the people in front of him ran out of questions to ask. Soon, they realized that Aron hadn't said anything in response and fell silent, waiting for the man to start speaking.

"Let's start by answering your questions before we get down to business, since we have as much time as we need," Aron said. He pulled up the holographic screen that was filled with the questions they had asked him moments ago and started answering them.

"You're within the virtual reality world I created, but your bodies are safe under the watch of the person who gave you the glasses in the real world. Your bodies haven't moved from where they were when you put the glasses on," he said, making more than three questions from the list turn green and vanish.

"Yes, your wife is safe," Aron said. A screen appeared showing the inside of Ryan's house, his wife sitting at his bedside as she watched the woman that had given him the glasses. The agent was just silently standing near her and watching the situation.

"How?" Ryan asked, surprised, when he saw the video feed of his body calmly sleeping in the same room that he—no, his consciousness—had been moments ago.

"As for who I am. Some of you already know me, and for those who don't, my name is Aron Michael and I'm the founder and owner of GAIA Technology, as well as a few other companies that'll soon begin operations." Those who hadn't known who he was now knew that they were meeting the fabled creator and founder of one of the world's most well-known companies.

Aron gave them some time to digest the information before he continued answering the remaining questions. The list of questions on the holographic screen before him turned green one by one as he spoke. After a few minutes of answering their questions, the screen in front of him finally vanished.

"Now that all of your questions have been answered, let's move on to the main topic," he said, then paused for a moment as he allowed for the focus of everyone in the room to return to him before he continued, "I gathered you here because I have a life changing offer for all of you... if you choose to accept it."

"What offer?" Jai asked. He just wanted to hurry up and accept, as he was sure that whatever Aron was going to offer would be a hundred times better than his current situation.

Feeling that he had gathered enough curiosity from them, Aron smiled and answered, "I want to offer each of you the position of president in one of my new companies."

When those in the room heard that, they couldn't believe their ears. It didn't make sense for him to need them to be parachuted into the top position in companies owned by one of the youngest multibillionaires in the world.

"Do your companies need a scapegoat? Is that why you're offering such a position to us? You want us to take the fall for you and receive punishment in your stead?" asked Robert, who was the second calmest person in the room—right behind Jai, who was ready to take any offer provided to him no matter how bad it was. It couldn't be worse than what he had now.

Aron couldn't help but laugh at that silly idea. Although the question didn't violate common sense, he hadn't expected to hear it at all.

"No, no, nothing like that at all," Aron said. Five holographic screens appeared at the center of the table they were sitting at, and on each holographic screen was a different name and logo.

"These companies are new, but have been registered and already have products ready to launch. I need people I can trust to helm these companies... and who can I trust more than those that're heavily indebted to me?" he said, and the screens that had only names on them started listing what they would be focusing on. Everyone at the table focused on something they knew that lay within their field of expertise, except Jai, who read all of the companies' details planning to agree to whatever he was offered.

"It seems like you already know which companies you'll be offered, so read the details and let me know if you agree," Aron said. Moments later, a thick folder appeared in front of each of the candidates and they wasted no time in opening them. They all read the content in their own folders, despite everyone in the room having already made up their minds to accept the offer. But it was still good sense to know the details before they took such a wild leap of faith.

Aron, seeing how they all reacted, smiled in happiness as he finally realized the real reason that Nova had specifically chosen them. It wasn't just their desperate living conditions, but also because they were good at their jobs. That was definitely something that a messy life could greatly affect. And knowing that these five in front of him hadn't let their lives affect their professionalism, he also understood that they were all obviously a cut above the average.

He said nothing and left them to read the folders in their hands in detail while observing their reactions. It was quite a fun pastime for him; he had developed the habit of watching people react to the things he gave them. That wasn't due to arrogance or a feeling of superiority, but simply because he found the reactions amusing.

And the reactions coming from them were definitely out of this world.

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The files in the folders included the products each company was slated to release soon, and those were the primary cause of the surprise reactions among the candidates. They were each knowledgeable in their own fields, and the products they saw were hundreds of years, at the very least, beyond even what the most insane theorist could ever propose. That only surprised them even more. 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

After a few hours of reading with the caution of a surgeon, they finally finished and, with surprise on their faces, raised their heads.

Ryan immediately asked, "Is everything in the file true?" Contained within his folder was a medicine that could heal his condition in a matter of a few weeks, or even days, depending on the level of the cure he received.

"Yes. It's already been researched, and it will be one of your incentives if you accept the offer," Aron said, then turned to the rest and asked, "So what's your decision?"

Ryan kicked off the round of answers. "I agree!" He didn't care about anything else, since the moment he saw the medicine, he saw a hope of repaying his wife's love and care for him.

"I agree."

"I agree as well."

...

One by one, they each agreed to the offers in front of them and the smile on Aron's face grew bigger and bigger with every acceptance. His companies finally had presidents... or at least they would, after he settled their issues over the next few weeks.

Two weeks later.

Aron was standing in the middle of Avalon Island with Rina, Felix, Sarah, his parents, and Alexander in a glass building that was strong enough to face a bomb head on and receive only a few scratches.

The new presidents were also in attendance, but only in VR. They couldn't attend in person yet, as they were still inside the pods receiving their genetic enhancements and treatments, which wouldn't end until a few days later. It had only been three days since they'd started receiving the enhancements; it had taken a full week and a half to settle their grievances as Aron had promised.

As the people in the room watched through the wall, a sound started coming through the speakers. "T minus ten minutes. All systems are currently go and weather conditions are favorable for liftoff. Please remain in a safe viewing area."

"Wow," Henry said as he gazed at the massive rocket on the other side of the wall.

A few kilometers away from the room, a massive rocket was at rest on a launchpad, looking very majestic as the entire area surrounding it had been emptied hours ago. Though, "emptied" might be the wrong word, since the entire launch area had been printed by an atomic printer, including the transport that moved it to the launch area. They couldn't print the rockets on the pad, as that increased the risk of the printers being discovered, so a transport was still necessary.

It was the first of a series of launches planned to take place over the span of the next two weeks. They were setting up a satellite coverage net to cover all the needs of ARES and GAIA Tech, so as to prevent the possibility of economical and technological isolation, but also to build their own self-sufficient infrastructure.

"T minus five minutes. The rocket's internal systems are transitioning to launch mode." Henry had his face stuck to the wall, as he didn't want to miss a single detail of the launch.

"T minus three minutes," came an announcement. The rocket's guidance system took control and started conducting final self checks to ensure all the systems were functioning nominally. The checks came back all green, and the launch was set to take place as planned with no delays.

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"T minus one minute" was followed shortly by "T minus thirty seconds."

With that announcement, the Radial Outward Firing Igniters started spewing sparks below the engine nozzle as the engines themselves began a rapid pressurization process in preparation for ignition.

"T minus ten seconds."

"Nine."

"Eight."

"Seven."

...

As the countdown continued, the engines started spraying pressurized propellant into the "sparklers" and the coolant system went to work flooding the launchpad with water as the gantry fell away from the rocket. A cloud of white steam surrounded the rocket, then flared outward almost like a shockwave.

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

"Liftoff."

With that, the rocket engines released a flood of pressurized propellant and the rocket finally began its struggle to break free from Earth's gravity and fly past the Kármán Line.

Slowly at first, but picking up speed, the rocket began winning the fight against the gravity holding it to the Earth's surface and rose to the sky with a long trail of white exhaust behind it. It soon passed Mach 1 and left its own exhaust behind as it continued climbing into the air.

The cloud covering Avalon Island was split apart by the powerful vehicle as it started its journey to orbit. Control surfaces on the rocket came to life, allowing it to make final adjustments as it rose through the layers of the atmosphere.

"Max q" was soon announced, letting everyone watching the launch know that the rocket had reached equilibrium and the thrust was safe to increase again. The rocket was now past the most dangerous point of the launch.

(Ed note: Max q is the point at which the pressure differential between the launch vehicle and the atmosphere is at its highest point. This is the number that engineers use to determine how much load the rocket or shuttle needs to bear during the launch.)

Shortly after max q, the speakers announced first stage separation and half of the launch vehicle fell off, while the other half accelerated even further. The first stage fired its final retro-rockets, guiding it down to the waiting recovery team; it was paramount that no hardware be captured by anyone outside of Eden—or more specifically, Avalon Island—to prevent tech snooping.

As for the second stage of the rocket, it soon started its orbital insertion burn. The moment it reached a parking orbit was announced, and the rocket released its payload: a Q-com satellite.

The rocket had admirably completed its task and began a coast phase, after which it would reorient itself and perform a short deorbit burn, then fall back into the collection area. Just like its first stage had; there was no longer a need for the payload to be protected anymore.

(Author's note: a parking orbit is a preliminary orbit that satellites or other vehicles enter to wait for a window to enter a higher or lower orbit, as needed.)

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"Is it over?" Henry, who had been watching the entire launch with excitement, asked when the screen showed the darkness of space.

"If it was a normal launch it would be almost done. But for this one, it isn't finished yet. After reaching the parking orbit, the satellite has to perform a series of burns to transfer to a geostationary transfer orbit. Once it does that, which will take a few hours, it undergoes another coast phase before finally performing another series of burns to reach the desired geostationary position..." Aron explained orbital mechanics to his little brother for a few minutes before realizing that Henry's eyes had long glazed over. So he ruffled his hair and said, "Not yet. It'll be a few hours still. But the exciting part of the launch is done—the rest is all math."

Henry's reaction to the launch had given Aron a clue as to what the boy would pursue as a career in the future, and he gave his younger sibling a bright smile. 𝙗𝒆𝒅𝒏𝙤𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜

"That was sooooo cool, brother!" Henry exclaimed. "It's almost worth doing the extra math homework for!"

"Oh? Only 'almost'?" Aron joked, and everyone in the glass room chuckled along with him at the younger boy's crestfallen expression.

"Yeah, I guess... it's almost enough to convince me. But there's a few games coming out soon that I think might just push me that bit extra," Henry wheedled. It was apparent that he had been taking to Nova's lessons incredibly well. Perhaps too well.

...

As the launch was taking place over Eden, a few countries' intelligence analysts—both in their military and their space departments—had identical looks of disbelief on their faces. When they had received an order to monitor Eden's launch, they'd been sure it wouldn't succeed at all and had prepared popcorn. As far as they knew, Eden had zero space capability and had never done any testing at all, so how could they possibly have successfully launched a rocket into orbit?

But reality was determined to disappoint them. It seemed like someone in Eden had gotten extremely lucky, and they knew that a very comprehensive investigation was about to begin. Someone had obviously leaked and allowed Eden to join the space race, and heads were guaranteed to roll in the near future. They had already ruled out poaching, as there were no rocket scientists that had been poached from established companies at all.

The launch wasn't secret at all, since it was being broadcasted live for anyone interested in watching it. At the moment, that consisted of a few rocket science fans who tuned in, but most of the watchers were the Edenian citizens themselves. They were absolutely thrilled to watch their first domestically made launch take place. A good example of how huge the interest to the launch was for the citizens of the country was that the launch was being broadcast through nearly all of the domestic news channels, which all had a higher viewership than their usual average for that specific time.

Although they hadn't been planning on keeping it a secret, they still hadn't planned to announce it, but that idea was squashed as the news of them applying for more than fifty orbital spots was leaked by someone from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

They'd had to apply, because first, it was required to be given a specific band of frequencies that weren't yet used in those orbits. That way they could avoid having more than one satellite in the same orbit using the same frequencies, which is something no one wanted to experience—anyone who had ever put a microphone too close to a speaker it was hooked up to would know exactly why. Another reason was that if they arbitrarily launched a rocket without telling anyone, it raised the possibility of it being considered a ballistic missile and might even be shot down. In the absolute worst-case scenario, it could even trigger a nuclear event. Even though Aron could create a new frequency, and even though he could use orbits that were impossible for modern technology to reach, and even though he and his close friends and loved ones would be perfectly fine in case of nuclear war, the Earth was still his home, and he didn't want it destroyed.

He kept all his stuff there.

Plus, it would make the next few months of Alexander's life hell, as even if it didn't trigger the worst-case scenario, it would still be quite an international incident that risked having Eden face serious sanctions.

Thus, they decided to benefit from GAIA Tech's publicity department and made an announcement publicizing the launch. It was pretty much common knowledge that "communications satellites" was just a polite euphemism for "spy satellites", though, so the reaction was understandable.

...

NASA Mission Control Center, Merritt Island, Florida.

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A group of people were focusing on screens that showed different strings of data, with the main display mounted on the wall in the front of the room showing a satellite feed. At the moment, half of the screen was showing a satellite feed filled with the image of a cloud bank that limited the visibility of the island beneath it.

The other half of the screen showed the Edenian livestream of the launch. Currently visible on that side of the screen was a massive rocket with the GAIA Technologies, Inc. logo on the side of it; the countdown was currently at T minus one minute.

The moment the countdown reached thirty seconds, everyone started focusing on the screens in front of them. They only occasionally glanced at the massive screen in the room as they watched the data feeds on the screens in front of them.

When the rocket lifted off, there was nothing but silence in the room. None of the people there wanted to disrupt another person's concentration, as they were sure that the rocket would most likely face an unplanned rapid disassembly—or in other words, blow up—and they didn't want the distraction to cause them to miss it.

Alas, nothing of that sort happened as the satellite footage on the main screen showed the rocket punching through the clouds and leaving a brief gap in them. With all of the satellites focused on that unnatural-looking cloud bank, they had collected nearly a petabyte of data on the island beneath it for later use and analysis.

The more they waited for the rocket to fail, the more anxious they grew as the launch reached its parking orbit without any problems. It was practically a miracle, as they knew that it was the first launch of an upstart company with no previous experience or reputable experts.

"Now that's gonna generate a mountain of long paperwork for us," the team leader sighed. He was the one responsible for monitoring the launch in case it turned out to be an ICBM test or something similar.

"We'd better get started on it, since the moment it reaches its destination we'll have to include that in the report. So by that time, we'd better be done with the first part of the report if we don't want to spend the next week on it," said the assistant team leader as he tried to hide his impressed expression.

The same was happening for China, Russia, and any other country that had orbital surveillance capabilities. A country with oil and other resources having the ability to launch exoatmospheric missiles was something they wanted to be as aware of as possible.

...

With the successful launch, celebration was in the air in Eden. People were happy and proud that their country had done something that not every country had managed to do. Especially without help, at least from what they'd heard, as no company had yet to come out and said that they were doing joint research. Sensitive technology like that was generally never done cooperatively, as anyone who could successfully launch a rocket into space could just attach powerful explosives to one and send it to a certain direction on earth. Thus, rockets were very strictly regulated, classified technology.

GAIA technology had just posted about the successful launch and their joy that it had gone well, then announced that they would be continuing the rest of their launches as planned. It was only made possible because they had different orbital slots for each launch. That allowed them to rapidly process launches at different times, as every time they had an orbital window, they could launch another one without having to wait for the lanes to clear.

And they really kept that promise; their livestream ran 24/7, even showing the rockets being transported, though only partly through their journey. They weren't about to show a livestream of the Cube, after all.

Practically every six hours, another rocket would be successfully launched, to the point that it was an ongoing cycle. By the time one satellite was in its transfer orbit, a previously launched satellite would be ready for the final verifications. The whole sequence of launches was really abnormal; they weren't even doing a single test before each rocket was loaded into the gantry and launched soon after.

Still, they were all successful launches. Some people called it luck, but they were continuously proven wrong over the next week, as the livestream wasn't cut even once. If it weren't for the changes in the air and the day/night cycle, they would have thought that it was a looped video.

The act of sequential launches with a 100% success rate had caused a number of countries to grow nervous, as the more successful launches there were, the more important the resulting investigations would be. Everyone considered the launches an impossibility; not even "big" countries like the US and Russia had a perfect track record in their space programs, after all. So for an upstart company like GAIA to muscle their way into the space race—which was a game for industrialized, "first world" nations to play in—while still being categorized as a "developing nation", something must have gone wrong. Someone, somewhere, had leaked something that gave GAIA their technology.

And that could not be allowed to stand, so a massive mole hunt began in the spacefaring nations.

But it wasn't just countries that were interested. Even people who normally didn't care about the space race or think it would ever have anything to do with them grew interested in Eden's nascent space program. And along with the increase in attention came odds and betting sites, which was something that Nova was taking full advantage of.

News of the successful series of launches had spread everywhere. And after more than two weeks straight of successful launches, they had finally come to an end. There were now fifty satellites in various orbits, from low earth orbit all the way to high earth geosynchronous orbit, and all of them were dedicated to serving Aron's growing conglomerate.. 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝗼𝗿𝐠

Together with the news, Nova kicked things up into a higher gear and started promoting the upcoming product launch all over Pangea. The data they had already collected from users of the app ensured that the advertising blitz was as laser targeted as she could make it. And even though people were only seeing ads they were interested in, it still spread out to catch any their lists might have missed, as people—and interaction bots—were all talking about what they had seen. Fans of GAIA Tech were already excited and had marked their calendars; the launch event was set for a week after the launches finished.

Together with the promotion, invites started going out to everyone she thought would be useful, including tech influencers. It was a time where not many of them had been invited to events like those, so it caused even more buzz around the upcoming launch.

As for the technology companies, they were in a completely different mood. Many of them had made their peace with GAIA becoming the monopoly of the OS market. Some willingly, and others only because their platforms had virtually no users at all, let alone developers. The GAIA OS had done what no software company had ever done before: consolidated the userbase. There was no longer a need for developers to work on multiple platforms, or for users to argue the merits of them. Adding to that, the revenue sharing was fairly generous to developers, so even amateurs entered the marketplace to compete, and usually fail, against the professionals.

But to those who hadn't been forced to give up their market share by GAIA Tech, the news was nothing good at all. Rumor had it that the upstart company was about to launch hardware products. And if the consecutive flurry of satellite launches was anything to go by, the executives of those companies all had nightmares as they thought of what product would be released and what capabilities it would have. It might even be as disruptive, if not more, than the first iPhone product launch!

...

White House.

"So, we can consider them an ICBM-capable nation, right?" Obama asked as he read the final report that came from the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) regarding the launches that had taken place over the past weeks.

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"Yes, sir. Based on our analysis of all the launches that took place, we can say with certainty that if they develop a warhead and targeting system for their rockets, they can launch ballistic missiles without any trouble. But that's only if the government received a copy of the plans... or they can just ask for the company to build the boosters for them and they can focus on researching the second stage rocket engine and guidance system, so the conclusion is the same," replied General Welsh, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He was the one who had been tasked with investigating Eden's space launches.

"Are we in their range?" Obama asked.

"Yes. But everyone is technically in range of an exoatmospheric ICBM. 'Range' stops being a concept when they can launch missiles into low earth orbit, after all. But whether they can hit us or not is a different topic entirely," General Welsh answered with confidence that stemmed from his knowledge of America's air defense systems.

Obama turned to his chief of staff and said, "Get the state department to reach out to them. If they can drop ICBMs on us, they're better friends than enemies."

He turned back to General Welsh and put the folder on the table, then asked, "So what's your personal view of the situation? What didn't make it into the report?"

"Although their tech seems to have advanced very fast, based on their ability to launch the satellites into different orbits without trouble, it only shows they've developed their own mature rocket tech. We didn't find anything that even hinted at them stealing the designs of anything that already exists. But we don't know whether or not they've developed warheads that matter, or guidance systems that work. So while we should assume they have and take them seriously, I'm sure a developing nation like Eden won't poke this particular bear so we don't have much to worry about."

"Although what you said is true, you failed to consider their international political stance. They declared neutrality, meaning they don't have allies to support them, yes, but at the same time, it also means there's no limits on who they can trade with. So there's really nothing stopping them from selling their tech to North Korea, or even the Taliban. And if they choose to do so, more and more countries may gain international launch capability. And the more ICBMs there are, the higher the chance that at least one of them will see some use," Obama explained.

"I don't think that'll happen," the general replied.

The people in the room waited for him to continue, a wait that stretched as the general gathered his thoughts. He knew if he said something dumb, he was likely to be replaced; the Joint Chiefs are political appointees, after all.

After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he explained, "I considered their stance when I told you my opinion about them. Their neutrality is the main reason I didn't even bother to mention the possibility of them selling their tech to others. I'm sure that, before they announced their neutrality, they must've studied the history of other neutral countries before them, and the problems those countries faced.

"Taking that a step further, we can assume it means they know that, in order to defend their sovereignty while maintaining their neutrality, they'll be heavily investing in their defense. That's backed up by recent history, as well: President Alexander Romero replacing their entire state military with a PMC not only increased their defense capability, but also freed up the budget to invest in research and development.

"When you add oil money to the equation, their defense spending will probably skyrocket... even after you consider the socialist idealized health care system he wants to implement. But that then circles back around to their neutrality, and why I think it's the main reason they won't sell any of that tech: why would they arm their enemies with the fruits of their own labor?" he finished.

"Good thinking there, but that's all under the assumption that they've studied history and are planning on avoiding the pitfalls they discovered. And that's nearly impossible, since their country is almost completely backward. It wasn't until recently that they even had clean water and reliable power," Obama countered.

"But doesn't Romero have unlimited power due to winning more than ninety percent of the positions in their government? He's also the one that picks the judges, so he has control of all three of their government branches, doesn't he? Then doesn't it follow that he's only a 'president' in name, but is actually just another dictator?" General Welsh asked. He knew that most of the countries that had previously attempted to maintain their neutrality had failed because of many different beliefs in their government, but Eden's difference lay in their own politicians and their unity. While the country may claim to be a democratic nation, their president was all but a dictator and his political party had almost every seat of power available. So what was the difference between him and his predecessor, other than Alexander's basic benevolent stance toward his people?

Chapter 292 Zeus One

February 15th.

As evening neared in Eden, one of the largest indoor auditoriums in the country was filled to the brim. The entire venue was sold out and people had already arrived, filling every available seat despite the launch event still being a few hours away.

Outside the auditorium, but still inside the building, people were walking around and talking to each other. For anyone interested in the international tech industry, they would realize that most of the people there were famous names in the tech industry, showing the level of the event that was about to take place.

As for the influencers, no one that had received the invitation even thought of declining to attend. But it wasn't just an invitation they had received; everyone that had received one had also been given a business-class ticket on whichever day they would like to arrive in Eden. Room and board were included as well, up until the day after the launch event concluded. That in itself showed that GAIA Tech was taking the launch very seriously.

When the time hit 8PM exactly, everyone had already taken their seats and the lights slowly dimmed. The crowd fell silent, since everyone knew the event was about to start.

After ten seconds of darkness, the lights on the stage started coming up and people recognized the shape of a man walking to the center of the stage. As the light grew stronger, they finally saw who it was.

"Welcome to the first GAIA event," Aron said. Simultaneously, the fifty-foot high screens behind him came to life and showed him on each of them. Subtitles appeared on the screen as he spoke, live translating his speech. As for the livestream, the option was there to use real-time speech-to-text translation, or to real-time dubbing.

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But his welcoming speech passed in one ear and out the other for many of the watchers and attendees, due to the name that appeared on the screens. He was Aron Michael, the creator of the famous BugZapper and GAIA OS, who had never been seen in any event or interview before this. For many, it was their first time seeing the handsome man and they felt their impressions of him shattering. They had thought he would look like a tech geek, but reality had slapped them in the face so hard it almost caused them physical pain.

"Let's see what we have to come." Only when they heard that did the audience come back into their right minds and focus on the event taking place. Some felt a burning in their cheeks as they blushed, realizing they had been mesmerized by his handsome appearance.

After finishing the introduction, Aron was immediately taken out of focus as the screens behind him started playing a history of the innovations that GAIA Tech had introduced over the two years since its inception. It reintroduced products from BugZapper all the way to their most recent product, Pangea. All of it was being shown through the incredibly clear screens.

When the video ended, attendees started clapping in excitement. They had been impressed by the steps the company had taken and the products they had released in the two years of their existence.

"Yes, that's certainly a history to feel proud of," Aron said in his calm voice, which caused the applause to die out. "Although our history is something we feel proud of, we still find it rather incomplete," he continued, and the screen behind him immediately started listing their products.

"But if you look at them, you'll realize that there's nothing but software. And with the hardware market as it stands, none of my software can work to their full capabilities. After all, it has to be designed while taking into account the different platforms it'll be installed on, making it take more space on each? devices than it usually would."

He paused for a moment to allow people to make some guesses in their minds, then continued, "So in order to solve that problem, I decided to release hardware that'll really give my OS the platform it requires in order to operate at full power." The moment Aron finished speaking, the stage was dimmed once again as the massive screens behind him played another video.

Like a usual product introduction, it didn't show the full product. It was just a hint, feeding the audience's curiosity and enhancing the impact of the eventual full reveal.

As the video ended, the focus came back to Aron and he immediately started talking. "I present to you Zeus One!" As he said that, the full picture of a smartphone was displayed, winning quite an impressive reaction from the people watching the event.

The phone looked nothing like any that had been released that year, or any year before. It was obviously different from the usual phones that were released every year, but the most attention-grabbing thing was that there was no selfie camera lens visible anywhere on the front of the phone at all. It completely bucked the trend that smartphone manufacturers had been following, where the integrated front camera was a major selling point of their hardware.

"A powerful machine made specifically for the GAIA OS to be able to work to the fullest of its abilities, thanks to the chip made specifically for its operation." As Aron spoke, the phone on the screens turned transparent, showing the components inside and "exploding" them out so that each one could be seen individually.

The display then zoomed in on the phone's CPU chip. "Meet Z1, our proprietary processor. It's at least five times faster than any chip that's ever been put in any smartphone." The screens displayed an infographic showing their benchmark test results compared to all of the top smartphones from other manufacturers. "The Z1 processor chip will allow the GAIA OS to operate to its fullest capabilities, and all hardware devices sold by us will include the highest premium version of GAIA OS for free."

The entire audience broke out into applause; people were thrilled that a free top-tier subscription to GAIA OS would be included with what looked like a powerhouse of a smartphone. Not bad for a new company's first flagship release.

Chapter 293 Unbelievable Advances

"Now on to the screen," Aron said as the screens behind him focused on the phone's screen. Unlike the most recent iPhone, or any of the Android and Google phones on the market, the bezel around the screen was so unbelievably thin that it was practically invisible.

(Ed note: I had to look bezel up, too. In this context, it's "a groove or flange designed to hold a beveled edge, as of a gem." Basically, it's the border between the screen and frame of a computer or a phone monitor.)

"The Zeus One's screen will revolutionize the way you see the screen, thanks to our quantum dot technology. It allows for unparalleled brightness and contrast, which means you'll get perfect visibility under any light. Unlike regular pixels, quantum dots can display any color natively, instead of as a blend of red, green, and blue. Also, thanks to our quantum dot technology, the screen resolution will be three times as detailed as the best display screen that exists, no matter the size.

"If you want to see what it looks like in reality, just look at the screens behind me. Those also incorporate our quantum dots tech, but scaled up to the size you see here." As Aron said that, a floodlight passed across the screens behind him, but didn't wash out the image at all.

"Now moving on to the cameras. It looks like many of you have noticed that there's no visible lens for the front-facing camera." A slight chuckle came from the audience. "But there's a camera there."

The display screens magnified the phone's screen on them, showing a camera lens integrated into the center of the screen.

"Yes, the camera is in the middle of our screen. That was the best place for it, and it's possible thanks again to our quantum dot technology. All quantum dots are completely transparent and clear in their resting state, which allowed us to combine the convenience of a front-facing camera with the power and resolution of a dedicated phone camera."

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A display of the camera's specs popped up on the screens behind Aron, showing a rather impressive list of numbers. It was a fifty megapixel camera capable of 4K resolution and capturing videos up to 120 frames per second.

"Everything the camera sees while in use will be saved, allowing for seamless editing of still images and video. Even if you aren't focusing on something in the picture, the camera definitely will be, so you'll miss nothing! And with the GAIA OS AI assistant, editing your images and videos will be an absolute breeze. Anyone with a Zeus One will have the tools they need to make a perfect picture, all in the palms of their hands!

"I know it seems like I'm just talking nonsense and making unfulfillable promises because there's no way anyone can rebut me on stage, so let's test it right here and now," Aron said as he removed the phone from his pocket. It was none other than a Zeus One.

He raised his hand and showed it to the audience as the phone booted up. The displays behind him showed the process, then switched to the audience sitting in the auditorium.

It took exactly five seconds for the phone to fully power up, and since it was the phone's first time being powered on, Aron had to say, "Skip the introduction and consider me an experienced user." The moment he said that, the phone showed the home screen, where it didn't linger for long as he opened the front-facing camera without any delay at all using voice commands.

"Now screencast it to the screens behind me," he said. The phone understood and opened the connection page, which showed the screens that he could share the live feed of the camera with. "Connect to all of them."

With that, all three screens behind Aron showed the footage from the phone, which was crisp and clear beyond anything anyone had ever seen.

"It really is from the phone's camera, not one of the high-quality professional cameras in the room," he said, turning around and taking a selfie with the audience in the background and displaying it on the big screens behind him. 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚘𝚟ｅｌ．𝚌ｏ𝚖

"Make it cool and post it on my Pangea account," he said, and the screens behind him that were still displaying what was on his phone showed the AI assistant editing the image. With every editing pass—displayed as a line that passed from the top to the bottom of the screen, with the newly enhanced image above and the pre-enhanced photo below—the picture became clearer and more polished. After a few passes, everyone in the audience could easily pick out their individual faces in crystal-clear resolution.

The assistant then opened the Pangea app and Aron logged into it, his password displaying as a series of asterisks and the two-factor authentication blurred on the shared screens.

After successfully logging in, he input a caption and the assistant added hashtags and posted the image to his Pangea account.

The audience went silent for a few minutes as they opened their own individual Pangea accounts and found the picture Aron had just posted, then burst into raucous applause and cheers; they all knew the process of what had happened, and it was impossible to fake because they could see themselves in the picture!

"As you can see, the photo is pretty high-quality despite being taken in a dark room with a front-facing cellphone camera. And with the camera in the center of the screen, instead of at the top, you can even look yourself in the eye as you take pictures," he said, prompting a chuckle from the influencers in the audience.

"The same level of tech is incorporated in the speakers, which use our proprietary SLAS—SpeakerLess Audio System. Instead of generating sound with a vibrating speaker, we accomplish the same result using advanced wavefront manipulation and acoustic technologies to generate sound directly in the air, essentially forming 'sound holograms.' That eliminates the need for speakers entirely and allows sound to be projected freely anywhere in three dimensions. And you're currently experiencing that very technology right now," Aron said, the sound seeming to "float" around the auditorium instead of the stage as if someone was messing with the mixer. Halfway through the introduction, everyone in the audience heard his words in English in their right ears, and their native languages in their left ear. They turned to the people next to them, and some asked if their neighbors had heard what they had, and the affirmative response caused another round of applause.

"As you've just personally experienced, with this technology we can create personalized sound zones in a room, where each person hears a different audio stream without the need for headphones. That'll be particularly beneficial for shared spaces, like living rooms or vehicles, but at the moment the phone version is limited in the number of zones they can create.

"Now on to one of the most important main features of the Zeus One. The 'ecosystem' that's been made possible by our Q-chip allows for instant, large data transfers between two compatible devices within 250 meters. Thanks to that, anyone using one of our new phones will be able to transfer any file from them to their friends, even if they're a couple of football fields away. That's also the range limit of our wireless earphones and speakers, which also use our proprietary SLAS and will be released alongside the phone as peripheral devices," he said, then paused to wait for the resulting applause to end.

"Any device that has all these features naturally requires enough power to support them, and we've all seen phones running out of battery at the worst possible time. To that, I say there's no need to worry with our Zeus One—you can use it with everything maxed out for 24 hours continuously on a full charge. For more normal usage, you can expect the battery to last anywhere from four days to a week without requiring a charge. And when you do need to charge it, our new proprietary fast charge system will take these batteries from zero to full in just under an hour and a half.

"Now for something I'm sure you all want to know: the price," he said, then paused as the screens behind him showed the three versions of the phone he was launching. "There's three initial versions of the Zeus One. Though they're each different sizes, their capabilities are identical, so the size difference is only cosmetic. The starting price for the Zeus One is $999, the Zeus One Pro is $1,299, and the Zeus One EX is $1,499."

The audience let out a collective gasp, as they had expected that the phone would be at least $2000, and that itself would be a break-even price, or even a loss. Everything that had been introduced about the phone was proprietary tech, meaning they had to absorb the full cost of research and development, plus manufacturing, instead of just licensing or buying previously existing patents.

Chapter 294 Sarah's Time to Shine

?

"Now let's welcome the president of GAIA Technologies, Sarah O'Connor to introduce our other products," Aron said when the applause died down, then smiled at his friend as they passed each other.

Sarah arrived at her position, but had to wait before she started speaking since they were still clapping. When the applause died down, she started speaking. "With the Zeus One being our first product from the smartphone line, I'd like to introduce the first product from our computer line: the Olympus."

She stopped speaking and, like Aron's introduction of the phone, the screens behind her started playing a video that introduced the device before ending with an image of the laptop and desktop versions. They both had a sleek, majestic, and clean look.

"They, too, are powered by another of our proprietary chips—the O1, which is ten times faster than any other desktop or laptop CPU on the market." As she said that, the benchmark results were shown on the screens behind her, evoking slight gasps from the impressed experts in the crowd.

"The O1 is a graphene chip and will act as both CPU and GPU for both the laptop and desktop. The chip is manufactured using our proprietary 10nm photolithographic process, so it's faster, more energy efficient, and can handle more tasks than a standard silicon processor. The form factor isn't limited by how many pieces of hardware we can cram into it, so both the laptop and desktop editions of the Olympus are sleek and comfortable for both indoor and outdoor use, while still maintaining a power and performance that leaves our competitors in the dust." The computer being displayed on the screen behind her turned transparent and "exploded", much like the cellphone that Aron had presented, and the O1 was highlighted.

"The screen on the laptop version uses the same quantum dot tech as in our Zeus One, but is more capable due to its larger size. That allows for more quantum dots in the display, thus a higher resolution. The only thing that limits the Olympus laptop's screen resolution is your eyesight, and even then, our GAIA OS AI assistant can compensate for that," she joked, drawing a chuckle from the audience, then continued her prepared speech. "The Olympus laptop webcam is also incorporated into its screen for crystal-clear video calls to keep you connected to your friends and family no matter how far you may be from each other.

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"Although you can use third-party monitors for our desktop edition, we recommend ours. Our screens have up to a 680hz dynamic refresh rate with a 0.5ms response time, again leaving our competitors in the dust. And our power saver mode ensures that your display screen will last a long, long time, while not increasing your electricity bills.

"Our monitors also incorporate a scaled-up version of the same SLAS tech in our phones, with three times the number of channels available. So why settle for the rest, when you can have the best?

"Our proprietary battery can be fully charged within an hour and will last three days under max load. If it's running under more normal usage, expect it to go ten days or more between charges. We've incorporated our batteries into both the laptop and desktop version, with the desktop battery acting as an uninterruptible power supply in case of power outages, or if you decide to take it with you on the go.

"Both of them also come with the Q-chip for seamless integration into our GAIA ecosystem. So our other peripherals are wireless, as well as secure. We've ensured that all of our hardware is as secure as possible by including BugZapper with every purchase, so there's no need to worry about your private data being used against you." Sarah gave the camera a knowing smile. There would be no more "Fappenings", if she could help it; the mere fact that people that would hack the cloud accounts of individuals and publish their private photos existed had disgusted her for quite some time.

"The starting price of the 11" Olympus laptop is $1299, the 13" is $1399, and the 16" is $1599. For the desktop version, the starting price is $999, with $499 and up for our proprietary display monitors.

"Orders for our laptop, desktop, and phone will open tonight at midnight, Eden Standard Time," she said. It set GAIA Tech apart from other companies, where the product introduction conference would be held weeks before the hardware was actually available for purchase online and in stores. 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.ｏｒｇ

Sarah went on to introduce speakers, earbuds, headphones, and a tablet,and every time she introduced something, she reminded the audience of its connection to the GAIA ecosystem.

With every product she introduced, people grew more enthusiastic and excited by the products... that is, as long as what she said wasn't proved wrong in the future. In the internet age, the line between love and loathing was very distinct and easily crossed, after all.

From the time Aron entered the stage to the time Sarah left it, the entire introduction only lasted about an hour and a half. And most of that was spent while they were idle on the stage, waiting for applause and cheering to die down. Tech enthusiasts sure had no qualms about showing their enthusiasm, often leaving the two presenters of the night at a loss. At one point, Nova had even considered using the sound system to mute the applause, but that would cause much havoc for little purpose and she quickly discarded the idea.

...

"You can handle the rest, right?" Aron asked as he and Sarah were escorted out of the underground VIP entrance of the auditorium by their ARES details. With so many people invited to the event, the extra security had been deemed necessary.

"Sure. The hard part's done, so now it's just waiting for the orders to roll in. I won't even have to do anything, it'll all be up to Felix and Rachael."

"Alright. I'll see you in a week or so," Aron said as he got into his car and headed toward the airport in a convoy with two ARES Reaper teams.

Chapter 295 The Junket

A week after the GAIA Tech presentation in Eden, Aron was laying in a beach chair on a gorgeous white sandy beach in Hawaii, with Rina laying on the chair next to him working on her own suntan. When he had told her he was headed to Hawaii for their next presentation, she'd offered to show him around the islands, as he'd never been there before. Besides, he was still due to meet with her father, and now that GAIA Tech had gained some traction and cachet in the global marketplace, it was high time to keep that promise.

Meanwhile, Ryan Walker, the newly minted president of Asclepius Biotechnology, Inc., was settling things for an upcoming medical conference hosted by him. He had rented out the entire Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki as the venue for the conference, and invited all of the top names in the biotech industry, as well as some representatives from Big Pharma, and even some TV hosts like Dr. Oz, who was famous for pushing products to a wide audience.

Meanwhile, over the past week, the marketing department executives from Asclepius had been busy laying the groundwork to have the new Asclepius products on store shelves everywhere around the globe.

It was the afternoon of the start of the conference, and everyone had arrived. All of the keynote speakers had accepted their invitations—a week-long vacation in Hawaii's top luxury resort was hard to pass up, after all—and they were wandering around the banquet room, where Ryan was hosting a brunch and handing out brochures to draw interest in the new startup company. That evening, he was scheduled to introduce the products Asclepius Biotechnology had developed, as well as some of their more interesting research results.

Soon, the clock struck 7:30 PM and the conference room Ryan was to speak in was filled.

"Good evening everyone, I'm Ryan Walker, the president of Asclepius Biotechnology, Inc." As he finished the self-introduction, the stage dimmed and an introduction video started playing on the projector screen behind him. Since no one knew the company at all, an introduction was in order.

"In a world where possibilities are boundless and science meets imagination, there emerges a beacon of innovation," came the voice of Nova, who had produced the intro video and done the voiceover narration for it.

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The video cut to a state-of-the-art laboratory bustling with scientists in white lab coats. The audience recognized the cutting-edge lab equipment, and some even grew jealous; just how much money did this upstart company have, anyway?

Nova's voice continued, "Introducing Asclepius Biotechnology, a company that will shape the future of healthcare and beyond. We are pioneers, driven by a shared vision to unlock the mysteries of life and harness the power of biotechnology to transform our world."

The scene changed from the cutting-edge lab to a bed of plants and showed them grow from sprouts to maturity in time-lapse videography, then to a doctor drawing an injection from a vial and injecting it into a hanging bag of saline that was attached to a smiling child.

"From agriculture to medicine, genetic therapies to sustainable solutions, we are pushing the boundaries of possibility. At Asclepius, innovation is in our DNA."

The video cut to a shining Asclepius logo, then Nova continued, "Asclepius Biotechnology—where tomorrow meets today."

After the introduction video came polite applause from the attendees. Medical professionals were much more subdued than tech enthusiasts, so to get any applause at all for a brand-new startup company was already surprising enough. 𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Ryan took to the stage and began his prepared remarks. "I hope our introduction gave you all a general idea of what we're all about at Asclepius. And to show our commitment to making the world a better place, I'd like to introduce to you our first product: Pneuma, a complete and lasting cure for asthma."

The attendees were stunned into silence, not knowing whether they should applaud or storm out after such an outrageous claim.

"Right now, we've applied for fast-tracking through the approval process through the regulatory bodies around the world, and we expect our products to be offered to all of you by your regular drug reps. If you're curious about the detailed information, there's a brochure in the packet we handed out to everyone when you came in the room for my presentation. But to summarize, we've seen a 100% cure rate in asthma in every age range and across both genders, and the side effects are mild and comparable to those from vaccinations, such as pain and swelling at the injection site, mild fevers, and so on. Basically, it's no more harmful than a flu shot, which is where our confidence in the regulatory approvals comes from.

"Pneuma will be available for prescription in all countries the moment it's approved by those countries' regulatory bodies. And we have much more in store than that as our trials are completed and products developed to a safe level."

He gave the attendees a minute to look over the Pneuma brochure in their welcome packets, then continued, "Now on to our next product. This is categorized as a supplement, and as such, it'll be available starting next week in stores and pharmacies around the world, as well as for online ordering.

"I present to you the Biogen product line. Biogen was developed to combat a problem faced by 39% of the global population: obesity." Murmurs came from the attendees, who were wondering why such a rich company would be so shameless as to market a "supplement" that did absolutely nothing to slim people down, but everything to slim their wallets.

After the murmuring died down, Ryan continued, "Many weight loss products put the user in a very difficult cycle of binge and diet, because they need to stop eating their favorite foods. And even after succeeding in reaching their target weight, they have to change their lifestyle and continue that behavior for the rest of their lives. But not Biogen.

"Biogen is a series of nutrient-dense food additives in a variety of flavors with different delivery methods. For those on the go, they can use it as a shake. For those eating out, they can sprinkle it on their food at the restaurant, much like salt and pepper. For those who prefer meal prep, they can either rehydrate or cook one of our frozen meals. There's something for everyone, and unlike traditional diet plans, the only lifestyle change is bringing it with you wherever you go."

Ryan continued introducing Biogen and its benefits, and by the thirtieth minute since starting his presentation, he began wrapping it up. "I know that all of you are anxious to get on with your paid vacation," he said, eliciting a chuckle from the audience, "so I'll let you get to it. If you have any questions, the conference will be running all week and you have my assistant's number in your welcome packet. Feel free to contact her with any concerns or questions you have after taking a look at our documentation, and one of our researchers will reach out to you with answers. I'll see you all later at the cocktail party..."

Chapter 296 To Keep A Promise

The reaction to GAIA Tech's launch was enthusiastic, and online orders started pouring like there was no tomorrow. Since Aron could produce as many as he wanted, he didn't set an amount of them to be sold in the first batch and allowed anyone to order as many as they wanted. Scalpers, who thought there would be a limited number of them, were initially especially thrilled... but would soon learn their mistake as it became apparent that there was no limit to the orders that would be accepted.

Aron and Rina entered the presidential suite of the hotel and logged in to VR to hold a meeting with Ryan and Sarah, the latter of whom was still in Eden, to discuss their tasks.

Rina immediately went and hugged Nova, then turned to Aron and said, "The patent application was approved an hour ago, but as you asked, they'll only make it public a week from now."

Aron smiled.

"But why'd you want me to delay the patent being made public for a week?" she asked.

"There's a few companies that I wanted to have a hope of filing the patents before us. They wasted a few million before realizing that we already applied for them."

"Also why did you only apply for a patent on the graphene chips and nothing else from the tech?" she asked. If it were her, she would have patented everything in order to protect it.

"Because they can't replicate those even if they wanted to, or even hypothesize how they were made. During production, we mix in a material that they can't detect yet, creating invisible layers on top of them that would make it impossible for them to accurately discover the composition of the materials, or even figure out exactly how it works," he answered. He couldn't reveal that the parts were mixed with mana, so it was a happy coincidence that since they couldn't detect it anyway, they would just think that it was an anti-piracy process they had yet to discover.

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"How's the ordering going?" he asked as he looked at Nova.

[five million orders and counting have already been received since we opened ordering on the Zeus One and Olympus, and the number is still climbing. Sales for Pneuma are being held up by regulatory bodies and I expect those delays to clear up in a week or so. Biogen is being well received by brick and mortar purchasers and should be on store shelves within two weeks, but online ordering is anemic since the public hasn't been exposed to it yet,] Nova said, popping up a screen with current sales and future projections over the conference table in the meeting room.

"Looks like orders will start picking up after the first buyers test and review them, since many of the things seem unbelievable for the tech at the moment," Aron said. He was sure that many people were still skeptical and weren't convinced by the GAIA Tech event. They would only commit when they were completely assured of the worth of the products. 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝑒𝘭．𝑜𝘳𝘨

"On that end," Ryan interjected, "Our marketing team at Asclepius has started an ad blitz and we should start seeing online orders of Biogen picking up over the next few days. If we could've done it earlier, sales would've already started, but we had to wait until after the conference because there's a limit to the amount of disruption one market will bear and we can't offend the 'experts' by skipping them in the process if we want optimal sales."

[I'll ensure the reviews spread to as many people as possible when they start buying it,] Nova said, finally showing the level of influence she'd gained since Pangea became the most-used social media app across the globe.

After a bit more discussion, they logged out of VR. Aron and Rina boarded the waiting convoy and headed toward the Waikiki airport, while Ryan and Sarah went back to their own tasks.

It was time for the lovebirds to keep their promise.

...

The next day.

Aron's private plane had landed at LaGuardia and unloaded him, Rina, and his security detail. Rina's presence got them through security in a manner that only a Rothschild could and they were on their way to the Rothschild family compound to introduce Aron to Rina's parents. That was the most important of his objectives for being in the US this time; it wouldn't be fair to anyone if his girlfriend knew his parents while he had never met hers, after all.

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He had a very happy smile on his face as he surfed Pangea to waste some time during the drive. Reviews had been coming in and the public was still enthusiastic; the buzz generated by the launch event hadn't faded over the past week, but had instead grown. Especially after the initial positive reviews had been purposefully spread by Nova, causing a virtuous sales cycle for the Zeus One and both Olympus models.

...

"Your family is really extravagant," Aron said when he got out of his car at the Rothschild family head's mansion. The drive from the front gate of the compound to the mansion was ten minutes long, and that was despite the speed they were driving at. It was a testament to the size of the property.

"The compound isn't even a quarter as big as Avalon Island, and you call us extravagant," she teased back. Aron's private island was truly massive.

"Yep, I can't really complain," Aron chuckled. It was enough to calm him and he returned to his usual demeanor as they were escorted inside the mansion where her parents were waiting for them.

"Mom, dad, this is Aron. Aron, these are my parents, Herschel and Virginia Rothschild," Rina said when they entered the mansion and found her parents waiting for them in the living room. Her mother moved to hug her, showing she was closer to her than her father.

"Welcome," Herschel said to Aron and extended his hand for a handshake with a neutral expression on his face.

"Thank you," Aron said as he shook Herschel's hand with a smile on his face. His towering body overshadowed the older man, but he still came across as non-threatening.

"Let's move to the dining room," Virginia said, breaking the awkward silence between Rina's father and her boyfriend. It likely would have gone on if she hadn't interfered. She hadn't expected her husband to be unable to maintain a polite conversation, which showed how he was feeling deep inside.

Chapter 297 Something He Had in Abundance

Aron couldn't help but look at the dinner table with surprise, since the table was filled with enough to feed more than fifteen people and there were only four of them. Although he was rich, he hadn't reached a ridiculous level of extravagance, since his parents hadn't changed at all and only cooked enough for the people in the family. There was no excess at all, so he wasn't used to the scene in front of him.

Still, he acted like he was used to it and took a seat. Rina took the seat next to him, facing her mother, who was on the other side of the table. Her father sat at the head on their right.

"When did you two first meet?" Virginia asked, her tone carrying curiosity and excitement, something Rothschilds normally didn't show much of.

"About two years ago," Aron answered, trying not to be too specific since that will make her feel weirded out. But for him, ever since the day he woke up after the system assimilation he'd had an eidetic memory. He might forget to think of things, but if he actively tried to recall something, he would remember everything about it.

"Isn't that around the time she divorced Rottem?" she asked. When she mentioned the name Rottem, she turned to her husband and gave him the side eye, causing the mighty Rothschild family head to avoid eye contact.

"Yes, we met because he had something that could help me," Rina interjected. If she left it to Aron, he would blabber everything as he found it a hassle to lie.

They continued chatting through dinner, with Herschel mostly remaining silent and leaving everything to his wife. She, on the other hand, was using the opportunity to learn everything there was to know about Aron and only asking a few questions about their relationship. She treated him like a mother interviewing a prospective son-in-law, giving him an idea of how Rina must have felt when he introduced her to his parents.

...

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"You weren't too surprised when you came here, as if you knew everything about us," Herschel said, speaking for the first time since dinner.

The two men were in his office without the women present. Virginia knew they needed to talk, so she took Rina out and left the men alone in Herschel's office.

"Yes, I knew a few things about her before we met, then learned the rest later," Aron calmly answered. It was quite unlike what would be expected of a man meeting his girlfriend's father for the first time.

"Were you planning to use her family power and benefit from it for your business?" he asked, maintaining eye contact and trying to pressure the younger man into revealing his true intentions. 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝒏𝙤𝒗𝒆𝒍．𝒄𝙤𝙢

Alas, Aron was completely unbothered by the parental pressure that was being exerted and just answered, "Yes, I introduced myself to her because I needed your family's political power. I couldn't be bothered to build mine at that time, because I was focusing on other things." He couldn't be bothered to hide anything.

Rina's father couldn't help but be surprised by the pure honesty from the man in front of him. "Are you saying that you're using my daughter in order to benefit from my family's political power?"

"No, no, you misunderstood me. I had those intentions when I first met her, but I wasn't the beneficiary when we first met. Rather, she was on the receiving end at that time, since she had none of the 'family power' you mentioned. Instead, she had been kicked out of the competition, so in order for her to be helpful to me I had to help her win back her position. Only after I did that could she have the power to help me in my endeavors," Aron calmly said. There was no judgment in his tone at all.

"What!?" Herschel exclaimed. He hadn't been expecting that answer at all.

"Yes, I helped her regain her position in the family competition, and in return she helped me handle a few things," Aron said again.

He received no response, as Rina's father was too stunned to speak. His brain was still trying to comprehend how a man who was only a millionaire at the time had managed to interfere with their family's matters and dictate the tempo of the competition. Not even their archenemies could do that, but the man in front of him had managed it without being discovered at all.

The silence continued for a few minutes before Herschel finally said, "What kind of help did you even provide to her?" He couldn't believe Aron's words, so he needed some clarification to tell whether the younger man was just blowing hot air.

"Information, something I had, and still have, an abundance of," he answered.

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"Like what?" Herschel asked. He was sure that nearly all the information that could be used against the family was protected in their private network, making all the information that could be gathered from outside quite useless.

"I'm sure you've already read a file about me, so you should already know what field I specialize in. And I'm pretty sure you can fill in the blanks about how I could help her with information," Aron said, trying not to go into any more details as he was afraid of causing his girlfriend's father to have a heart attack.

There was another silence as the older man connected another set of dots.

"We'll continue this later," he said after realizing the weight of the revelation he had just received. He decided to go and prepare himself for the next round, since he wasn't sure if he could keep his cool if their meeting continued.

"Shouldn't he be the one sending me out of the room? Why was he the one to leave?" Aron asked after he was left alone.

[Why'd you decide to reveal everything? Are you trying to intimidate him?] Nova countered.

"No. If I lie now, it might cause some troubles later... I've seen too many movies where the protagonist caused needless problems when they tried hiding things instead of coming clean and avoiding all the mess that followed. People only fear the unknown since their minds don't have a limit on how outlandish their imagination can be. That's the root cause of most problems.

"And another thing—if I didn't tell him about the help I gave Rina, can you think of any other reason to warrant a face-to-face meeting between her and the me of that time?" Aron said.

[There aren't many,] she retorted, then put her quantum computers to work so she wouldn't lose the argument. [You could've said that she met you because she wanted you to sue Rottem for defamation of character as an additional revenge she wanted to inflict on him,] she said after a while, finally having come up with a reasonable scenario.

Chapter 298 Just Another Tuesday

Vladimir was inside an office in the Kremlin with a few documents on his desk and one on his hand. He had become a team leader and was responsible for leading a team that reports directly to the president of Russia, a team that was a result of the president not trusting everything from the FSB, since no powerful leader that's afraid of being overthrown would. Thus, he had separated the powers of the different agencies and was the only one maintaining overall control over everything in the country.

After looking at the file for a few seconds, he closed the folder and moved to the next one. That process repeated until all the folders on his table had been read through, even if only for a few seconds.

He adjusted his glasses, then leaned back in his chair and settled into a comfortable position before closing his eyes.

"Here to report and ask for support, ma'am," he said the moment he opened his eyes in a less decorated, but still dignified room where a stunning woman was waiting for him.

[Go on,] she said and materialized a chair beside him, then gestured for him to have a seat. She hadn't raised her gaze from the pile of papers on her desk from the moment Vladimir appeared in the room until then.

"I've completed my move to the Kremlin, and at the moment I'm leading a team that's responsible for fact checking the intel coming out of Ukraine and through the FSB. If anything looks tampered with or doesn't fit the reports from other agencies, my team and I are the ones tasked with investigating it," He explained. His position was still in the lower ranks, and his task wasn't very critical, so he knew it was nothing but a test. Only if he passed it would he really be put into the organization.

"I need some help in order to prove myself and rise in the government ranks faster. Is it possible to receive support from you?" he respectfully asked. His current actions were the opposite of his previous personality.

[Yes.] The woman was still focused on the documents in front of her as she had been throughout the entire report.

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Vladimir smiled and left the room without even stating what kind of help he required; he was sure she would know what to do and would be assisting him to the best of her abilities. Those were the orders she had been given as she was brought into the fold.

Once the woman was alone in the room, she immediately disintegrated it as she was only visualizing it for Vladimir's benefit. Now that she had no reason to provide anyone with an environment, realistic or not, she had no reason to sustain the simulation.

...

Back on Aron's side, he spent the next few days touring different places in the Rothschilds' compound. He had grown quite fond of Virginia Rothschild, and the feeling was mutual. The two spent as much time together as they could.

During the second meeting between Aron and Herschel, the older man had already come to the conclusion that Aron had already been inside their private network without being discovered and could monitor everything through that. That must have been the tool that he had used to help Rina regain her position, and with that connection in mind, he finally found the reason the board members hadn't voted for Arieh. He now knew that Rina had known everyone's weaknesses—including his—and had used the knowledge to control everyone except her father, which warmed his heart.

But that didn't remove the dissatisfaction he felt when he realized that his daughter had sold their family's secrets to an outsider just to regain her position in the competition. Still, she had already won and he hadn't discovered it during the competition all the way until the winner had been announced. So he chose to do nothing about it now other than politely request that Aron not spread the information any further than himself. Coupled with that was the implied threat that, if he did, not only would Herschel not support the relationship between his daughter and the man, but he would also face the full wrath of the Rothschild family.

"You don't have to worry about anything. I don't have a use for your secrets at all," Aron had replied, and didn't try to convince the elder at all.

The awkward relationship between the two men continued for a few days, but not much longer. On the fifth day of Aron and Rina's visit, and the third meeting between father and son-in-law, he finally felt comfortable enough to ask Aron's opinion on the upcoming general election. It resulted in a very interesting communication between the two of them at the dinner table. 𝚋𝚎ｄ𝚗ｏｖ𝚎𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖

"I don't think your candidate is going to win," Aron said with confidence when the topic of the election was brought up.

"Why do you say that?" Rina's father asked.

"I don't think you have a chance of getting a woman elected. After all, there's nothing more divisive than a woman in power, and her party is famous for being fractured to begin with. Plus, the Morgans already leaked her private email server and she's already been getting hammered over the attack in Benghazi," Aron explained.

"But I thought the email server was just a trivial thing. Besides, it's already been in the news for about six months and nothing bad's happened yet. And Benghazi wasn't even her doing at all—it was a failure on every level, not just the top," Rina's mother interjected. She didn't understand why Aron had even bothered mentioning the email server rumor, or something that had happened years ago, like Benghazi.

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"I'm sure you know more details about it, but why do you think it's still circulating even after so many months? Although she's campaigning for president, someone's driving the narrative and keeping it in the public consciousness. I suspect the server will come into play in the future, and Benghazi is just being used to hammer her in the meantime. She's too clean, so there's nothing else to use against her right now." Nova had already generated a report on what could possibly happen during the election, which gave Aron plenty of things to talk about regarding it.

"So what could they possibly do with an email server?" Virginia asked once again, acting as the mouth of her husband who she was sure wanted to know more.

"Let's say an FBI investigation," Aron said. It was one of the scenarios Nova had given him.

"They won't be doing that, since we can argue against it and even use it to our advantage. It'll be nothing but a political witch hunt." Although Rina's mother didn't really care about politics, she still had conversations with her husband about it, so she at least had a bit of knowledge.

"That depends on who's doing the investigating. If an Obama-appointed FBI director, like James Comey, is the one heading up the investigation, you can't really use it against Trump or the Morgans. After all, Obama's already announced his support for Clinton. And even then, let's say that Comey announces there were no laws broken—will that really change people's minds?

"Just the accusation alone will be enough to destroy her. Whether or not it's criminal doesn't really matter. After all, she's also still got Benghazi hanging over her head, and since she's a political animal that knows how to deal with scandals, people are going to assume that there has to be more.

"She's nothing like Trump, who has so many scandals that people believe there can't possibly be anything else, let alone anything that's worse than what they already know. A good person only has to do one bad deed for everyone to believe that person is a demon in human skin. But a bad person doing bad things? That's just what they expect from them on any given Tuesday," Aron joked, but the joke caused Herschel to fall into deep thought and ultimately agree with Aron's point of view.

"Then what do you think we should do?" he finally asked. He wanted to know if Aron had an idea or if he was just parroting things that he'd heard from somewhere.

"Why not just let Trump win? In fact, help him win. Push him up—he's a rabid dog and he'll be sure to bite the hand behind him," Aron said. His tone was the same as when he had earlier suggested brainwashing his new companies' presidents a few weeks before.

Chapter 299 Politics and Profits and Losses, Oh My!

"What?" all three people at the table asked in unison, but in different decibels befitting of their personalities.

"Yes, just flip the board since you can't win," Aron said without missing a beat.

"I understand you think that Clinton can't win, but why ask us to support their candidate?" Rina asked.

"We all know that they have a plan, and will do nothing but cause you troubles in the future. So by secretly supporting their candidate by the time they realize what's happening, they'll have no choice but to continue supporting him. After all, he'll be the only candidate they have that still has a chance of winning. But at the same time, they'll be hesitant and their trust in him will wane since they'll be sure that you aren't doing it out of charity, but for a deeper plan.

"With the trust between them already hanging by a thread, it'll provoke internal conflict," Aron explained. He truly thought it would be the best move to avoid unexpected upsets in the future, while also putting the might of the Rothschild family to work for his own benefit.

"And what do you have that you can use to prevent him from causing problems for us?"

"There's way too many things we can use against him to force him to do some things for us, like footage of his golden showers in Russia, his tax returns, his footage with Stormy Daniel, the audio from his backstage conversation with Billy Bush about sexual assault, and so on. But keep in mind that although they should be enough to make any candidate do what you want, there's a possibility of him doing the opposite if he's pushed too far. So you should use it at your own discretion and be careful," Aron said, though the warning in his tone was offset by a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"I'm going to need to take a look at the evidence before I make my decision," Rina's father said, and both women at the table were surprised.

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"Sure, I'll send it to you later. Take a look at it, but act with your own discretion, not because I suggested it as I'm still new to politics," Aron said. He wasn't too worried, as if things didn't go to plan, he still had backup plans for most possibilities, or at least those within the realm of foreseeability.

After that, their conversation moved to lighter topics, but Aron sensed that he had left a good impression on Rina's father that offset his act of hacking them and keeping hold of their secrets, so the meal continued and ended on a good note.

...

While Aron was fostering his relationship with his girlfriend's family, Biogen had made it through the regulatory process and started showing up on the market. The first buyers were people who saw the ads on their Pangea accounts and fell 'victim' to the targeted marketing driven by Big Data.

Although Pneuma hadn't been approved in America, Russia, or the EU yet, it had been approved nearly all across Africa and most of South America, where they were enjoying a drastic decrease in childhood asthma sufferers. It was being hailed as a miracle cure, as it took effect within 24 hours and there were almost no side effects. Asclepius Biotechnology had become an overnight giant in the field of pharmaceuticals, and the governments in the African and South American countries it was approved in were already making concessions and all but kneeling and begging for more.

And they weren't shy about publicizing it, either, as the louder they were about their efforts to cure asthma in their countries, the more political points those leaders won.

The successful record Pneuma was displaying put a lot of pressure on regulatory bodies in those countries that hadn't approved it yet, and Pangea again played a major role, as people who couldn't get access to it at home and couldn't wait any longer were already booking flights to Eden. And a third-world country being a medical tourism destination was absolutely unheard of!

…...

"How the hell is he walking once again?" a researcher at Johnson & Johnson exclaimed as he watched a shaky cellphone camera recording of Ryan's presentation at the recent medical conference Asclepius Biotechnology had hosted in Hawaii. He knew the newly minted president and was sure that he had been crippled in an accident... but there he was on video walking without any trouble at all. And no one had ever been healed of quadriplegia that severe.

The ringing of a phone in his office interrupted his thoughts and he immediately answered it.

"Yes, sir," he said. 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙.𝘯𝑒𝘵

"Unfortunately, we're still trying to reverse engineer it, but it'll be difficult since the structure of the medicine is something I'm seeing for the first time in my thirty-seven years as a researcher. It's fascinating, and I've got our share of Folding Home working overtime on it to hurry up the process," the man said.

(Ed note: Folding Home is an opt-in program that uses personal computing sources, like unused game consoles and a portion of unused processing power in PCs, as a distributed supercomputer to simulate protein folding and structures to develop drugs to fight various diseases. More info here: / )

"So, how long will it take to have our version ready for internal testing?" asked the voice on the other side of the call.

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"At least six months, and that's an optimistic estimate," the researcher replied as he massaged his temples. He knew that, if he wanted to come up with a test version of Pneuma in that time frame, neither he nor his team would be seeing their families very much over the next six months.

"Make sure you finish it, the faster the better. I'll delay the FDA as much as I can on my end, but there's some serious weight at the top trying to fast-track it so there's only so much I can do. If you can get me a working version by the time the FDA approves Pneuma, your bonus will choke you all the way to early retirement. But if you can't get it that fast, at least get us a working version by the time their patent expires."

A click announced the end of the call, and the researcher sighed and then got back to work. He could call his wife later.

"What happened to you?" He said after putting the phone down and returning his focus back to the phone that still had the video showing Ryan playing.

He immediately picked up the phone and dialed a number that he hadn't dialed in a long time, Ryan's number he had during the time they worked together.

The call didn't even connect as the automatic teller informed him that the number had been deactivated, so he immediately ended the call and dialed his secretary.

"Yes sir," his secretary said after answering the phone.

"Find a private investigator and tell them to find every bit of information about a person known as Ryan Walker," he said and ended the call before the response.

"Let's see if you can help me shorten my time frame in reverse engineering and become the golden goose," he said to himself as he immediately stood from his chair and headed to the hanger to pick up his white coat and headed to the elevator on his way to the lab to continue leading the reverse engineering of the medicine.

Chapter 300 Beloved Presidents and Beloved Wives

Aron had now officially removed himself from American politics after handing the responsibility to his girlfriend's father. Or in other words, he had passed it on to Rina. And after spending more than a week in the US, he finally left the Rothschild compound and headed back to Eden, this time by himself since Rina had to stay back and deal with overseeing some things before she could come to Eden once again.

During that time, changes had been taking place in Eden. The US, which had sent a low level member of the government when they were invited to the celebration parade, had sent their deputy secretary of state, William Burns, to Eden in order to foster diplomatic ties. He had promised a swift approval process in the FDA, as well as beginning negotiations for a trade agreement that would bring oil from Eden to America, bringing the countries closer than they'd been before. If it weren't for the fact that the current US Secretary of State was, at that very moment, on a campaign bus somewhere near Idaho, Hillary Clinton herself probably would have been the one to go to Eden.

...

Also during that time, the new company presidents had gotten to work just days after waking up from their genetic enhancements. With newly reinvigorated bodies and peace of mind from having their grudges settled, they took full advantage of the time dilation in the simulation and had managed to do many things in a short period of time.

Elizabeth Oppliger, the president of Helios Energy & Utility, Inc., had gotten used to her position and implemented many things. 𝙗𝒆𝙙𝒏𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡.𝙣𝙚𝒕

With all the construction projects under her company having been finished before she became the president, she had focused on efficient integrations of the tasks delegated to her company. Among the many things that she did was placing competent people in important positions of each Helios branch office to oversee the local operation and what repairs that required people to do. That wasn't a lot, as the patrolling atomic printer handled all of the underground repairs save a few, which were mostly for show to prevent the printers from being discovered at work.

She had also implemented a payment structure on an income- and value-derived sliding scale so that utilities would remain affordable to all. It was a complex calculation based on the value of the property and the income of the people living on, or using it, so the more affluent Edenians paid more in an absolute sense than the poorer citizens. She had also cooperated with president Chakrabarti of the Coeus Foundation to set up a charity fund to keep lights on and water running in case of disaster, so people were quite relieved and Liz had quickly joined the ranks of the most-beloved leaders in Eden, alongside Sarah and Felix.

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At the moment, she was in her office with her eyes closed, taking a power nap—or so her secretary thought—but she was in Lab City. She was wearing a white lab coat and doing something she could only have dreamed of during the ten long years she spent studying in school: researching new energies. And she was doing it in a lab that had everything she could only have dreamed of, and more.

"I really can't believe that Aron discovered such a magical form of energy," she said.

"How's our new formula holding in the mixture with the energy?" she asked.

The other researcher in the lab with her answered, "Although the new formula is stable, it only holds its stability for a few months before evaporating if it's not in a perfect environment. So nobody will really approve of using it when they know it'll disappear if it's not properly stored in a rather expensive and maintenance-hungry environment." The researcher didn't know what to call the low-grade mana liquid, and thought it was just something Aron had discovered after doing many, many simulations. At the moment, they were trying to find a way to make a mana liquid that was stable enough to introduce to the world as a source of energy.

"It's really fascinating," Liz said as she looked at the data she had already read about the formula. "It's at least a hundred times more energy dense than any other form of energy. And depending on the way it's harnessed or used, it may result in an energy efficiency of more than 80%." If that held true, it would be incredibly unprecedented.

"Increase the concentration of the stabilizing agent to 85% and see if it holds for a longer period of time," she said, then walked to the door to leave the lab. The moment she passed through the doorway, she opened her eyes in the real world and ended her short "power nap" with a smile on her face. The hard work she was putting in wasn't exhausting to her at all, as it was what she had been dreaming of doing for her entire life.

…...

"We should be ready to implement a 24-hour delivery time for premium subscribers to our shopping app, as long as they're in Eden".

Rachael Richardson was listening to the team leader responsible for overseeing the introduction of premium features and benefits to those using the Hermes app to buy and sell things. Hermes would be responsible for warehousing and shipping them, much like Amazon was doing in most of the rest of the world.

"Did we receive the delivery vehicles in all of the planned locations?" she asked as she perused the document in her hand.

"Yes. We also used their delivery as a test to see if we can accomplish our planned promise of next-day delivery, and we managed to complete 97% of them in time. So I think it's safe to say that we can roll out the premium subscription service," the team leader answered.

"Then go ahead and start the roll out process," she said, then returned her focus to the papers in her hand.

Once the team leader had left and she was alone in her office, she put down the papers and leaned back in her comfortable, luxurious chair as she closed her eyes and logged into the universal simulation.

She appeared in a long corridor that was brightly lit by powerful white LED lights. She was the only one in the entire corridor, as evidenced by the echoing clack of her heels hitting the floor as she walked to the end of the corridor, which had only one door.

The moment she reached the end of the corridor, the door automatically opened, revealing a large room. It had a few pieces of furniture, but nothing flattering or comfortable.

"Now, shall we continue? We're only five percent of the way there," she giggled to the man who had started shivering on the bed when he heard her voice, which anyone would think was coming from a composed and calm person.

"You don't have to worry too much. I promised that I'd let you leave when I'm done inflicting exactly what you inflicted on me, nothing more and nothing less. And since time passes faster here than in the real world, it won't take too long to experience everything. You should be rejoicing," she said in a calm voice.

Although she still had some sympathy for others, she had none for the man in front her. Aron had shown her everything he was feeling when he was inflicting pain on her, together with the reason why he had become abusive. And as a result of that information, she felt nothing but vengeful anger that she had been slowly chipping down by inflicting the same pain she had received from him. She also knew it was being used as therapy for her, and she would be completely healed by the time she reached a 100% completion rate.

As for his real body, it was laying in a hospital bed. He had suffered an air embolism and left in a coma. His "loving wife" Rachael had brought him to Eden and put him in a VIP hospital room with round-the-clock care and technologically advanced versions of everything a care team would need to ensure his survival.