Chapter 212: Eccentric Training

Chapter 212: Eccentric Training

The next morning, I gathered our team to discuss our upcoming plans. We pretty much had everyone who was up in Aegis at the meeting, minus the security guards outside. As usual, Claire was alarmed when she heard my plan.

“Not this shit again! We haven’t even set up a proper office and you want to go fight with some corporation who’s been here for who knows how many years?”

“I get it. It does sound like a dumb idea. However, you have to consider our capability in the equation as well. Our current selves should be able to easily match a C-Class corporation. If we pull this off, we’ll earn prestige and deter all the companies up here and at the same time, gain access to a material supplier. All other business negotiations would go smoother as a result, too.”

“There’s a lot of ifs in the equation here, Rollo. Once fighting starts, it’s hard to say if you can just negotiate with them after bloodying their nose. You should know that. Things can get out of control.”

“You’re right. I’m not saying we should go storm their office at this moment. We’ll take proper caution and observe the other parties. Our Intel department can do a lot more with their upgrades. We can even investigate their leaders’ personalities and tendencies first.”

“What do you think about this reckless plan, Thorne?”

Having the ball passed to him all of a sudden, Thorne simply alternated looks between us and shrugged.

“Both sides have their points. Deterrence is good, but there’ll be some risk involved. Bidding our time is also good, but it’ll be slower.”

“Much slower,” I added. “In case you haven’t noticed in yesterday’s meetings, the only reason we’re even making any progress was because of the connections we made through Joey or the few we made during our party. We’ll need to negotiate deals with many more companies to be integrated into the community here, and this will accelerate that.”

“It’s because we want to integrate with them that we don’t want to come off as barbarians that resort to violence the first chance we get!” Claire retorted.

“I know, I know. That’s why we went through proper diplomatic channels first.”

We went back and forth all morning until our office personnel had to leave us to complete their other work. It was soon just the three of us left in the meeting room.

I double-checked that no employees were nearby before activating a remote jammer. It didn’t create a soundproof field in the fancy way I saw with powerful corpos, but it did its job of preventing any unwanted electronic devices near us from eavesdropping.

“There is another reason we should proceed with this plan,” I stated.

My actions and words caught both of my close friend’s attention. They weren’t particularly surprised, as I guess this wasn’t the first time I pulled off stunts like this. Their looks very clearly urged me to continue, so I did.

“This will be a good PR stunt with the dockworkers.”

“Why would we need to look good to the dockworkers?” Thorne wondered out loud. ”...Oh, are you planning to leverage that for your manual labor series of cybernetics?”

“No, just that bit of sales isn’t worth it. I’m talking about our HR issue with hiring enough bodies to fill our new positions. We’ll need a lot if we want to expand quickly. The faster we became self-sufficient with the basic materials we need for our pipelines, the better.”

“Hmm, I guess it is a way to poach workers without having to spend a lot,” Claire commented.

“Money can do a lot of things, but not everything. Especially for these dockworkers who lack ambition. I believe they’d rather have a stable income than risk their livelihood with a new company like ours. From what I saw yesterday, most people up here fully realize how much control corporations have over their lives. Living under a powerful and established company means stability, which is quite the incentive for them.”

“Really? You think stability trumps money as an incentive?”

“It may convince some of them, but we’d have to keep their salary high. Signing bonuses wouldn’t be enough. Otherwise, they could jump ship at the slightest speed bumps our company hits.”

“Yeah, yeah. Loyalty and whatnot. I understand that. I just don’t know if it’s worth the risk we’ll be taking.”

At her troubled expression, I exchanged glances with Thorne and nodded.

“You’ve been stuck dealing with the office matters too long. You haven’t seen all the new stuff our security forces now have. I assure you, we can easily handle this Astro Forge, at the very least. Isn’t that right, Thorne?”



“Is Andrew okay? Peng is worried.”

“...I’m fine, Peng. It’s just I’ll have to go do a job in a few days. Will you be fine yourself?”

“Yes, Peng will be fine. There are other people who will look after Peng here.”

A slight smile escaped Andrew as he sat up straight. He knew he found a good place for him and his childhood friend to stay. He resolved himself to put in the work in order to keep their place.

Opening up his messages, he found the new orders he received from the intel department. It included best practices when using the cassette.

For physical skills, it is recommended to employ the hypnopedia function concurrently with virtual reality. Based on your prescribed regiment, it is recommended you play Legend of the Mythic War as a rogue class...

Is this for real?

This was Andrew’s first time experiencing the magical cassettes his company had widely adopted in recent months. He was part of the Halls Corporation’s elite team and an experienced operative. There was no need for him to undergo the basic combat training the cassettes provided. He knew how his company fought.

That didn’t mean he was completely foreign to the cassettes, though. He had witnessed numerous recruits doing the same training, but it was always in a controlled facility. Now that his instructions told him to play video games while he was supposedly training, he couldn’t help but be hesitant.

He continued reading the instructions and found that he had received permission to requisition funds from the company to purchase the materials he needed for his training. That meant buying a VR setup and the accompanying supplies.

“Peng, I’m going on an errand. Do you want to come along or stay here?”

“Will Andrew bring Peng to see space?” the large man said with undisguised excitement. “Peng has been waiting to see space again. It is so pretty.”

“No—well, I can get you something better than the real thing. Let’s go. It’s good for you to move around more. You need to master those new cybernetics sooner rather than later.”

“Hmm, Peng will do his best.”

The duo did a quick check-in on their bosses and found that their presence wasn’t required. Their CEO, Rollo, had shut himself in, working in his workshop. Their COO, Claire, was busy with all the office workers on bureaucratic stuff. Meanwhile, their direct superior, Thorne, was simply in the training range they had just finished setting up.

With Aegis’ sparse traffic, the two had no issue at all on their journey to the nearest mall. As Andrew had promised, he allowed Peng to experience the wonders of space by allowing him to try out the VRs on display while he spoke with the salespeople.

The purchase went through within a few minutes, and he was able to carry out a large box that contained everything he needed to assemble the capsule back on base. With Peng around, they didn’t break a sweat, carrying it back.

It took until nighttime for them to finish assembling the new machine, and by then, a package had been delivered to Andrew. It contained the all-important cassette that their company valued. It came in a heavy-duty lock box that required to be plugged into their main systems to decode. Otherwise, the contents would be destroyed.

After a tiring long day, Andrew finally finished everything he needed to do. He was ready for his first session of his training. The labels on the cassette informed him it would last two to three days, so with one last check on the equipment, he dove into the virtual world.

He quickly found himself in a dark space, but that only lasted a brief moment. That was because a screen popped up in the middle of his vision, displaying a welcome message. It then prompted him to create a character, which he selected default on everything except the class that he was instructed to pick.

Once that was done, he felt himself being yanked forward and his surroundings abruptly changed. He could suddenly hear the chirping of birds and the gentle gust of wind that blew through the forest he found himself in.

However, the scene wasn’t that of tranquility. That was because there were shouting and yelling all around him. It only took him a second to realize that those were the other players from the names hovering above their heads. They were all doing senseless things such as wrestling with a feral wolf that was trying to bite their throat, dancing naked, or simply fighting against each other.

For Andrew, who had grown up in the rougher parts of Elevate City, he couldn’t make any sense of what the other players were doing. The eccentric behaviors of gamers left him staring.

What the hell? Does this game make you crazy or something? Or is this the cassette making me hallucinate?