Emilio spent the rest of the morning planning what he had to talk with Tuor. After having lunch with the girls, he decided to log in to his computer again. Maybe he could check if he had something to answer and he definitely had to schedule a permanent out of office message. Milagros might have taken the blame, but it was him the one who forgot about it. After all, he didn’t stop working at KimTec. He had chosen his job to be training, but he was still hired by them.

  Checking his mail, he found a lot of communications about what was going on with the System, but most things he already knew.

  KimTec had decided to cooperate with governments, but kept their employees and client data private. They only shared some aggregate information with a little bit of tampering to make it impossible to figure out individual data.

  From that information, that was also shared with Emilio, he found that he was among the people with highest Stats in the company. Kimtec Argentina had someone who earned 5 points in his Trial. But he was a close second because the other person didn’t have a Stat with 3 points to begin with.

  Amelia’s Stats seemed to be in the top 10 or 15 too. Well, he didn’t know if she was actually considered, given she was not an employee, but her talent still stood.

  If instead of looking locally they checked the Stats at a global scale there were some people who even got 6 Stats in the Trial. This part was marked as highly confidential information that he only got access to because of his particular position.

  After reading the full information, he finally corroborated what Tour said. He was not a peak talent in the world, just in the country. On a global scale he was just good enough to be considered as a talent.

  The top confirmed talent he could get information from was someone from Argentina, but not from KimTec who earned 8 Stats in a Trial. It was completely confidential who it was, but that was real peak talent.

  Evidently, Emilio’s priority was to think about his family and not about the wellbeing of Earth. There were people much more talented to worry about that.

  Well, maybe that was not completely true. He did have to think about the political side of things. If everything went wrong with the System trials, maybe his relationship with Tutor could save Earth.

  Emilio took a deep breath, knowing there was nothing else he could do for the moment and the real moment of truth was at the Monolith. He decided to refocus on the mails he had received, which so far had been much more interesting than anything he had received in all of his previous time in Kimtec.

  He focused on the things that were more personal. He had received a few messages from his closest colleges to check up on him. Some were a little bit worried about him not answering, so he reached out to let them know he was doing well.

  All of his previous team had already done the first Starter Trial, but they were not having any more outliers. What was sure was that anyone was happy about the pay rises and not so happy about their new work, even if it was necessary.

  It was supposed to be a bit of a struggle to keep up with the deliveries after he and Milagros left, but all of the team’s work was halted and they were, as most teams, managing the information to send with the new subscription.

  The System had some heavy restrictions on what they could share and they had to send the information to the clients one by one. With the amount of sales the subscription had, almost all the enterprise was sending the information packages they had access to.

  After catching up with a few people, he made sure everyone knew he would not be logging in regularly and that his point of contact was Milagros, which was a bit scary with her new title, but at least everybody knew her personally making it somewhat acceptable.

  After turning off his computer, Emilio decided to relax a little bit and picked a book to read and ended his afternoon with a bit of relaxation.

  The time for the Trial came fast and Emilio and the two girls left for the Monolith. All of them carried their weapons with them to be upgraded. Besides that, Emilio also had an eco-bag with him for a surprise for Tuor.

  They met with his teachers a few meters away from the Monolith which was, in a way, a mess. Dozens of persons were approaching it with weapons at hand, just to disappear after touching it. People were not scared or intrigued anymore, just excited and expectant of their possible upgrades. The general mood seemed almost like a festival.

  “Does anyone want to bet on the results?” Alberto asked when they met.

  “I’m in,” Darío agreed.

  “What if we bet on which person does best in the Trial?” Victoria proposed.

  “I like it, what do we bet?” Amelia seconded her friend’s idea.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “How about if we keep it friendly and just bet as a competition, without anything to lose,” Emilio proposed.

  “Of course you will not want to bet,” Amelia complained. “Come on, let’s bet something!”

  “I just don’t want you to lose,” Emilio explained.

  “And why would we lose?” Alberto asked.

  “Because no one ever wins against him,” Amelia admitted, “But still we have to bet something!”

  “That can’t be true,” Rafael commented, “He has to have lost sometime.”

  “I did,” Emilio agreed.

  “How many times did you lose a bet?” Amelia asked.

  “A few?”

  “In how many bets?” She kept pressuring him.

  “In a lot,” Emilio sighed.

  “Well, it’s settled. We will bet and no one can bet the same person as Emi,” Victoria declared.

  “Whatever you say,” Emilio stopped caring, “Just tell me what you are willing to lose.”

  “Are you really that confident?” Darío asked, at which Emilio shrugged.

  “Then it’s settled, whoever wins will be getting one item from Emi’s house,” Amelia declared, making Emilio pay the losing bet.

  “Hey, why is it my house?” Emilio complained.

  “I thought you were not going to lose,” Victoria laughed.

  “I am not losing, but it is still not fair! What do I get if I win?”

  “You get to keep your stuff,” Amelia verified, making everyone else laugh.

  In the end, that was the bet. Alberto and Darío both betted on their partners. Victoria voted for herself, full of confidence. Gabriela and Darío both voted on Emilio, but they decided to keep an internal competition between themselves too. As for Amelia and Emilio, they decided to vote for each other.

  After placing their bets, all of them went to the Monolith together. Well, all of them except Emilio. He had to wait a bit until his niece finished talking with the Shopkeeper.

  While he waited, Emilio noticed that as time went on, less people were entering the Trial. He concluded that most people who were entering that day, decided to enter as soon as possible.

  After a few minutes, some people started to appear out of the Monolith with a sad look on their face. They had not gotten any Stat boost this time, but what surprised Emilio was how little time they stayed inside. He couldn't imagine himself failing in such a short time. At the same time, he had managed to get 3 points last time. Maybe, using his experience to judge others was not the best choice.

  After waiting about half an hour, Emilio finally entered the Trial appearing in the same white room as before. The room was empty except for the shop stand, the same as the first time he entered.

  I can access the Trial again. But Tuor isn't here. Given that I still have some Coins, I should be able to buy stuff before taking the Trial if I want. ‘System, I would like to contact the Shopkeeper.’

  After a few seconds, Tuor appeared out of nowhere behind the stand.

  “Welcome back, what do you want to purchase?” Tuor said in a monotonous, soulless voice.

  “Well, now I understand why Amelia thought you were a robot. What’s going on with you?” Emilio asked.

  “Oh, Emilio, It’s you.” Tuor snapped out of the trance he was in, “and it seems she really was your family, wasn’t she? Just what would you want me to do if I have to say the same thing dozens of times in a row? It’s boring!”

  Emilio laughed at his reasoning and let it slide. “Amelia is my niece. I hope that you can forgive her for treating you like a robot. But I don’t think she is at fault if you talked to her like that.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t care about that. Also, she just tipped me even better than you as an apology. Was it your idea?”

  “I’m guilty of that charge. I thought she might also need a good advisor on what to buy.”

  “I will advise her well. She is quite talented too. Not as good as you, but she is not bad.”

  “Just out of curiosity, why did you treat me differently?”

  “You came out of the Trial unconscious. It is highly unlikely for that to happen and it means you went above your limits in the Trial, and that is something to respect. Also, you kept tipping me from the very beginning. You made it really hard to be indifferent.”

  “It’s good to know the reason, and today I might make it even harder. I have some things to talk about with you, but first, I bring something to share.”

  As he talked, Emilio took out a bottle of Patagonia beer from the bag. Of course he had to share something to drink to break the waters.

  “I was wondering why you brought a bag with you. Can you enlighten me on what that is?”

  “It's beer, a common alcoholic drink on Earth. It is usual to drink it in the afternoon with friends while talking. I also brought some glasses, but I couldn’t bring chairs, so we might have to drink standing.”

  Tour smiled when he realized it was actually a friendly treat. “It appears alcohol is a common thing between all planets, even if they don’t have the System. I will gladly accept to share a drink. But we do not have to stand.”

  Tuor waved his hand in the air, after which two chairs and a table appeared out of nowhere in front of him. “Shall we?”

  Emilio was really surprised by what the man did, but he had just seen him appearing out of thin air, so why couldn’t objects do the same. He took out the glasses and four different varieties of beer on the table.

  Both of them sat down and Emilio started serving the beverages.

  “Why don’t you tell me what the hell a robot is while we share a drink? Almost half of the people who entered the Monolith mentioned them,” Tuor asked, full of curiosity, making Emilio laugh. How could they not mention them if he behaved like that with the rest?

  Thanks for reading!

  The second chapter of the day will be out today at 22:00 Argentina time (UTC -3).

  If you're enjoying Paragon of Luck, consider following to stay updated!

  You can support me on Patreon to read up to 50 advanced chapters:

  You can also join the discord to talk with other people that are enjoying Paragon of Luck: