Emilio came from the Monolith really satisfied with his results. He knew that Amelia was still inside the Trial and that he was going to be by himself for a while. He decided to go back home, sit on the couch and call his boss to report.

  “Hi Emi, you took your time on this Trial. How did it go?” Milagros asked.

  “Hi Mili, quite good I would say. I got 6 points in Mind, I have to agree with you on how good it feels. What about you?” Emilio asked.

  “Congratulations, I will process the 52% raise in your salary. I also did quite well and managed to get two points in Vitality. Were you able to get a deal with Tuor?” Milagros asked.

  “I did, but not the most ideal one. Maybe we should talk in person about everything that I know. Also, you misunderstood me. I got 6 points in the Trial, and 6 extra. I had to use them in my Body because I capped the Mind Stat.”

  Milagros didn’t respond instantly, she took enough time for Emilio to wonder if she was still there. What had happened was that it took her some time to recover from the shock and be able to say anything. “Are you joking?”

  “No, Tuor said I should be in the top thousand of the world.”

  “I don’t know about that, but for sure you are the best I heard of. I will be there in an hour, do you know how much you are eating?” Milagros asked.

  “It should be about twice as much as before the Trial. I have some numbers to share with you about that.”

  “I think you deserve another feast. I’ll go over there to talk.”

  Milagros arrived not long after, with enough pizza for a full party. Emilio was quite sure that the restaurant thought they were having a party and Milagros didn’t correct it.

  “Hopefully this will be the last week I have to eat like this,” Emilio commented when he saw the amount he had to eat to sustain himself.

  “Did you manage to find a way to reduce it?” Milagros asked.

  “You can use the Energy Stat to supply yourself with extra energy. As long as you have 5 points you should be able to do it. There might also be higher Rank food that provides more nutrients after the shop phase of the integration comes to an end.”

  “This is good information and I think we have to make it public. But that is not the most important thing at the moment. I need you to show me your Stats this time. It is too much to not verify it.”

  Emilio shared his current Stat message with her and he read it himself with a dumb smile on his face.

  “You really weren’t joking. Congratulations! The result is wonderful,” Milagros cheered him, “I will process a 130% raise for you and deposit 1.1 million dollars into your account as soon as possible. If you weren’t the source of our incomes you might leave us broke.”

  “Yeah sure, broke you say. Can you remind me how much you made in subscriptions?”

  “No comment,” Milagros refused.

  “Thought so. Either way, I have to do my part of the deal and contribute with new information.”

  Emilio proceeded to explain the news he had from Tuor. Once again Milagros decided to just hear the information while taking notes.

  “That’s a lot to unpack,” Milagros praised “The most important part is that an invasion seems almost imminent with the way he talked about it. Diplomacy does seem to be our best way out.”

  “That’s for sure. It’s just that it doesn't seem probable that they will let us keep our freedom. And for god’s sake, I don’t want to be forced to work 16 hours a day, we would be slaves.''

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “I agree. But what we really need to think is why they act like that and we don’t. It doesn't seem as if they are forced to work that long. I believe the difference is in the culture and the entertainment industry. That’s our ticket to freedom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I know how to convince them to get our freedom. We need to make their leaders entertainment addicts. This will not only make them a little dependent on us, but also show the market worth of our products.”

  “If we pull it off, it could work. But can you make it in two weeks without exposing our technology?” Emilio asked.

  “I might have an idea, but first there are a few more things to process and I really need to fund some research about the new productivity with different Stats. There is no way in hell we will respect the times that Tuor gave.

  “Either way, it is good to know that there are no long term problems with working and training longer than what we did. Especially if you have to sleep less. Maybe the higher Stats limit the possible fatigue. Luckily, we have a large sample of people whose Stats are changing and we can do some experiments,”

  “No one on Earth will agree to working that long, but for the moment it might be beneficial to raise my training time.”

  “About that, you also need to train your Skills and your training with your teachers will not help you out with the Soul Contract. That skill might be the deciding factor in the deal with Tuor and you need to understand exactly how it works. After knowing what it does, I have a nice idea. Do you want to work some overtime?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Given that you are sleeping 4 hours I want to hire you another 4 hours a day. Same hourly pay, of course. To make contracts with people as we need. This way we have a way to verify they are not broken and you can train the Skill.”

  “Do you really need me to make the contracts?”

  “No, but it might really be beneficial in some cases. So, do you agree?”

  “Sure, I do have to understand how to work with this Skill. Also, we need to think about what contracts we need to make with Tuor.”

  “Leave that part to me and our legal team. Given that you will be making contracts in our stead you will have to go to the office. I know you don’t like it, but we can’t have people knowing where you live.”

  “I don’t like to go to the office if I can do the same or better work from home. I don’t mind it if it is really needed, at what time should I go? The regular 9 to 18 is the time I am spending with my teachers,” Emilio asked.

  “We might have some early time and some late time. But you will have to travel two times. How about we also cover your travel time as part of your job in this case, you are not that far either way. You can do from 22 to 24 and from 6 to 8. This will leave you 6 hours for sleeping and other things you want to do”

  “That works fine and leaves me the afternoons to spend with Ami. Do I have to sign anything else for this?”

  “You are about to become our contract method in our most confidential deals, I don’t think you need to sign anything else. I do have to point out something, I can’t pay you overtime in advance before it happens, so it will be after the month ends.”

  “Mili, I’m about to receive a million dollars and have all my expenses covered by you. Do you really think I will have a problem?”

  “I have to do things by the book here. If I lose you because of a salary problem I might be unhireable forever.”

  “Yeah sure, as if you would let something like that happen.”

  They continued with the meal and talked about other possible plans for the future. Well, Emilio was the one who kept eating, Milagros might have been eating more than normal with her increased Stats, but nothing as monstrous as what Emilio ate.

  During the meal, Emilio talked about the drinks he shared with Tuor, surprising his manager with his idea. First, this showed another approach for getting close to the alien that for sure Miliagos was not going to leave untapped. Also, it showed that there were higher Ranks of products in the Realm. Especially the artisan ones. Milagros took notes to find good artisans, from carpenters to chefs to experiment. If there were people able to make higher Rank products, it might be a really good income source, so she might as well start looking for them early.

  Before Emilio finished eating, the front door opened and a really excited girl entered the room, she was almost jumping and dancing, blooming with happiness.

  “Uncle, I’m back,” Amelia chanted, then she saw Milagros. “Oh, hi Mili, I didn’t know you would be coming after the Trials. There is pizza! Is there enough for me?”

  “It might depend on how well you did in the Trial. If you don’t have a lot of Energy points, we might need more,” Emilio pointed out.

  “Hehe,” Amelia laughed mischievously. “Well, Tuor asked me to tell you that he was wrong in considering you the best talent around. Also, he is getting tired of your luck.”

  Emilio was kind of confused. How good could her results be for Tuor to react like that “Shoot it. What did you get?”

  Amelia decided that it was best to share the Stats screen with her uncle, resulting in him being frozen by what he saw.

  “Mili?” He finally said after several seconds.

  “Yes?”

  “We might have a whole new level of talent and new super confidential information. Ami, can you share it with her?”

  Milagros was as confused as she could be, until she saw the Stat screen. After that, she was shocked, and even more confused.

  “How the hell did you even get 13 in a Stat?” Milagros asked, knowing that the information they had before was completely flawed.

  Thanks for reading!

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

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