The morning air was crisp and smooth, and a walk around the garden was in order. At first I thought it was just going to be me and Ron; enjoying the sunshine and deepening our father and son bond.
But then I realized I now had almost a dozen people now living on the manor grounds. And they had all come over during the night, or probably when I was in the game.
I had three groundskeeper, all three being a trio of Italian brothers, three maids, one Chinese, one Japanese, and one Russian. You see where I'm going with this? I had a very sexy looking Mexican butler in his late forties to early fifties. Not that I cared that he looked sexy, I just had to appreciate that he was a well made specimen.
And then I had two bodyguards/drivers, both being women. Twins actually, and both were Americans. I needed an explanation from Nanny Florence, because while she did say she was going to get new employees, the amount of people strutting around the house was a little unsettling to say the least, and it was making me nervous. Ron on the other hand seemed happy that there were new faces around, he's been running around the house with the maids in tow.
"Don't be too alarmed master Kael, this are our people." Nanny Florence said to me, as she came up from behind me, while I was watching the garden.
"I don't understand what you mean by our people?" I asked her.
"They have been trained from young, using resources of the Wade family. The only reasons they have not been around, is because they were each assigned to different places, or crime families to learn from them. There's a private training facility and housing estate for the retainers of the Wade family just outside the San Francisco bay, or to be more precise, the facility is under it. It's a mobile base that moves around the world, completely invisible to the eyes and ears of other organization or the government. That's where all our soldiers are hidden, and much of the remaining families soldiers are also stationed there."
"Okay I understand us having a secret underwater base that moves around the planet to avoid detection, but why would the members of other crime families be there?"
"Because that's what we do. We train their soldiers, and we provide their technology. Of course we don't deal in weapons, we never had and never will." She said to me, almost as if she was warning me.
"But if we're not selling weapons, what do we have that they would be tied so closely to us. It doesn't make any sense that we could be of any importance to crime families, when all we do was train their men, and give them a more expensive microwave?" I asked her confused.
"Good! You're asking the right questions and going straight to the point, that's a mark of a leader. Do you know that cocaine, heroin, and much of the hard drugs of the last century has become obsolete and rendered completely useless."
"I know that. The government couldn't stop yapping about it, and I was only six years old then. Apparently they had won the war on drugs, and completely cleaned earth of it's influence. That's until four months later a new kind of drug invaded the market, taking the monopoly and cementing itself as the number 1 and only drug being pushed around. Wait...…don't tell me we...."
She didn't even let me finish my sentence before she cut me off. Though to be honest I didn't really mind. My head was so full at the moment, and with the bombardment of one massive secret after another, I didn't know how much of this I could handle anymore.
"The Bacchus Nectar was your grandfather's solution to a planet with no drugs. There's no long term side effects or health danger in using it. Addiction was still very much a possibility, but it is practically the safest drug ever invented.
The government tried to crack down on it too, but considering it was your grandfather who gave them the means to end the drug trade of the old world, I'll say he was pretty untouchable.
The Bacchus Nectar is more than just a drug that induces a high and causes delightful hallucinations: it's also a military grade body enhancement serum, that can increase the strength, speed, and resilience of any body from 1 to a 100 in a second.
There are stronger versions of the drug being sold to the military and the governments of other countries who use it to train their soldiers for advanced combat both on world, and off world.
And yes; you might think this is also a weapon, but there's a different view point to it. The Bacchus Nectar drives people almost insane with a high a 100 times more intense than adrenaline, but it only last for ten minutes, and within that ten minutes, great feats of strength can be displayed.
But the drug never truly leaves a persons system, as the cells, and tissues integrate with the drug, helping them build a resistance to it, and giving them stronger immune systems, bones, and organs etc. For now, such advancements can not really be shown or seen in the bodies of people who take the nectar, but their children on the other hand, are a different matter all together. And I have proof of that, two in fact!"
Mind blown? Check, completely freaked out....still a work in progress. At this point nothing she says would surprise me anymore. It's not as if she's been keeping secrets, but the nature of those secrets cant; allow them to be spoke all at once. Which was why she was exposing everything to me, when it came up and was required.
"Both your father and mother had been addicts to the Bacchus Nectar in their younger years. You could say they were the first test subjects.
They had broken into one of your grandfather's secret pharmaceutical lab in Wyoming, apparently your father being the brash teenager that he was, wanted to be rebellious and put your grandfather in his place.
They both ended up driving away with a truck full of the nectar, and burning the rest to the ground, almost compromising years of hard work and research. Then they went on a month long drive around the country, drinking, partying, and doing what typical teenagers high on experimental biological enhancement drugs did.
We found them, put them both in rehab, and then they went their separate ways. Seven years later they met at a party and seemed to rekindle their old spark, and even began working together on different Imperium projects. Almost a year and a half later you were born.
You were stronger than most kids your age, smarter, faster. You took to martial arts like a fish to water, and you have one of the most strategic minds I've ever seen. But you have a sort of learning disorder, and can not for the life of anything, tell me what 1+1 is. Arts, political maneuvering, planning operations, battle executions and martial arts are things you're good at. Your brain is hard wired for arts and practical skill applications. But subjects like physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics are completely out of your reach, but not for your son."
I looked up at her shocked, I mean I just found out I'm super human(in a manner of speaking), but the knowledge that my son might be even more super than me, made me feel weird, and guilty.
"He's three years old, yet he's solving mathematical equations an eleven year old will understand. When doctor Burton arrived; the last time you fed him ice cream, we discovered a whole lot of amazing things. Your son's metabolism rate is insane, at his age he could eat three times as much as a child his size should be able too, uses a full 10% of his brain capacity, and have bones and organs ten times denser than an average human. If you're a sign of wonder, then your son is a miracle. But just like you, it seems children born from parents whose body has been affected by the Bacchus Nectar would have some sort of mental disorder."
I felt my heart skip a beat. Even in the 22nd century, mental illnesses were still the most feared, (apart from sexually transmitted diseases) and I really hoped that whatever it is, my baby had, that it wouldn't put his life in danger, because I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself if that ever happened.
"Young Master Aaron is autistic. Not bad enough that it would affect his relationship with other people, and not good enough either. He could spend hours lost in a world of his own, totally unresponsive to stimuli or any other person around him. Doctor Burton is looking into 'options' that would make his life a lot more easier. I'm sorry Master Aaron, I truly am. But know that its not your fault, this could have happened to anyone."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked her.
"Does Kira know.....have you told her yet?"
"You're his father, So I believe that responsibility would fall to you. Should I invite her for dinner?" Nanny Florence asked me. I gave her a smile and nodded my head.
"But after this, what's next?"
I asked her a little confused and unsure of myself, given everything that's happened and has been revealed, it's a wonder why I'm still here. The old me would have turned tail and ran by now, because that's what I did the most in my life, I ran away.
"Well today's Wednesday. There's not going to be any crucial change in our lives till Monday. And young master Aaron is well taken care of and protected. So I guess the best thing for you to do now, would be to place your sole focus on the game. There's a tournament going on, and you should use a less obvious name than Aaren. The whole world saw that, and people with smarter skulls would know who you are if word gets out that your playing Lost Descendants online. Most of them might not be sure, because any number of people can have their name be Aaren. So stick with seven, and try to cruise under the radar, if possible lose the tournament and have the world forget about you for a while. Then use the alias 7,that should work better for you."
I just nodded my head. I didn't tell her that I couldn't afford to loose the trial, I should've, but I was a little overwhelmed.
I knew of my learning deficiency, and I made my peace with it. I never knew it came about as a side effect to my parents being addicted to drugs.
Now I find out, that because of that same drug my learning deficiency was actually a mental illness of sorts, and I've transferred that same sickness to my son. It meant I was already a bad father before he was even born.
I spent the rest of the day moping and spending as much time as I could with Ron. Kira couldn't make it to dinner because she had something come up with her family: so she postponed the dinner for a later date.
So after the dinner I pushed my focus to researching what I could about the changes in Lost Descendants online. I found out that skills were now placed in devices called memory disks, but for the sake of functionality they're called skill disks.
It was a modern upgrade from the traditional and fantasy like skill books, and it uses were quite varied as a skill disk does not loose the skill it holds after someone has learnt it. Instead it would retain the skill, and other players and NPCs could learn from it, over and over again.
This way guilds would have really powerful skills circulate around their players, giving everyone equal chances to use legendary skills. But it's also been discovered that, skills no longer had grades; before the update skills were given grades by order of their rarity and power, but now all skills had equal potential to be legendary or even divine as long as a player is willing to train and use it.
But those were just some of the lesser known changes, more notable changes included the fact that: NPCs could now create guilds, factions, mercenary groups and parties of their own, and could also just as easily join the organizations created by players. So in a nutshell players were no longer just contesting against each other, but also against the NPCs.
In that regard the ranking lists that had the players with highest level, power, guild, equipment etc. Has been scraped. Now the only list there, was the list of the most powerful individual on 'the current planet'. And that list doesn't open up till the first player gets to level 30.
And a list of the most powerful individuals in the galaxy, wouldn't be available until there's a player at level 50. And finally there's a final ranking list of the most power individuals universally, and it won't be available until at least 600 players are at level 85. And all of these lists, have both players and NPCs equally listed on it.
If there was any fact needed to prove that Lost Descendants online was a living world or universe of its own, then this was it. Finding this out, made me rethink my approach about how I would go about 'living' in this game. I needed to be strong, but I realize that I needed more than just an individual strength.
Before the update there was a secret and elite ranking list that showed the most powerful players, and they were ranked not by individual power alone, but by the strength of the forces, connections and allies behind them. To live in this new world alone, is a recipe for mediocrity and weakness.
I think I don't need to just win the knockout stage of the trial of Revelations, I had to aim for the very top...…..I had to win everything.