It was early morning the next day. Balthazar left his room with Anubis to the gymnasium. At the gym, he found Salazar and Robert already at the testing equipment. Robert seemed livid at Salazar, but Salazar had the same unconcerned expression.
"Hi guys. How is it going on?" asked Balthazar.
"Go down and work on your arms. You need more upper body strength," said Salazar dismissing him.
About 30 minutes later, Salazar returned with Robert and took them both to the racetrack to begin the usual. The only difference was that Robert was accompanying him. A few rounds later they were at the cabin with Anubis.
"So, how was Max?" Robert asked Balthazar.
"He was the same as always. He brought some people along with him to the mansion yesterday. I haven't ever seen them before."
"Yeah, I heard about it from Salazar. Arthur really put him in his place, didn't he?"
"What!? Where did Arthur come from?"
"Oh! You didn't stay till then? Arthur stopped them before they could get near Max's quarters. He refused allow them to be sheltered in the mansion. He actually threatened that he would kill them if they talk back to him."
"Really! He seemed to be a polite and smooth-talking guy, not aggressive at all."
"He was always like that. Except for stories of his adventure during his youth. They say that he had once fought the Patriarch of the Rothschild Family in public."
"That's ballsy!"
"You don't understand the half of it. The Orthrus Guardian Group which sent the security team is rumored to be supported by the Achaemenid family."
"Well, I guess he is the same fiery man."
"So, what have you been doing the past few days."
"Took ownership of dad's properties here. A mining company at the opposite end of the planet. I have started a cyber cafe at the market street nearby. I also got a large bit of land at Entora city border. Got to have a look at it today."
"Oh! You are the one that started the new cyber cafe. Dreamz Cyber space is it? I like your logo. The man in V.R. suit in the dream bubbles."
"You heard about it already? We just had it all done yesterday. I let Rudra handle all the business end of it and also decided to let him own 20% of it."
"They have been advertising over the local media. Never expected you to be its owner. So, you are establishing a place of work here."
"Yeah. You have a job at the city hospital, your mom's pharmacy. I already am enrolled at the force. So, I need to own something here. Also, I have been thinking what to do with the grounds at Entora. Want to join me."
"Yeah, sure. I have a hardly taken a break for the past five years. It would be nice to go to Entora city. It has been a long time since we went to fair. It is always exciting there. I just love the scary house."
"Yeah, that would be nice. Good thing Bolena is not here. She was always a spoilsport. She never allowed us to go to the warframe grounds."
"Also, the combat coliseum at the fair. Watching them fight and capture alien beasts live is something I always wanted to see."
On having decided to spend their morning and afternoon at the Entora city fair, they left to the mansion to clean up and have breakfast. As they reached the mansion, Robert suddenly asked Balthazar, "You know Oliver is a partner of David at the cyber drome, right? Jack might make a fuss about you poaching his men."
"He is always overreacting. What would he do? I didn't force them or anything. They came on their own volition. There were genuinely dissatisfied by cyber drome and we are ready to pay the severance on their contracts."
"You are quite optimistic. Jack hardly ever had logic on his side. He has beef with someone, he would just talk rubbish and wail that he was being mistreated. He and his brothers were always like that. And it would hurt your business cause people don't want to go against our family."
"Let us just have breakfast and think about it when the issue comes up."
"Cool. Just wanted to you to be careful. He hardly ever liked us. Best warn your pals about it."
"Yeah, will do that. Probably best to have them announce that I co-own the Dreamz Cyber Space."
"That's a good idea. Will meet you back at dining hall in 15 minutes and we will leave to Entora after breakfast."
Soon, they had breakfast and left to Entora on a shuttle. Entora was quite close to home city of Adontus. It was about 2000 km away from their mansion and took about 10 minutes to reach it by their shuttle. Entora city was the very new city which was considered a city since the past decade.
It was initially a town which was established quite close to many others like the Adontus. It was a circus or entertainment town that was set at an ideal place for being hub, which caused it to slowly develop into a city that became mercantile and trade hub. The fair at Entora had retained its fame even after it developed into a city and some consider it to be even improved.
Many famous industries had whole-sale shops at the fair which allowed many retailers to be well-informed on the new products on sale. The main attraction at Entora fair were the combat coliseum where fights between animals made the visitors go crazy. They also allowed fights between aliens and human in some circumstances.
As Robert and Balthazar reached Entora, they first visited the scary house. It took more than 20 minutes to pass through it. Unlike their previous experiences when they were extremely, they were hardly surprised this time which made them realize that they had changed quite a lot in the past five years.
The went ahead to the combat coliseum after the scary house. There they noticed that although the city was usually crowded, it was very tightly packed today. Today there were many fights scheduled at the place. The bets placed at the combat coliseum were one of the main sources of income to the city. Both stayed and wagered on the fights.
The best one they got to view was a bunch of wolves against a large horse like animal with a couple of horns and a bony plating all round its torso. All the wolves except one were impaled by the Bicorn which finally lost it to the remaining wolf. Robert was among the lucky few who bet on the wolves and won good odds.
After the fight, they decided to have a look at Balthazar's land before they go entertain themselves more. The land was near the outskirts of the Entora city. At an expanding city like Entora, the land's price would increase by the year. It has already quadrupled in value since John bought it 6 years ago.
There was a colony that was established nearby and there were quite a few shops and establishments nearby. There were shop large complexes and tech parks that were amid construction too. Only this land was empty and was being used a parking space for hover cars.
Most of it was covered by trees which had to be first cleared before some use could be made of it.
"Well, if the borders of the land you specified are right, about 90% of it is covered by trees. John had a real brain for real-estate if he bought such a big land here," observed Robert.
"Hmm. Any ideas? The area seems to have a residential area. Some business ventures also seemed to have been interested."
"Using it as a paid parking space, would be a good plan. Considering that it is a residential area and the new complexes that seem to be being erected."
"Oh! come on. We could do something better. Just the 10% cleared could be made into a proper complex. At least 8 tiers, if planned well. Maybe we should get a map or find out about what the development plans are for the areas nearby. We might get a better idea then."
"Ok. If you want to build up for a complex or industrial space and rent it, I can be of some help to you."
"You know people in the industry?"
"Yeah, got some college friends. Got acquainted with them when I tried to develop some land, I own at Gilligan city."
"You got land near Gilligan city? That's where the mining industry I own is."
"Ya, I think our fathers did buy some financial planning together."
"So, what now?"
"Let us park the shuttle here. Check the maps from it a bit and we will decide."
A few minutes later, they checked the maps and also came to know that the lands around would soon be cleared of the trees. They have already checked the land and decided to go for lunch and decide on the use for the land later. They sent for the land to be cleared and had raise up a wall surrounding and cordon it off so that the land wouldn't be used by others as a parking space.
They went to the warframe grounds and noticed that a small part of it was turned into a museum. The museum was a new addition and had become quite famous. It had various warframes from the some of the latest ones spanning to the past century.
Though it was a decent collection of warframes, they were too old and experienced to admire it. They went ahead to the main part where they could train and fight in warframes. There were simulators too which could be used to fight instead of using actual warframes as it was extremely dangerous to fight in actual warframes.
They soon got to the accountant in charge of setting up the fights. They applied for a fight using actual warframes instead of simulations. But they were denied saying that they would need a no objection from their family members if they want to play as there is a very high risk of accidents.
They were definitely not going to get no objection from their grandfathers or sister, if they wanted to play around with warframes. So, they had to settle with the simulators. All in all, they were just disappointed with the trip and wanted to go and spend the rest of their time at the combat coliseum.
"You know the accident rate near the fair is quite high. I never realized that," said Robert.
"Yeah, that is true."
"I don't believe I have thought about this before, but I could just establish a building for a hospital in the land. The 10 percent that is devoid of trees is quite enough for a decent sized one. It would be great from both business and an ethical point of view. We could even expand the hospital and have new wings on the remaining land as required."
"That is not a bad idea. It is easy to get support from the family too. The university at Adontus would also be pushing out new graduates in the next few months. If we are fast enough, it would be easy to employ a few of them here."
"Yeah, I am already putting forward the idea to Gramps. You can also work here. You want a job?" asked Balthazar
"No thanks. I already have one which I like and is much more flexible than that of a typical medical professional," Robert replied quickly.
"Glad we are done with this thing. Anything else we got to do here."
"The warframe grounds were a bust. We can go have a look at the industrial products and then back to the combat coliseum."
"That's as good a plan as any."
On concluding that, they made their way to the various stalls and shops at the fair. As they were going through the various stalls, they took a look at few medical instruments to check out and later made a purchase of a couple of handguns.
As they went towards the combat coliseum, they saw a banner at a supermarket nearby indicating that special pretrials of the new V.R. headsets with bio-feedback released by the Metis Technologies. Balthazar had already had the experience of using the V.R headsets and also the V.R. cabins which came out later.
The helmet used would be register an account to the brainwaves, retina and ear lobe of the person to protect the account so that it couldn't be used by others. This was considered the best way to bind one's identity and was the most common and efficient standards used by various forces across the planets.
But Robert was very interested in them. It was groundbreaking technology and was completely new to Robert. They applied for the trial and 30 minutes later Robert got his chance at it. Robert rested himself on the bed in the stall and put on the helmet as soon as he got the chance. The helmet had soon been plugged into the electric supply and the internet IPv16 port.
As soon as the helmet powered up, Robert felt a sense of tiredness and numbness due to the mild electric current that passed through his body. His consciousness soon became hazy and it was a feeling akin to a dream.