NEXT MORNING, AT THE VICE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE
"I'm sorry but the Vice President is in a meeting right now. I can't allow you to go inside. You'll have to wait if you want to talk to him." Maya said with her usual Robot like voice, "I have an even better idea. Why do you go to the PRSD department? Your abilities haven't been registered, have they?"
"No. I haven't." Arnold replied.
"Perfect! I'll book an appointment right now. You can return after you've been registered and the meeting would be over by then as well."
"Thank you. I'll go there now."
The first thing Arnold wanted to do was to talk to John about the dungeon issue and see if he could help. But then he got his weekly pay check so he decided to head to the hospital and buy another dose of Andrea medicine for Nicole first.
"I'll just go and get graded first then. It's not like John's gonna run away from the guild."
He left the guild and headed towards the west coast area. The West coast was a crowded civilian area, filled with buildings and all kinds of pollution pipes, forming the complex streets. Only the people who had lived there for more than an year could remember the roads. The usual people would lose their way after a few turns.
Mostly they were considered corporate slums. The living conditions of people wasn't good, there were frequent blackouts, the quality of water was really bad as well. When he first came to Florida, Arnold always wondered, if the western coast was so poor then why were most of the companies located here? He got to know the answer as he started living here.
The reason was because of cheap labour. As the living condition of people here was bad, thus they readily agreed to work for these companies even at wages less than the minimum amount. He felt a weird connection to this place. Maybe it was because he too have been living the same life as them.
"I'll definitely make their lives better." He made a mental note of this as he was walking through the streets.
After walking for another couple of minutes, he finally stopped in front of a ten-story tall building. The building looked impressive and was made with white bricks having blue stone decorations at regular intervals.
Tall, rectangular windows brightened up the building. The building had fairly rounded shape and was surrounded by a well kept garden. Grass, flower patches and trees were placed all around the building in a stylish way.
He entered the building and after filling the registration form, he was guided to the testing room. The room was entirely empty if not for a huge black cube that was floating in the middle of it, couple of computers were attached to this cube. Three technicians were operating the computers.
"Just place your hands on the cube, the cube will absorb your powers, and then the computers will analyse your level, rank and potential. You might feel weak when the process is completed, but it'll pass away after a while." One of the technicians explained it to Arnold, but he already knew about the process as he had already gone through all this once before.
Arnold walked up to the the cube and placed his hands on it.
___________________________
You're in contact with
The cube is trying to measure your power.
Please select the amount of power you want to allow the cube to measure.
___________________________
Then a meter popped up in front of his interface.
"What do you mean 'select' the amount of power? I always go all out!" Arnold thought and raised the meter to the maximum. A second later the cube started vibrating. Arnold felt a couple jolts but it was bearable.
Soon a small chunk of the cube broke off and fell near his feet and the power of the whole building went out. He picked up the fallen piece of cube and looked at the technicians who were bunched up together near one of the computers.
"Lesson learnt. Never. Go. All. Out." Arnold murmured after realising what had happened there, but then a couple of more messages popped up.
___________________________
You've leveled up!
Current level : 31
___________________________
___________________________
You've leveled up!
Current level : 32
___________________________
"What the hell? Did I just absorb the power that was inside this small piece of mythril cube?" He curiously looked at the cube. He then quickly looked around to check if someone was looking at him. After confirming that no one was, he quickly opened the inventory behind his back and placed the piece of cube inside it.
At this moment one of the technicians cleared his throat and walked towards Arnold.
"Ahm... We have sent your report to your guild. A car is waiting for you outside which will take you there. The vice president has sent his personal chauffeur to pick you up. You'll be given your report there. Thank you for visiting us."
"That's weird. Aren't you guys supposed to tell me the results."
"That is what generally happens, but your case is special and thus we can't do so." The technician replied.
"What special case?"
"I'm afraid we can't tell you."
Arnold finally gave up and headed towards the entrance, where a black limousine was waiting for him.
"I take you're the one Mr Vice president sent to fetch me?" Arnold asked the smartly dressed man standing in front of the car.
"Indeed I am. Please be seated." The chauffeur said and opened the gate.
*****
SOMEWHERE ELSE...
"Sir, we have finally found a match!" A man white robes ran inside a room. "The organs are 94% compatible! We can proceed with the plan now."
"Who is it?" A voice came out of the darkness.
"A Chinese immigrant named Nicole Ling. She has no backing from any of the 12 families. She's affected with Andrea disease so it wouldn't be difficult to harvest her organs." the man in robes replied.
"Finally..." The man in shadow whispered, walking to a lifepod filled with some kind of blue liquid. "Finally you'll live again my dear son."