Flat screens lined the walls of a dim oval office. There were about thirty employees and one supervisor inside the room. They all had their eyes fixed on their screens. They weren't looking at the same thing. Some of them were looking at images streamed from an interstellar game about trading ores, some were looking at a simulated environment inside a medieval war, and some were looking at people working out at a normal gym.
This was a dedicated room to monitor everything that was going on inside the Chain Training Hall. Every floor had a dedicated surveillance room, and this room was dedicated to watching the second floor of the building where most of their users were in their youth, from high school to early college.
Whenever someone died inside the game, those in charge of monitoring their games immediately sent out a warning to the immersive pod to exit their users out of their game. When there was an argument between two users, then it was their job to mediate. If there was a bug found, then they would have to live to fix it in a few minutes.
But that wasn't their only job. Their main job was to fix their eyes on the game leaderboards. That was how they got paid big money. If some unknown youth were able to break through the leaderboards of any of their games, it was their job to send out a warning to every company or group that they were affiliated with. They were recruiters.
It didn't happen often, but every time that they found someone who broke through the top 20 leaderboards of any game, they would send out all the personal information to companies looking for talent.
"Sir, we may have found another talent. This guy is about to break to level 20." One of the employees was looking at the Alpha Guy as he used his cloudy armor to break through the 30-fold Damascus Steel wall.
The supervisor in question was overlooking everything on a bigger screen the size of the wall itself. He directed his eyes on the gym of the Power Route hall. "He's good. Analyze all of his movements. Investigators, find out his background and history. I don't want to have another situation where I'm selling information about a talented youth when he's already contracted in another company."
Usually, those who had enough strength and talent to break records were already employed in a company. If he tried to sell information to other companies about this youth, then he would face major backlash from the original company and the company he tried to sell it to.
"Chad Bracks. 17 Male. Inheritor of the Cloudy Peak Security Company. Currently being groomed to become the next Patriarch of their family."
"Damn, another dud." The supervisor was disappointed. He couldn't sell this information to anybody since he is already a part of a company. "Ignore him. There must be some other undiscovered talent out there."
Just as he said that, one of the employees screamed out; "Sir, there's a complication in the Seize the Flag game in the gym!"
His eyes immediately focused on the giant treadmill and saw a youth on a rolling chair. It was then that he noticed that the game wasn't done restarting, and it was forced to start at the 21st level. "What is he doing? Why isn't he moving away?"
"Maybe he's scared, sir. Should I push the emergency button?" one of the employees had the authority to stop all the machines in their jurisdiction. With just one push of a button, they could stop the Seize the Flag game and make sure that no one was hurt by the Damascus Steel wall.
"Wait. Don't." For some reason, the supervisor had a different feeling when he looked at Patty. His years of looking at geniuses gave him the intuition to believe that something amazing would happen if he let Patty show off his moves. He would be risking his job and Patty's life by doing this, but his gut was telling him that there was something different with Patty. His gut was never wrong.
While most of the employees watching Patty were sure that he wouldn't survive, they couldn't deny their superior's order.
And in just a second, he was proven correct. The 31-fold Damascus steel which must have weighed at least a thousand kilograms passed through Patty like it was nothing. They rubbed their eyes, thinking something was wrong with their sight when they saw the hole on the wall with Patty's exact silhouette.
"HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!"
Everyone's reaction was pure disbelief. Patty was on a treadmill and a rolling chair, but he was somehow able to defy physics and create a hole in the steel just by sitting in his chair?! According to physics, he should have been pushed back by the force of the wall and its speed.
Only the supervisor saw what truly happened. His hawk eyes allowed him to see Patty's quick movements that seemed invisible to the naked eye.
At the very last second, Patty held his hand forward with enough force to bend the Damascus Steel wall, but not enough to pierce through it. His hand was able to push the integrity of the Damascus Steel wall to the very limit, to the point that a simple touch would completely break through it.
As his whole body in the rolling chair passed through this deteriorated wall, it finally couldn't take the force and got torn into Patty's shape, giving the illusion that he seemed to have passed through the wall.
But make no mistake, the feat of strength required to do this was beyond what a teenager could have. He wasn't even old enough to be in college! He must have acquired his Teqx only a year earlier, but he was already this strong?! The supervisor realized that he was looking at a monster of a genius that surpassed every other genius he had ever seen before.
"Who is he? Is he contracted with other companies?" he quickly asked.
"Patty Patterson. 17 Male. No affiliations. No inheritances….no companies…" Even the employee who was reading Patty's background couldn't believe that he was an unknown guy with no impressive history. How was he unknown?! And how did he get that powerful?!
No one in the room knew how an unknown teenager was able to possess this kind of strength without any help.
Except for one person.
While the supervisor and the rest of them were busy compiling all the information they had on Patty to sell to the highest bidder, one of the employees at the very back of the room slowly backed out. He made sure that no eyes were on him. When he confirmed no one saw him, he bent down and touched the shadow behind his feet.
He took out a pen and paper and wrote down everything about Patty, including his name, his address, and his physical features.
He was no ordinary employee of the Chain Training Hall. No. He was secretly an operative planted by the Shadow Organization tasked with finding anomalies within the city. They were trying to find something that escaped from captivity but the only thing they were told about the missing object was that it was able to impart untold powers to anyone lucky enough to pick it up.
He was tasked with finding someone who got extremely powerful in a very short amount of time. This person would become strong with no explanation as to how they improved themselves. Patty perfectly fits the bill.
Patty was the person that the Shadow Organization was trying to find. He had the missing object!
The operative was so sure of it that he risked his cover to try and give this information to the rest of the Shadow Organization. He just had to get out of this place and contact the rest of the operatives for them to send the information to their leader.
However, just as he was about to open the door, somebody from beyond it opened it for him. The operative's heartbeat skyrocketed as he felt a crushing feeling in his body.
What was this pressure? He was sure that the person on the other side of the door wasn't even using his Teqx powers yet, but somehow he was able to exert this much pressure on a trained operative like him.
"Yoho! Can I ask all of you a favor and forget everything you saw? Please? As a favor for little old me?"
The rest of the employees quickly turned back to look at this unknown intruder. The supervisor kept his guard up. An intruder who was able to infiltrate this far into their headquarters without tripping up any of their alarms was someone not to be trifled with.
"Who are you," the supervisor asked.
"Me? Who's afraid of little old me?" The man finally showed himself as he walked inside. He certainly wasn't little, and he wasn't old. In fact, his face looked very young, like he was a literal child. However, his body looked like a very hairy bodybuilder!
He looked like a wrestler toy whose head had been ripped off and replaced with a girl's baby doll. That was the most accurate depiction of this intruder.
"No more asking questions. It's time for all of you to sleep," he said as he clapped his strong beefy arms.
As soon as he did, all of them seemed to be caught up in a spell as their eyelids forcibly closed and their bodies went limp. They immediately went into REM sleep as if they were back in their beds.
While everyone was sleeping, the intruder made a grasping action as strange blobs of light suddenly floated from everyone's head and headed straight for the intruder. "There. Memories erased and replaced. I hope Dione's happy with that one."
Now that his job was done, the intruder left as if he wasn't even there in the first place.