At the top floor of one of the towering skyscrapers inside the city, a group of men and women were having a very…intense…meeting. There was screaming, spit flying everywhere, and there might even be papers thrown all around the room.
These people were the very top brass of the Ruobber company. They were currently looking at the internet articles and comments online about their company.
They weren't unfamiliar with the bashers and critics of the way they did things, legal or not, but they were still able to handle it easily. With just a bit of bribe from the internet sites, they could make those comments disappear as if they never even existed.
They were able to make their reputation as a good company intact with those tactics. This led them to have many applicants for their internship program. This program was the lynchpin that held their entire company afloat.
Other companies tried to limit the people they give internships to, especially the ones to which they give Teqx to. However, the Ruobber company used a very different approach by advertising their internship program to accept any and every applicant who wanted to join. Not only that, they were promising those interns a guaranteed Teqx at the end of their 1-year internship.
This was a very costly operation, mostly because they needed a lot of resources, money especially, to keep everything afloat and even try to make a profit. They especially needed a lot of money to hire high-performing Dreamers so that they'd be able to pass down Teqx to those few interns who persisted through their one-year internship.
To get back their profits, the company used less-than-ethical ways to squeeze every bit of value from their interns for as much as possible. They used their interns as unpaid laborers most of the time, even lending them out to different companies for a price.
The more interns they had, the more human labor they had. The best part was that some of the interns could only last for three to four months. Which meant that they wouldn't be eligible to get that guaranteed Teqx. This was extremely profitable for the company because they were working for free, and the company didn't have to give them anything at all.
This was very lucrative for the company–given that they had enough interns.
Things were going well for the time being. However, there was this one incident that bugged the company. First, they lost one intern named Andres. That wasn't that strange at first; there were a lot of kids who couldn't take the pressure like him.
However, one of the employees at the company saw Andres looking happy with a very expensive Space Ring!
Usually, only desperate students join their internship company. Andres was one of those people. So, some of the employees were wondering how he was able to afford that kind of luxury. Not only that, he looked happy!
Everyone who left their company would always end up sad and depressed because the Ruobber company was their last chance at completing their dreams.
This could only mean one thing; Andres found another company to join. This was bad because the company thought they had a new competitor in the internship business. Maybe some unknown company was trying out their business model of labor interns.
The company didn't want that, so after some deliberation, they decided to send out a few interns to corner Andres and slightly nudge him to tell the truth. And by nudge, the company meant a complete beat down till he begged for his life to be spared.
Once they found out what company was trying to steal their business model, then they would plan to destroy this company from the ground up.
But the weirdest thing happened. The three interns that they sent to do the job disappeared! And the next day, they signed their resignation through an email!
The whole company couldn't believe it. There were lots of ideas being thrown about. Some people thought that the mysterious company killed those interns to silence them. Some even thought that the interns also got tempted to join the mysterious company. However, they couldn't fully find any evidence for that.
The company decided to let things play out and search for this mysterious company slowly.
However, the Physicality Tests started. They were planning on letting this massive competition become their advertisement for the internship program. So, they even gave a Teqx to their most promising employee Mario.
But who would have thought that he would lose like an idiot?! He didn't even finish second, or third—he finished last!
And the salt to the wound was that the winner of the race, Jorn, was one of the interns that disappeared! But that wasn't the end of it. It turned out that all three interns gained their own Teqx and mastered them in a day! They were able to show off their powers and their talent equivalent to those who already had their Teqx for a year!
That was completely absurd!
The worst part about it was that the whole school–no the whole city, found out that these three dark horses found good fortune after they left the Ruobber company! This completely derailed their profit projections for the entire year!
There were fewer and fewer applicants by the second! And even some of their loyal interns who had been patiently persisting for seven or more months suddenly quit to try and become fortuitous like those three dark horses!
It was at this point that the whole company was in crisis mode. They underestimated this mysterious company.
They thought it was just a small fry trying to swallow a whale, but it turned out that they were a predator in their own right. If they were prosperous enough to give out Teqx to their intern recruits meant that they were a large company that had lots of powerful Dreamers under their wing.
Not only that, they were also rich enough to give out cultivation supplements to their interns. Even the Ruobber company didn't dare to waste money like this.
"What the fuck are we going to do now?!" screamed the boss of the Ruobber company.
The whole boardroom was filled with people of significant age. They all looked like they had lots of experience and wisdom in their years. However, the guy shouting at them–their boss, didn't look a year older than thirty!
That was because the boss named Tieve, was an inheritor from a very powerful company. So, his father was able to give out sufficient money to Tieve for him to start his own company even though he didn't have the qualifications or power to do so. But because they had the money, Tieve was able to hire more competent people to do the work for him.
All he had to do was sit in his President's chair and berate his employees for doing their job.
"Our stock is going down. Those ungrateful bastard interns are leaving us for some ridiculous dream. And my money is getting wasted by the second!" Tieve screamed and threw away papers in front of him.
One of the board members in charge of intelligence spoke up. "We can't find anything about them, sir. It's like they're a ghost. A company like that with that much power and resources should make some waves in the fabric, but they're completely silent. We don't even know their name."
"Then what the fuck did I hire you for? You're fired!" screamed Tieve.
The guy simply sighed and silently left the door.
"I don't care if I have to raze this city, I want all of you to do everything and destroy that company!"
The rest of the board members didn't know what to say. At this point, they were exasperated. They would always have to cater to his every need. If Tieve wanted something, then it's the board room's job to do it, even if it was impossible.
If they couldn't do it, then they were immediately fired. They must have gone through three different cycles of board members with how many people were getting fired left and right.
"I want those four traitors to be found and dealt with–immediately. I want to see them face to face as they tell me who they got their Teqx from. I want to destroy this company as soon as possible!"
The rest of the board looked at each other and found this to be viable. If they could capture and torture those four, then it would only be a matter of time till they found out the truth about this mysterious company.
The problem was…
"Who do you want to employ, sir? Should we send some of our Aspirants?"
Aspirants were the first realm of Dreamers. When people get a Teqx, they are considered an aspirant.
"No. I want to go beyond that. I want to send down some Visionaries!"
Visionaries were completely stronger than any Aspirant because it's a whole realm above it. A single Visionary could wipe the floor with 10 Aspirants at the same time easily. That was how powerful Visionaries were compared to Aspirants.
"I have contacted the Sunverk Company, but they are unavailable to send reinforcements to us. They are dealing with a different threat from a company called Aezure company."