Starting from Zero

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We left the scene and headed towards the Lost City. I think it\'s a good idea to get Yuri some more levels.

I received a message from Wayne when we reached the city.

"Where are you, boss?"

"The teleport station in Lost City. Why?"

"Your father called you!"

"My old man?"

"Yeah. He asked me to tell you, go to Dragon Fate\'s New Nanjing Branch tomorrow. Oh and, bring Rose with you."

"Alright. What are you doing now?"

"Leveling in the forest near Lost City."

"Come to me. I brought a friend, help her grind a bit."

"A minute!"

He came out of the station. " \'Sup boss. What--Wow! "

Wayne stared at Yuri, drooling. "O fair maiden, may I ask how did you know my boss?"

Yuri giggled at Wayne\'s silly expression.

Without getting an answer, Wayne turned to me. "Impressive. You got two already? Come on, when are you planning to help a poor brother out?"

"Drop it. Since I got other business, I\'ll have to ask you for help to level her up. Take good care of her, she\'s special and she\'s even more squishy than a mage."

"Squishy than mage? How is that possible?"

"It will take some explanation. Just ask her when you grind. Ok, I\'m off now."

"Roger that. Leave it to me." Wayne made a "lady first" gesture. "This way please, ma\'am."

Phew. That\'s a lot of work done today. I called Rose to tell her the plan and hit the hay early.

I drove to pick up Rose the next morning. She picked a formal outfit for the day, because she\'s going to "meet the elders", as she said.

"Oh dear. You look like some super able career woman now."

"Ow come on. It\'s for you! You said dad got something really serious to tell us right? I should behave. The problem is...What\'s that on you? Shorts? Seriously? Go change it!"

"No need for that."

"Not good. Change up. No buts."

I was forced into a suit in the end. I rarely wear this thing, now I feel all uncomfortable.

When we reached the branch a senior manager is already waiting for us. He jogged towards our car when he saw us, but stopped in his tracks when we got out of the car.

"My apologizes. Which one is master Sairin?"

Rose tried to hold back her laughter.

Sigh.

"...That\'s me."

"Here\'s the address code. The president asked me to give you this."

"Huh? Now this is strange. Why didn\'t he just tell me the place yesterday?"

We went back into the car and inserted the disk-like object into the navigator. A path appeared on the display.

"...Outside the city?"

"Just go!" Rose urged me. "I got a lot of experiment to do! I wouldn\'t be out here at all if anyone else called me."

"Okay okay. As you wish, my lady!"

As she ordered, I raced the car towards the destination like a roller coaster, while causing Rose to scream several times. I guess I\'ll receive a bunch more "girly punches" again.

"So..where are we?" Rose looked around the plain ground.

There is a forest in front of us. The dense vegetations in there don\'t seem to belong to this season.

"There are just trees. Why would dad ask us here?" Rose scratched her head, unable to take in the situation.

But I\'m different. I\'ve been to a dozen or so of the corporation\'s secret labs. None of them were built anywhere found in common senses.

I was right. A row of yellow alarm lights appeared on the ground ahead and started blinking. After several seconds, the lights rose--no, the ground beneath them rose upward.

When the movement stopped, a tunnel about 10 meters in width has appeared in front of our car. I glanced at Rose, it seems something in her head stopped moving as well.

Nothing special to me. I waited for the lights to turn into green arrow marks and drove down the tunnel.

The entrance closed up again behind us. Typical.

Bump!

We didn\'t go far before the car dropped to the ground like an iron block. There\'s no error on the display but I just can\'t get it floating again.

Rose recovered from her shock. "What happened? The car broke?"

"Can\'t move it. But the car is all right. I think something in the base caused it. Don\'t worry, the car got a backup system."

I pushed a button below the controls and released the car wheels. Usually the wheels are kept inside the fairing shell to minimize pneumatic resistance. Now I\'ll rely on them.

After some more driving I noticed that we\'re going in a circled direction. The tunnel is like a spiral stair, which means the base is deep under us.

We reached the end--a large parking lot.

"Son! Here!"

Father is standing near the entrance. I didn\'t saw him cause I was driving too fast!

We pulled the car and walked to him. "Hey dad. So...why did you call me?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Nothing??" Well that\'s unexpected.

"I\'m looking for dear Rose. It\'s not safe for her to travel here alone so I called you along. You\'re just her bodyguard plus driver."

"That\'s not--muuuf--"

Rose covered my mouth. "You need me, father?"

"Follow me. Let\'s sit down and talk."

Father led us into an elevator. And...more elevators. Then we finally arrived at something like a waiting room.

"You know, Rose, I\'m positive you two\'s business is guaranteed now, that is, I don\'t need to hide much secret from you. I\'ve read your economy simulation experiment. It looks good! Several days ago I sent an opinion letter to the State Council to have a look about your plans."

"But...what\'s my experiment to do with the State Council? I\'m just studying on the relationships and effects between economy and the society, is that important?"

Father raised a hand. "Listen to me. You may not know it but your theory is highly valuable. We tried to adjust some of your variables. The outcome is not perfect but is enough to pump some surprises into those old-school researchers. I asked you here to invite you into our corporation."

"You want me to work in Dragon Fate??"

I see stars in her eyes. Now I\'m quite certain a position in Dragon Fate is even more attractive than her future husband.

"I\'m serious. You\'re a worthy talent that we would not hesitate to recruit even if you\'re not my daughter-in-law. Now this is one of the situations where we would meet much contradictions--we need talented people, yet we cannot tell them too much about our secrets. But there\'s nothing to worry if it were you. I can leave all kinds of matters in your hands. By the way, Sairin would need a helper too. He may not be one of the spoiled rich kids, but he\'s totally the amateur when it comes to running a business. Do you know why we welcomed you without any problems when you first came to our house? Usually we won\'t accepting something so important without doing enough researches first."

Rose shook her head.

"Ahem. We already checked your files beforehand, including your ongoing project. I\'m quite impressed by your talent in the field of economy. I\'m already worrying that I may not find a successor for my little empire. Now you gave me hope. So what do you say? Will you come to Dragon Fate?"

"STOP!!"

I pulled them away when the two smart guys are about to shake hands as if they just agreed on some super-duper important trade partnership.

"Just, hold it! Dad? Rose is a nice girl, we\'d better not get her involved in all those fishy business out there."

"Oh don\'t worry, Sairin. I want to try it out! Please?"

Rose clamped onto my arm like a cat. Man I can\'t resist those puppy dog eyes! Now I know why rulers would always ruin their throne when there\'s a beautiful woman around.

"Ok ok! I surrender!!"

Father continued once we settled down. "Rose\'s project was just theoretic, but we added some detailed adjustments and now it\'s completely practical."

"Adjustments?" We both asked.

"True. The original topic was a mere relational model, now we turned it into a deadly weapon!" Father is talking with much enthusiasm. I think he\'s about to dance, with that arm movement.

"Wait, weapon? But isn\'t Rose studying economics?"

"That\'s also true. I\'m not talking about those military weapons. This plan works on the economy level, it will easily get a whole nation under control if successfully executed."

"Really??"

"Exactly. And of course, we need the cooperation from various aspects to achieve that...but that\'s not important for now. And Rose, you can stop your college work now. Go straight to the corporation for your researches. Our specialists all wanted to inquire about your thoughts. Face to face. We got a whole lot of better equipment than your school too."

"Understood! Can I have a look at my workplace?"

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Remember that the game supports real-money trading? It\'s meant to act as a giant money-bomb.

And no, this is not spoiler. It\'s in the story synopsis but I never mentioned it...