Second strike

Michael drove home and collapsed in his bed. He hated driving but he did not enjoy going to airports. Maybe he should buy his own plane? Michael decided to explore his options later when he gets the time. He was constantly running out of time in his schedule. It was only the first week of his vacation and he already had his schedule for the month filled up.

Michael decided to see if he can take the next semester's classes online. His excitement with college was wearing off. He felt like college was overrated. Perhaps it was because he was detached and did not participate in any collegiate activities. He knew that he should probably try to make some friends to improve his social skills; however, he just could not connect to the other students.

Most students were trying to party and have fun while he was trying to build an empire. Michael still had not figured out how he was going to achieve that goal in the modern era. He decided to just focus on his training. He was aiming to breakthrough into supreme tier in two weeks. Michael finished training and went to bed.

The next day he drove to his office and went to meet with the traders. The traders had been using real money for one week now and he wanted to see their progress. Michael had a 10-minute meeting with every trader.

He checked their progress and asked them how they felt after trading with real money for a week. Four of them opened up and admitted that they could not handle the stresses of trading with real money and quit. Michael offered them recommendation letters and let them leave on good terms.

Out of the surviving 15 traders, four of them had decent performance in the first week. There was another seven that only broke even and four that lost over half their money. Michael kept an eye on the last four because they were compulsive gamblers. They kept taking incredibly risky trades hoping to win jackpots. Being a professional trader was about consistently having good trades.

Michael always felt like the difference between someone successful and someone lucky was that the successful person can show results every day. Therefore he was looking for traders that focused on long-term goals. He did not fire the four gamblers yet because he wanted to give them a chance to learn from the others.

The person who Michael was most pleased with was Melvin Conner. Melvin was one his four successful traders; he seemed to be the only one that genuinely absorbed Michael's teachings and tried to follow them. Furthermore, Melvin also started taking a bit of a team leader role and tried to help guide others. Right now, the traders did not really have a supervisor since they were left to learn on their own. However, once the training period is over, there needs to be a manager overseeing the traders. So far, Michael felt like Melvin was the best candidate.

The meetings ended up taking three hours. Michael gave everyone advice and encouraged them to keep working hard. After that, he thought about ER games. He was thinking of different ways he could retaliate and he had some ideas; however, he wanted to wait until he was done with his breakthrough. His current schedule involved nearly six hours of daily training; after which, he barely had any energy to deal with other issues. He also needed to start learning about hacking and create more games for his company.

Michael figured he could wait a couple of weeks before getting his revenge. Since the servers were secure there really was nothing else that ER games could do. He would just let them fatten up before slaughtering them. After finishing up some paperwork he drove home to train.

After finishing his daily training, he started working on new games. He was dreading the time he had to spend making new games.

[ Host should buy the Game design skill from the Technical section store.]

Michael slapped his forehead. He had completely ignored the skills in the Technical section because he did not consider them necessary for "survival". He realized that he was acting like a musclebrain that only thought about combat skills. Michael immediately transferred another 110 million dollars and upgraded Game design all the way to Advanced tier.

[ Congratulations for buying skills:

Basic Game design upgraded to Intermediate...

Intermediate Game design upgraded to Advanced...

Advanced Game design (100 million credits): Vastly increases your talent of game design. Boosts your speed and productivity when designing games. You can build a game like capos in days now.

Deducting 110,100,000 credits. Remaining Credits: 2,330,000 ]

Michael was happy with the game design skill. He could build revolutionary games in a couple days now. However, he frowned when he saw his bank balance sink down below 500 million. Then he thought of another issue.

" System if I keep transferring so much money to you, won't that impact the world economy? What do you do with the money?" Michael asked. He was worried about crashing the global economy by causing an inflation.

[ Would you like to see what happens to your money when you transfer it to the offshore account?]

Michael was taken back by the question. "Yes, please." He replied.

Michael closed his eyes and the system showed images in his head. The money he transferred reached a bank account in the Cayman Islands. From there, The money is divided into smaller figures and transferred to thousands of accounts all over the world.

" System what are those accounts where the money gets send to?" Michael asked.

He did not have to wait long for the answer. The system showed images of the final accounts and Michael was surprised to know that they all belonged to charities. The system apparently had a list of millions of charities that it chooses from each time.

Michael did not know what to think. He did not expect the system to send his money to charities. However, the system was not done. It started showing images of letters in his head.

" System what are these?" Michael asked.

[ They are letters from people who wanted to thank the Trust for its contributions. They are meant for you.]

Michael read the letters and started tearing up. Some of these letters were written by children who were living in orphanages. The children wrote that they were grateful to finally have new clothes to wear or to be able to eat more than once a day. There were children from all over the world: India, Ghana, Haiti. Some of these children needed surgeries and the charity could not afford them so they would have died without the new funding. Even though they only received a hundred thousand dollars, they could live for several years with that money.

Michael did not know what to think after reading those letters. He just knew that he would not mind it anymore when his bank balance was shrinking in the future.

[ Host being an Emperor is not just about ruling others; It's about making a difference in the world. Most people aim to become emperors so that they can make the world a better place; however, when they get to power they only care about making their lives better.]

Michael listened to the system and swore not go out of control once he rises to power. He washed his face and resumed training.

The week went by without any problems. Michael chose to stay home and train. However, his training marathon was disrupted Friday morning when he got a call from Jennifer.

" Michael, Can you come to the office? We have a problem." Jennifer asked over the phone.

Michael had a bad premonition. The last time he got a call from an employee was when the server got attacked. What was it now?

Michael drove to the office and met with Jennifer.

" We just received this letter this morning. " Jennifer explained while handing Michael a letter.

It was from the City of Austin. They were saying the new additions to the building were a fire hazard and needed to be removed or the city would shut down the office.

" Didn't the contractor already get permission from the city to make the changes?" Michael asked.

" He did, That's why I am confused about this letter. I just called him and he said that he was confused too." Jennifer admitted.

" You think this was them. ER Games?" Michael asked. Why else would the city harass them?

" Maybe, We won't know until we talk to the officials. But it is possible that a third party is pressuring the city to revoke their approval. " Jennifer explained.

Michael sighed. " Alright, I will go try to talk to the city officials and solve this problem."

" No Michael, This time let me handle it." Jennifer protested.

" Are you sure?" Michael asked.

" Yes, I could not help much with the server attack. But this is my field of expertise. I hate feeling like a dead weight at the company. I have experience dealing with government officials and mega-corporations. I will take care of this and let you know if I need any help." Jennifer explained. She had handled dozens of cases like this and was eager to prove her worth.

Michael smiled and gave Jennifer the permission to handle the situation. It seemed like Jennifer was starting to pull her weight. Michael looked forward to seeing how she would handle the issue.