From the ancestral Lykaon records, Miles knew that the ring was functional in most Doorways. This time, as it turned out…
“AFFIRMATIVE. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DESIGNATION: CADMUS, PRESENT,” answered a familiar mechanical voice, faintly echoing through the cavern.
Cadmus’ core was within his ring, meaning that the AI would be universally accessible, well, barring the strangest of Doorways that could render certain tech mute. Though the result was not entirely surprising, a smile tugged at the corners of Miles' lips.
Still, despite the presence of Cadmus, the brunt of the Lykaon Ring’s functionality would be reduced due to its inability to access their enterprise servers from within a Doorway. And just in case, Miles posed the query, “Cadmus, traceroute Lykaon Network.”
The wolfen eyes of the ring came to life, blinking progressively. “...TRACING… ATTEMPTING TO PING SATELLITE: LYKAON 1....”
The ring flashed, and a small, rectangular projection of text manifested over it, the network trace continuing in the background despite it.
“NOTE: ABSOLUTE-ZERO ENERGY FREQUENCY DETECTED. ALPHA RING HOLDER IS POSSIBLY PRESENT IN THE VICINITY OF HIGH COLD IRON PRESENCE, REDUCING OVERALL NETWORK TRANSMISSION BY 15%.”
Miles’ eyes narrowed, shifting to the cold iron walls, and then towards the cavern around him.
If the presence of cold iron was ‘high’, enough to even effect the Lykaon ring, there had to be a much larger deposit of the metal than that was present in the obvious walls.
Miles could not discern the presence of any unusual elements in the cavern rock, but it was entirely possible the ore was hidden deeper within. His newfound sense of smell had not detected anything either, which was reasonable for not even his presumably lupine olfactory senses could be expected to detect the often-non-existent scent of iron.
Regardless, the absolute zero frequency solved the mystery regarding the rarity of those strange, blooded creatures in the surroundings of his area. They were probably averse to the frequency of the cold iron.
Miles considered his fortune at having ended up here, in this exact cave, in a region where those creatures were seldom present.
Luck. Of course that was what it had to be.
Definitely not anything orchestrated by the two or more wolves referred to as Pack, the supposed vassal owners of this Doorway's Domain.
Miles was distracted from his musings as the ring flickered, and Cadmus presented the results. “…TRACEROUTE FAILED, LYKAON NETWORK ACCESS: NEGATIVE…”
He nodded, that was more or less as he had expected. There was just something about being in the different reality of a Doorway that tampered with communication transmissions. It would indeed be impossible for him to access the Lykaon Servers… “ERROR: ALPHA RING AUTHORIZATION FAILURE. LYKAON NETWORK ACCESS DENIED.”
‘What?’ Miles froze, blinking in confusion.
Finally, he posed a question, “Cadmus, do you mean to say that you are capable of detecting and connecting to the Network, but you are not being authorized?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
Miles frowned. That was unexpected.
He had never encountered any mentions of the Lykaon Network being accessible from within a Doorway’s domain. Nor had he ever experienced network authorization failures with the alpha ring.
‘Maybe this has something to do with the nature of this Doorway? Could it be that the Lykaon Inheritance Trial is somehow... allowing access to the Lykaon Network?’
Even Miles felt that was a stretch of a conclusion, ‘What was that about an authorization failure then?’
Well, there were a few possibilities he could think of.
One, was data corruption. That some effect from the Doorway distorted the authorization tokens transmitted from his ring, incorrect by the time they reached the Lykaon Network.
Possible, but Miles didn’t think that was it. It should have been impossible to connect to the Lykaon Network in the first place.
Second was that he was in fact no longer authorized to access the Lykaon Network. And well, nothing short of his blasted uncle getting unanimous agreement from the Board to renounce his Network Access could have caused that. As for the chances of that being the actual case, considering that Miles still had multiple allies on the board, it was absolutely implausible.
Curious, Miles spent a near half an hour of tinkering and prompting Cadmus to perform varied tests, where he found…. absolutely nothing.
The result was always the same. The network was reachable, but authorization failed, and his access was denied.
Miles let out a disgruntled breath. Feeling a bit stiff, he shimmied around a bit, making himself more comfortable in his impromptu resting position against the rather sharp and uncomfortable rocky wall. Eventually, he found a satisfactory posture, and by then, he had made his peace with the unsolved mystery, returning his attention back to the system status.
What came next were the [Titles].
The first that caught Miles’ attention was one that brought a sour taste to his mouth. The problematically named, Discredited Heir of Lykaon Industries title had become worse, now even mentioning that damned World Court agreement.
FL-VV-5019, acronym for FaeTech Lykaon -Vitruvian Venture-5019.
Signed in the year 5019, when Miles had been a mere teenager, when he had been left with little choice but to have Lykaon Industries join the loose amalgamation of corporate entities under the singular umbrella of FaeTech.
The Vitruvian Venture was an ambitious project. One that was possible only for those rare few Conglomerates on the scale of FaeTech. Even then, it still seemed like a pipe dream.
The motto was literally ‘Towards perfection’. To be united in intent, purpose and leadership, to form a global monopoly on anything and everything, the Vitruvian Venture would bring all business entities in existence under the glorious banner of Andre Da Vinci, ultimately forming the 'perfect corporation'.
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Entry was not limited to those corporations that struggled like Lykaon Industries had, for many joined just for the benefits offered. Wealth, power, nobility all within the walls of Ideal City, the City State centered around FaeTech, could be yours to take and keep at the cost of corporate independence.
Many did not mind it, for the Vitruvian Venture was generally mutually beneficial. It promoted ‘healthy’ competition, ensuring that member corporate wars were dampened to a minimum. It granted access to a world-wide network of infrastructure and services, and even Fae Serum ordering priority, all for the small, small cost of a percentage of your annual profit.
To Miles however, that sounded far from ideal. It was not even a pipe dream, but a nightmare of organized authoritative control that would ruin the imperfect, yet beautiful balance of a market with competing corporations.
Unfortunately, it was too late for him. The only thing that had kept him sane was the fact that the Vitruvian Overseers were rather hands off in their administration. Well, besides the enforcement of certain rules and regulations, not unlike the one he had been forced to bend the knee to, the essential requirement of 1000 Faetality to rise to the position of CEO.
Miles had often wondered about what he could have done instead, whether he could have ensured the survival of Lykaon Industries while still maintaining industrial autonomy, but… Miles also knew he couldn’t have guaranteed it. That was the only reason he did not spurn the weakness of his past decision, because at the end of the day even if it had been at a cost, he had managed to keep his business afloat.
Shaking his head clear of irreverent thoughts, Miles returned his attention to the title, or more specifically, the novel text besides it.
Apparently, in accordance with the agreement FL-VV-5019, he was losing 50% of his Influence?
‘When on earth did I sign an agreement that would offer up half my Influence Attribute? Forget that, is it even possible to transfer attributes through Fae Agreements?!’
That… Miles didn’t know.
It was unheard of for fae serums granted attribute enhancements and it enhanced you. There was no known way of transferring used attributes from a person to another.
Then again, considering that Miles had just recently gained Blood Sourced attribute points, presumably taken from the Knight's blood, he could not say this was impossible either. But even if it were possible, when had he ever agreed to such a thing?
Miles and his legal team had gone over the documents to the Vitruvian Venture several times, and he could guarantee he had not come across such a clause.
But the most perplexing question was, why would the behemoth that was FaeTech be wasting their time on Influence of all attributes? Why not literally anything else?
Influence was an attribute that enhanced charisma and to some extent your impressions upon others. Some corporate types considered it to be a useful attribute, but beyond that, it really was not.
So why was it that according to his system status, FaeTech was leeching 50% of his?
Miles had a startling thought.
He could still remember those few moments where he had momentarily possessed an influence attribute in the triple digits. It had been a sense of confused clarity, of being lost in his own mind, of seeing and feeling, no, knowing things that he could not have known. It had been... insightful hallucinations, a sense of having control over something he should not have had.
To this moment he did not understand what that experience had been, but that was definitely not what was expected of Influence.
Miles could not help but suck in a quick breath.
Influence happened to be the only attribute that could not be measured by Fae Scans. Serums for the attribute were also rare, not due to high demand but because there was such little demand in the first place. Could it be… that Influence was more than the attribute the general public thought it was?
It was a mind-blowing revelation, for everything he knew pointed to the contrary. Leaning his head upon the cavern wall, Miles pondered deeply.
He considered the moment the title Discredited Heir of the Lykaon Industries had actually come into effect, when he had been given that sudden boost of +500 to the Influence Attribute.
The title had come into effect mere moments after Haruka had recognized who he was. Beyond the fact that he was a random corpo and that he was Miles Lykaon.
‘Could it be that for this title to activate, people must know who I am? An annoying limitation, but I suppose it makes sense considering the actual name of the title…’
That effect of +500 could no longer been on his system status, and had long since dissipated. This meant that if he wanted to experiment with his Influence theory using the title, he would first have to encounter other people. In the end, all of this was just another addition to his growing list of mysteries to experiment and uncover, and Miles moved on.
Next came two actually new titles, both seemingly associated with Werewolves.
Newborn(?) was an interesting title, for it was named identical to the what the Vawul class had been, besides the question mark at least. It supposedly granted minor Wurkan senses, which may or may not explain his sudden heightened sense of smell. Despite the repetition, Miles would not complain about more power.
The Cursed? title was also repeated, but this was one he would have preferred to not have. He was not looking forward to more debilitating status effects. Its sole contents, {Minor Hunger} did not bode well, especially if it was anything similar to {Minor Thirst} had been. Thankfully for now, Miles felt neither hungry nor thirsty at least not to an uncontrollable level.
Another change in the titles though not an entirely different one was, Vessel of the Lupine Soul (Sealed) almost placed in line with Vessel of the Beast Within (Sealed) title.
‘Lupine Soul… That’s what Pack mentioned would be strengthened by killing those that were corrupted, right?’
Yet, the synonymity of those two titles did not bode well either. If there was supposed to be another creature inside of him, akin to the Beast, Miles had no idea he could survive. He had barely made it through the unsealing of one.
Unfortunately, the Lupine Soul also seemed to be the crux to re-achieving balance without leveling up, so he would have to make his peace with the risk. So, all he could do was determine himself to never put himself in circumstances that would have either any title unsealed again.
That was the end of the [Titles] and his perusal through the System Status, but what Miles found at the end was another newer entry. It was simple and direct, a single word, Message, alongside an intractable {+}. His intent caused it to expand, forming a transparent screen of white text.
Ding!
[You have received a message, titled: Evening the Odds.]
Do you wish to read? (Yes/No)]
Puzzled yet curious, Miles chose the affirmative. It was only a message after all, so why would he refuse? Instantly, the notification blinked, and expanded even further to from the message in question.
[For the eyes of the Last True Son of Lykaon only,
Refrain from expanding your fields of Discipline.
As for the Reward of Blood, we suggest you choose something that will help you Detect.
Yours in Spirit, Pack.]