Faelan didn't know how, but young Misty was somehow able to see—or rather, perceive to a certain degree—his druidic powers. Not only that, she even seemed to give him a faint feeling of… familiarity?
After paying closer attention, he could actually tell she carried a slight latent trace of druidic powers!
Nothing even close to his own scale, of course—it was like comparing a firefly (Misty) to the Sun (Faelan).
But she did have the potential to grow and wield that power.
After three seconds of thought, he decisively blamed the whole strange situation on SAV (at this point, weirdness was unquestionably its fault) and moved on to reflect on what this meant for both him and Misty.
What he had in front of him was basically a potential druid apprentice!
"She's got several implants, but that's not too relevant since she's young and hasn't been 'updated' aggressively. The problem is, I don't know if giving someone else this power would be good or bad," he mused, recalling Misty's personality. "Or if people might think it's something anyone can learn, when the talent for it…"
He himself couldn't use the implants everyone else relied on—not because of his druidic powers, but due to his SCP-166 trait. That meant Misty could actually use both.
While Faelan was the equivalent of a hyper-specialized profession, Misty was more like a middle ground between two different paths. That could be interesting.
"And it's not like Misty isn't already interested in the occult…"
Now calmer, Misty kept quiet as she tried to steady herself, holding a glass of water in her hands.
"So?!" Viktor couldn't stand the suspense any longer.
"I'd say it's complicated, but it's really not," Faelan pulled himself out of his thoughts—there was no point in overthinking without knowing Misty's opinion. "You were right about your hunch."
"You mean she's… like you?"
"No. Think of it like this: if this were one of those old role-playing games, I'd be an archmage, and she'd have the potential to be a spellblade."
Viktor gave him a dead-eyed stare.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Faelan gave up on making further references—it was obvious Viktor wasn't a cultured man in that field.
"Misty could learn my mystical crap," he put it in terms both of them would understand. "Not all of it, but a small fraction is possible."
Now that, Viktor understood.
"You're serious?!" he jumped out of his seat.
His first thought was that his wine supply was secure—hiring Misty had been one of his best ideas!
Then it hit him…
He just realized the implication of Misty possibly going off to learn with Faelan.
Damn, he'd have to find another assistant!
Unless… maybe she could juggle both study and work? Lots of people did.
"I'm as surprised as you are," Faelan admitted truthfully—he genuinely hadn't expected Misty to be capable of this. "Now, we'll have to see if she wants to learn… and if she's worthy of being taught."
He wasn't going to say he knew her future version—this Misty wasn't that one yet. He needed to evaluate her current thoughts and ideas. He hadn't even spoken much with her and didn't know where her loyalties lay.
"Will her implants be a problem?" Viktor raised, realizing the potential issue.
"No, she can keep using them as long as she doesn't overdo it and turn into Adam Smasher."
The image of Misty with that level of modification made Vik shudder.
Faelan and Viktor turned in unison to look at Misty. This was going to be a long conversation.
…
The screens had turned red when it all began an hour ago. Hostile scripts tried to rewrite their access, probes hunted for vulnerable ports. Sasha launched a swarm of dynamic firewalls, but every time she blocked one, another appeared, even more aggressive. Kiwi countered with her own blend of precision and self-made daemons, isolating segments of the network and retaliating with a decoy virus.
At that level of intensity, an ordinary netrunner would've fried their board within minutes. The fact that Kiwi and Sasha could last an hour not only showed their skill at avoiding overheating, but also proved their opponent could keep up with both of them and still maintain pressure.
Three hours.
That was the total duration of the tug-of-war. Kiwi and Sasha were starting to wear out, making mistakes from the sheer strain of something so prolonged.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the assault ceased.
The screens calmed down, leaving only the sound of their relieved breathing.
A new figure projected onto their monitors: a woman who didn't even bother with an avatar, cybernetic lines traced across her face, and an air of mischief about her.
"That was fun!" the woman laughed, biting into a candy as if it were a pencil. "Honestly, you passed the test the moment you lasted an hour. The fact you made it to three (without bursting into flames in the process) pleasantly surprised me. Oh, don't pull that constipated face! You can call me Cynta, and before you start cursing, you should know Hanako Arasaka sent me."
All the colorful words Kiwi and Sasha were about to unleash got stuck in their throats.
"Yes, I am going to use those very expressions you're making right now as my new wallpaper," Cynta was merciless—but it was just to hide the sweat running down her back.
The test had begun casually; she'd only been using one hand to attack.
After half an hour, she smiled and decided to get serious.
By the one-hour mark, she was focused—impressed enough to even give them some tips to improve.
At two hours, she was starting to worry, activating backup towers and implants to spread the load, preventing heat overload.
At three hours, she was close to triggering her emergency measures—before suddenly remembering this was only a test, not a life-or-death battle. She simply snipped the cable with scissors and quickly replaced it, making it look like she had casually withdrawn.
"Hanako-sama, this isn't what we agreed on!" she sobbed internally, recalling how several of her server towers had crashed. She'd have to send her the invoice later to recover the damages.
Even her disdain for Kiwi faded—hell, the blonde had been the most aggressive of the two!
Wasn't she supposed to be self-taught?
On top of that, Cynta had partially stolen specs from the machines they were using, and the other side's hardware was… strange.
Not only did it match no market model, but many of the components had been "cleaned" and no longer carried the flaws she liked to exploit for faster breaches.
Some even had apparent flaws that were actually hidden traps.
Did one of them have a knack for mechanics? Or had they gotten their hardware custom-made?
That hadn't been in the data either…
"We're all busy women, so I'll leave you homework, and we'll meet again next week to go over what each of you needs to improve. Bye-bye!"
The screens flickered again, showing new lines of code: exercises, traps, and simulations.
While Sasha and Kiwi exchanged glances, Cynta was already reviewing the "match recording"—not only to prepare her lesson plan, but also to try to figure out what the hell they had done to hold out for so long.
"Asking how they didn't go up in flames the moment I met them would be pointless," she thought as she replayed the recording. "I'll need to earn a bit of trust or goodwill. Maybe even do a couple of jobs together—it wouldn't hurt."
…
Gloria was living a pretty decent life.
She might not have had corpo-level wealth, but the money in her account was enough to live happily. Ever since Faelan bought her the property, she'd gotten a secure online job at Naturtal&Co, and while she could've retired with just the profits from that sale, she would've gone crazy with boredom.
Who was she kidding? With David around, boredom was impossible.
But she didn't think it was a good example for her son to grow up seeing her not work—it would send the wrong message. She needed to make it clear that if he wanted something, he'd have to work for it.
Working from home not only let her feel fulfilled, it also showed her baby firsthand just how cool his mom was!
Time flew when you were changing ten diapers a day, wincing as he bit down too hard while breastfeeding, or leaping like you were saving the president to keep him from face-planting on the floor.
David was already seven years old now and a restless little thing—wrecking Dorio's optics on their last visit was just one of his many "achievements." Luckily, he'd never messed with anything truly serious or dangerous.
Almost never.
Gloria still remembered stepping out for just ten minutes to buy some fresh shirts for lounging at home—her old ones were getting worn out.
When she returned, somehow, her son had gotten himself stuck inside a vending machine.
Which was physically impossible.
Following rules had never been David's strong suit.
Half an hour later, the machine was in pieces thanks to an aluminum bat (Gloria paid for it later), and David was covered head to toe in fizzy soda.
From that day on, David never liked carbonation in drinks again.
Gloria was… happy with that decision—she knew what carbonation did to the body long term.
Still, she was starting to worry about her son's future—he did seem a bit impulsive.
At least he loved food—real food—which Faelan and his group generously sent her on a regular basis.
Maybe they should go to that restaurant they'd been recommended?