"Mr Silas, Welcome."
"Thank you, President Odetta."
"Please, do have your seat," President Odetta said, as she gestured to one of the empty chairs opposite her.
As Silas took his seat, President Odetta looked at him curiously.
Silas nodded as he took his seat.
'He changed so much in two that he's almost unrecognizable,' She thought to herself. She would be lying if she said she wasn't surprised by the changes,but that was all about it.
"I believe you're here to select your courses?," President Odetta asked and Silas nodded in response.
"How many courses would you be choosing?," She asked curiously.
"Here," Silas replied as he passed her list of his chosen courses.
President Odetta picked up the list from the table and carefully started going through it.
It took her a few seconds to finish going through it and when she was done, she looked at Silas with a faint smile on her face.
"Are you sure about this?," She asked as she tapped her table gently.
"Yes," Silas replied with a nod.
"If you say so, ok then. I will take care of the process."
"Thank you. I will be taking my leave then," Silas said and stood up from his seat.
Silas was just about to open the door when he heard President Odetta's voice.
"Mr Silas, please do not forget our agreement."
"Of course, I won't," Silas replied with a nod before opening the door and walking out of her office.
After Silas left, President Odetta continued looking at the door in silence with an unreadable expression on her face.
It has been more than two months since she met Silas and she must say that Silas has never ceased to surprise her every time they meet.
From their first meeting when he made the ridiculous offer of 'donating' $11 million monthly to the institution just for his admission, and the recent meeting that involved him coming to choose his courses.
Due to her position in the institution, she has met a lot of people, even those in very high places of power but none of them comes as close to Silas when it comes to surprising her.
She still can't fathom how a young man like him can afford such expenditures and why he would choose multiple engineering courses.
Yes, multiple engineering courses. Combination of courses that she never thought was possible. This is the reason why she asked him if he was sure about his choices.
Though she understood to some extent that even if Silas fails his courses, it might not affect him in any way, unless they are actually important. Something she feels is highly unlikely.
But she can't help but feel that there's more to it than what he's letting out.
Why go to such lengths? This was one of the questions on her mind but unfortunately for her, she might never have an answer to it.
While President Odetta was still stuck in her dilemma, Silas was already making his way back home.
...
Back home, Silas' room.
Silas lay on his bed, gazing at the ceiling with different thoughts going through his mind.
"LUNAR, what do you think about ELLA?"
{We can make her better.}
"Explain."
{Make the premium version a personal AI assistant.}
"...."
It took Silas a moment to understand what LUNAR meant and immediately, his eyes lit up.
"Of course, why didn't I think of that?"
"Since I also plan to launch the Pod and Gear. Devices that would be run by an AI, why not upgrade ELLA and put her in charge of creating the AIs? The AIs would be used as mobile phones' personal AI assistants until the Gear and Pod are released," Silas thought out loud.
With that thought, Silas immediately got to work as he stood up from the bed and took his seat at the working table in his room.
Switching on his laptop, he told her to pull up ELLA's code and he immediately got to modifying ELLA's code to that of an AGI.
The modification process was fast and easy.
It took Silas less than an hour to finish the process before the familiar loading window appeared.
"LUNAR."
{Yes sir.}
"When ELLA comes online, have her tasks assigned to her and have her take full control of the website.}
{Yes.}
"Good. Before she comes online, flood every possible channel with ads. Take as much funds as you want," Silas said.
{Okay.}
"So, when do you plan to release the personal AI assistants?," Silas asked.
{When we hit 100 million daily users.}
"And how long do you think that will take?"
{With the ability of ELLA and the help of the ads, a week should be enough.}
"But we won't be releasing them in a week's time, right?," Silas asked.
{Yes. They will be released two months after we go premium.}
"Good.. I will leave things to you then," Silas said.
LUNAR initially planned to roll out the AI assistant when ELLA's daily users hit 100 million, but that would be impossible since from LUNAR's calculation, it will take a week to achieve that, and they will still be in the free trial period which will last for a month.
So he decided to push the plan backwards to two months after going premium.
"LUNAR, has Mr Andrés sent any message?"
{None.}
"Okay.. Let's check other things. System, any notification that I need to see?"
[Yes.]
"Okay, roll them up."
[Ding!]
[[You spent $13,000,000. You received a 10x rebate of expenses made. You earned $48,300,000. The money has been sent to your bank account
You received a Lamborghini Revuelto. The car is parked in the Villa's garage.
You received a fully customized Bombardier Global 800.]
[You spent $1,000,000. You received a 10x rebate of expenses made. You earned $10,000,000. The money has been sent to your bank account]
[You spent $1,000,000. You received a 10x rebate of expenses made. You earned $10,000,000. The money has been sent to your bank account]
Silas wasn't too surprised when he saw the notifications except the fact that he got another private jet.
"Another private jet? Nicely done, system," He said with a smile.
Okay, Status Information"
[Name: Silas Kurt]
[Age:20]
[Race: Human]
[System Level: Max]
_____
[Strength: 1000]
[Agility: 1000]
[Stamina: 1000]
[Intelligence: 1000]
[Charisma: 1000]
[Stats Point(s): 268(+)]
[Superpower: Matter Manipulation (Rank F), Regeneration.]
_____
[Lottery Ticket(s): 33,600]
[System Point(s): 194,285,000(+)]
——–
[Chained Mission (I): Start up a business and get an evaluation of $1 billion in a year.]
[Reward: Reward will depend on host level of performance.]
[Mission Progress: 60.9% (Evaluation: $609 million)]
[Time Limit: 306 Days 10 Hour.]
"33,600 lottery tickets! Time to draw some. I have nothing to do anyway," Silas said to himself when he saw the amount of lottery tickets he has in his status information.
"Finger crossed, hope I get another free pass," He said and told the system to draw 3600 lottery tickets.
[3600 lottery tickets drawn.]
[You received 1000 system points.] X399
[You received 35,000 system points.] X78
[You received 303,000 system points.] X149
[You received 1000 system points.] X274
[You received 86,500 system points.] X428
[You received nothing.] X2272
Seeing the rewards he got, Silas had mixed feelings but he was still happy seeing the amount of system points he got.
Even without receiving anything other than the system points, Silas was satisfied.
"System, draw 25,000 lottery tickets."
[25,000 lottery tickets drawn.]
[You received nothing.] X3500
[You received 1,000,000 system points.] X65
[You received nothing.] X670
[You received 1000 system points.] X17,800
[You received nothing.] X2965
".... *Sigh* forget it." Silas didn't know how to respond to how the second set of lottery tickets were drawn.
Though he got a substantial amount of system points, he was hoping on getting either a knowledge or item, or even better, an item's free pass but things didn't work out that way.
He decided to keep the remaining lottery tickets for a later date, he felt like he had run out of luck for today and there was no use drawing more.
"System, status information."
[Name: Silas Kurt]
_____
[Lottery Ticket(s): 5,000]
[System Point(s): 362,677,000(+)]
——–
[Time Limit: 306 Days 10 Hour.]
"362 million system points?! Nice! The lottery function is actually the fastest way to get system points," Silas said to himself with a nod when he saw the amount of system points he currently has in his status information
…..
The rest of the week went by quickly and uneventfully.
The next day, Silas woke up to a message from Mr Andrés.
Few minutes later, Silas was done reading the message and he couldn't help but smile.
"LUNAR, prep the new aircraft. We're going to Venezuela," He said as he stood up from the bed and went to freshen up, before going downstairs for breakfast.
.....
Oakland International Airport.
A Bombardier Global 8000 taxied out of the hangar onto the runway in preparation for its upcoming flight.