CHAPTER 96: MORE TESTS.

"Alright then," Ethan said, "Let’s run more tests."

He walked towards the part of the lab that was lined with computers and some other digital stuff, plus cameras.

ONI’s other capability was accessing techs, well not at Athena’s level since it was not that ’sophisticated’, it was capable enough to use for basic discreet hacks.

For example,

Ethan stopped in front of the bank of monitors, their glow washing over his face in pale blue.

With a thought, he activated ONI’s function, with no keyboard or mouse and clearly no physical interaction, just a mental command and the deed displayed on the screens immediately flickered.

One of the cameras zoomed in on its own, focusing on a speck of dust on the far workbench. Another rotated slowly, panning toward the locked steel door at the far end of the lab. Ethan’s lips curled into a satisfied smile.

"Good," he murmured, his voice low but filled with satisfaction. "The signal interception’s is pretty clean."

He blinked twice in rapid succession. The overlay ONI projected across his vision switched, icon which were faintly visible along the edges of his sight appeared.

They displayed the battery levels of the cameras, bandwidth usage. Even the heartbeat signatures of the two guards Irina had left stationed outside the building.

ONI wasn’t Athena, but it was pretty convenient itself. Although, Ethan didn’t exactly make it to be Athena or even close, the hacking experience was just a bonus.

Why? Well...the corners of Ethan’s lips twitched. "Hands-free hacking. I could get used to this."

But there was one more capability of ONI he needed to test.

’System, activate my status screen’ he mentally Commanded but unlike previously nothing happened.

He gave a few more commands but there was still no response from the system causing him to smile.

He finally had a glimmer of privacy in his mind without worrying about the system listening in on everything he thought about.

That’s right, ONI was also meant to block out the system’s ability to read thoughts from one of his minds.

It wasn’t much of a precaution but it worked well enough, for if the system was one day revealed to be some evil alien tech that wants to take over his mind.

This firat result proved that he could block it out and that was enough for now.

Switching back to his ’main’ mind, he commanded again for the system to open his status screen and this time, it responded.

[Understood] a second later, his status screen was displayed, layered above ONI’s interface so Ethan had to close it for now.

[Displaying status....

Name: Ethan Carter

Age: 20

Technology Level: Tier 4

System points: 250

System version: V 2.0 (progress: 1.7%)

{Assets}

Companies: OmniTech Corp.

Current savings: $90,000

Income source: OmniTech Corp.

{Inventions}

Sentinel.

A.T.H.E.N.A

O.N.I

Current Tech influence: Low (1.5%)

{Missions}

Public Exposure

Objective: OmniTech cannot change the world if the world doesn’t know it exists. It’s time to build credibility and technological presence. You must publicly launch your first product (Sentinel) and secure your first real user base or client contract.

---

Mission Details:

To complete this mission, the following steps must be fulfilled:

1. Product Launch: Create a public-facing platform (website, landing page, demo presentation) that showcases Sentinel’s capabilities. (Completed)

2. Secure Client Usage: Have at least one business, institution, or verified organization adopt Sentinel for active use. (Completed)

3. Gather Results: Collect initial performance feedback or analytics from the client/user base to verify real-world utility. (Ongoing)

---

Rewards:

+10% free use knowledge and proficiency point

Multiplier Unlocked: x10 on the first 100 system points earned

Progress: 90%

]

The only changes to his status screen were the addition of ONI to his inventions tab and the +50 increase in his SP.

His knowledge and proficiency proficiency were the same, with the only change being in his Biotech & Genetic engineering which had increased by 10%, putting it at eighty four percent.

Ethan closed the interface, satisfied with the change in stats and the successful registration of ONI. The faint glow in his irises dimmed as he relaxed his focus, though the device itself remained quietly active in the background.

"Not bad for a first iteration," he muttered, leaning back in the chair.

It felt addicting how his mind, now split into seven partitions, doing different tasks without interrupting a thought, an action or anything else.

This was efficiency on a level no ordinary human could match....scrap that, it was efficiency no human, ordinary or not, could match.

This was liberating.

His mind was free and he could come up with ideas a lot better now.

Though, there was another reason his split his mind into different partition, though that requires him to grind the hell out of SP points but that was not much of an issue.

Sentinel would officially launch in a few days and Google’s partnership with OmniTech would be announced then.

After that, they didn’t even have to do anything else and other companies would come knocking at their doors.

That’ll be his infinite SP cheat as the trust in their product would sky rocket and everybody and their dog would want to use a software that a big company like Google was using.

This really was a game changer.

_____

While Ethan was busy basking in his success, Irina was sitting in a restaurant waiting and slowly sipping the wine before her.

Unlike the restaurant she and Ethan had gone to for breakfast, this one looked completely high class and expensive and she had willfully chosen it.

Why?

Well, it was an attempt at subtle intimidation but it didn’t seem to be working as the one before her didn’t seem to be.

She sighed, she usually didn’t do this in the first place as she didn’t care about what others thought, but this was a special situation.

This was a situation in which she couldn’t allow herself to lose something she genuinely wanted for the first time so she said,

"Now then Lillian, to the reason I called you."