World Online

"Go on with it then. Spill the beans. What are you talking about? How will this alliance be strengthened?" Nolan asked.

"I thought that you were under the impression that I was just a hotblooded youth who would go crazy with the power that I had and drive the alliance to the ground." Jake smiled.

"Not exactly the words that I used, but fair enough," Nolan smiled and nodded.

"That will be information privy to insiders, Chairman. Well, I can only presume that you are the chairman of Horace. I mean, your family probably owns the majority stake." Jake presumed.

"Your guess is right, again. But a gamble, you ask me to take. And this is a big one." Nolan sighed.

"This is not a gamble, Chairman. You have been talking to me for a while now. And someone like you, who has been on the opposite end for so many years, looking at people and judging their potential before they can enter the field, you must know that I am not bluffing right now." Jake said.

"Honestly, I couldn\'t care enough. You have me interested enough. Give me the contract. I will sign it, and then you can go on story telling." Nolan said.

"As you wish, chairman. This will be a move that you will not regret. In fact, you are going to look back and rejoice every time you think of this moment." Jake chuckled as his fingers flew on the virtual panel in front of him.

After a few seconds, a blue panel appeared in front of Nolan, and a bunch of text was on it. This was the contract.

Nolan didn\'t even go through the contract. He just scrolled all through to the bottom and initialed, signing it with his finger. The moment his finger skid to a halt, the blue panel disappeared, and the contract was signed.

"Wonderful! Now, Horace is finally the ally of Bright Horizon. Isn\'t this a cause to celebrate?" Jake beamed as he took a small bottle from his inventory.

"A little something I grabbed on my way here. Celebration for completing this wonderful contract." Jake said.

"Although I am tempted, something else is more important to my ears. Tell me. How will the war against Aries help us? You know that now that we are allies, Horace will not sit back and watch as you get destroyed by their numbers. We will have to intervene." Nolan said.

"Firstly, we have numbers in our cadre as well. We are not going to lose to Aries even if we didn\'t have help. But that isn\'t that important. The alliance is what you are probably interested in. Well, I didn\'t intend to bring in Blue Star into this, but since you said this, I will have to factor you in as well into the whole fight against Aries," Jake said.

"So you actually thought that you could take on a whole corporation on your own? A hundred million dollar corporation on your own? What are you? Stupid?" Nolan shook his head, half regretting that he signed the contract in such a hurry.

"Do not think of the real world anymore, Chairman. Do not think that the boost that you get will last long if you don\'t capitalize on it. The only thing that you have are numbers and gold coins. But what good are they in the hands of an idiot? Why take another example? We have this place. You probably used more money investing on good equipment rather than on a good guild headquarters. Or else, a corporation like yours would not take this place to be their base of operations, would it." Jake smiled.

"And your point being?"

"Aries is a guild that is still stuck in the past. They still think that the real world matters more than the virtual one. They refuse to fully embrace the virtual world. They did exchange a lot of money for gold, I am sure, but they probably hesitated in spending it, and maybe even put it safe in their own headquarters instead of a bank." Jake smiled, shaking his head.

"A bank? One of these banks? Operated by NPCs? Do you think that I would do that? Tens of millions of dollars into a goddamn NPC bank that can be ruined by a glitch?" Nolan also seemed to be of the former line of thought.

"That is where you are so desperately wrong, Chairman. You must think that the virtual world is the real world. Or else, you are going to face quite the struggle adapting. Anyways, when the time comes, and Blue Star alliance does battle with Aries, and whoever their allies are at that time, it will be the one thing that everyone will tune in to watch. It is a simple move. All or nothing. One move to become the greatest power that all of the eastern hemisphere has ever seen." Jake rubbed his hands.

"What do you mean, for everyone to tune it? Wait a minute. You want to livestream the battle that is going to happen? For the whole world to see? One wrong move, one loss, and we will be done for!" Nolan said, his eyes wide open.

"I do not expect your guild to join us, Chairman. And I certainly do not expect this war to happen anytime in the next month or two. It will take time for both sides to prepare. It has just been a few weeks since the game has started after all. All of us are adjusting. But when the time comes, I am sure that you will understand why I have done this." Jake chuckled.

"You are a mad man boy. To think that you want to go all in on this new lease of life. You do realize that this is not a game. We went through this. One loss, and it is all over. Your entire life, poof." Nolan said.

"Don\'t worry. One win, and all that awaits us is the world itself."

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