Asharub_Pervez

Raen Solis has never known comfort—only rejection, debt, and failure. Trapped in a crumbling apartment in the lower districts of Velden, he survives by doing shady game-boosting gigs and digital scraps, praying each day won’t be his last.

Then one night, a sudden power surge from his worn-down rig knocks him out cold. When he comes to, a glowing interface hovers before him:

[SYSTEM LINKED: SKILL SHOP INTERFACE]
Any skill. Any mastery. For a price.

The Skill Shop System Runs on Cash

The room had fallen into stunned silence.

The only sound was the soft hum of the newly enhanced NEAR V1 unit. Its movements were smoother than ever—its presence now eerily alive.

And then, everyone spoke at once.

"Did he just say one year of power?""Did I hear that right?""No recharge? At all?"

Raen stood in front of the display he had just filled with intricate blueprints. He crossed his arms and nodded once.

"Yes," he said. "One year. Continuous operation. No recharge."

Nyra's jaw dropped. "This is… out of this world. Raen, people would kill to get this kind of technology."

Raen glanced her way, completely calm. "They won't get it."

Saelyn raised an eyebrow. "You're saying…?"

"Only I can build this tech," Raen said firmly. "It's not something that can be duplicated without the design, the hands, and the skillset. And no one else has all three."

Saelyn and Nyra exchanged a glance.

"That's actually worse," Saelyn said flatly.

"Way worse," Nyra echoed. "It means every organization, every government, every power-hungry corporation will want you—or want to end you."

Raen sighed and turned back to the display, tapping the schematic of NEAR V1.

"First, we don't announce the power source directly. We demonstrate it. Quietly. In NEAR V1."

"Start small…" Korin said slowly, catching on.

"…then blow the world away at the expo," Lira added.

"Exactly," Raen nodded. "At the tech expo, we don't say what powers it. We show what it does. Self-building. Infinite uptime. Unmatched efficiency. Then we announce what powers it."

"And that's when we put a price tag on the real miracle," Saelyn said, smiling slightly.

Raen stepped forward and tapped the metal shell of the prototype.

"The Aetheric Resonance Core—this will be our crown jewel. We sell it for no less than 50 million Lux per unit. And NEAR V1… we position it as a luxury asset, a flagship AI capable of building anything. That? Over 100 million Lux per bot."

Then Nyra clapped once, grinning wildly. "This… is how you break the world."

Saelyn nodded. "You better hope the world doesn't try to break us first."

Raen smirked. "They can try. But they'll be chasing ghosts."

The team looked at the robot again—still just metal and wires, but now carrying the weight of an idea that could disrupt nations.

Arkbound wasn't just building machines anymore.

Aether Spark