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 conference room was still humming from the last discussion. Blueprints lit up the holoscreen. Half-empty mugs and scattered notes filled the table. Raen leaned forward, his eyes sharp with resolve.

"We need to sell at least 100—maybe even 200 bots," he said. "That's the only way we'll fund Arkbound Electric and Arkbound Neuro properly."

Nyra glanced up from her tablet. "That much, huh?"

Raen nodded. "We wait for the Expo. That's our moment. We go all in or we don't go at all."

He turned to her. "Nyra, this is it. Now or never. It all depends on how you launch us into the world."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what about you? The genius behind it?"

"Saelyn will brief you. But here's the truth—I'm not showing my face. Neither are Korin or Lira."

Korin looked up. "Wait, what? Why?"

Raen looked each of them in the eye.

"Because once the world sees what these machines can do… your lives could be in danger. This isn't just innovation. It's disruption. Governments, corps—they won't all like it."

"I'm making five additional bots," Raen continued. "One for each of you. Personal bodyguards. Just in case."

The team sat stunned by his sudden, calculated initiative.

"You're serious," Lira said quietly.

Raen nodded. "Dead serious. But we need to move faster. We need money, and we need it soon."

He stood. "So let's get back to work. Every hour counts."

The meeting ended with tension still in the air—but no one hesitated. Each person knew what they had to do.

The morning light pierced through the workshop skylights. Ten dark silhouettes stood upright in formation—each one sleek, perfectly aligned, NEAR V2 units fully completed and operational. Their metal frames gleamed under the rising sun, upgraded cores humming faintly beneath their chest plates.

The transformation was undeniable.

Saelyn arrived just as the bots powered down into standby mode. Her black truck rolled to a quiet stop outside the hangar.

"Is that the transport?" Raen asked.

Saelyn nodded. "Custom modded. Blacked-out panels. Hidden compartments. Nobody sees what we're carrying."

Raen smiled. "Good. Because we're not just taking robots to an Expo."

All In