Sevs looked at Hank for a second. That guy, how much of this whole thing was an act? Sevs had thought that Hank was able to bury the hatchet rather easily. While not exactly out of character, it wasn’t in character either.

“What, you didn’t think I would figure it out?” Hank asked indignantly. “I’ll have you know I played my part very well.”

“Yes, you did. We won’t know how it went for a little bit, but I think it was successful.” Ready to change the topic, Sevs asked, “I’m surprised to see you put aside your differences. I have seen you hold many grudges with people from other teams, so don’t say it's respect from fighting.”

“Yeah, well, it is, and it isn’t. He actually has changed some, and so have I. Besides, it was a stupid thing to fight over in the first place. So maybe we both changed. I don’t think I will ever like the bugger, but I don’t think we need to keep fighting. But man, was that satisfying.”

“People are going to walk carefully around you. Also, while entertaining, it wasn’t really much of a fight.”

“Aw, people won’t care. They would have been happy with a quick knockout.”

Sevs Hank and a few of the helpers stayed to finish cleaning up. Putting everything away took much less time than setting it up. It mostly was putting away chairs and taking down electronic equipment. Sevs took care of the food trucks, which were doing steady business as everyone left. With his cut, he recouped all the expenses plus a little bit extra. Several of the owners wanted to know if he would do this again. “Next time I have an intermission. I'd bring more stock, and we can make a killing. I'll increase your take by fifty percent!”

By the time Sevs made it back inside, things had mostly been put away. He helped put away the rest of the chairs, but that was it. By the time everything was done, Markus was ready to give him a ride home.

***

On the ride home, Sevs noticed he got quite a few notifications from today. During the excitement of the event, he hadn’t noticed it. When he got home, he would check. However, he had a suspicion of what he might find. Not looking forward to this, he wanted to make the most of his time with Markus. “Markus, thanks for being here for me. Not just today, but I don’t know if I ever properly thanked you for taking me to work with you all those years ago.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have had a blast. Besides, I think it worked out for me. I probably actually got the better end of that trade.”

“Nah, you don’t know half of it.”

As they pulled up to Sevs's house, and Sevs got out. Markus leaned out the window before he pulled away. “Good job today, Sevs. That was more fun than I had had in a long time. I can’t wait to see what you will do next.”

Sev waved as Markus pulled away. He, revved the obnoxiously loud engine and waved out the window as he raced down the street.

As Sevs walked inside, Father greeted him. “How did it go?”

“Pretty smoothly. Got a lot more people than I would have thought, and almost everyone seemed to have a good time too.”

“Awesome, I already ate. Ordered kebabs. There are some leftovers in the fridge if you want some.”

“We ate at the event, and some of the food trucks were pretty good,” Sevs said as he walked to the fridge. Father chuckled as he pulled out the leftovers and reheated them. “Did you get any new members?”

“We’ll see, but I think so.”

“Good, it's always nice to have new blood, or else you stagnate.”

“True”

Sevs finished eating, said goodnight, and went to bed to check his notifications.

***

First thing was to check the Stats screen.

ID

X77

Progress

Tutorial: Lvl 17

Titles

STR

-10%

DEX

-10%

INT

-10%

AGI

-10%

WIS

-10%

CHA

60%

CON

-10%

Sevs winced. Level seventeen. That was not good. He could feel the progress to level 18, and he was almost there, missing just a sliver of progress. In a day or two of exclusively passive EXP, he would finish the tutorial and advance to a main world. Sevs was not sure if he was ready for it. There were so many people he would be leaving behind. He was sad that he wouldn’t see how the whole Jerome situation turned out. He wouldn’t even know if the event was really a success. He was lucky that he hadn’t finished the tutorial on the spot. At least now he would get a chance to say goodbye. It would be hard to say what would happen to the people here. Maybe they would just be erased, and the goodbye would only be for himself.

Sevs liked to think that wasn't what happened. The system didn’t seem to be wasteful. Likely the training all the models of these people got through his interactions would be recycled and used in the background of someone else's tutorial. At least, he hoped. In a way, the relationships he built with these people for the last decade were less with them and more with the system.

Next, he looked at the notifications waiting for him.

Congratulations you have finished the mandatory quest. Due to performance bonus rewards are issued. EXP gained

Sevs got four new notifications for new skills. Leadership had given him Delegation and Public Speaking. Both seemed useful and might be hard to get when working with players, especially as a newbie. Persuasion spawned Recruiting, and Marketing had Promotion. These were all worthwhile skills to get before entering the main world. While not particularly hard to get, they were usually earned mid-game or later. Getting them the early game would allow him to do things others were not. Hopefully, that advantage would snowball, and he could keep ahead of everyone.

After going through the notifications, his skill list looked like this:

Skills: Leadership 18, Physical Fitness 18, Persuasion 12, Engineering 6, Marketing 6, Physical Combat 4, Programming 2, Public Speaking 2, Delegation 1, Recruiting 1, Promotion 1

That was quite the haul. Four new skills, many levels in some of his base skills. No wonder he had got so many levels. This was quite the start. He would be set up nicely to start learning some tier III skills right off the bat. This would give him a real leg up when the real game began.