After washing her hands at the hand washing station outside the bathroom, she covered her face with the mask and headed outside the restaurant.

Suddenly she felt someone approaching her at a fast speed. Aria reflexively dodged and moved 6 feet away as a body went past her and hit the wall.

Female 1: "Ahh! That hurts!"

Female 2: "Lily, are you okay? Why did you suddenly hit the wall? Did that man push you? Hey! Come back here and apologize to Miss Li!"

Aria glanced at both of them coldly. Oh, ho! She was just thinking of this Lily person and hasn't had the chance to track her down yet, but here she is. Like a wrapped present full of female coquettishness.

And with one of her many dumb but toxic close friends, Dolly Fu.

Lily: "Stop it, Dolly Fu! It's not his fault. It was me who thought he looked familiar and came running over. Ahh. It hurts though. Excuse me, handsome man. Do we know one other? If not, I am Lily Li from the Li family in City S."

Lily eyed the handsome figure of the young man in front of him. Although he was of average height, only a little bit taller than her, she can tell from his attire that he is wealthy. And alone. If she can get him to be infatuated with her, then that's another credit card she can use in the future. The other men she has hanging around her are beginning to be annoying, pushing to be more intimate. Lily is the precious Miss of the Li family, how can she sell herself so easily? The best way is to have multiple flowers around her so they can fight over one another while she reaps the benefits and not promise anyone anything, like she's undecided who would be the best partner for herself.

Aria touched her earbud to activate the Sound Shield and blocked Lily, Dolly, and the rest of the group behind them in one swift move before turning around and walking away from view. Aria got into her car and immediately disappeared into her G Space. Aria then changed and started practicing her abilities while waiting for Lily's group to finish their dinner and leave. Since she'd encountered them here, it's just too convenient to make trouble.

---

Not only were Lily and Dolly shocked at the young man's actions, the other 4 females behind the two were surprised too. They all sat down at their table and ordered their entrees. Suddenly Kelly exclaimed in surprise.

Kelly: "Oh my gosh! I know what that man has! That was a Sound Shield! I never thought I would see one in the wild!"

Lily: "What's a Sound Shield?"

Kelly: "It's what celebrities and high profile uses to mute the sounds of people around them. If the whole crowd is muted, then that means the person wouldn't be able to hear what they are saying or asking them. If you're muted, then the person muted would not be able to see the muter's face anymore. It would either be opaque white or black, or the features are blurred so that you can't see the person's face or their eyes."

Dolly: "Psh. So what? That person earlier was a celebrity? How come there were no bodyguards around him then? It looked like he was here alone. How pathetic!"

Kelly looked at Dolly disapprovingly as the other 3 people shuffled in their seat in annoyance. They were all rich second generation children. They don't have bodyguards... and what's wrong with eating by oneself? They would rather do that than eat with her listening to her toxic words.

Jenny: "Didn't you hear what Kelly said? Celebrities OR high profile people. High profile can be government officials, military personnels, rich 3rd 4th 5th generation kids."

Bella: "Yeah, even I heard of the Sound Shield. There was a special about it. It's only sold in Country M and you need a word of mouth recommendation to even be considered qualified to visit their store. Here, look!"

Bella swiped his screen to share the information about the Sound Shield to the group. Dolly glanced down at it absentmindedly. Still thinking it's a shit technology.

Jenny: "Wow, it says only a limited amount of them are made every year and each cost around $500K. The resale value of them is 2-3 times higher than the original cost. Only those who are rich as hell and well connected would be able to get their hands on it."

Kelly: "Oooh. I think the one that guy used was the most advanced model too! It's super thin and doesn't have the clunky wire that protrudes like the previous model. Uhh, I don't want to be a downer here but I think this person is way out of your league, Lily, Dolly. He didn't respond to you and just blocked all of us immediately."

Lily: "What do you mean out of my league? My Li family is worthy of someone like him!"

Jenny: "What Kelly meant is that he's rich and has connections. And you two might have offended him so you better watch out. He also knows your full name since you like shouting it all over the place whenever you bump into people."

Lily went pale at that reminder. It's true. She did announce her full name and family location to him when trying to hook him earlier. Although her family is wealthy, her grandfather ruled with an iron fist when it comes to money and expenses. Most recently in the last few months, something must have happened with the family business but all the adults were tense and angry. Especially Grandfather Li. Her allowance which used to be $10k a month was reduced to $500 a month. It's like she's a poor person! How can one live like that???

Lily was able to convince her mom to pay for her flight to City PR to play with her friends and her dad gave her some pocket money, but it's simply not enough. If her friends knew her situation, she would die of embarrassment. But now knowing that the young man might be very rich and powerful, she hopes to meet him again so she can try to seduce him. Maybe it's not so bad that he knew her name? He might have his family come to her family to find trouble and she can take advantage of the situation to entangle herself into his life. She believed her Li family is strong enough to withstand any future storms.

The atmosphere changed as everyone in the group had their own thoughts. Dolly really wanted a Sound Shield herself and was wondering how to get her parents to buy her one. Kelly and the two other girls were thinking how unfortunate Lily and Dolly might be in the future and it's best to separate themselves from those two just in case the people behind that young man retaliates. Lily wants to see that young man again since he's a huge shiny piece of money bag in her eyes.

They all went to the hotel to check in. Lily didn't have much money so she convinced Dolly to share a hotel room with her so they can gossip all night. The other three girls booked a 3 bedroom suite across the hall from them.

Aria followed them all the way to the hotel as they checked in. After finding out which room number is Lily's, she sent Eros in to plant 2 bars of gold and 2 bars of drugs that she collected from the Li's house. Based on Lily's self serving nature, she'll figure out how to convert those three things to cash ASAP. And Aria is betting on the fact that the Li family will finally find some traces of the drugs and gold that was stolen 6 months ago appearing out of nowhere with Lily.

As for finding the items with Dolly, Aria is looking forward to all the troubles that Dolly would cause to get an equal piece of thar pie.

---

Seeing the time approaching 11pm, Aria quickly changed into thin sports attire, climbed on the mech training machine, and logged on. Before she didn't care about the avatar that Art created for her but she went into the user settings and adjusted her facial features as well as her hair length to something not as recognizable in real life. Only facial features can be adjusted in the training machines since the machines rely on the user's exact body dimensions, weights, and strength to optimize the simulation.

Some females in the past tried to enhance their chest and narrowed their waist for a more attractive avatar but the unnatural dimensions did not align with the actual user's body which resulted in many injuries.

So even if Aria doesn't want to reveal her body as a female to her new instructor, it cannot be helped. At that thought, an friend invitation popped up on her VR display.

User has requested to be your friend. Accept? Yes/No/Ignore

Aria suspect it might be the instructor so she immediately accepted the friend request.

—

Alex looked at the time and smiled. His new student is 15 minutes early. He had just gotten home 30 minutes ago after a long day of work. His father was pleasantly surprised that he'd posted the ad and accepted a student in minutes.

After taking a shower and putting on casual home clothes, he strapped down into his MTM (Mech Training Machine). Logging in under 'instructor mode', Alex added the new student's ID and was surprised at the almost instant acceptance.

Under the instructor mode, he can walk around Aria's avatar which is similarly strapped into the mech's cockpit. But his avatar can walk around and go through the machine to guide and watch the precise movements of the student's body in the VR simulation.

Alex: "Hi, you can call me Instructor Apollo. Today we will practice keeping balance and walking. Show me how you walk."

Aria: "Hello, Instructor Apollo. Thank you ahead of time for helping me."

Alex raised his eyebrows at the clear tender voice of a female. His body unconsciously reacting to her clean tone. He completely bypassed the gender portion of the applicant since the majority of mech pilots are men. To operate a mech, a pilot needs to be physically strong and have a lot of stamina. Much stronger than any other type of military departments.

This is because when fighting, a lot of physical strength is needed to make certain moves. Walking is the easiest using macro movements, but others like running, turning, flying, dodging all required bursts of movements.

Aria concentrated before moving her right foot forward carefully-

And toppling over.

Alex's mouth twitched as he watched his young student do the same thing she did in the training recordings. Crossing his arms, he finally asked quietly, his voice rich and deep.

Alex: "What are you doing with your left leg?"

Aria: What am I doing with my left leg? I'm moving my right leg. The right leg is the one that is used to move forward. So the left leg is not doing anything...!

Aria resetted the mech's position and stepped forward again but this time she pushed the left leg. The torso of the mech pivoted a certain way, the movements natural, and she succeeded in taking a step forward!

Yay!

-- Author's Notes --

Please if you like! Ty!

Gimme all of the imaginary currency and make me a rich woman. Ahhh... I can only imagine the decadent lifestyle I'll live spending your "votes" on high end vote bags and vote cars while a handsome man feeds me vote grapes. Nomnomnom.