Alex: "Shift your shoulder to the left a little and rotate your wrist in an outward motion..."

Alex: "Activate the biceps and use the palm to push..."

Alex: "Bend one knee underneath the other and use your elbow..."

For the next hour, Alex's low and deep voice instructed Aria's movements. At first Aria thought his voice was pleasant to listen to but as time passed, she built up an immunity. With Alex's help, Aria was able to successfully pass simulation #1-20 in quick succession, with an average score of "C". It was quite pathetic.

Alex: "Your homework before our next lesson is to score all "A's" for these first 20 simulation. Good night."

Alex logged off and unstrapped himself from the MTM and drank some water before getting ready for bed.

Aria dragged her tired body to the massager and panted heavily. Even though she is strong, her stamina is too weak. She will need to add jogging to her regiment tomorrow.

Tonight's training was the breakthrough she needed to understand the mechanics of a mech pilot. Getting a teacher was the right choice.

Picking another stone from the larger Xing Plant, she cut it into cubes and set them into rings. After some thought, she swallowed two bright red cubes. She immediately felt a burning sensation in her chest and soon fainted.

—-

Lily and Dolly entered their hotel room and immediately started unpacking things from their space button. After washing up, the group all agreed to meet up in the other three girls' suite to gossip.

Lily chose a bed and flopped on it while waiting for Dolly to come out. Her shoulders hit something hard under the covers.

Lily: "Ouch!"

Pulling aside the bed covers she was surprised to see 1 bar of gold and 1 bar of white powder.

Lily: Is this real gold? And what is this white thing?

Hearing Dolly opening the door, Lily immediately stored the two items into her space button and acted as normal as possible. They both joined the other girls in their suite and continued drinking and gossiping, Lily being surprisingly quiet and distracted.

She was still wondering if what she found was real or fake. After awhile, Lily excused herself saying she wasn't feeling well and hurried back to their hotel room. Dolly frowned in confusion at Lily's unusual actions and followed her a minute later. Lily went into the bathroom and took out the gold bar. It was heavy and shiny. She took out a piece of gold jewelry to compare the two colors but was unsure.

*Knock!*Knock!*Knock!*

Dolly: "Lily! Are you okay in there?"

Lily: "I'm fine! I'll be out in a minute."

Lily was quite annoyed at Dolly for the interruption. Putting away the gold bar, Lily quickly brushed her teeth and opened the bathroom door to see Dolly leaning against the door frame, her face suspicious.

Dolly: "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting weird?"

Lily: "I'm not acting weird. I'm just not feeling well... let's just go to sleep."

Unsatisfied with that answer, Dolly went inside and got ready for bed. Lily sat on her bed still thinking about the gold bar and the white powder. Why was it under the sheets? Who placed it there? Are there more hidden in this room?

At that thought, Lily jumped out of bed and started opening and closing drawers seeing if there were anymore hidden inside the room. 3 minutes later, she stood in the middle of the room, her eyes scanning every nook and cranny of the room, ending on Dolly's still pristine bed.

Lily can hear her heartbeat loudly thumping in her ears, blood rushing to her head as her eyes stared at the bed. She was so fixated on the bed that she didn't notice Dolly opening the bathroom door. Striding over to the bed decisively, Lily threw the sheet aside.

Dolly was about to call out to Lily when she saw Lily's movements. A shiny bar of gold and a bar of white powder met their eyes. Dolly rushed over to the bed, standing next to Lily, staring at the two things on the bed.

Dolly: "Lily, what is that?!"

Lily: "I don't know."

Lily stretched out her hand towards the gold but Dolly reacted quicker than her, snatching it up and exclaiming loudly.

Dolly: "This is gold! Lily! This is a bar of gold."

Switching her attention to the other item, she gasped in surprise, dropping the gold bar as she grabbed the white powder.

Dolly: "This is.."

Lily: "What is it? Do you know what it is???"

Dolly: "I think this is drugs. I don't know.. But I think this is drugs... Why was it here? Lily, did you put it here?"

Lily: "Me? No! I just felt something on the bed earlier while waiting for you but didn't think much of it. But when we came back, I felt like something was off. You saw it when I found it!"

Dolly: "This is worth a lot of money."

Lily: "How much money?"

Dolly: "That bar of gold is at least $500,000. And that white powder might cost more."

Lily: "What?! That much? Wait, why do you look that way? Hey, you're scaring me!"

Dolly: "... But whoever left it might come back..."

Lily: "S*. You put away the gold, I'll put away the powder. Go change and pack your stuff. Let's get out of here."

Lily hurried around dumping clothes and her toiletries inside her space button. Turning around while changing her clothes, she saw Dolly still stunned. Lily pulled up her jeans and pushed her feet into a pair of flats before taking the gold bar into her space button. Pushing Dolly to snap her out of her stupid stupor, Lily gathered the rest of Dolly's stuff and dumped it on the bed. Clapping her hands in front of Dolly to attract her attention, Lily yelled into her face.

Lily: "Dolly! Put these stuff away. Change into this, now! Let's go!"

Dolly finally reacted. Regardless of how she looked, Dolly stripped down to her underwear and pulled on clothes similar to Lily's and stored everything inside her space button. Finally remembering something missing, Dolly grabbed Lily.

Dolly: "Where's the gold bar? Didn't you say I should hold on to that while you hold on to the white stuff? Are you trying to take both and leave me with nothing?"

Lily: ... "Here. Don't make stupid accusations. Let's go."

Dolly: "Should we tell the other girls we're leaving?"

Lily: "Why? So we can share with them a portion of the gold you're holding? No, we'll check out and leave tonight for City S. We'll tell them we left early in the morning for a family emergency instead."

Dolly looked at Lily before nodding resolutely. They then searched around the room to make sure nothing else was left behind, even under the bed, before they checked out of the room and snuck out of the hotel. It was only 10pm so they were still able to catch the last flight to City S.

Sitting by the window of the airplane, Lily regretted not finding the second set of things before Dolly came out. Then she would have been the one to possess both bars of gold and white powder. Now she has Dolly following her around.

Dolly mentioned the white powder is more expensive than the gold which was why she allowed Dolly to hold onto the bar of gold in the first place.

The next morning Aria flew back to City S to finish planting evidence at the Li's family then to visit her CFP Plant.

Ever since the heads of the family moved to a different city, only a few people were left in City S. Staff was cut down but security was buffed up. Lily and her mother and aunts still reside there though, only the men moved temporarily elsewhere to 'do business'. Aria snuck into the resident again, sending Eros down to the basement warehouse to see if there was anything inside. It was still empty... but security was surely buffed up.

Sneaking into Lily's room, she made quick work of puncturing a small hole in one of the bars of white powder and sprinkled it around Lily's desk and nightstand. Casually blowing them all over the place like dust. Then slicing the underside of Lily's mattress, she packed as many bars of white powder as much as possible inside before taping the bottom closed. She played around with the tape a few times to create wear and tear on it, making sure some powder was caught on the mattress, under the sheets.

Aria really has no purpose for keeping the drugs, but planting such a large amount on top of Lily's head makes her happy. Going to Lily's closet, she looked around wondering where else to store the rest of the drugs. Looking up to the corner of the closet ceiling, she saw a small vent. She quickly stuffed the vent full of drugs and a bar of gold too before screwing everything back to normal, leaving one screw missing. Adding the powder marks leading up the vent, she smiled in satisfaction.

Even though this is a tiny fraction of what they lost, for those looking for evidence, this would be easy for them to find in no time.

Sneaking into the large pantry, she found a few boxes of their CFPs and dried goods and took it. Although it's petty and they will easily replenish the lost stocks, she still felt good taking food from their mouths.

---

Arriving at her CFP Plant, she can see that it is very different from how it was. No signs were out in front and the place looked a little sad. There was only 1 building left that housed the machine and the remaining farm land. Otherwise, the rest of the land was empty. She did get the manager to purchase a Shipping Machine, which allows large companies to receive and ship packages without using actual shipping truck services. She also paid extra to get the rights to ship directly to consumers in limited supply if people order online.

Right after Aria purchased the company, she hired an out of city contractor to have something built. During that time, she had the plant fulfill the shipments already ordered, stopped taking orders, but continued production.

The operation that the Gus set up was a little out of date. They had upgraded all their machineries but only a few of their farms to vertical gardens. 10 acres of the flat farming land was reduced to 1 acres of vertical gardens. All the staff (11) including the security contractors (3) all were required to do a company evaluation, which is quite normal for large companies to conduct. After the obvious production land downsizing, 8 of the staff members were let go with a fair severance package along with 1 security contractor.

Since there were only 2 security personnel left on site, Aria called the security contractor and told them she wanted to hire 8 security personnel for a minimum of 2 years at a very high salary to work on a top secret project. They must have prior professional training either through the military or police force.

A company evaluation was required for all applicants to be considered for the job. After passing the first round of background check, the second round required all the family members they wanted to move with them must also take an evaluation questionnaire. Once they pass that, they will be offered a job and move in date will be October 12th. She will also cover the relocation fee and provide shelter for them.

She had over 600 applicants, which she had S3 weeded out the ones with red flags. She finally ended up hiring 12 people. 8 females and 4 males, not including the two males already on site. The remaining staff was also asked if they would like to bring their family to live onsite temporarily. Since they are locals, they would have their own house. Two of the regular staff refused since they already live nearby. The manager and the 2 security personnel agreed. Aria gave them the move in date and updated their contract to reflect the new security group that will be arriving the following month.

Now, as to where to house them...

---

Behind the flat farming land there was a small forest up the mountain that was part of the property. Aria informed her employees that she was having a property built there for herself. Since the employees knew a rich 2nd generation purchased the property, they weren't surprised at the changes happening on the CFP plant.

A 12 story building was built into the mountain, an unassuming piece of concrete sat on top, the sides had large sharp and jagged pieces of stones, and no visible entrances. The 1st 3 floors were for living, the rooms set up like hotel rooms facing an enclosed communal courtyard. the 4th floor was for education, entertainment, workout, etc.

The reason why she is back is because the bunker construction was completed over a week ago and she remembered the first major natural disaster that the world will be facing next.

Next month on October 20th, the world will rush into the first global freeze. At first the temperature will drop 5 degrees per day, surprising many meteorologists. But then it gets worse because the temperature continued to drop well below freezing temperature all across the world. This lasted for a total of 4 months. A lot of people died.

---

During the remaining month of September, Aria finished consuming the remaining colored stones of the Xing Plant, which grew 2x bigger than when she discovered it. As for the second Xing Plant, there are more beads of jade growing on the viney leaves. When she asked S3 to identify it, S3's response was puzzling.

S3: "Remaining time: 6 months."

Aria: "That's weird."

S3: "I also find it weird."

Aria shrugged and moved on. Since this plant wasn't found in her last life, she doesn't know much about it. 6 months is not that long so she can wait to see what surprises it has in store for her. She spent the rest of the month rushing all over Country C to take care of the red locations. There were over 400 such locations- and she will be out of commission for the next 4 months due to the Deep Freeze so she needed to harvest as much energy as possible with the remaining time she has left.

Her schedule became jam packed:

6am: mech/body training

9am: breakfast and head out to red locations

12pm: lunch and practice abilities

6pm: dinner and rob tang pharmacies

9pm: practice abilities and fly to next location

11pm: mech training with instructor

12am: sleep

She allowed herself 9 hours to take care of the red locations. She can usually hit 2-3 locations per day if they are clustered together. During weekends, she would hit up the more isolated locations since she doesn't have mech training with her instructor Apollo.

The prophet pin predicted 2 more earthquakes in September with precise accuracy. One occurring near an island, creating tsunamis, and another in Country T. Each time, receiving more and more followers. Leaders from around the world are now keeping an eye on the account just in case their country is mentioned. Some netizens believe it's a conspiracy why others believe it to be true. Regardless of the clamour, the account holder never responded to any attempts of contacts, even from those leaders.