Project Overworld

- "Here we are, finally. Welcome to my actual base! I hope this little recruitment session did not deter you from joining my company, after all." Keith wondered.

- "Not at all!" Jim affirmed "If anything, this only conforted me in the idea that you are a really far-sighted man."

Xena nodded in confirmation of Jim's words.

Just like Keith did back then when he welcomed Leyla into Spacol, he proceeded to do a complete guided tour of his base for the new recruits. He felt like he was getting really familiarized with this process, and this annoyed him quite a bit.

'I hope I won't need to recruit other people in the future, this is getting quite repetitive.' He thought. In fact, this whole recruitment session took over a month of total time for him to organize. If he was not going to benefit from this in the future, there was no need for him to recruit anymore.

'Well, let's see how useful they prove to be.' He concluded.

Afterwards, Keith left both Xena et Jim into the spatial room where Michael and Tyler had finished working on their engine prototype.

As for him, he had to prepare an organization for the following months since they were now six inhabiting the same base.

'This actually went pretty fast.' Keith realized. In the end, instead of hiring a few new recruits, a total of five people joined him to work onto the same projects. This was a pretty large number to be part off.

Although, along them also were two of his friends who did not know much about engineering yet.

'I guess I didn't take the learning time into account, huh?' He meditated. Everyone except Leyla would have to switch their habits to solely focus on engineering as a full time job. This may be a complex transition to achieve, especially if they suddenly realized that was not what they actually wanted to do.

For now, Keith closed himself into his office and started planning things out for the near future.

'So, what will be our first project altogether?'

_______________

'He's actually took the time to reply to me? He doesn't seem to have changed this much, in the end.' Amber thought while looking at her phone. After that incident regarding Keith's methods of recruitment, she has been quite worried about what this player may come out as in the future.

Fortunately, according to him, this fiasco was also part of the recruitment process.

In his message, he told her that since Spacol was becoming so popular, he could not publicly annouce which player has been recruited into the company.

After the carnage that the event he organized turned out to be, he had contacted several players to take part into a more private test.

Since this also corroborated with informations she managed to gather on social medias, she did not doubt his words in the slightest.

Basically, a Project Overworld player named 'Janestill' had taken pictures of a really advanced base alongside shots of Keith turning his back to the objective.

This has had a huge impact across the community and a lot of people gave their opinion regarding the veracity of these images.

'This puts me at ease. We won't have to fight against a megalomaniac and technologicaly advanced player for the time being.' Amber breathed out.

After this 'Moon race' event, the last thing she wanted was to oppose Keith and possibly fight against him. She did manage to partner with the Starise group, but Keith was on another level.

Even though he could not technically do much against millions of player, he could be strategically focusing onto their power production facilities and foil all their future plans of technological advancements by exploding them.

Whatever the case, a war, even against a single entity such as Spacol, would clearly not be profitable for any of the parties involved.

Focusing back onto more urgent matters, Amber started opening the large folders which were awaiting for her on her desk.

She let out a frustrated breath before these administrative tasks that she had to resolve.

Since Midgard and Niflheim developed so much in such a short span of time, Amber now had to establish a more complex justice system.

'We're slowly but certainly switching towards an organization resembling that of real life.' She realized. 'Is it because it's actually the most efficient way of handling things or because it is the method we are most familiar with?' She meditated.

However, one thing was certain : since this was a game, corruption would have a much more arduous time installing itself into the their social interactions. No need to fight over money to keep oneself alive, only one's own enjoyment may be a factor of their advancements.

_______________

- "No, if you connect the pipe here directly, you may be overflowing the combustion chamber when increasing the amount of fuel being flown into it." Leyla exclaimed. "You see, engineering is all about precision. Something may work on the first try, especially in this game, but be totally unusable when values change even a little bit." She explained to the others.

As for Keith, he was silently watching them from afar.

'They're doing quite well as a team. Leyla does have a good methodology at learning things to the others.' He realized.

The more he witnessed about their efforts at working together, the more impressed he became.

They felt just like real friends even though they only met a few weeks ago.

After shutting himself into his office for a full day, Keith came back with more ideas than ever.

Although, since it would be his first time working with other people in this game, he wanted kick things off quite gradually. He did witness their working methods during those two weeks of being trapped with other candidates in hope they would be hired in the end.

However, quite a few things would be different this time around.

First, they would not have a specific time imposed to them. This would, in fact, alleviate some of pressure off them while making sure they worked with their hearts out.

Then, Keith's real base was much more practical for daily use than this fake one was. A lot of automated crafting processes would be accompanying them during their first official project altogether and helping them quite a bit with the repetitive work.

Finally, everyone rassembled here today has been personally selected by Keith for their easy-going personalities, and close bounds with him for the case of Michael and Tyler. Leyla would not be intentionally ruining the atmosphere anymore just to see how people reacted to it. As for Keith, he would also be present during this whole project to help them whenever they struggled.

- "Hey!" Keith exclaimed upon getting closer to the group. They all gave warm greetings in return. "I hope you all had a great time getting to know each other. I've been thinking of a project that we could be part of to start things off slowly. Yes you too." He nodded at Michael who was just about to open his mouth.

- "You see, it would be really unrealistic to establish into space and work towards space colonization without having rockets being automatically assembled. I've been automating some production processes in the past, but nothing really that grandiose. And so, this will be our first goal as a company." He concluded.

- "Wait, wait..." Michael interjected. "Didn't you just say that you wanted to start things off slowly? Wouldn't this project take us months of total work?"

Everyone turned back towards Keith, waiting for his reply. However, they were quite bewildered when he opened his mouth yet again just to reply with a single word : "Yes."

- "Months is shall take." He finally continued. "However, no risk of accidentally blowing up the whole base if we work at a respectful pace. Furthermore, this will get all of you to improve both in rocket science and in electronics, since one has to know how to build a rocket before automating this process. That's how I see this whole situation. Do correct me if you think I'm wrong to pick such a project as our first one, though."

Nobody dared to open their mouth after Keith's speech. Both hyped and  incredulous, they however understood his reasonment. In fact, no other project would be rassembling them as much as this one would. Also, since the production of a rocket required so much parts, they could indeed kick things off quite slowly by automating the production of lesser parts such as nails and metal sheets.

Finally, once they were done with such a large project, they could in turn start focusing onto more complex matters such as the exploration of other planets.

After a whole minute waiting for his crewmates to go against him, Keith finally resumed : "Well, if that was all you had to say about this matter, we should get going. Since we have to many months of work waiting for us, I don't think we have much spare time before us. Leyla, you should start explaining how the various crafting machines work around here. Michael and Tyler, we will need at least ten tons of metal being melted for the time being." He started giving orders like a true leader would.

'Hah, feels good to have a competent team at our commands.' He thought while witnessing everyone getting busy without any hesitation.

'My plans of conquering space does not seem as far-stretched as they did in the past, in the end.' He suddenly realized.