A little bit before the start of the broadcast everyone was seated. They had halted the training and staged several chairs around the TV.

  That time, on the screen, Marcos didn’t even approach the microphone. He was there, in the back of the stage, but it was Milagros the one who approached it from the beggining.

  “Hello everyone to another public broadcast from KimTec about the Realm System. My name is Milagros Primiterra and I am the Chief Realm System Officer of KimTec. I am here because we have more information about the risk that the planet is at, and more information about what we are facing. The news are harsh, but not all of them are bad. We have entered diplomatic relationships with an alien force and we are working on making the best deal we can with them, but all in due time.

  “First of all, let me start with a bit of information that we came across that might make our elites stronger. We have discovered the biggest reward that you can get from the Trials as of right now. It is something that will let you have more than 10 points in each Stat. If you want to be able to reach this reward, you have to increase your Stats in the Trial 7 times in a row. If someone hearing us fulfilled that requirement, please ask about this reward.

  “This is both good and bad for us. It is good because we can get better talents, and it is bad because the rest of the Realm also have people with more Stats.

  “We also confirmed the existence of higher Ranks, which allows one to be even more powerful. All of us are Rank 1, and we consider that a Rank 2 should be at least 6 times more powerful in every Stat than a normal person. This makes them stronger, smarter, healthier and they have also controlled Energy their whole lives.

  “Even more, we have confirmed the existence of Ranks 3, 4 and 5. We are making the most conservative projection and we considered that a Rank 5 would have at least 5000 more Stats than a normal person, with some talents having two or three times more.

  “This information is dire and we have no way to face these kinds of superhumans or superaliens. Not only that, we have confirmed that we are completely outnumbered. There should be at least trillions of Ranks one, billions of Ranks 2, millions of Ranks 3, and thousands of Ranks 4.

  “Their population is higher than ours by at least a thousand times, and their personal power is countless times bigger.

  “We also confirmed they have some kind of technology, even if it is not dependent on electricity like ours. We have come in contact with someone who got a Rank 2 Training Dummy from the Trial. We will not disclose who got it, but the technology it has is amazing. It was stored in a marble that somehow compressed it without damaging it. It is made from wood, but it is completely bulletproof, or everything-we-tried-proof. We tried it only with regular guns for now, but as long as the government allows us we would like to try it with higher calibers.

  “We will show you a recording of the expansion of the dummy, and the tests performed. I will have to apologize for blurring the people in the recording, but it had to be done for legal reasons.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The camera focused on a projector screen behind Milagros, where it appeared the scene of Amelia crushing the marble. She was completely blurred out, and before blurring her they had edited the video, so it seemed as if the person on screen was a tall adult.

  It showed the way the dummy came out from different angles and at different speeds. After that scene, it changed to the one where the bullet was impacting the dummy that also was reproduced several times. Lastly, it was the scene of the explosive bullet from top. That one was shown only at full speed and only once as a grand finale of the exposition.

  “As you can see, just a Rank 2 piece of equipment will whistand most of our regular weapons. Given this information we decided to consider them at least on par with us in the weaponry and defense subjects.

  “Now that we are on the same page on this subject, we consider that we have two ways out. The first one is to take control of our planet by achieving the System trials. From the information we gathered, it is really hard to do it and we don’t even know what the trials will be. The second way is to have diplomatic relationships and gain a sponsor to back us up.

  “We have initiated relations with an established clan, but we also discovered some worrisome news. The usual way of work in the rest of the Realm would be considered almost slavery here. It is considered normal to work 80% of the day, every day of the week. We are trying to make a deal so that, in the worst case scenario, we can have them as backers, but still keep our own ways of living.

  “That solution does not look very promising, but we are doing our best. We have also considered some deals that will keep the planet free of war, but under their leadership. It is not what we really want, but it is better than dying in an invasion.

  “We have two big cards in this negotiation, the first one is our technology and the second one is our entertainment industry. Apparently, the rest of the realm is so focused on the System that this industry lagged off. We intend to make this our big selling point. In the end, we as a planet, have some experience in making some really addictive entertainment, don’t we?

  “We plan to do our first approach in this way next Thursday, with a tablet with all kinds of content inside, all of it curated so that it won’t expose our marketing techniques or technology secrets that are normal for us, but not for them. We expect our last chance to negotiate to be next week, which means that we are on a harsh deadline and the stakes are too high for us to not ask for help.

  “I would like to ask for the whole world to unite: countries, enterprises and people. All of us, to provide the best of the best of our technology and culture, so we can convince this clan to have our back, but still keep our independence. We are willing to cover all needed costs, but we need the whole world’s knowhow on what we should do. This is our planet’s last line of defense, and we need to face it together.

  Thank you all for listening.”

  As Milagros stopped talking a thousand hands rose into the air. Respecting the rules that she made on the last broadcast.

  Milagros smiled when she saw the reaction and started to pick hands at random to answer some questions. The people in the gym decided to turn off the TV and keep with the training. After all, they already knew all there was to know.

  It was interesting the way KimTec decided to gather the technology they needed and they told the truth when they explained how dire the situation was. Either way, that was the back up plan and they still had the first line of defense. Which meant that they needed to train hard to, maybe, have a chance to be independent on their own.

  Thanks for reading!

  If you're enjoying Paragon of Luck, following the story helps it grow and ensures you don’t miss future chapters.

  You can support me on Patreon to read up to 50 advanced chapters:

  You can also join the discord to talk with other people that are enjoying Paragon of Luck: