In the photograph, a chestnut-haired girl in a white sundress faced the camera with a gentle, resolute smile.
The girl's name was:
Asuna Yuuki.
Late at night, the top-floor R&D center of the RECT Progress headquarters building was still ablaze with light.
The air was thick with the scorched scent of caffeine, energy drinks, and sweat.
President Shouzou Yuuki stood before the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the never-extinguished sea of stars at his feet, that brilliant tapestry of countless lights that was Tokyo.
His silhouette, under the harsh pale lighting of the conference room behind him, looked exceptionally heavy.
Inside the conference room, the company's top engineers and project leads all wore ashen faces, eyes sunken deep, their thick lenses unable to hide the soul-deep exhaustion and despair.
"...So, the conclusion is the same as three days ago?" Shouzou Yuuki said without turning, his voice rasped raw as if scraped with sandpaper.
No one answered.
The silence itself was the cruelest answer.
"Yes, President."
The R&D Director finally forced himself to speak. "We can't go around them. The core coupling chip of the 'High-Spec Neural Connector,' and the bottom-layer algorithms of 'Soul Translation'... the patents on those two technologies are like two impassable mountains, completely blocking every path forward for our 'Medicuboid' project."
"Without the support of those two technologies, our prototype has a data transmission latency as high as 0.08 seconds, and the mental load is far beyond the safety threshold. With this kind of performance, forget surpassing our competitors, we can't even match our own previous generation 'AmuSphere.'"
"And most critically..." another young engineer added, "the owner of those two key patents... the 'F.S. Foundation,' they rejected all our licensing applications. They didn't even express any intent to negotiate."
F.S. Foundation...
Shouzou Yuuki chewed on the name, feeling the roots of his teeth ache.
This commercial empire which had risen like a ghost in less than a year had, with overbearing arrogance, swallowed hundreds of cutting-edge tech companies around the world, including that German research institute holding the chip patents, and that American laboratory with its top AI scientists.
They were like a greedy black hole, silently absorbing every technology that might define the future into their own territory.
And now, the gravity of that black hole had clamped down on RECT's throat.
The company faced a crisis of life and death.
The next-generation full-immersion technology they had poured every resource into developing had become an unfinishable joke. And their competitors had already obtained secondary technology licenses from F.S. Foundation, with new product launches scheduled three months from now.
By then, RECT, once the overlord of the industry, would be thoroughly and mercilessly swept into the dustbin of history.
"I understand."
Shouzou Yuuki slowly turned around. That face, always so confident and refined, was now haggard.
"All of you, go home and rest first."
After dismissing everyone, he walked alone into his own office.
He opened an encrypted line and dialed a number he had once believed he would never voluntarily dial: the private secretariat of the Director of F.S. Foundation, Seiji Fujiwara.
In a tone bordering on submissive, he requested a chance to meet in person.
He knew this was a surrender.
But he had no choice. To save the company, to save the future of the Yuuki family, he was willing to pay any price.
...
Shuchiin Academy, Student Council Room.
Seiji Fujiwara lounged on the sofa, looking at a piece of intelligence in his hand.
The title of the intelligence was: [Shouzou Yuuki, President of RECT, Requests Emergency Meeting].
He wasn't surprised in the least.
This net, he had long since cast.
Now, it was simply time to pull it in.
He was very interested in this thing called FullDive technology.
In his view, it wasn't merely an entertainment product, but the most crucial link in the future control of the world and the shaping of human cognition.
A world capable of fully digitizing human consciousness was, to someone with the latent ability of [Virtual Godhood], nothing less than a continent waiting for genesis.
For that reason, he had long known of the Yuuki family's predicament.
Those key patents were a trap he had tailor-made for Shouzou Yuuki.
Seiji Fujiwara's finger lightly slid across the screen of his tablet, and another file appeared.
It was the family information of Shouzou Yuuki.
He looked at it for a while.
His gaze finally settled on a single photograph.
In it, a chestnut-haired girl wore the white combat dress of an in-game knights' order, holding an elegant rapier, her bearing dashing, her gaze resolute.
The file listed her name: Asuna Yuuki.
And her thunderous in-game title: "Lightning Flash Asuna."
The corner of Seiji Fujiwara's mouth curled into an intrigued smile.
He decided.
He would not only swallow RECT's technology, but also bring this "heroine" of the virtual world into his real-world harem.
To turn that "Lightning Flash" Asuna, who reigned supreme in the data world and was worshipped by countless players, into a pet wagging its tail at his feet.
This kind of dual-dimensional conquest, from virtual to real, would undoubtedly be a brand-new, top-tier "appreciation" experience.
...
Elsewhere, at the Yuuki household.
Asuna Yuuki had just stepped out of her room, a faint, satisfied smile still on her face.
She had just, in the game, successfully cleared a high-difficulty floor BOSS together with her guild companions.
The joy of fighting side by side and sharing victory was something she had never experienced in the real world.
To her, that world of swords and magic called Aincrad was far more real, and far more joyful, than this reality made up of exams, etiquette, and family expectations.
"Asuna."
Her father Shouzou Yuuki's voice came from the study.
"Dad? You haven't gone to rest at this hour?" Asuna was a little surprised.
"Come in for a moment. There's something I want to discuss with you."
Asuna walked into the study, and seeing her father's face etched with exhaustion, her chest tightened without warning.
"Dad, the company... has something happened?"
"It's nothing." Shouzou Yuuki forced himself to perk up, squeezing out a gentle smile. "It's just that, tomorrow, your father has to go to Tokyo to attend a very important business meeting. I hope you can come along."
"Eh? I have to go too?" Asuna's brows immediately knitted together. "Another one of those boring social affairs? I already arranged with everyone to clear a new area tomorrow..."
"Asuna!"
For the first time, Shouzou Yuuki's tone turned stern. "You're already a high school student, the future heir of our Yuuki family. You need to start learning how to manage the company, not indulge in those virtual games all day!"
"It's not just a game!" Asuna instinctively shot back. "I have my friends there, I have my..."
Her words caught in her throat the moment she saw her father's bloodshot eyes, eyes that held a trace of pleading.
She sighed, and finally relented.
"...All right, I understand."
She was deeply unwilling, considering it just another boring social engagement that robbed her of game time.
In her eyes, it was nothing more than yet another attempt by her father to push her "onto the right track."
After she had agreed, her mother, Kyouko Yuuki, a cold-natured university professor with a hardline manner, came into her room.
"Since you've decided to go, pull yourself together for me."
Kyouko Yuuki's face held no extra expression.
She took out a white dress she had long since prepared, and laid it on Asuna's bed.
"Tomorrow, wear this."
Then, in a tone bordering on harsh, she began strict etiquette instruction with Asuna.
From her walking posture, to the angle at which she sat down, to the curve of her smile, every detail was rigorously corrected by her.
"Asuna, drop that fighting-and-killing manner of yours from the games."
Kyouko Yuuki saw the trace of impatience on her daughter's face, and her voice grew even colder.
"This meeting is tied to the life and death of the company, and to whether our Yuuki family can continue to exist."
"Don't disgrace our Yuuki family."
Her mother's icy, emotionless words were like a bucket of cold water that doused the last bit of reluctance in Asuna's heart.
For the first time, from her parents' words and actions, she felt a massive pressure looming on the horizon, like a storm about to break.
...
...
The next day. Tokyo, F.S. Foundation headquarters tower.
When Shouzou Yuuki stepped out of the silent maglev elevator with his daughter Asuna, even he, accustomed to grand scenes, was shaken by what he saw.
They were on the top floor, hundreds of meters above the ground.
The entire floor looked like an enormous sky garden suspended above the clouds.
Beneath their feet was black marble polished to mirror smoothness. Around them stood transparent floor-to-ceiling glass walls with no visible framework, presenting the entire Tokyo skyline below without reservation.
A female secretary in a black business suit, sharp and capable in bearing, was already waiting there.
"Mr. Yuuki, Miss Asuna, please come with me. The Director is already waiting for you in the conference room."
Asuna followed behind her father, looking around curiously.
She didn't know the first thing about business matters, but she could intuitively sense the suffocating wealth and power that this place contained.
That feeling was far more vivid than anything she had ever learned in textbooks about economics.
They were led to an enormous door forged from some unknown metal, with a science-fiction aesthetic to it.
The door slid open without a sound.
Inside was a conference room of extreme simplicity, yet also extreme luxury.
And that man, Seiji Fujiwara, was already waiting.
He hadn't worn a formal suit. He wore simple casual clothes, seated casually in the head seat of the enormous conference table, idly tapping his fingers on its surface.
"Mr. Yuuki, we meet again."
He raised his head, an amused smile on his face. But his gaze swept past Shouzou Yuuki and landed directly on Asuna behind him.
That gaze carried no lust, but it was full of aggression.
Like a collector appraising a brand-new piece about to be added to his hoard.
Asuna felt acutely uncomfortable under that look, and instinctively shrank behind her father.
"Mr. Fujiwara, my deepest apologies for disturbing you in the midst of your busy schedule." Shouzou Yuuki immediately bent at the waist, performing a bow nearly ninety degrees deep, his posture submissive to the extreme.
"Have a seat."
Seiji Fujiwara gestured to the seats opposite him.
Shouzou Yuuki and Asuna sat down accordingly.
"Speak. What did you want to see me about?" Seiji Fujiwara got straight to the point, his tone as casual as if he were speaking to a subordinate.
Shouzou Yuuki drew a deep breath, lowering his posture as much as possible, and began the carefully prepared remarks.
"Mr. Fujiwara, regarding the 'High-Spec Neural Connector' chip and the 'Soul Translation' algorithm patents held by your Foundation, our RECT... wishes to reach a deep strategic partnership with your side..."
Before he could finish, Seiji Fujiwara raised a hand to cut him off.
"Mr. Yuuki, I'm not interested in this business rhetoric."
Seiji Fujiwara snapped his fingers.
The lights of the conference room instantly dimmed.
The vast conference table before them suddenly became transparent, countless blue data streams racing through it. They finally converged at the center of the table into a lifelike, three-dimensional holographic projection.
It was a...
Asuna had never seen a FullDive device of such exquisitely beautiful design, like a work of art.
Its entire body was a streamlined silver-white, only half the size of an AmuSphere, looking more like an elegant pair of headphones than a helmet.
"This is the fifth-generation FullDive technology prototype that one of our Foundation's affiliated laboratories just completed last month. Codename: 'SoulCradle.'"
Seiji Fujiwara's voice, in the dim conference room, sounded like a devil's whisper.
"Let's take a look at what it can do."
The moment his voice faded, the holographic projection began playing a demonstration video.
In the video, a tester put on the device, and in less than 0.3 seconds, entered a deep-dive state.
His brainwaves were perfectly read and translated by the device, and in a virtual world, constructed a virtual character that was an exact copy of himself, with absolutely no latency in its movements.
That virtual character could clearly feel the touch of wind on his skin, taste the sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy flavors of virtual food, even smell the fragrance of virtual flowers...
The sensory synchronization rate was close to one hundred percent.
The mental load was approaching zero.
And most terrifying of all, the final part of the video showcased a preliminary application called 'Brain-Computer Interface.'
The tester, merely by thinking, created a sword out of thin air in the virtual world.
Shouzou Yuuki's complexion grew paler bit by bit.
On that face, so well-maintained from years in a position of high authority, fine beads of sweat began to break out.
As a top expert in this industry, he understood better than anyone what these technologies before him meant.
This was epoch-making technology, capable of completely overturning the entire world and changing the course of human civilization.
And the 'Medicuboid' project he had taken such pride in, into which the company had poured countless efforts, before this 'SoulCradle,' was like a primitive's laughable toy of rocks and sticks crudely bound together.
His company, before Seiji Fujiwara, didn't even qualify as a backyard workshop.
Asuna too was struck speechless.
As a top-class player, she could feel even more intuitively than her father what kind of terrifying revolution this technology would bring.
In the face of such a device, the lightning-fast swordsmanship she had taken such pride in would become meaningless.
Because anyone, simply by "thinking," could execute attacks a hundred times faster than her.
And what frightened her even more was...
For the first time, she had seen her own father's "weakness."
That father who, in her heart, had always been confident, powerful, and capable of anything, was now sitting bolt upright, his body trembling faintly, cold sweat falling continuously from his brow.
Before this young man, her father had gone silent as a cicada in winter, not daring to draw even a deep breath.
A foreign fear seized Asuna's heart.
This fear was ten thousand times stronger than facing any powerful BOSS in the game.
The demonstration video finished playing.
The lights of the conference room came back on.
That face of Seiji Fujiwara's, wearing its amused smile, looked even more like a Demon King in command of all things under the lighting.
"Now..." he said leisurely, looking at Shouzou Yuuki, whose face was pale as paper. "Let's go back and talk about what you mentioned just now... that 'partnership'?"
Shouzou Yuuki's lips moved for a long while, but not a single word came out.
Partnership?
With what was he supposed to partner?