His Naughty Lessons
Chapter 141: God Level Demo

Chapter 141: God Level Demo

** Harper **

Much to Harper’s disappointment, the kiss didn’t end with him on top of her this time. All the distractions had taken a toll on the atmosphere of the evening, and although Harper didn’t think she’d mind, she knew Eli wouldn’t want to start anything even if there was only a remote chance of it being tainted by imperfections. So she let herself feel content with the soft kisses, and they spent the next few hours cuddling cozily over their comfort food and a movie.

Fortunately, there was always tomorrow.

Also fortunately, tomorrow was soon off to a good start.

Harper’s first meeting the next morning with Malcolm Smith was a breeze. She had been prepared for a bombardment of tricky questions, knowing what the Sterling advisor was capable of from their first encounter on investors day. But to her surprise, their discussions this time were nothing besides educational and pleasant, occasionally even entertaining enough to fill the whole conference room with laughter. As the hours flew by, so did a great number of her concerns over the details of her game plan, and the outline of her project quickly became more and more clear in her head.

However, the bigger surprise — and the even more pleasant one — was her first official interaction with the Future Vision consultants.

The technical integration meeting was led by Adam Wolfson, the leader of the consultant team whom Eli had introduced to Harper during the Luau. Apparently a practical and don’t-give-a-crap-about-looking-good-on-paper sort of guy, Adam didn’t bother starting with a perfectly polished presentation like all the other meeting hosts. Instead, he went straight to bringing out a dozen VR headsets and distributing them among the audience.

"When Sterling Trust first approached us about this contract project," he explained, "we were given a preliminary run-through of the scope of this space adventure game, so that we could come up with a demo to show that our technology matches what is needed. You’ll find a copy of that demo preloaded onto each of these headsets, which I believe will give you a good idea of what to expect from our collaboration."

Every member of the development team from Miracles looked at the headsets in amazement. Harper’s own eyes widened as well — a demo to show that their technology matched what was needed? Future Vision was already one of the very best in the industry, and yet Sterling Trust had put up a campaign goal for the consultant team to meet? Just how high were Eli’s expectations?

Curious and awed, she picked up the headset in front of her and strapped it over her eyes.

Oh ...

She had to blink multiple times to make sure that she truly was seeing what she was seeing. A vast dark sky stretched in front of her, filled with twinkling distant stars, swirling in magical colors painted by faraway nebulas and galaxies. The glow of those mysterious clouds of purple and pink, bejeweled by the dazzling starlight shining brightly in red and white and blue, was so breathtaking that she let out a stunned gasp at its sheer beauty.

Multiple other gasps sounded simultaneously around the room. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one who was impressed.

That wasn’t the only impressive thing meeting the eye, though. Against that gorgeous backdrop of a deep sky was a majestic fleet of spaceships, ranging from sleek fighters to imposing cruisers and massive dreadnoughts. Harper gaped at the streamlined design of each of the vessels, and when her eyes shifted from one to another, she noticed that the outer contour of the ship she was looking at would light up, followed by a display of its technical specs and crew information, along with a list of its current missions.

Amazing eye tracking technology, she marveled. With the distance and density of the fleet, it was impressive that the demo could pinpoint the target of her interest so accurately.

It wasn’t till then that she remembered this was only a demo, not a real product that had undergone intensive development and debugging. "How long did it take the team to create this demo?" she asked.

"One week," Adam’s voice answered with no small pride. "Some of the visuals we used were stock products, of course, but the space view and fleet control were designed specifically for your project. Just use your hand to zoom in, and you’ll be able to command particular ships of your choice to perform basic actions."

Harper raised her left hand and made a "zoom in" motion. The fighter she was looking at immediately enlarged to fill her view, and the text at the top of the screen changed to a list of operations and stunts to choose from. She pointed at the first option. The vessel responded immediately with a complex flip, raising its shields, and a long arc of light flashed as the energy weapon engaged, turning a practice target in the distance into an explosion of fine dust.

The effect rendered Harper speechless. As a gamer herself, she had dabbled in a few VR games before out of personal interests, and she knew the current industry standards for this technology. But this? The resolution and depth of the visuals, the accuracy of the controls, and the immaculate smoothness of the user experience without so much as a handheld sensor? This was ... madness. God level. No doubt an industry secret well kept by the most advanced leaders of the field.

Harper had known all along that Eli had invested a large sum in her work. But still, the tangible proof of it blew her mind. Did the heir of Sterling Trust simply have way too much money to burn? Or was her project really that important to him, even back when their relationship was officially only "friends"?

She couldn’t help a smile curving her lips at the thought.

"Did we manage to impress you as much as we did the Sterling board?" Adam commented, apparently pleased to see the smile on her face.

"Oh yes. Beyond impressed." Harper chuckled as she zoomed out to stare at the beautiful expanse of the deep sky once more. Definitely impressed ... and she probably owed a certain member of the Sterling board a huge favor for such an incredible wonder.

It was a good thing that she knew just a few good ways to properly thank him.