Chapter 63: Initiation

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Initiation2 Days Later

The compound buzzed with movement—half chaos, half progress.

Jack dropped the last monitor onto the sleek black desk, catching his breath. "This one’s yours, Anwar. Don’t fry it."

Anwar, a scrawny intern with thick glasses and a sarcastic mouth, saluted like a soldier. "Yes, sir. I only fry CPUs on Sundays."

Richard grunted, arms deep in cable management hell. "If you fry anything, it’s coming out of your paycheck. Which, let me remind you, is still zero."

The kid grinned and wheeled the chair around to start booting up.

Rows of desks filled the long glass-paneled wing, the kind of floor you’d expect in a Silicon Valley tech temple—if Silicon Valley had guts. Dozens of PCs, cooled by humming liquid systems, each one linked into a unified mesh. The hum of power was a kind of music. The kind that promised war, innovation, and late-night ramen.

"Where’s the SATA cable?" Jack asked, digging through a crate.

"Left box. Under the GPU brackets." Richard didn’t even look.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You memorized our hardware stockpile?"

"You just have ," Richard said. "When you’ve got ten builds and no backups, you get good at knowing where your parts are."



Jack gave him a half-smile. The Marawi crew had arrived just hours ago. Rough around the edges, a bit too comfortable with chaos, but sharp as hell. Interns, technically. Future monsters, realistically.

Behind them, a large curved screen lit up, displaying the Vector Core Engine Dashboard.

Procedural assets began spawning in real-time—a medieval town morphing into a cyberpunk city, then into an alien tundra. No asset packs. No click-and-drag. Just data-driven procedural generation on steroids.

"Hey, Ren," Richard called to one of the interns. "Queue up the logic scripting layer. I wanna test the adaptive behavior modifiers."

Ren, a tall girl with a shaved head and a Manila accent, raised a brow. "You want the sandbox simulation or the urban AI stress test?"

"Both."

"Coming right up."

Lines of code filled the screen—except it wasn’t code in the traditional sense. It was closer to neural directives, AI-assisted logic nodes that rewrote themselves based on how the in-game entities behaved.

Adaptive NPCs. Learning patterns. Reactive environments.

One line of code could spawn a faction war if you weren’t careful.

Jack leaned against the desk, watching a simulation where a civilian NPC developed a grudge, became a gang leader, and led a siege against a player-owned facility.

All within five minutes.

"Jesus," he muttered. "Our AI’s getting... emotional."

"That’s what happens when you feed it context layers and neural situational data," Richard replied, typing rapidly. "If players don’t watch how they interact, the world’s gonna punish them. Real consequence."

Jack nodded. "Good. It’s not supposed to be easy."


They moved station to station, calibrating setups. The interns worked like they’d been waiting for this their whole lives. Some probably had. A few were barefoot. One guy was blasting K-pop through wireless earbuds while animating a robotic tiger for a post-apocalyptic jungle.

No one looked bored.

Jack watched the city simulation load in another quadrant of the display wall. Procedural generation stitched the skyline, applied dynamic weather, and linked the underground sewers to the AI crime system.

The building had been a shell just days ago. Now it was the pulsing brain of a digital empire.

Richard slapped a power switch on a rig and looked over. "You realize this engine could make or break half the gaming industry, right?"

Jack exhaled slowly. "Only if we don’t burn out first."

A soft knock at the glass door.

It slid open.

Then the secretary arrived—heels clicking against the polished floor. She was tall, in her twenties, confident, and dressed with enough professionalism to stand out but not enough to feel out of place in a studio where most wore hoodies and jeans.

"Excuse me—Sir Jack, Sir Richard," she said, holding a tablet. "There’s a situation."

Jack stood straight. "Define ’situation.’"

She tapped the tablet and turned it to face them. "Rockstar Games sent a follow-up email. They’re asking if Monday next week is viable for the meeting."

Richard blinked. "That fast?"

Jack nodded. "Tell them Monday’s perfect. And let them know we’ll tour them around our HQ. If they like what they’re interested."

"There’s more," the secretary added, lowering the tablet. "Don Estello called. He wants both of you in Marawi. Five p.m. sharp."

Richard’s smile faded slightly. "Did he say why?"

"No. Just that it’s important. He wants you to see it for yourselves."

Jack exchanged a glance with Richard.

"I hate that tone," Jack muttered. "When grandpa says ’see it yourself,’ it usually means it’s not on the news yet."

Richard chuckled and nodded slowly. "Better pack. We’ll see what grandpa has in store for us."

They stood in the middle of their high-tech dream—an empire in the making—but that one message from Estello brought was quite foreboding to say the least.

"We’ll finish the setup later," Jack said to the interns. "Document the configurations, especially on the AI behavior trees. We’ll review them when we get back cause if we make the game too realistic again, we’ll be bombarded with complaints and lawsuits."

The SUV hummed as it rolled through the provincial road, heat shimmering off the asphalt. Jack’s hand rested lazily on the wheel, eyes scanning the route ahead as his foot worked the pedals with practiced ease.

"What do you think Grandpa wants?" he asked, tone casual but curious.

Richard, scrolling through news feeds on his phone, didn’t look up. "If I had to guess? Maybe we’re finally allowed to move our stuff from the mansion. The police have been dragging their feet since that whole raid. Crime scene protocols and bureaucratic BS."

Jack scoffed. "I swear, if I have to fill out one more form just to retrieve a toothbrush, I’m gonna lose it."

A notification pinged. Jack glanced down at his phone on the mount.

"Grandpa just texted. Says when we get to the gate, we’re supposed to find Ronnie and ride with him."



Richard raised an eyebrow. "Ride with him? Sounds cryptic."

Jack shrugged. "Everything he says sounds cryptic. It’s either a metaphor or he’s actually giving us instructions in riddles now."

Three hours later, the SUV pulled into the familiar but grim entrance to the Marawi estate. The yellow crime scene tape still fluttered across the wrought-iron gate, weather-worn but unmistakable. Two figures waited near the gate—Ronnie in his usual security jacket, and next to him, Anita.

Richard perked up at the sight. "That’s Mom."

Jack eased the car to a stop, and they both stepped out. Richard immediately moved in for a hug.

"Ma," he greeted, holding her tight.

Anita gave him a quick once-over and frowned. "You’ve lost weight."

"Have I?"

"You’ve been skipping meals again, haven’t you?"

Jack leaned against the hood, grinning. "Auntie, he always skips breakfast. Says all he needs is coffee."

Anita rolled her eyes. "He can live without breakfast, sure. But when he starts getting thinner, something’s up." She poked Richard’s side. "Maybe you’re in love, huh?"

Richard made a face.

Jack jumped in. "You might be onto something, Auntie. Our new secretary’s kind of... you know." He gestured vaguely in the air. "Pretty. Hot. Got that ’I do yoga and file tax reports’ vibe."

Anita raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Richard groaned. "Can we not do this now?"

Jack ignored him. "He’s been all polite around her. Holding doors. Actually brushing his hair."

"I always brush my—" Richard stopped, realizing it was futile.

Anita just laughed, clearly enjoying this.

Ronnie, finally stepping in to save Richard from further humiliation, cleared his throat. "You three ready?"

Jack nodded. "So, what’s the ride-with-you thing about?"

Ronnie’s expression was unreadable. "You’ll see. Boss Estello said it’s better if you see it firsthand."

That tone again.

Jack glanced at Richard. "Told you. Cryptic."

They loaded into Ronnie’s black SUV, Anita sat beside Richard.

As they drove past the mansion’s outer walls, Jack glanced out the window. "Feels weird being back. Place still looks... haunted."

Richard said nothing. But his eyes were fixed forward. Something didn’t feel right.

After 30 minutes of journey, ahead through the trees and the long, quiet drive, through the village, something eerie. village people stared as their vehicle passed by the dirt road.

Jack leaned forward. "Uh... Uncle Ronnie?"

Ronnie didn’t answer at first.

"Uncle Ronnie."

"You’ll see," Ronnie said again, his tone low. "Just wait."

And then the trees parted, revealing a huge and tall balete tree. It’s vines dangling as their vehicle passed by. more wooden houses surrounded the giant tree.

Richard’s eyes narrowed. "What the hell is that?"

Ronnie looked in the mirror. "Welcome to our coven. Though I advise you not to carelessly point your finger anywhere"

The black SUV rumbled to a stop on the packed dirt, tires crunching over loose gravel. Villagers watched from shaded porches, some pausing their chores, others resting beneath makeshift awnings. No one smiled, but no one turned away either. They just... observed.

Richard stepped out first, followed by Anita. Jack lagged a step behind, closing the door with a hesitant glance at the looming balete tree. Its thick vines coiled down like ropes from heaven—or hell—casting long shadows over the village center.

"You feel that?" Jack muttered, adjusting his shirt collar like it was suddenly too tight. "This place is... off."

Richard didn’t answer. He was staring at the balete tree. He didn’t know why, but it made him feel calm. Grounded. Like something ancient was watching, but not in a threatening way. Protective, almost.

Ronnie, already ahead, turned to a bent, wrinkled old woman sweeping the steps of a wooden shack. Her back was hunched, her eyes clouded with age, but her presence was sharp.

"Grandma," Ronnie greeted, bowing slightly. "Do you know where Boss Estello is?"

She paused, then pointed a knotted finger down the road, toward the edge of the village. A lone warehouse stood there—corrugated walls, rusted but solid. Too modern for the setting, yet it didn’t look out of place, either.

"Estello," she said, voice low and tired. "He’s been there since morning. Don’t be too loud."

Ronnie nodded. "Thank you, Grandma."



They walked deeper into the village. The air was cooler under the massive canopy of the balete trees, their twisting limbs knitting together above like a ceiling. Light pierced through in narrow, golden shafts. The place felt... still. Alive, but still. Not silent, exactly—more like listening.

"Seriously," Jack whispered, "you guys are walking like this is normal. This looks like a cult town."

Anita gave him a sideways glance. "You think everything outside the city is a cult town."

"I mean," Jack gestured up at the trees. "Look at this. This isn’t just a forest. This is... mythology."

Richard wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the houses. The smell of smoked fish, the sound of children playing barefoot, the slow rhythms of village life—he didn’t remember being here, but something inside him recognized it. Like muscle memory. A hum beneath the skin.

"Feels like home," he said softly.

Jack blinked. "Are you serious? This place feels like the intro scene of a horror movie. You feel home?"

Richard smiled faintly. "Yeah. Like... I belong."

Ronnie looked back, walking backwards now. "That’s not uncommon. Some people, when they come here, also felt like they’re home while other get sick. Unlucky ones just lose their minds."

Jack stopped. "Dude. Seriously. You’re not helping."

Anita kept walking. "If your heart’s heavy, the trees know. That’s what the elders say."

Jack rubbed his arms like he had goosebumps. "I hate folklore. Why do you all talk in riddles?"