The Sovereign Veil Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Placement Exams

Read chapter 11 of The Sovereign Veil by GodEmperor on NovelPedia.

On the club's asphalt track. The members secretly gasped, profoundly shaken by the terrifying reality Lucian had casually displayed. Who would have thought that this seemingly ordinary eighteen-year-old possessed a geopolitical background capable of scrubbing military-grade orbital satellites in real-time? Even Marcus Vance, the arrogant heir of the Vance dynasty, was stunned into absolute silence. "Young Master... my Young Master has offended you greatly. Please, forgive his indiscretion." Captain Cheng bowed deeply, roughly pulling the dazed Marcus down into a slight bow alongside him. "You don't want me to pay for the aero-car anymore?" Lucian asked, a mild smile on his face. Captain Cheng and Marcus flinched, terrified that Lucian was subtly threatening them for not letting the issue go. "No... no need!" Marcus stammered, his arrogance completely shattered. "I... I smashed this aero-car myself! A complete accident!" "Yes, the Young Master's thrusters malfunctioned. He crashed the vehicle himself," Captain Cheng echoed rapidly, sweating bullets. The exaggerated, terrified reactions of the two Vance operatives made Lucian internally roll his eyes. The club members felt a massive surge of satisfaction and relief. But in reality, Lucian hadn't used some terrifying geopolitical background. He had simply asked the Primal AI to scrub the footage because he genuinely couldn't afford a six-million-credit repair bill and didn't want to bankrupt his mother's pharmaceutical company over a petty flex. Fortunately, this matter was effortless for the AI. As the Primal AI had stated, any virtual network below a Tier-4 civilization's standard was basically an open sandbox. Bypassing Terra-Nova's orbital grid was a trivial perk of being the Veil's Supreme Leader. Marcus and Captain Cheng evacuated the premises in a hurry, leaving the cratered Zenith Interceptor behind for a salvage crew. The club members cheered, and the crowd subtly gravitated toward Lucian. "Hey, Boss," Chloe giggled, a hint of genuine charm in her voice. "I never thought the handsome guy I casually raced on the highway would turn out to be a hidden titan." "Actually, I'm just a student from a mid-tier logistics family..." Lucian explained sincerely. "Hey! What are those looks for?" Lucian protested, seeing that every single person in the club now wore a deadly serious expression, silently communicating that they would 'keep his secret.' "We absolutely believe you!" "This matter will not leave this compound, Boss." The club members swore spontaneously. "Mid-tier logistics family?" Chloe's eyes sparkled with amusement. Lucian's real-world identity was obviously a meticulously crafted alias or a front. Chloe, connected to the upper echelons of Onyx City, guessed that Lucian's true identity fell into one of two categories. The first was that he was a scion of an Apex lineage families so deeply entrenched in the Neo-European or Pan-Asian high commands that any digital footprint they made was automatically rationalized or scrubbed by military AI. Most of the club, and the police officers, assumed this was the case. But there's another possibility, Chloe mused, looking at Lucian. He could be connected to the Under-Grid... or even the Sovereign of the Under-Grid himself. The Under-Grid was the terrifying, unregulated black-market network that existed beneath the human factions' jurisdictions. If Lucian was connected to that world, it was even more terrifying. The Under-Grid was the only rogue entity known to possess the cyber-warfare capabilities to effortlessly blind military satellites. Lucian sighed. He had no idea what unhinged conspiracy theories these people were cooking up; they clearly took him for some kind of untouchable dignitary. It took half an hour for the club's automated modification bay to buff and repaint the scratch on Lucian's sapphire coupe. After exchanging comm-frequencies with Chloe, Lucian fired up the V12 and drove home. Meanwhile, Marcus and Captain Ch