Chapter 524: Punished.

It was midnight, and as soon as the two cars stopped the fireworks arranged on the side of the roads went off, and a camera crew rushed over to film and broadcast the two people getting out of their vehicles. The young men smiled at each other and even chuckled. Leo said, "You had me nervous on that straight, you punk."The man chuckled and said, "I thought I would try to squeeze in, who knew the tire would slide."

Leo turned to look at the camera, and with a smile he said, "Friends, tonight we bring you the first of the many games that the Cardinal Group has been working on, Motorworld, it would be released at midnight in all the legal platforms in the world, and the first thousand who manage to earn a grand slam on any of the extreme race track events will be getting a full hyper dimensional cockpit set up free as a reward from the company. I will be there, waiting for you to come and challenge my time and if fate allows, me in the game. Let's have a go at it, shall we?"

Elvin jumped in from the side and said, "Let that rubber burn!"

...

In the backend office of the Cardinal Group, the team responsible for managing the server room, watched the data climb as soon as the game went online on midnight. The people were surprised, they had no idea that the game would receive such a good response. Simulator racing was not a new concept, there had been games that allowed the people to use simulation controls but nothing was as extensive as Motorworld.

There were million people right away, they registered together and thankfully, they had a lot of servers prepared and Rama Kashyap said, "Guys, add more, every million users, I want you to add two more servers and get in touch with the internet management team, get the data of how many users they speculate to join. I don't want any mess."

The people nodded to the director and then they got back to work. Meanwhile, in the Cardinal house, Lily has managed to sneak into the game room inside the mansion, and she was driving an extreme racing car on an extreme racing event. She was fourth, but that was because she was using the virtual reality helmet Leo had gotten for them. After a dozen laps, she got the hang of it and began pushing forward.

She made a pit stop on the fifteenth lap and then she became a rocket. The realist setting of the game was almost as close as reality, just the noise and the wind sound against the helmet was not there. However, she was not focused on that. The entire thing was very highly sophisticated, and it responded like the real thing as well. Lily was a child but and the steering was too heavy for her to move, however, she had taken genetic serum, and with the aid of the daily martial art training, she had gained a lot of strength. This was power that enabled her to handle the steering rather easily.

The young lady enjoyed charging in the corners and dive bombing the people. Karting was nothing but mastering the art of wheel to wheel driving, and she had been participating in a lot of races and had gained a lot of experience. She took the lead by the time the race reached lap thirty. The AI team radio message cleared it, "Lily you are P1. Good job, head down and keep going."

Lily smiled under the virtual reality helmet, she started to improve her way around the track. The whole thing looked like magic, and the viewer gallery feature was catching some traction as well. The people could see how Lily was improving her time. Many people applauded her, as the AI commentary feature was highlighting a lot of stats, trivia and the ongoing performance remarks. It was as if the people were watching a real race.

While the little lady was having the time of her life, Leo had come back home, and he was leaning against the door frame of the study-cum-game room He watched her patiently, although he liked how she was enjoying it, but he knew that it was past bedtime. However, who was to be blamed, the man had told her how he and his father used to play for nights and get scolded.

Lily had agreed to play with him on the weekend night but in Leo's mind, she was a bit too young at the moment. He was thinking about what he should do, punishing her was too hard for him, probably a reprimand would do it, but then that was all he could do, he could not let her sit down in the cockpit all night long, could he? Snow would have his skin peeled off.

The race finished and the screen displayed Lily as the winner, and the little girl giggled as she raised both her arms in the air and cheered. Leo sighed, he walked up to her, and gently took off the virtual reality headset from her head. Lily froze, and Leo spoke softly, "Do you know what would happen to us if your mother found out you were busy playing video games at this hour?"

Lily gulped, she was scared of getting scolded from Snow, and she nodded, and said, "I will go to bed right now, and then I will sleep, in the morning, I will revise the family rules ten times, in written."

Leo leaned over and kissed her forehead, as he said, "To be honest, I had no idea what I should do, because if I didn't scold you, it would be a sword on my skin. Well, after the punishment we can discuss the time table for the weekend gaming session. Okay?"

Lily nodded and she kissed Leo's cheek hard, and said, "Baba, you always try to avoid scolding me, why so?"

Her big eyes blinking with pure curiosity and innocence. Leo picked her up, and realized that even though Lily was smarter than the people her age, she was still a child. The young man took a deep breath and said, "Because you are a sensible child. You rarely make trouble, how can I bear to scold you? No parent want to scold their child, it is just that sometimes when children get too naughty, the parents cannot help themselves. Since you solved the trouble, I am happy for that."

That said, he carried her to her bedroom while asking about the review of the game. Lily said, "It seems real, but the gravitational pull, and other factors are not that realistic and this is why anyone who has been to even kart driving or driving their own car around the track, would know how to maximize their winning factor in this game."

Leo nodded, and replied, "When the main reason behind this game is to train the cognitive and reflexes of the people. This will help them improve their chances to heighten their intelligence when they are subjected to gene enhancement serum in the coming future."

Lily raised her brows and asked, "Baba, are you sure that we can give these things to the normal populace of the world? I mean, if they all get as much power as Uncle Kyle and the rest, it can create a lot of trouble."

Leo nodded and then he said, "Well, what we can do is dilute the formula so that even if the normal people have a higher degree of strength and intelligence, they would still be under the levels of the normal soldiers and cops. Also, you have to remember that everyone has a different level of affinity towards the gene enhancing serum, so we can try to nurture the people as they grow. However, it would be a troublesome situation if we neglected the lesser affinity people, as it would create discriminative ground. So, we are not in a hurry, let us think properly as to what we need to do to rectify such trouble."

He came to her reach and then tucked her in before he went back to his room. Just when he was about to fall asleep, he got a call from Snow. He picked it up with a smile, but the lady said, "Did you forget about the baby monitor I had placed in the study when we were there?"

Leo gulped, and he sighed, Snow said, "Your daughter is so sensible that she would revise the family law ten times. I want to see the same from you. How can you allow her to get away with it, Leo Christopher Cardinal, if my daughter turned out to be spoiled you will never hear the end of it."

Leo only nodded and tried to calm her down. The petrol head and the domineering man he had been outside the house was nowhere to be seen. Snow knew perfectly well how to tame him. The young man sighed, and accepted his punishment and then after coaxing Snow a little more, and only when she calmed down did Leo dare to close his eyes to sleep.