Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

Additionally, the pro gamer turned out to be a good catch after all – at least from the perspective of marketing. He wasn’t the slob that everybody had expected.

As it turned out, professional computer game players in Korea were a whole different breed from their foreign counterparts. The Koreans took gaming much more seriously as evidenced by their many PC Bangs (public computer rooms), professional coaches and team houses equipped with gyms and other amenities. All these resulted in gamer geeks behaving like celebrity athletes.

Lee Chul-Moo, a.k.a. TriggerRipper, looked exactly as Mr. Spaulding feared he would be: slim, effeminately handsome, and looked more at home in an idol audition. But the media lapped it all up like milk in a saucer. A lot of companies piggybacked on Omni Systems’ promotions and sponsored the lucky winners, or at least the ones who were open to even more media attention. They provided Chul-Moo a jacket covered with patches of brand logos and offered the Brazilian a TV-hosting contract. You’d think from all the attention heaped on them that they were astronauts, which in a sense they were, because they were risking their lives to venture “where no man has ever gone before”. 

They were the “Imagineers” or “Oneironauts” (Dream Explorers), as the media had dubbed them. It helped that Chul-Moo was always game and had the spirit of a showman, always posing for the cameras with his customary peace sign, flashing his bad boy grin and making a lot of fangirls faint.

Zacharie Michel, the French painter and backpacker, was Chul-Moo’s exact opposite. He watched the pro gamer’s antics with a sardonic smile that belied a deeper distaste. He didn’t look too pleased either that the US was the first to invent another world-changing tech. But though he refused to sign autographs or smile for the cameras, he didn’t badmouth Omni Systems like Mr. Spaulding had feared.

A possible reason for this was Mr. Chase conceding to Mr. Spaulding and giving the five winners the right to pass their golden ticket to any other person of their choice. This had created an online bidding war for the SKYE tickets, with prices going up to as much as 6.6 million dollars. But since Zacharie chose not to sell or give away his ticket, this meant that he actually appreciated its original value. The strategy was quite clever because it also prevented Zacharie from openly saying anything anti-Omni Systems or even anti-tech.        

Ayodele Eze, the veterinary student from Nigeria, was just as popular and photogenic as Chul-Moo. Girls from across the globe envied her flawless dark complexion, naturally curly hair, and the fact that she was the perfect combination of beauty and brains. She was fluent in both English and Mandarin and was planning, once she got her veterinary degree, to pursue a degree in International Health Management.

A proof of her studiousness was the fact that she was the only one of the Imagineers who wore glasses (Chul-Moo wore green contact lenses). Even though her glasses were definitely not just a look and her field of study being completely different, they earned her the nickname the “hot nurse” online.

Winning the ticket to SKYE had yanked Ayodele into the spotlight and the private fantasies of tens of millions of male fans. The camera flashes came with a lot of unwelcome eyes. To those cyber-stalkers and lascivious commenters, she lectured through the media:

“My mom emphasized two things to me from childhood,” she said in English with a slight Yoruba accent. “Christianity and education. These two are what I value the most and it makes perfect sense that these are the last things people see about me. And I like it that way. They’re the parts of me that remain private and untouchable. Like my mother taught me: ‘Invest in what can’t be taken from you.’ ”  

Most of her beauty-pageant answers went over the heads of her young female fanbase, to say the least of her adult male stalkers. Particularly to the second group, she had a more straightforward message:

“I also have a lot of law books for my private reading. I’m well-acquainted with cyber-crime law including online bullying and sexual harassment. I will not tolerate sexist remarks of any kind so, for your own sake, think twice about what you post because I’d probably request Mr. Chase to track you down. You might dub me your ‘Dream Girl’ now but I’m telling you, I could very well be your worst nightmare.”

That earned a chuckle from Mr. Spaulding. As far as he could see, the girl could handle herself. As in real life, she would be no passive victim of sexual assault in VR multiplayer.

The fourth Imagineer was Luiz Henrique Costa e Silva Senna, the Brazilian fitness motivator who had a degree in Sports Medicine. At twenty-four years old, he was already the oldest of the bunch. This, in Mr. Spaulding eyes, weighed more than the fact that he was the fittest of the group. Like an insurance underwriter, Mr. Spaulding figured that the closer to thirty a man got, the more tilted the risk-reward balance was.   

About him, Mr. Spaulding was once again proven wrong by Athena because Luiz in fact represented the untold number of health-conscious individuals the world over. Apart from being a lover of extreme sports, he was also a dietician and a soccer coach to kids. The media nicknamed him the Latin Vin Diesel and he had his own group of sponsors and fanbase. Simultaneous to his inclusion to the Imagineers, his exercise regimen, which was a high-intensity type of interval workout, became a hit and opened a whole new income stream, energizing his till-then mediocre career as a fitness trainer.