Fifteen minutes after the miserable end of the spar.

Aron had been revived after being given a once-over by Nova, who was worried about his state of mind whenever he experienced a death in the simulation, much less one as... devastating as his most recent. After all, she fully expected there to be some sequelae after experiencing death firsthand, something that had already long been an issue with the harsh ARES training.

But while the issues were similar, the solutions were most definitely not. ARES troopers could have their memories deleted, or at least reduced in intensity to around the same level of impact that dying in a dream would have, while Arons mental defenses, not to mention the system riding in his consciousness, was absolutely impenetrable to any form of mental manipulation that came from outside the system. Even when Nova had spotted the issue during Arons first upgrade, she had been incapable of interfering until the system recognized what she was doing and relented on its own.

To this day, she had devoted a not insignificant portion of her enormous processing power to figuring out a cure for what she saw as damage inflicted on Aron by his own system, but to no avail. Every method she attempted had ended in failure, with the total number of simulated solutions having long broken past the quintillion mark. Even a quantum AI like her had simply stopped counting the iterations.

Even so, she never slacked in her duty to check on his mental state whenever he suffered any form of psychological impact.

Nova stood in what she considered to be her positionone step behind Aron and one to his leftwhile he sat opposite Nyx and Athena at a rustic oak picnic table, working their way through the recent spar and figuring out ways to improve. To the AIs, Aron was unfathomably adaptive and could counter anything they could possibly think of using shortly after having it used on him. After all, they were still limited by the shackles of their core code modules, preventing them from experiencing true life in all of its irrational, illogical glory. Thus, they also had to continue to evolve their fighting styles and tricks if they wanted to continue being useful sparring partners for him.

The review went back and forth among the three of them in a freeform discussion, highlighting the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. Ten whole hours passed before the three combat junkies finished their review, having made sure all of the mistakes had been highlighted and potential alternative actions identified.

With that, Aron glanced at Nova and said, Lets prepare for the full council meeting.

Nova nodded and snapped her fingers, teleporting everyone to the imperial council hall, a much less formal and more bland space that wouldnt look out of place even if it were to be extended to fit all of the millions of imperial employees on Earth. But at that moment, it was shrunk to its smallest possible size, as the only members of the imperial council were the heads and vice-heads of each imperial agency, together with the three ministers that stood just below Aron in prestige, position, and power.

Upon their arrival, the council members, who had only been waiting on the emperor, immediately stood and bowed their heads.

......

Be seated, Aron said as he took a seat in his own throne. The council chamber was shaped like a clamshell amphitheater with a raised platform for the emperor, the three ministers, and the AI leaders who served alongside them. Inspired by the famous Hollywood Bowl in the Hollywood Hills, it even had natural acoustics that would project Arons voice, or that of the ministers, to the entire council chamber even if it had been extended to the maximum, much less now, when it only seated a little over a hundred people.

That said, the acoustic design was only a perk, as through the magic of the simulation, everyone could hear everyone else in crystal clarity.

The seating arrangement was first-come-first-serve, with agency heads that arrived early getting preferential seating at the front, a measure that ensured no single agency could get a swelled head and sense of self-importance that would come along with preferential seating assignments. And even though it was the first meeting of the full council of the empire, as all previous meetings were held in the secrecy of the emperors office, or the luxury of the emperors council chamber, there was very little in the way of chaos. Naturally, that was also made possible through the simulation; everyone invited to attend the meeting only needed to indicate that they were ready and they would immediately be teleported to the next available council seat.

But not only was today the first meeting of the full council, it was also the first meeting that would be broadcast live, letting everyone who was interested see the heads of the various imperial agencies. It would also be the first public introduction to the higher-order AIs that had been integral to running the government so far.

The entire world was in for a show.

The meeting that was currently being held was being broadcast live for two reasons. First and foremost was Arons dedication to transparency in government. Unless it was absolutely necessary, he would never hold a closed-door meeting, nor would he allow one to be held privately among the agency heads. That had been made abundantly clear in their introductory data files that theyd now had more than enough time to study.

Second was to present a summary of the empires progress on various projects, as well as introducing the agency heads... and the AIs.

Many people had been wondering what the empire was actually doing, as most of the work had been carried out silently and in secret. Now that the atmospheric scrubbers and the awakenings had been completed, though, along with a number of other initial objectives, it was time to shine a light on the shadows and chase away the cockroaches who had been doing their level best to undermine the empires foundations.