“Oh, who are they?”

“You name it. We have clients who are companies trying to break into the youth market, especially in the young teenage boy demographics. Movie and television productions who want to hire a freelancer as a consultant on their shows. There are even some hero and villain conventions who want some villains to spice things up. We usually sent older freelancers for those. Honestly, we have more work than available freelancers.”

Victor look at the young woman in front of him as if he was in deep thoughts, but his mind was in turmoil. It was pure culture shock. The world had changed a lot in twenty years. After a time, Victor murmured a question.

“You said something about ‘appropriate’ freelancer? What do you mean by that?”

“H.A.V.E works in a tier format. I assume I do not need to explain the tiers to you.”

Victor nodded. The tier system was an informal ranking of heroes and villains based on their powers, fame, and influence. It has been around for as long as anyone could remember, and it made a certain sense for H.A.V.E to use that system. Seeing his nod, Candice continued.

“Any villain who register with us is placed in our registry and they will be assigned a rank from D to A. If you signed with us, H.A.V.E will automatically put the Sweet Fist as a C-rank freelancer. We can-“

“C?” Victor was in shock. He was a nobody when he went in, now he was ranked as a ‘C’. If he remembered correctly, that means he was ranked as a villain who could take over a city. Even with the cultivation, there was no way he was that powerful. However, Candice took his surprise as something else.

“Yes. With your name and reputation, you could easily be an A-lister, but I am afraid the fact that you have been out of the game for twenty years goes against you. There are a lot of young people who don’t know who you are.”

It took all of Victor’s self-control not to laugh. In his mind, the rank was too high, not too low. ‘B’ rank means he was a threat to a nation. An ‘A’ rank means he was threat to the world. There was no way he was a threat to the world, yet the company thought nothing of artificially inflating his rank. These people were crazy! They seem genuinely afraid of losing him. Jobs, respect, contacts, the more he knew of H.A.V.E, the better it looks. Not wanting to look too eager, Victor stayed silent, trying to look like he was deep in thought. Candice took the opportunity to play up the company.

“Jobs aren’t the only thing our company provide. We understand that it is not easy to be a successful villain, so H.A.V.E provide services like training, image consultants, online service staff, tax consultants, and many others stuff. All these services have a fee attached of course, but a little investment is nothing compare to the future payoff.”

“Tax consultants?” That sounds interesting. And totally ridiculous. “Villains need to pay taxes?”

“We are a company, and the earnings of our freelancers are taxable. Though only for the more open business you will be engaged with. Image rights, appearance fees, advertisement fees; stuff like that. Any bonus you get from civilians for doing their missions on our app are not taxable so don’t worry about that.” Candice smiled as she answered. This obviously was a question she had been asked before. She quickly moved the conversation along. “The company can take care of everything with our in-house tax consultants. Also, if you are ever in need of some quick cash or equipment, we have the monthly auction for you.”

“An auction? That sounds interesting. How does that work?”

“If a villain needs some quick cash, he can sell his weapons and equipment at our monthly auction. Some rich civilians love such stuff. This function is also popular with villains looking to upgrade their equipment. They don’t have to throw away their old stuff. Instead, they can just sell them at the auction and use the cash to buy new equipment. If you are looking for weapons and equipment sir, you can also bid for the items. I’m not sure how big of a crew you are putting together, but rest assured, H.A.V.E will have what you need to outfit them.”

The corner of Victor’s mouth twitched at that. Jolly Bar had told him last night people in the city were assuming that he was making a move for the city. They couldn’t be more wrong, but if H.A.V.E thought he was a city-level threat … Victor wasn’t going to try too hard to convince them otherwise. He liked the respect that came with the reputation.

Then the mission came.

“New task available for host Victor Volkov. Get a job. No one likes a deadbeat. Go get a job. Please complete the task within three days and return to this circle. If you fail to do so, you will be terminated.”

Victor smiled. Well, that was easy.