Chapter 344.Perks
[A special perk has been activated.]
[Beginning Synchronisation with the character ‘Kai August’.]
As soon as those words appeared in front of Aiden, he didn’t even have time to collect himself. Before he knew it, he found himself in a space that was dark.
He was barely able to make what was in front of him. Fear seeped in his heart for a second before he calmed himself down by taking deep breaths.
‘What is going on?’
He thought as he tried to move but he found himself unable to. It was like chains were holding his legs in place.
He started to panic the next second after the attempts to move failed. At that moment, a system notification appeared in front of him.
[Synchronisation with the character ‘Kai August’ has begun… 1 percent… 2 percent…]
As soon as that system notification appeared in front of him, he saw a silhouette of a person appear in front of him.
He squinted his eyes to look better at the person and found out that he was wearing a suit. The silhouette was around his height but the most surprising thing about him was that he didn’t have any face.
It was just blank. Like someone has erased their facial features. Aiden felt like it was a bit creepy and he tried to not focus too much on it.
He instead looked at the system notification in front of him. The synchronisation was slowly going on and soon, he began to understand who the silhouette in front of him was.
‘Kai.’
Like agreeing with him, the blank face slowly started getting its facial features back. Aiden glanced back and forth at the face and the system notification.
He realised that as the synchronisation was increasing, the silhouette was getting its facial features back.
[71 percent… 72 percent… 73 percent…]
Unsurprisingly, the facial features were exactly like Aiden’s. As the synchronisation rate increased, he got more sure of it.
A lot of questions appeared in his mind seeing the weird phenomenon. But he waited for the synchronisation to end.
Finally after waiting for a few minutes, the synchronisation reached the end.
[98 percent… 99 percent… 100 percent.]
Now, it was like Aiden was looking in a mirror as the person in front of him looked exactly like him. Just in a suit with a smirk on his face.
He knew he was Kai.
[The synchronisation with the character ‘Kai August’ has been completed. You are now one with the character.]
[Congratulations on such a feat.]
[You have gotten perks for achieving this. Your control of the character ‘Kai August’ has increased significantly.]
[You have gained a few of the abilities of the character.]
[Your body has become a bit more athletic.]
[You have gotten the skill ‘Domination’ — The ability to instill fear and nervousness in the person you are looking at. It’s an active skill that can only be used once per day. People would start to fear when the skill is activated.]
Aiden’s eyes widened as he read the skill description. He felt like he was bestowed with a lot of gifts today.
First, he had leveled up and now, he had gotten a skill straight out of Kai. He didn’t seem like one he would use in acting as his goal isn’t to make his co-actor fear him but it did look like something that could be useful.
As Aiden looked at Kai in front of him again, he smirked and the next second, the dark space broke and Aiden felt himself standing at the same spot on the set that he was before getting the notifications.
‘How much time has passed?’
He looked around in surprise and saw that the crew and cast were still around.
Though, he did look like some time had passed.
“Aiden. Aiden.”
“Ah, yeah?”
Suddenly, a voice called out to him and he blinked his eyes to see Wade standing in front of him.
“What happened to you? I was calling out to you for five minutes but you stood there like a stone, not even blinking. Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Aiden shook his head. “I was just thinking about—”
The next second, he felt like his body had no strength and he always fell off. Thankfully, Wade stopped him from falling and held his shoulders.
“It doesn’t look like you are okay.”
Wade said, looking at him.
“I’m. It’s just… exhausted. I feel exhausted.”
He let out a sigh. He didn’t know why but he felt really exhausted at the moment. Maybe, it was because of his system or just because he had worked tirelessly these days.
But he wanted to rest.
Thankfully, [The Black Saints] was over now. Another movie wrapped!
***
Ava looked down at the sky. Birds were flying and the sun was out, shining down on the pedestrians. Tall buildings were everywhere and even if Titan studios headquarters was pretty itself, it didn’t compare to some of the buildings around.
For a moment, she wondered about a time when there were no buildings in LA but before that thought reached anywhere, a voice called her out.
“This is the project file that you asked me to bring.”
Ava turned around to find her red haired assistant standing there, putting a few files on her desk. She nodded her head and sat down before picking up a file.
“So, is it decided?”
“From what I have heard around the company, yes. There were other projects that were discussed but in the end, this is the only one that struck out. All the other scripts and projects were again pushed down as projects that aren’t financially doable.”
The assistant said, adding up a few rumours that she had heard around the company. This was one of the reasons that Ava liked her. She had good ears.
By ‘financially doable’, she meant that the company felt like they wouldn’t be able to get as much profits as they want with those projects. Even if they are a hit.
Titan studios was hard at word, trying to make a team to work on a superhero franchise but they were also prioritising another project before it that they expected to blow up as a franchise. The setting of a fantasy action adventure was decided and a few scripts were pitched.
There were even discussions of novel adaptations.
Ava herself had tried to push for a project called [The Black Knight] but it was rejected based on the reason that it was too dark. The studio didn’t want to take a different approach to change the setting.
She understood it too as it was better for a franchise to be more kid friendly. Companies are always after the merchandise sales.
“It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”
Ava said after reading the whole project file. Her assistant nodded in front of her with a similar grave expression.
“Yes, it is. But it seems like they are very confident that this time they will be able to do it properly.”
“Yeah but [Hex] is always going to be an extremely hard movie to shoot. The whole series is very complex and it’s not easy to make a live action adaptation out of it. We have tried before.”
Ava sighed, thinking of the last two attempts that Titan studios have made. [Hex] was an extremely popular novel series that ended in 2005. Straight after it, Titan studios have bagged the rights to it, wanting to do a live action.
Two attempts and five directors later, they have realised that it was not easy. Since 2010, the idea to make this movie has been lost with no one talking about it, seemingly giving up on it.
“It seems like they are going for it because if they manage to pull it off, the chances of success are really high. The whole series is complex but has characters that could be marketed towards a younger demographic.”
“I understand that but these sorts of movies need vision. The last time, the studio hired directors that were good but they didn’t have any vision. The technology wasn’t good back then and they didn’t have the capability to push it either.”
Some directors would go so far to develop new technology to make movies. She knew of directors that have asked to develop technology to shoot just one scene.
Sadly, they were extremely, extremely rare.
“I guess, if they are serious, then they would soon start to hear pitches on the subject.”
Ava muttered and at that, her assistant hesitated for a second before giving her a piece of information that she had heard accidentally.
“Actually, I don’t know if it’s confirmed but I heard that Olio Fermen is extremely interested in directing the movie. You know that he’s a big fan of the series, right?”
“I know he has approached the studio a lot to get a chance to direct it. He even says that he already has every plan that he can execute perfectly.”
Ava said, then realised one thing that just crossed her mind.
Olio Fermen was a friend of Alberto Dundley.