Ben was a bear of a man, wide shoulders, tall with incredible strong looking arms He had brown hair and eyes so dark brown the pupils were hard to distinguish between his iris. He's face a bit plain but young looking despite being 30 years old he looked 20. It was 7:45am and Ben was working on the building site of the company he worked for. Doing stock check making sure his work colleague had the correct building equipment and blueprints

Ben's teenage years were a bit rough, orphaned at 16 his mother and father was in a terrible car crash. Ben grieved at work having to support himself this was the only time he had to grieve. Making himself deathly quiet he didn't want to mix with anyone just work and grieve in peace. After the first 6 months the then foreman decided to take Ben under his wing and teach him everything he would need to know about carpentry, plumbing, bricklaying, roofing, reading blueprints, lead work, electrics wiring, plastering you name it. After 7 years of tutelage Ben could build his own home and nearly did, buying a super cheap run down house he set to work on the home in his spare time. At around this time the foreman decide to retire leaving the company without a foreman. Ben was chosen to run thing by the copany's partnership as an unofficial foreman until a better choice came along, increasing his pay to that of a foreman ben was pulling in the cash and investing it in run down buildings and fixing them up.

Now 30 years old he owned 2 houses and 3 flats complexes which he rented out. With his pay on top he had a huge amount of money coming in every month. Today was special, the partners was announcing the official foreman. Ben could only think he would be chosen due to the facts that every project he was in charge of came in on time and under budget and the fact every colleague respected Ben for being a good foreman making their lives much easier. Ben was sure he would become the official foreman, who else was there

The fated day had arrived and Ben was excited, he wouldn't get more power or any extra cash but it was more about pride. Ben had worked up to this point for 7 years. Entering the offices he was greeted by Matthew the CEO, Ben respected the Matthew, but the look on the man's face was a bit put out he didn't look happy

Ben decide to ask what was wrong "you don't look too pleased what happened"

Matthew looked at him, eyes just barely meeting his "bad news the partners have decide that a university graduate will be the new foreman and that you would go form foreman pay to workforce pay"

Ben looked at Matthew hard not saying anything, thinking about what he had just said. Ben was a patient man, all he could do was ask "why, haven't i done a good job"

Matthew replied "it's come down to you not having a diploma, i tried to push you though as foreman but even the CEO has to answer to the partners. They said that having a non diploma person running a site could hurt the stock prices and that paying someone without one was a waste when you could pay for the same amount for a person who had one".

Ben was shaking his head in disagreement "it didn't matter to the partners for many years that i didn't have a diaploma. No one has complained in those many years".

Matthew was nodding his head "I know but they said only one person needs to get hurt or one person to complain before people ask why they didn't have a trained foreman."

"I AM TRAINED" Ben said with a raising voice

Matthew stepped back, he himself was as tall as Ben but in no way as stocky or broad.

Within a week Ben had been replaced, he was at a loss what to do. Ben realized that he couldn't fight against higher ups without losing time and effort. Even if he did win there was no guarantee that he would be employed and more likely to be fired. Ben thought it over, the problem was the damn diploma. The answer was simple get one.

Ben walk up to the new foreman, the foreman turn out to be one of the sons of the higher ups, his name was Robert, not a bad man just full of himself and a bit uptight.

Ben spoke clearly so there was no confusion "morning I'm talking to you today because i want i sabbatical"

Robert didn't know what to say, he know that Ben was a kind of foreman before him, he also thought Ben was being prideful and wanted to hurt him by not being there.

Robert replied "that's fine its not like you're overly need here but just tell me why you need this break from work"

Ben looked at Robert and said "to get qualified".

Robert just laughed "that will take years, well good luck"

Ben turned around and left

Walking down the high street Ben didn't know where to start school was time consuming and private tutelage was expensive, he need more info, so he pulled out his phone and searched for tutors and fast results.

The first results was "tutors on royal road fast and easy," Ben carried on reading "because of the 4 times speed difference you can fit in 24 hours game time only in 6 hours real life. Anything from biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, geography, languages, and so much more," Ben was sold. All he needed was a capsule and in game money for payment to the tutors, both was easy to get a hold of. Ben ordered the capsule and felt a bit better looking forward to learning.

Two day later the capsule had arrived and was being installed. After saying his goodbyes to the installers and tipping them a small amount he climbed into the capsule.

Connect to Royal Road
yes / no