Elian Reyes exited the elevator on the fourth floor of NovaTech's office in BGC before the sun had even risen. Most people would anticipate a rest after the demanding interview and the spontaneous one-hour web application challenge that he had remarkably finished. Elian, however, does not.
Mr. Aldric Navarro, the president of the corporation, had looked at the five other important people in the room as soon as the challenge was over. I'm impressed. Curious. eager. They led him straight into a team huddle area rather than to the reception or another meeting.
At that moment, it occurred.
[ DING! ]
[ URGENT SYSTEM MISSION ACTIVATED ]
Mission: Integrate and Deliver
Objective: Join NovaTech's development team to complete and deploy their high-priority government compliance platform within 8 hours.
Main Reward: Camella House (Premium, Single Detached, 2-Storey)
Side Mission: Type Over 10,000 Lines of Code Without a Typo
Reward: Fast Typing Hands (Passive Talent – 300 WPM accuracy, 99.9%)
Elian's mouth fell open for a moment.
A home? A Camella mansion, not a modest apartment, not a rented space?
The team's project manager, Markson Tayag, a strong man in his late 30s with a stern but gentle manner, said, "Come with me." "You are currently being deployed."
After receiving a visitor's access badge, he was escorted through glass doors into a bright, airy room with desks with two monitors, whiteboards with schematics scrawled on them, and team members typing as if their lives depended on it.
Markson got right to the point of the briefing.
He started by pointing to a Gantt chart timeline on the wall and saying, "We've been building a critical compliance platform for an LGU partner." "The customer abruptly changed the three-week deployment timetable to... tomorrow AM. A long tale. politics.
He went on, pointing to a board with a UI mockup. This system manages emergency response tracking, permits, and immunization data. Within the next twelve hours, they want it hosted on their server and completely operational.
He turned to Elian. We're assigning you to our deployment and integration team. Are you able to manage SQL optimization, Blazor front-end integration, .NET Core 8, and Azure DevOps deployment?"
Elian let out a breath. Indeed. I am capable of doing this.
[ Side Mission Progress: 0/10,000 lines ]
He was given a desk in the team's emergency war room, known as the "red zone." He was tasked with creating a dynamic dashboard, connecting it to the reporting engine, and integrating the registration and authentication module. The stakes are high. There is no room for error.
He launched Visual Studio, popped his knuckles, and got to work.
Elian was given a terminal with a duplicate of the team's monolithic codebase blinking on both monitors. In a matter of minutes, he was developing service classes, mapping RESTful APIs, and reading project design files as if he had been a member of the team for months.
The module for which he was assigned? constructing and integrating the Citizen Dashboard, a dynamic user interface that retrieved and showed current immunization and permission data.
Even he was surprised at how quickly he typed. Similar to a pianist in full performance mode, his fingers moved across the keys. Every function he wrote and every file he opened flowed.
"Who is this new guy? A nearby developer murmured.
He is the one who, in my opinion, aced the interview task. He was immediately dragged into production.
"Gosh. He is coding like the wind.
[ Side Mission Progress: 6,742/10,000 lines ]
Sweating, a junior developer ran over.
"There is an issue with the Alert API endpoint. The retry logic is broken, and we're receiving 503s.
Markson looked across to Elian. "Will you investigate?"
With a nod, he launched the endpoint diagnostics. He identified the problem in five minutes: an incorrect async call within the refresh token logic that caused failures to cascade across several retry tries. He built unit tests, incorporated fail-safes, and reorganized the process.
Press. Build. Go ahead. Repaired.
"Who is this child? Someone uttered such words. "In twenty minutes, he solved a three-day problem."
[ Side Mission Complete: 10,000 lines written ]Reward Unlocked: Fast Typing Hands (300 WPM passive)
Elian went back to the dashboard and redesigned his elements to make sure they were responsive and compliant with accessibility standards. He developed a permissions-based navigation menu system and used SignalR to implement real-time changes.
Others, meantime, stopped to watch him.
The QA lead whispered, "He's not just quick." "His code is clear. modular. Recorded.
He was writing the YAML scripts for deployment by the sixth hour. He set up his Azure DevOps pipeline perfectly.
"No build errors," exclaimed one team member. "Not a single one."
Behind him, Markson and the CTO stood with their arms folded.
Are you prepared to deploy? The CTO inquired.
Elian clicked the last command after nodding.
[DEPLOYMENT: SUCESSSFUL]
[STAGING ENVIRONTMENT - LIVE]
[PRODUCTION VERIFIED]
After a brief period of silence, the war room burst into cheers. Elian took a big breath and reclined in his chair.
Along with the rest of the C-level staff, President Aldric Navarro entered the room. Their faces? utter amazement.
"What our most seasoned developers would find difficult to complete in two weeks, you accomplished in six hours," Navarro remarked.
Marian De Villa, the CTO, stated, "You don't just meet expectations, you defy them."
The HR Director gave a clap. "More than a job is yours."
[DING... ]
Urgent Mission Complete: Integrate and Deliver
Reward: Camella House
- Location: Taguig City, Camella Tierra Alta
The interface in his thoughts displayed a full-color picture. The two-story house with a garden, balcony, and garage was stunning. The title bore his name.
To his surprise, a sealed package was discovered in his backpack as Elian reached inside. He opened it with somewhat shaking hands. The legitimate title deed was inside, with his name, Elian Reyes, prominently displayed at the top.
It was an actual property.
He owned the house.
Emotion nearly choked him.
That night, the team insisted on celebrating. Trays of food arrived. Cans of soda were opened. From a Bluetooth speaker, music played.
Those around Elian genuinely recognized his value. He didn't feel like a failure or a burden for the first time. He had a sense of heroism.
His phone buzzed once more as he was packing up his belongings, still in a fog, the title deed tucked away like a gem in his suitcase.
He went home.
Unknown Number Calling...
He answered. "Hello?"
"Elian Reyes?" A friendly but professional voice inquired. "Hi, this is Andrea from HR. I just wanted to congratulate you again on your performance today."
"Thank you, ma'am," Elian said, trying not to appear overwhelmed.
"Sir Novarro and the board want to conclude everything as soon as possible. Would you be available to return tomorrow morning to sign your job contract? We will also go over your perks, official onboarding documentation, and the remote work setup you will require."
"Yes, of course! I'll be there," Elian said quickly, his heart racing again.
"Great! Come in at 10:00 AM, 4th floor, same building. Just bring a valid ID. We're excited to have you officially on board."
The call ended.