Imposter System

Chapter 76: Reception Deception

"Hello, thank you for coming." Alexis says to the person approaching them. He nods reaches out his hand and gives the two of them a handshake. When he clasps hands with Matt, he finds Matt's eyes quite peculiar. Although he wasn't interested in men, he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of Matt.

"Do you know the old admiral?" Matt asked while smiling and maintaining eye contact.

"Only from hearsay. I feel fortunate to have met him in person." The man replied without much thought. He felt he could trust Matt and didn't feel the need to lie or talk indirectly.

"I was very impressed too. I wonder if he would take over command if there was an emergency. What do you think?"

The man nodded and pondered for a moment. It was a question he hadn't considered, but now that he thought it over, he also wondered. "Perhaps. However, the captain has the backing of several influential people, so it would be difficult."

At that moment, Matt's eyes became even more mesmerizing. The man simply couldn't turn away. Matt's smile became more genuine as he inwardly celebrated. His hypnosis crossed into the next stage and he could immediately feel the difference. Since getting stronger, he was much more sensitive to the changes to his powers.

"Influential people? Do you know who they are?" Matt asked with confidence.

"I'm afraid not." He shook his head. They finally let go of each other's hands and the man left to mingle with those that have already arrived. Since there was a short break in guests, Matt read over the now level three hypnosis skill.

[Weak Hypnosis Lv. 3: Whenever you make eye contact with someone, they will listen to whatever you say and believe your words to hold much more weight than others. The influence of those words lasts even after eye contact has been broken.

]Hypnosis: Major

]Ability: Mesmerism]

[Hypnosis

Activation: Eye contact

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Duration: Special

Proficiency: Major (1/100)]

[Mesmerism: Due to the nature of your mental energy, those in physical contact with you react slightly more favorably towards your words and actions. Acts of aggression towards the target will remove this effect.

Activation: Touch

Duration: Special

Magnitude: 1.2]

{I'm going to go mingle with some of the other guests.} Alexis said as she looked over to some of the cliques that were already forming. Matt sensed her ability activate and was shocked to see the area had expanded. Sensing his thoughts, she gave him a wink. {I'm pretty cool, right? I practiced a lot on my own.}

{Go easy on them. I don't want competitors.} Matt thought, rolling his eyes.

{Bah, stingy.} Alexis thought with a teasing look on her face. As she left Matt couldn't help but smile. Alexis's ability was very interesting and Matt didn't completely understand it's mechanism. He was excited to see what kind of results she could come up with.

Matt switched his attention to the captain. It didn't come as a surprise to him that he was being backed. However, no matter how many contributions you made on Earth, it shouldn't affect your position on the ship in the long run. Therefore, Matt decided to eliminate the people that paid for their spot from this group of backers.

The most reasonable choices would be those that have a strong position on the ship. The top people in the chain of command, the chief science, medical, and engineering officer stand out in Matt's mind. The only issue is that he doesn't know who those people are. Therefore, his goal at the reception today was to figure out the identity of people backing the captain.

Although he didn't really care, it seemed like a good target for his hypnosis training. Matt didn't want to mutiny or join this group behind the captain. He would rather stay in the middle and blend into the background. Once he took care of Willard, Matt swore he would lay low for the rest of the mission.

While going over things in his head, another guest arrived alone. He didn't come to greet the captain or congratulate Matt. Instead, he went straight to the bar. The man ordered some drinks and wasn't bothered by the event that was currently being held here. Matt came over because he was curious as to who would crash a party put together by the captain.

"How are the drinks?" Matt said as he sat down next to the man that seemed to be focused on his glass.

"Better than the piss water on the lower decks." He said curtly. The man didn't even turn his head and just kept swirling the drink around with his wrist.

Matt narrowed his eyes at the mention of the lower decks. The people invited to his reception were all upper deck individuals. Matt reached out to pat the man's shoulder, but he avoided it by pure instinct. The man stood five feet away after dodging Matt's hand and stood in a defensive stance. Based on his reactions, and the way that he stood, Matt deduced that this man was a very excellent fighter. However, he didn't need to make physical contact.

Now that the man was facing him, all he had to do was make eye contact and it would be over. As his eyes wandered up to Matt's face to see who was so audacious as to attempt to touch him, he was already trapped. There was an unnatural depth to Matt's eyes that made people stare into it. Like the deep ocean filled with boundless mysteries.

[Hypnosis Activated]

"Who are you?" Matt started his interrogation.

"Westly Adams." He replied, his body relaxed a bit seeing that Matt didn't intend to fight.

"What are you doing here?" He had never heard of someone by that name.

"On a job."

Matt frowned and asked several more questions to get an idea of the situation. After a while, the two sat down and conversed like that. Ten minutes passed and several more guests had arrived, joining the cliques that were formed. Matt got up and let Westly return to his alcohol.

The information he managed to dig up was alarming. Westly was hired anonymously to investigate what was happening in this space and to get information on those attending. The man was fairly low ranked in the military structure, but this was part of his disguise. Apparently, he is a high-level informant and expert espionage officer.

Matt even received his business card. It was completely black, except for a single row of white characters. It was an encoded frequency that was used to hire the man. In order for him to be hired, one had to exchange a piece of information equal to the level of job. However, the man's resistance to interrogation was incredible.

Although he would answer his questions usually without resistance, the way his mind worked prevented any information leaks except for some surface things. Since Matt just updated hypnosis, he didn't expect to run into the ultimate counter-intelligence officer attending his reception in secret. Matt looked over to where the captain was standing. There was a large group around him and he maintained his neutral stoic face.

'It is possible that the captain hired this man. However, he is a very neutral person that seems to have a strong code of honor toward his line of work. Not even my hypnosis could pop open his confidential information.'

Matt didn't have a chance to think about it anymore as the reception was finally beginning. He made his way to the main table where he sat between the captain and Alexis. She gave him a thumbs up and Matt nodded. It seemed that her gains were not small.

"Thank you all for coming here today. I am honored to host the wedding reception for two fantastic crewmates, Matthew O'Connely and Alexis Alexeyev. As a show of my appreciation and in the honor of bringing us closer together as a crew, I will be bringing out a three-course meal sourced from my private collection. As many of you know, I am a bit of a foodie, therefore I would like to share with you all three of my favorite dishes. Would either you like to speak?"

The captain finished his little speech and Matt was very excited. Alexis turned slightly pale at the thought but there was a hint if expectation hidden on her face. Matt decided to stand up and address the room as well. He swept his eyes over the several faces with his hypnosis on.

"I'd like to thank all of you for coming here tonight and thank the captain for hosting this event for Alexis and I. Don't hold back tonight and thoroughly enjoy yourselves."

When he sat down, he looked over at Alexis and she shook her head indicating she didn't want to say anything. Once Matt sat down, the captain waved his hand and several robot servers came out with the first course. When Matt looked at his meal, he couldn't help but salivate.

[Genetic Material Detected. 94% compatibility. Grade 2. Consume for 10 Evolution Point.]