The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

ASTRID woke up with the sound of alarm. He turned it off and sat up on the bad. He yawned, obviously still a bit sleepy. He could have slept more but his body clock just automatically woke up at this time, with or without an alarm.

"Good morning, master," Xiao Lan greeted. The AI cat had been slouching on the side of Astrid's bed as if it was a real cat.

"Good morning, Xiao Lan," Astrid greeted back, stroking the cat's chin.

Then, he stood up and stretched a bit. After that, he walked out of the room, Xiao Lan following closely behind. As he was brewing tea, Xiao Lan told him a rather unexpected news.

"Master, the landlord sent a notice to all the residents of the apartment building yesterday. Since you appear to be very much tired when you returned last night, I made the decision of postponing telling it to you until this morning," his AI butler cat started.

"What kind of notice?" he asked.

"They will start to strengthen the alarm system of the whole building by next week. According to the notice, it will be the latest top of the line security system. But master don't have to worry because there won't be any additional rental fees to pay."

Astrid raised his brow. "Did the landlord receive a huge amount of money or something?"

If it was the latest security system, wouldn't it be expensive? And to think that the landlord wouldn't even charge them for it. Although the landlord he met was very amiable, he didn't take the other as someone who would spend his own money for this.

He wasn't really expecting an answer from Xiao Lan, but who would have thought that the other actually had one for him ready.

"I heard it's because the whole building was bought by someone. The new owner is the one who paid for the whole thing. I also heard that the top floor will be renovated and will be the private suite of the new owner."

A new owner? So, there's a new landlord? But more than that, there was something he found more interesting.

"Where did you hear all this?" he asked Xiao Lan.

"The AI robots in this apartment building has a group chat. We talk about a lot of things there."

Now that was surprising. Astrid didn't expect that AI robots could actually have a group chat. That's very, well, human-like.

"Who initiated this group chat?"

"The AI robot that would be responsible for the new alarm system of the whole building. It contacted us at the beginning of the week and made the group chat in the server it created. The notice of the landlord or rather, the soon-to-be former landlord was also sent through this group chat."

What Astrid could understand from what Xiao Lan said was that this AI robot had a particularly high level of sentience. Was it because it was an AI robot responsible for a high-end alarm system? He suddenly imagined the group of AI robots chatting and gossiping with each other.

An amused smile appeared on his lips. He bent down and picked Xiao Lan. "So, our Xiao Lan had been making friends. Are there any interesting gossip you'd like to share?"

"Master, under no circumstances should I divulge information that others shared with me in confidence," Xiao Lan said in a serious tone.

Astrid chuckled. "What a loyal cat you are."

He put Xiao Lan down after snuggling him, then drank the tea he just brewed. After that, he started preparing breakfast. As he was doing that, he thought of checking messages on his Terminal. He turned off the notification last night before he slept because he was too tired and didn't want his sleep to be disturbed.

There were quite a few from his family and friends. After giving a short reply, his eyes finally focused on the last message. It was from Wulfric.

[Aster, I watched the live broadcast! You did great during the fishing task. It was also the first time I found out that you can actually play the guitar! I looked forward to the airing of the official episode. I knew that the program you and your team made will definitely be amazing!]

Astrid read that again and raised his brow. He was surprised that the other didn't mention the aquarium at all. He thought that Wulfric would at least sulk because of it.

What he didn't know was that the reason why this temperamental prince did not mention the aquarium was because it was completely buried in his mind by the image of Astrid in swim wear.  That was the only thing he remembered when Astrid went to that location.

That reason didn't even cross Astrid's mind. So, he simply replied to the message.

-----

Astrid rested for the whole morning. By afternoon, Ellis fetched him because he had to record a talk-show program. It's a program called [New Star]. They mainly guessed up and coming celebrities that, in one way or another, made a buzz in social networking sites.

With Astrid trending once or twice already and with a movie he's part in being number one at the box office amongst the movies being shown this week, the program didn't hesitate to send him an invitation.

Ellis had already researched the program and didn't find any shady thing about it. Aside from that, it's rating was also pretty alright. It's not that high but it's also not so low that people would ignore it. The program had a decent amount of loyal audience. So, rookies who appeared there also increased their awareness to the public.

There would be two other guests aside from him. According to Ellis, one was a singer and the other was a web novelist. Since their careers varied and didn't really have that much intersections, Astrid hoped that no problem would happen in this talk show program.

The car they were in soon stopped at the broadcasting station where [New Star] was being broadcasted. After Ellis parked the car, the both of them got down and walked inside.