Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 1331

In her previous life, all these individuals had joined Mira's financial syndicate, playing pivotal roles in her subsequent domination of the banking sector.

Given Mira's current prestige on campus and their shared ambitions, it didn't take long for them to click and form a deeply collaborative rapport.

Meanwhile, over with the Quinn family, Sebastian was leveraging his memories from his past life. He shamelessly plagiarized the biggest future hits for his premium music platform, and business was absolutely booming.

However, his bike-sharing venture was an unmitigated disaster.

First, he failed to capture the market fast enough. He made a quick buck initially in Aethelgard, but that only spawned countless copycats. With the market flooded by rival bike companies fighting over the same user base, profitability tanked.

Second, his operational management was abysmal. The streets were soon littered with abandoned bikes that were never rebalanced or maintained, causing severe traffic congestion and enraging the city council.

He was barely making any money, yet regulatory authorities were constantly hauling him in for interrogations.

Third, in this timeline, Sebastian had launched his bike-sharing startup over six months earlier than Mira had in her previous life.

Bike-sharing was intrinsically tied to the mobile internet economy. A six-month gap meant the technological infrastructure simply wasn't ready. Basic cell phones couldn't scan QR codes to unlock the bikes.

As a direct result, he was completely unable to break into the mass consumer market.

In the end, Sebastian was completely overwhelmed. Bleeding money and out of options, he was forced to take a massive loss and sell out to a rival mobility company.

On another front, even though Owen had firmly rejected any romantic involvement with Seraphina, she remained fiercely obsessed with him, constantly hounding her father to find a way to secure the match.

Because of this, Sebastian approached Owen multiple times for private talks, only to be flatly turned down. With no other outlet for their frustration, the father and daughter predictably directed all their venom back onto Mira.

Yet, there was absolutely nothing they could do to her.

At the start, Dominic underestimated Mira's prowess. He deployed mid-tier offensive scripts and high-level firewalls, only to find himself steadily losing ground.

Furthermore, Mira's entire foundation in hacking had been taught to her by Dominic himself in her past life. She knew nearly all of his signature tactics. Mira claimed the first round with almost effortless grace.

Going into the second round, Dominic brought out his top-tier arsenal. But seeing the confident smirk playing on Mira's lips, he quietly bumped his defensive algorithms up another notch.

The second round proved far more difficult, but in the end, Mira secured another victory.

The third round was a brutal, deadlocked gridlock. Both sides traded relentless blows, but ultimately, Dominic managed to break through and win.

Some things simply require innate genius, and hacking was no exception. Without raw talent, even the greatest mentor in the world could only teach you the superficial basics.

And Dominic was a generational talent; there was no denying it. When technical skill levels were roughly equal, raw instinct and genius were the only things that separated the victor from the vanquished.