It had been a week since Lucid was released into the world, and although the public had slowly stopped talking about it, the world had not returned to normal. Far from it actually.

While civilians continued with their daily routines, pretending everything was fine, the world's industries, markets, governments, and intelligence groups were quietly imploding.

The silence from the masses only made the shockwaves more concentrated among those who understood what Lucid truly meant. And nowhere was this collapse more obvious than in the tech sector.

NASDAQ had dropped more than 20% in a single week, which was the sharpest, most violent decline since many of the listed companies first went public.

The tech world wasn't shaken. It was shattered. Because for the past decade, Silicon Valley had been selling the same dream:

AGI by 2050–2100.

quantum supremacy.

full neural integration.

perfect automation.

next-gen robotics.

fusion-level clean energy.

smart devices that could "think".

the metaverse revolution.

Hundreds of billions—eventually trillions—were invested into promising the future. And then Lucid appeared.

A device that looked like a simple pair of eyewear, yet casually achieved everything the world's most powerful companies had only marketed as "the next century."

Everything they promised suddenly became a joke. And Silicon Valley was thrown into an existential crisis

Because what's is the point of building the world's most advanced silicon processors, if Lucid already outperforms supercomputers?

What is the point of training trillion-parameter AI models, if Lucid runs a local AI decades ahead of anything Earth has ever produced?

What is the point of perfecting BCI implants, if Lucid achieves flawless neural interaction without invading the brain?

What is the point of developing the metaverse, if Lucid offers full-dive VR experiences beyond imagination?

What is the point of pursuing fusion reactors…

if Lucid has infinite energy and never needs to recharge?

Cloud computing? Dead. Data centers? Obsolete. Supercomputers? Relics.

Quantum computers? Lucid casually surpasses them.

Even robotics took a major blow. Because the delivery drones alone, with their flight capabilities that ignore physics and aerodynamics—had already rendered every robotics company on Earth irrelevant.

And the most devastated industry of all?

Gaming.

No console, no VR headset, no cloud streaming service, no engine—nothing could compete with Lucid's raw creative and sensory power.

One game company in particular—famous worldwide for throwing lawsuits at anything that moves—wanted to sue Nova Technologies out of pure spite.

But what exactly do you sue? And where do you even send the lawsuit, when the company has no headquarters address, no PR department, no investor relations line, and zero traceable human staff?

The entire tech industry was frustrated, cornered, and afraid. And the worst part?

They couldn't even get their hands on Nova Technologies.

If it's something they can lay their hands on, SWFs and other investment institutions would had grabbed their shares, then sit back and enjoy the benefits that will follow.

Of course, they won't tear down such a company. Why would they? Would anyone kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Of course not.

If Nova Technologies were to ever go public, it would cause more than a geopolitical meltdown.

The big countries would want to nationalise it and it would become another TSMC but the scale will be larger.

The reason for this is because the techs produced by Nova Technologies, Lucid and the delivery drones touches very sensitive parts of the governments, from national, cyber warfare, economic stability, AI arms races, military strategy, energy policies, space programs, intelligence operations, citizen monitoring, privacy laws, political control, border control and others.

If the tech companies are frustrated and at their wit's end, governments' officials around the world are having it even worse.

With how extremely disruptive and valuable Nova Technologies is, they want to control it with policies and force them them not to sell to other countries, and to develop custom military grade techs for them.

It was already more than evident that Nova Technologies' capabilities exceed anything known and unknown to the world, and so the governments won't try to tear it down but they will want to control it and bring it under their thumb.

The country most affected by this is the US, because from what they are aware of, Nova Technologies has an industrial base in Nevada, and their headquarters in California, but both are complete empty.

Not only that but it was also created under JP Morgan, a US finance company.

The US government couldn't help but feel that someone was spitting in their face.

Such a treasure is under their very nose but they can't lay their hands on it even forcefully, and they also can't breach JP Morgan's servers, which has surprisingly become extremely secure over the past week.

It was like everything was working against them. Though the black tech agencies has tried to replicate what Nova Technologies has achieved with both Lucid and the delivery drones. But they have failed horribly.

This is even after gathering the best of kinds from all relevant fields. It was a shameful thing for the US, one of the world's most technologically advanced countries.

It wasn't just the US, even the alliances that some countries made in a bid to infiltrate and steal Nova Technologies' core tech had been fallen apart.

Same with the alliance of those countries that want to buy into the company or take control of it.

They all had fallen apart.

You can't destroy, infiltrate, control or steal from what you can't touch. Nova Technologies is shielded by the most powerful thing in the world, confidentiality clause, and by the most powerful company in the world, JP Morgan.

At this point, the world has no choice but to accept that this is it for them.

Of course, they still hold the hope that one day the person behind it would come forward but that they are aware that such hope will never be fulfilled.

But they won't give up. Now that they have confirmed that they can't access Nova Technologies directly, then they will do their best to acquire a Lucid at least.

That way, they will try to study the device and understand what makes it tick. And it's for this reason that the upcoming competition for the 1,000 units of Lucid that will be released, will be intense.

Civilians are going to fight with not just themselves but governments, companies and organisations around the world.

If only it was something like a private auction. The governments, companies and organisations will pay millions to even billions for a unit, talk less of the $700 price tag.

But unfortunately, they don't have such privilege. Though they have acquired Nova Technologies' official email from the early buyers and tried to contact the company, but their emails never went through. They can only wait like everyone else.

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