The Nerd Who Conquered The World

Chapter 18: Athena Technologies

Lin Chen looked down below as the busy city as he plans of his empire unfolded in his head.

When he heard the sound of something rushing at him as Liang Hao threw both arms around Lin Chen before he could even dodge, nearly knocking him into the wall.

"Lin Chen! Look at us! We're going to be the Steve Jobs of tomorrow, the Mark Zuckerberg of tomorrow! And when we've built the empire and people ask how it all started, I'll be the one telling the story. How I was there from day one, supporting you, well you deserve ay least sixty percent for the effort but I will at least have contributed forty percent and we can hire pretty secretaries with curvy bodies." By this time Liang Hao was already drooling as he was already lost in his imagination his eyes somewhere on the horizon of an imagined future.

Lin Chen reached up and flicked him on the forehead. "Come back down. We don't have office supplies, we don't have workers, and the product isn't finished yet."

Liang Hao rubbed his forehead, unbothered. "No problem, no problem at all, tell me what you need."

"I'll handle the product," Lin Chen said, already pulling out a chair. "While you handle getting the supplies. I will write down what we need and I'll fund it while you get it."

They sat together and worked through the list, they need computers of different specs for different roles, comfortable chairs, desks, a projector, a printer. Liang Hao kept adding to it with increasing enthusiasm: a vending machine, an air conditioner, an air purifier, until it had stopped being a list of necessities and started sounding like a wish list for a company that didn't exist yet.

"That's everything," Liang Hao said finally, admiring his own handwriting.

"Okay. It's yours." Lin Chen handed him the paper.

Liang Hao thumped a fist against his own chest, full of purpose, and marched toward the door like a man heading off to war.

Lin Chen watched him go, already counting under his breath. “One, two, three.”

Liang Hao rushed back through the doorway. "I forgot the money. I need the money to actually buy any of this." As he scratched the back of his head, sheepishly

Lin Chen checked his phone, already smiling. "Give it a second. It should be landing right about now."

Right on cue, it pinged Supreme Tech's transfer had cleared. Thirty million yuan, sitting there in black plus the money he had already it was already more than enough for a start up company.

"I'll send you two million," Lin Chen said, already typing. "That should cover everything on the list. If it's not enough, call me and I'll send more while I get started on the product side."

"Just leave it to me." Liang Hao patted his chest one more time for good measure, then he really was gone, his footsteps fading down the stairwell.

Lin Chen sat alone in the quiet, with hks laptop open in front of him, and let himself laugh softly. Liang Hao looked like the last person you'd trust with two million yuan with the suit that didn't fit, the bragging, the wandering hands. But underneath all of it was someone who always, somehow, got things done. Lin Chen believed that. He needed to believe it. There wasn't room in this plan for people he couldn't rely on.

He turned back to the laptop, and that was when he saw it a small light blinking at the edge of his vision, patient, waiting for his attention. He focused on it, and the system's voice unfolded in his mind, calm and mechanical as always

.

[Level 2 — Industrial Master. Beginning.]

[Cash rewards will be suspended to avoid real world intervention. Knowledge will now be granted for each concept digested and applied. Advanced knowledge shall be issued. Rewards will only be given for new knowledge created, mastered, and understood.]

[Beginner AI compression protocol granted. AI source code unlocked.]

[Will begin knowledge infusion immediately.]

Just the Lin Chen felt a sharp pain split through his skull before he could brace for it. He gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles white, a groan tearing out of him as the room tilted. For five straight minutes it didn't let up waves of pressure behind his eyes, like something was being poured into a space too small to hold it. He nearly went down. Somewhere in the middle of it he thought, absurdly, that this was what it must feel like to have your skull cracked open and refilled while you were still awake to feel it happen.

When it finally eased, he sat there breathing hard, drenched like he'd just finished a thirty-minute sprint, his mind scraped raw like it had been grinding without rest for a full day. He pressed two fingers to his temple and waited for the last of the ache to fade.

But underneath the pain, he could feel it settling the knowledge, already there, already his, waiting only to be used. Frameworks and structures he didn't remember learning but somehow already knew how to reach for, the way you'd reach for a word on the tip of your tongue and find it was already in your hand.

And this was only the beginner tier.

If a beginner dose hit him like this, he didn't want to think too hard about what intermediate or advanced knowledge would feel like. What kind of black technology the system still had waiting behind that calm, mechanical voice. He allowed himself one uncomfortable thought a flash of his own skull cracking open from an overload he hadn't seen coming and pushed it aside before it could take root.

He made a mental note, a serious this time: he had to find time to study biotechnology.. If his mind was the container, and the system intended to keep pouring, he needed to find a way to make the container bigger before it cracked on its own.

He breathed once, slowly, and let the last of the headache drain out of him.

Then he opened the laptop, fingers finding the keys before his thoughts had even fully caught up, and began to type from where he stopped the previous night.

Athena OS.

This was where the empire actually began.