My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible

Chapter 625: Easing Friends’ Fears And Worries

Meanwhile, while the world’s governments, corporations and organisations were having brain popping migraines from the LucidNet Finance announcement, Liam was dealing with a different issue.

"What do you mean that the party can’t hold anymore?" He asked Kristopher.

"You’re asking that like you don’t know the reason why. First, your identity as the second richest person in the world, worth close to $800B, is already enough of a trendy topic among the youth. Then add your identity as the owner of the most disruptive company in the world, Nova Technologies. I don’t think the party would last a minute and even if it does, everyone will be flocking around you."

"Are you worried about me?"

"Worried about you? You’re joking, right? I’m worried about how Yanxia would burn someone who tries to hit on her. I also know that even with everything you have demonstrated, there would still be some animals that will try to go against you, especially with the LucidNet Finance announcement. And knowing you, you will crush them. Which I have no problem with but Yanxia will go after that person."

"Well, you’re right about all these things. But it’s not enough reason to call off the party. Come on. I haven’t been to a gathering in months and I really need this one."

"I heard from Yanxia that your birthday is coming up soon and Lucy will be throwing a party for you, planning to surprise you with something," Stacy said.

"Yeah. Though I have no idea what she has in mind."

"It wouldn’t be a surprise if you did, would it? I wonder how big she plans to make it. Is she going to invite dignitaries from all over the world? Or across the three Universes?" Stacy said.

"We will have to wait and see. But back to Kristopher’s party, you all should talk to him and tell him not to call it off."

"But you know that Kristopher’s right, Liam. The party will get mobbed if people find out that Liam’s friends are having a gathering, talk less of information goes out that you will be attending personally. Even with your demonstration, which we all have full confidence in, but there would still be people that will want to contest the legitimacy of your power," Matt said.

"Tell me, guys. Are you all worried about what I will do to them or what they will do to the party?"

"Honestly, I would say that we aren’t about either but we don’t want to give anyone the opportunity to ruin your image in anyway," Alex said.

"Do you guys think I care about that?"

"You don’t. We know that. I remembered what you said about no level of cunning can stand against absolute strength. That is true but... Honestly, the truth is that I’m scared and worried about things we don’t understand yet." Harper said.

Liam took a moment to process what Harper had just said. He wondered what they could possibly be worried or scared about. But when he thought about it deeply, he realised that he actually had no idea. He decided that he should ask them to understand the reason for their fears and worries.

"What exactly are you scared of?" He asked. "All of you. Say it plainly."

The group chat went quiet for a moment.

Harper answered first, which made sense because he had been the one to open the door.

"When you spoke and the whole world heard it simultaneously. I was just coming out from a lecture hall. I had my earphones in. The music cut out and your voice came through anyway. Not from the earphones. Just there, in my ear and my chest at the same time. I dropped what I was holding." He paused. "I know it was you. I know you weren’t doing it to us. But I stood in the hallway for a while before I could move again and I kept thinking we are very friends with this person abc we have argued, and laughed about a lot of things. And now the whole world hears his voice through walls."

Nobody replied immediately.

Stacy wrote next.

"I think what Harper means — and what I feel too — is that we’re keeping up. We have been keeping up. Every announcement, every livestream, every impossible thing. We adjust and we move on. But the adjustments are adding up and I don’t always know what I’m adjusting to. I don’t know where the ceiling is. And I think that’s what I’m scared of. Not you. The not-knowing."

"When you showed us the Dimensional Space," Kristopher wrote, "I asked myself then what kind of person I was standing next to. Not in a bad way. But in a genuine way, like I had to recalibrate something. I’ve had to recalibrate more times since then than I can count and each time the new version is further from anything I had a framework for."

"The cameras," Matt wrote. "I watched the cameras compress. I’ve seen you do things before but that was different. You weren’t doing something extraordinary. You were solving a small problem, and the way you solved it was to reach out and end three cameras with no visible effort. I just sat there and thought about what it means to be someone you call a friend."

He sent a second message after a pause.

"I don’t mean that badly. I’m still here. I just mean that I think about it."

Liam read through all of it without responding immediately.

He had expected the conversation to be about the party. He had not expected it to arrive here, which meant he hadn’t been paying enough attention to what had been accumulating beneath the surface of the group’s adjustment. They had been steady. They had been present. They had moved through each new development without falling apart. He had taken that steadiness at face value without asking what it cost.

He thought about what to say and decided that simplicity was the only thing that would work here.

"I hear all of you," he said. "And I’m glad you said it."

He paused, then continued.

"I’m not going to tell you the ceiling because I don’t fully know it myself. I’m not going to tell you there’s nothing to be uncertain about because that wouldn’t be true. What I can tell you is that none of what I am changes what you are to me. That part doesn’t have a ceiling."

Another pause.

"The cameras — I want to address that specifically. That was a decision. Not a reflex. I made a choice about how far to go and I held that line. I will always hold that line with the people around you. That’s not a promise I make lightly."

Elise wrote: "I think what you just said is the thing we needed to hear. Not because we doubted it. But because hearing it said plainly is different from knowing it quietly."

"Yeah," Lana said. "That."

The group chat went silent for a moment, as everyone took their time to process everything that had just been said, before moving on.

Then Alex wrote: "Okay. So. The party."

It broke the weight of the preceding exchange in exactly the right way.

"The party," Kristopher confirmed.

"Here’s what I think," Liam said. "Hold it. Don’t change anything. If something happens, I’ll handle it without it becoming a scene. Anyone who shows up looking for a problem will leave without one."

"That’s very diplomatic of you," Matt said. "Is the last part actually true though."

"The last part is true if they’re smart. The part before it is true either way."

"Helpful clarification," Kristopher said.

"What about Yanxia?" Stacy asked.

Liam looked at Yanxia, who had already been reading the message on her Lucid, without sending a message, looking back at him with an expression that was entirely composed and entirely certain at the same time.

"She’ll be fine," he said.

"I’m always fine," Yanxia said, from beside him, to no one in particular.

"She says she’ll be fine," Liam typed.

"I need her definition of fine to match mine before I’m reassured by that," Kristopher said.

"Her definition is probably better than yours," Alex said.

"That’s what I’m worried about."

Liam looked at the thread running and felt something settle in him that he hadn’t known was unsettled.

The conversation had gone somewhere he hadn’t mapped and had arrived somewhere that felt right. The group had said the thing they had been carrying and he had said the thing he should have said sooner and the party was still happening and Yanxia was already deciding what to wear.

The world outside had governments in emergency sessions, intelligence agencies filing reports with no existing category, markets halted at circuit breakers, and ninety days until everything changed again.

In here it was just his friends talking about a party.

"What time does it start?" he asked.

"Nine," Kristopher said. "Don’t be late. You have a habit."

Yanxia was already standing in front of the wardrobe Lucy had stocked for her, pulling out the three custom-made dresses with the particular focus of someone applying serious strategic thought to a problem that deserved it.

"The gold one," Liam said, without looking up.

She turned and looked at him.

"How did you know I was deciding between the gold and the green?"

"You always reach for the gold one last and put it back."

She considered this.

"I reach for the gold one last because I’m saving it."

"Saving it for what."

She looked at the dress and then at him and then back at the dress.

"The right occasion," she said.

"A party with the fun people sounds right to me."

She held the gold dress out and looked at it for a long moment.

"Fine," she said, conceding a point she had already agreed with.

Liam picked his phone back up. The group chat had continued without him.

Liam typed: "See you all at nine."