For advance/early chapters : p atreon.com/AutumnXd
During their lunch break, several employees from Polaris Technologies' sales department headed down to the company cafeteria.
"Hey, have you guys heard? Mr. Morrison is going to overhaul the R&D department!"
"Really? Is it a personnel change? I knew it! With the young boss parachuting in as CTO, he's definitely going to deal with the R&D department—that bottomless money pit!"
"Don't spread rumors! Mr. Morrison said he's going to revamp the program design for the VR system, not personnel!"
"Yeah, I heard that too. He held a meeting with R&D yesterday and said he's going to completely redesign the current program architecture. And he's going to do it himself!"
"Is that true? You're kidding, right? Not everyone can design program architecture. He's basically saying all those professionals in R&D are wrong. I didn't realize Mr. Morrison had such an arrogant side."
"No, he's not arrogant at all. I heard from colleagues in R&D that Mr. Morrison really understands technology. And he's incredibly skilled!"
"No wonder he's the CTO. But as far as I know, he's not from a technical background."
"I heard he taught himself over the past two years."
"Oh my god, self-taught? In two years? You're joking."
"That's why this whole thing is such a big deal! It seems Mr. Morrison's claim about turning Polaris from loss to profit isn't just empty talk. He's genuinely going to make things happen!"
"While it feels a bit unbelievable, I really hope he can bring us a miracle too."
"Hmm, I hope so. But how many miracles are there in this world? Breaking into an industry dominated by giants who've been refining their tech for decades—you can imagine how difficult that is."
"Exactly! So many startups and research teams have tried to challenge the Nexus monopoly, and none have managed to close the gap in core technologies. That tells you everything about how hard it is."
"Yeah, yeah. Maybe the R&D people have learned to flatter him and are just playing along with the young boss. Anyway, he's paying, so he can do whatever he wants as long as he's happy."
Rumors about Alex's involvement in VR system architecture design spread throughout Polaris Technologies.
While everyone, emotionally, hoped to see Polaris truly turn things around, rationally, they didn't believe a miracle would happen.
After all, Alex wasn't a professional in this field. And technological breakthroughs weren't that easy.
Days passed. The staff in Polaris's R&D department eagerly awaited Alex's results.
To be honest, Alex had written a very impressive program that first day—code that greatly benefited them. During this period, they'd been studying his work, which truly opened their eyes and made them increasingly anticipate what he would do next.
Although they couldn't understand how Alex could be so brilliant, nor could they imagine what kind of completely new system architecture he would create, emotionally, they truly hoped a miracle would occur.
Alex did not disappoint them.
Ten-odd days later, when he called another meeting, he presented an architectural plan that stunned everyone.
A brand-new VR operating system.
A design solution that could perfectly integrate all existing programs compatible with the Nexus system—yet surpassed Nexus in every performance metric.
A program that seemed highly disruptive but was actually feasible.
A genius.
A once-in-a-century genius.
This was the common thought in every technical mind in that room. Perhaps only the word "genius" could explain the shock they felt internally.
They couldn't deny that there truly were geniuses in this world. People who could achieve in a tenth or a hundredth of the effort what others might never achieve in a lifetime.
Someone who initially knew nothing about software development, yet in about two years mastered cutting-edge technology and designed a groundbreaking architecture—that could only be explained as genius.
Alex's plan successfully opened up everyone's imagination. Based on this architecture, the team began contributing their own ideas. It had been a long time since they'd felt such an explosion of inspiration, such passion and drive.
Failure isn't scary. What's scary is not seeing hope. Not finding a direction.
Now, they had found a clear direction. They could see the possibility of success.
At the end of the meeting, Alex quickly assigned tasks. This massive project required all programmers to cooperate with him. He had structured the skeleton of the program—the basic logic, the development direction. The specific functional modules and detailed code still needed to be completed by everyone together.
Soon, the programmers in R&D became incredibly busy. The VR operating system from Alex's system knowledge was slowly being realized.
News of Alex designing a brand-new VR system spread within the company. But due to commercial secrecy, employees only knew that Alex and his team had created something new. What exactly this system was like, whether it could surpass Nexus, whether it could shake up the industry—remained unknown.
"Holy cow, you guys—how did Mr. Morrison's brain even work? How did he come up with such an algorithm? It's incredible!"
"Yeah, my brain certainly couldn't design that."
"He's not an alien, is he?"
"Hahaha, possibly!"
A few programmers joked during their break. They were now absolutely awestruck by Alex.
"Now it seems like all those big words Mr. Morrison said to us in that meeting aren't pipe dreams anymore."
"Hmm. I dare say that once this system is released, it will cause a major earthquake in the industry. Our system is going to rise."
"I really hope that one day our Polaris brand can truly become the world's number one, just like Mr. Morrison said. We'll be so proud."
"The whole company will be proud. The whole industry will know our names!"
"We're about to become the people who change an era. Thinking about it really gets me excited."
"I feel like Mr. Morrison is the next Ernst Kline. He might even surpass him!"
"Hmm, if our company can also achieve major breakthroughs in the chip field, maybe surpassing Nexus really is just a matter of time."
"But the road ahead will be difficult. The original Nexus didn't have as many competitors when they were starting out, and they didn't have a giant already blocking the path. I think once our system is released, Nexus will try everything to suppress us."
"Yeah. Thinking about it that way, it's like we're playing a game now. Before, we were wandering in low-level wilderness, struggling to level up. Now, we're about to face the final boss." He grinned. "Pretty exciting when you think about it."
"Alright, it's getting late. Let's go back and keep coding. I hope on the day we defeat the boss, both you and I are still alive and still have our hair!"
"Hahaha..."