My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible - Chapter 453 Fourth Pre-order Event

Chapter 453  Fourth Pre-order Event

The digital world held its breath.

It was 11:50 PM, and across every continent, in every timezone, millions of people sat in front of their screens with the kind of focused intensity usually reserved for Olympic finals or last-second penalty shootout.

Social media had gone eerily quiet. The constant stream of posts, comments, and reactions that normally defined the internet’s rhythm had slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely around 11:55 PM. It was as though someone had pressed pause on humanity’s collective voice.

People weren’t posting. They were waiting.

On LucidNet, the last few messages before the silence were variations on the same theme:

“Good luck everyone. May the fastest connection win.”

“My heart is actually racing. This is ridiculous. It’s a pre-order event, not a life-or-death situation. And yet here I am, sweating.”

“5,000 Lucids. Millions of people trying. The math is brutal. But someone’s getting through tonight, and I’m manifesting that it’s me.”

After that, nothing.

Nova Technologies’ official website showed a simple landing page with a single line of text: “Pre-Order Event begins at Midnight PST.” Below it, a timer counted down second by second, the numbers illuminated in the clean, minimalist style that had become Nova Technologies’ signature aesthetic.

On LucidNet, their official page displayed the same countdown, accompanied by a grayed-out link labeled “Pre-Order Access.” The link sat there, tantalizingly close but completely unresponsive to clicks, waiting for the clock to hit zero.

People refreshed both pages obsessively despite knowing it wouldn’t change anything. The countdown continued at its own pace, indifferent to the collective anxiety building behind millions of screens.

At 11:59:00, the final minute began.

Across the world, people leaned forward. Fingers hovered over mice and trackpads. Mobile devices were gripped with both hands, thumbs positioned over screens.

The timer hit thirty seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Ten.

At five seconds remaining, the entire internet seemed to collectively hold its breath.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

The countdown hit zero, and the grayed-out link on both the website and LucidNet page suddenly illuminated, shifting from dull gray to vibrant blue in an instant.

Millions of clicks happened simultaneously.

The link responded immediately, redirecting to the pre-order page with zero lag despite the astronomical traffic. The page loaded cleanly, displaying the Lucid device specifications, pricing, and a single prominent button: “Purchase Now.”

People clicked.

And then, almost before anyone could process what had happened, the page refreshed.

A new message appeared in bold text: “SOLD OUT. All 5,000 units have been claimed. Thank you for your interest.”

The timestamp on the message read 12:00:01 AM.

One second.

Five thousand units of the Lucid had sold out in less than one second.

For a moment, the internet remained silent, as though the collective brain of humanity needed time to process what had just occurred.

Then the reactions began.

LucidNet exploded with activity. Posts flooded the platform at a rate that would have overwhelmed any traditional social media infrastructure. The volume was staggering, thousands of messages appearing per second, the feed scrolling so fast that reading individual posts became nearly impossible.

“ONE SECOND. ONE. I clicked the INSTANT it went live and still got nothing. What kind of superhuman reaction time do you need for this??”

“I had three devices ready and three separate internet connections. I clicked simultaneously on all of them. Still sold out before I could even see the purchase button. This is actually insane, and this is the third time in a row!!!”

“My internet is 10 gigabits per second. My latency is 2 milliseconds. I clicked within 100 milliseconds of the link going live. And I STILL missed it. What is this? Who are these people with faster reflexes than professional gamers?”

“I genuinely don’t understand the physics of what just happened. Did anyone actually see the purchase page? Or did it go straight from countdown to sold out? Because that’s what happened on my screen.”

“5,000 people just became part of the future and the rest of us are stuck in the past watching them leave. This is the most brutal FOMO I’ve ever experienced.”

“To whoever got through: I’m happy for you and I also hate you with the intensity of a thousand suns. Nothing personal.”

The posts continued cascading, a mixture of disbelief, frustration, dark humor, and genuine anguish. People posted photos of their multiple devices, all displaying the “SOLD OUT” message, as proof that they’d done everything humanly possible and still failed.

But beneath the frustration was something else: envy.

It was a deep, existential variety that came from watching other people step into a reality you desperately wanted access to but couldn’t reach.

“The 5,000 people who got through tonight now qualify for the Lucid Air. Do you understand what that means? They don’t just have the Lucid. They have access to the Air. 10 terabytes per second. Zero distance limitation. They’re operating in a completely different tier of existence now.”

“Forget the Lucid. The real prize is Air eligibility. That’s what actually matters. And 5,000 people just won the lottery while the rest of us get to keep refreshing the same page every month hoping our turn eventually comes.”

“This isn’t just about having a faster device. The Lucid Air creates a permanent gap. The people who have it can do things the rest of us literally cannot. They can access data faster, collaborate in real-time across continents, participate in the Digital Aristocrat economy at a level we can’t touch. The inequality isn’t just economic anymore. It’s infrastructural.”

“I knew tonight was a long shot. I knew the odds, but I was not prepared for how much this would suck.”

“Man, watching people get Lucids and Lucid Air while I sit here with my regular internet feeling like a caveman is genuinely demoralizing.”

The messages kept coming, thousands upon thousands of them, all variations on the same themes: frustration at the speed, envy of the winners, resignation about the odds, and a growing sense that the gap between those with access and those without was becoming something more permanent than anyone had initially anticipated.

Some people were more philosophical about it:

“5,000 more people in the ecosystem means 5,000 more potential Digital Aristocrats, 5,000 more people creating content and services that push the boundaries of what’s possible. Yeah, I didn’t get one. Yeah, that sucks. But the ecosystem grows regardless, and eventually that benefits all of us. Even if we’re on the outside looking in for now.”

Others were less generous:

“Every month this happens and every month the winners get to join an exclusive club while the rest of us pound sand. At what point do we acknowledge that this system isn’t ‘fair’ in any meaningful sense? It’s a lottery. A lottery with world-changing stakes. And most of us are never going to win.”

But beneath all the reactions—the frustration, the envy, the philosophy, the anger—was a shared understanding that had been building for months.

The understanding was that what Nova Technologies had created was a stratification system that divided humanity into categories that felt increasingly permanent with each passing month.

Those with Lucids had access to opportunities, tools, and capabilities that those without simply couldn’t replicate. The Digital Aristocrats were proof of that—ordinary people who’d gotten in early and built wealth that now exceeded what traditional careers could offer.

And the Lucid Air widened that gap even further, creating a tier above the tier, an elite within the elite.

At 12:05 AM, five minutes after the pre-order event had ended almost before it began, a new post appeared on Nova Technologies’ official LucidNet page.

The post was simple: “Monthly Transparency Report.”

The reaction was immediate. Thousands of people who had been wallowing in their pre-order defeat suddenly pivoted, as they all started reading the post.

The Transparency Report was the monthly glimpse behind the curtain, the official documentation of exactly how much money the Digital Aristocrats had made, how much Nova Technologies had earned, and how the ecosystem’s economy was growing month over month.

Everyone has always read the report and the numbers that greeted them were always staggering.

And for this month, the numbers were…