Enter the Techno King
And yet...
It actually happened.
"Welcome, my friends! Companions on our grand journey to the stars!"
Up in the hotel's sky-lounge restaurant, guarded so tightly by a perimeter of security that he might as well have leased out the entire floor, Nylon Musk greeted us with an exuberant grin.
Whoa.
It was Musk. The real, living, breathing Nylon Musk.
This wasn't my first time meeting a titan who held the world in his palms, but facing someone you had watched on television every single day hit on a completely different level. Even his opening greeting was something no sane person could utter with a straight face without cringing into oblivion.
How on earth are we supposed to respond to that? Help me, Hyungjun-emon!
"I am Kim Hyung-jun, CEO of Arcane Technology," Hyung-jun said smoothly. "It is a profound honor to meet you, Special Advisor Musk."
Polished, formal, and impeccably composed—Hyung-jun didn't let Musk dictate the tempo for a single second. The pride of Gwanak Mountain, a true paragon of cool-headed poise!
...Or so I thought, until that illusion shattered less than five seconds later.
"Nope."
"Pardon?"
Musk wagged an index finger playfully back and forth. "Call me the Techno King."
"Excuse... me?" Hyung-jun stammered, his polished veneer cracking instantly.
The pride of Gwanak's legendary composure: dismantled in ten flat seconds!
Incredible. He genuinely demanded that another human being address him by that cringe-inducing title? Was this some revolutionary form of public humiliation ritual? As expected of a world-famous celebrity, he operated on an entirely different plane. I suppose to make it as a tycoon in America, you needed the sheer audacity to force that level of second-hand embarrassment onto total strangers.
My worldly common sense ticked up by one point. Note to self: Never move to America.
As I made that solemn vow, I suddenly felt the collective weight of several stares. Puzzled, I looked around to find everyone—including Hyung-jun—staring intently at me.
"...?"
Before I could tilt my head in confusion, Hyung-jun jabbed me ruthlessly in the ribs. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" he hissed under his breath.
Right. Introductions.
"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Musk. I'm Park Ji-hyuk, currently serving as the CTO of Arcane Technology."
"..."
Musk stared back with an exaggeratedly sullen pout.
Huh? Did I say something wrong?
I glanced at Hyung-jun, who subtly shook his head in despair and silently mouthed four distinct syllables:
Tech. No. King.
...Are you out of your mind?!
That was the problem? No, look, intellectually I understood that basic business etiquette meant addressing someone by their preferred title. But... come on. Techno King? The sheer psychological resistance in my throat was overwhelming.
Musk fixed me with an unwavering, expectant glare. Every eye in the room drilled into my skull. Unable to withstand the crushing pressure, I pried my lips apart with monumental effort.
"...Techno King."
"Yes! That's what I'm talking about!" Musk beamed, his face splitting into a broad, satisfied smile. "Now that introductions are out of the way, let us sit and enjoy a wonderful meal together!"
God, I was already drained.
Guided by Musk to the central table, our conversation got underway in earnest. First came the aperitifs. Swirling his glass gently, Musk chuckled.
"I heard you boys pulled off quite a thrilling show this morning."
"Word travels that fast?" Hyung-jun asked.
"Ding Xuexiang was bellowing loud enough to derail a freight train. If I didn't know about it, I'd have to pack up and leave the industry. In business, if your intel is late, you're already dead in the water." Musk paused, holding the glass beneath his nose to savor the bouquet before raising it high. "A toast to you two, for shoving it right down the throats of those arrogant Chinese bureaucrats who don't know their place."
"Cheers."
Whether we had actually shoved anything down their throats was debatable, but if Musk wanted to frame it like that, who was I to argue? Hyung-jun and I raised our glasses and took a sip.
Mmm. Sour and dry.
To be honest, I had never understood what people found so appealing about wine. I only drank it because it was being poured. To an ordinary plebeian like me, somaek was the undisputed GOAT.
Right on cue, the appetizers arrived: an assortment of delicate, unnamed finger foods. Quite delicious, actually.
"Care to share the heroic tale?" Musk prompted. "I'm dying to know what you said to make those conceited bastards jump out of their skin."
"It was hardly heroic," Hyung-jun replied smoothly. "We merely responded to an unreasonable demand with an appropriate measure."
"Exactly! Giving back an eye for an eye—that's how real men do business! Our Chinese friends have their virtues, but their fatal flaw is never knowing their own limits. The moment they think they hold the upper hand, they assume they have a license to be insolent."
Musk laughed heartily, recalling that he had run into similar headaches in his earlier days. When the soup arrived shortly after, he tore off a piece of crusty bread, dunked it, and continued, "They've been strutting around with their heads held far too high lately, which annoyed the hell out of me. Thanks to you, I got front-row seats to a marvelous spectacle. Consider this useful tidbit a token of my gratitude."
"Useful information, sir?"
"Indeed. Those fellows are already scheming. The moment you walked out of that meeting, they dispatched an envoy to the Japanese delegation. Looks like they're angling to route an indirect import through them."
Hyung-jun and I exchanged glances. As long as they dropped that ridiculous exclusivity clause, we had never intended to refuse them outright. Why go through all the trouble of an offshore detour?
"How foolish," Hyung-jun scoffed. "We don't mix personal emotion with business. All they had to do was place a formal purchase order, yet they insist on making their own lives difficult."
"Oh? You'd still sell Magician to China?"
"Of course. Has anyone ever heard of cash carrying a nationality?"
Musk burst into booming laughter. "True sages in our midst! Brilliant answer!" He leaned in slightly, dropping another nugget onto the table. "Though, from what I heard through Tokyo, they only requested a handful of units. Just a few."
Given the colossal scale of China's manufacturing sector, a few units was laughably negligible. Which meant... well, there was only one possible conclusion. What else does the global capital of counterfeiters do with a handful of samples?
"They're planning to reverse-engineer it," I remarked.
"Most likely."
I gave a short smirk. "Let them try all they want. Want to make a wager? I'll stake Magician's core patents on their total failure."
Musk's expression turned deadpan. "I don't make bets I know I'll lose."
"Tsk."
At my grumble, Musk broke into a wide grin once more. "I like you boys more and more by the second. Guts, vision—you have everything it takes to walk alongside me on my grand journey!"
Well, that's all fine and dandy... but neither of us ever agreed to join your 'journey.' Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch.
Polishing off his bread with gusto, Musk wiped his hands on a linen napkin as the next course arrived: seared sea scallops.
"Now then, shall we talk business? Your 'Magician'—I intend to acquire a hundred units."
"A... hundred units?" Hyung-jun blurted, his eyes widening in shock.
Magician was by no means cheap equipment. When Hyung-jun and I initially hashed out the pricing, we pegged it around $350 million per unit—and given its industry-upending disruptive power, that was already our conservative baseline. Because of that price tag, our global sales target for the entire international market had been set at a hundred units.
And Musk wanted to buy all hundred by himself?
"Do you really have a need for that many?"
"Need them? I'm worried a hundred won't even be enough!" Musk's eyes glittered with intense fascination. "Magician isn't limited to battery fabrication, is it? Isn't it a technology capable of fusing any two materials together without a physical interface?"
Hyung-jun and I froze. Not because he had caught us off guard, but because he had deduced the fundamental essence of the underlying magic with pinpoint precision.
"How did you figure that out?"
"The SEM cross-sections gave it away. The boundary line between the bonded materials was completely invisible, wasn't it? If you can forge a molecular-level bond that seamless and robust in the microscopic realm, there is zero reason it can't be applied to other materials." Musk smiled with supreme swagger. "Well? What do you think of this Techno King's deduction?"
"Honestly, I'm impressed," I admitted. "I didn't expect anyone to see that far ahead."
The man hadn't earned his reputation as a genius entrepreneur for nothing. He wasn't just a mountain of capital wrapped in flamboyant theatricality.
"Think of what this solves! From structural quality-control headaches in Teslam's vehicle chassis to rocket boosters and satellite fairings at SpaceZ—any assembly demanding uncompromising structural integrity can utilize this." Musk waved his arms animatedly, caught in his own momentum. "And that's barely scratching the surface! The potential applications for Magician are endless! Doesn't it thrill you just thinking about it? A hundred units sounds like a fortune to you, but believe me, that's just the tip of the iceberg!"
His eyes shone like an excited schoolboy's as he rattled off possibilities. Even we, the creators of Magician, hadn't mapped out that broad a horizon. Was this how true visionary tycoons operated? It felt as though he perceived the world through an entirely different lens.
The empty scallop plates were cleared away, making room for the main entrée: roasted duck breast with seared foie gras.
Holy crap, my tastebuds are living in absolute luxury.
So this was the kind of food the super-rich indulged in behind closed doors? From now on, I was going to eat this stuff all the time.
While I basked in the culinary fireworks going off in my mouth, Musk wrapped up his monologue and threw his next question our way.
"So, what's your next move?"
"Pardon?"
"What comes after Magician? What's your dream?"
"Uh... well..."
Caught flat-footed, Hyung-jun and I traded blank stares.
To be completely honest, we had none.
We had kicked off this entire venture with 'Whoa, magic! Isn't this insane?!' escalated to 'Mana! Nature paper! Nobel Prize!' and peaked at 'Hell yeah, breakthrough tech! Filthy, obscene amounts of cash!' How could the Dumb and Dumber of Gwanak Mountain possibly have mapped out a grand five-year roadmap beyond that?
If pressed for an actual goal, it had simply been the "filthy, obscene cash" part—and our generous Arab friends had already catapulted us far past that mark with their investment deposit yesterday. Arcane Technology had been valued at one trillion dollars. If Forbes published its list of Korea's wealthiest tycoons tomorrow, we would already be sitting comfortably near the very top.
And it wasn't like we'd had a spare second to reflect since then. To accurately capture our mental state right now:
My mind is an utter, tranquil blank.
When we failed to answer immediately, Musk took the floor once more.
"My dream is the expansion of human consciousness and habitat. Amassing wealth is merely a stepping stone toward that realization. What truly drives my soul lies within SpaceZ. My mission is to terraform Mars—to make humanity a true multi-planetary species."
He turned his gaze out the towering panoramic window, staring into the distant sky.
"Yet right now, my dream has slammed into a wall. Why? Because venturing into the cosmos demands money. Astronomical sums, quite literally." A shadow flickered across his brow. "That's why SpaceZ has pivoted toward cost-reduction research and budget-slashing tests lately. Crucial work, certainly. But... I despise it!"
Flames ignited in Musk's eyes.
"Humanity needs to push into the cosmos faster than this! We shouldn't be tethered down by budget constraints! Not when you consider every existential threat looming over the future of mankind!"
A global visionary truly operated on an entirely different wavelength. While Hyung-jun and I were busy levitating chopsticks with telekinesis and marveling at 'Behold! The Flying Chopsticks!', this man was projecting his soul into the destiny of the human race.
Was this... the fundamental gulf between Gwanak Mountain and Stanford?
Confronted by this yawning chasm in scale, Hyung-jun and I shivered with awe.
Of course, that didn't stop me from shoveling another forkful of duck and foie gras into my mouth. Seriously, this stuff is sublime. I'm definitely coming back here.
Musk's voice surged with conviction.
"And then I discovered you two. Arcane Technology, and your 'Magician.' My intuition screamed at me: these men might just be the key to making my dream a reality. Genuine geniuses had finally emerged—men who could propel humanity further, faster, and safer into the deep expanse!"
He locked eyes with us, his gaze blazing with impassioned intensity.
"Come to space with me, my friends! Let us forge my dream into our shared destiny! Name whatever you want along the way—funding, facilities, cutting-edge hardware, prestige, even equity on Mars itself! Just name it!"
It was a staggering proposal.
Far beyond a transactional business deal, it was an invitation to share a grand vision and conquer the final frontier together. It held an allure distinctly different from our Arab partners' lavish investment.
The only problem was...
I don't really feel it...
Because at the end of the day, it was his dream.
I wanted to live for my own dreams, not someone else's. While I still had plenty of soul-searching ahead of me, if I had to pick a passion right now, wouldn't my true calling lie in magic rather than outer space?
Even though Hyung-jun and I couldn't readily answer, Musk didn't look discouraged in the slightest. Instead, he flashed an easygoing grin.
"Haha, no need to feel pressured! I'm not demanding an answer this very second. Take all the time you need to think it over."
His tone brimmed with supreme confidence that we would inevitably board his ship.
The empty plates of duck breast were whisked away, replaced by a refreshing yuzu sorbet for dessert.
Mm.
Tangy and bright. All in all, an exquisitely satisfying meal.
"Those CIA bureaucrats tried to persuade me to drag you boys to the States under the banner of national security," Musk mentioned offhandedly. "Idiots who can't see the forest for the trees. What national interest is ever served by shackling the freedom of geniuses?"
We were just sitting there minding our own business, yet explosive state secrets kept casually dropping into our laps. Since no response seemed required, I resolved to remain tactfully silent.
"I have zero interest in chaining you to regulations. But mark my words: you'll soon realize that partnering with me—that coming to America—is the optimal path to fulfilling your own ambitions."
The sheer scale of his self-assurance was breathtaking.
Before long, the meal drew to a close. Musk pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Well then, I shall take my leave. I'll have a formal document sent over outlining the detailed terms of my proposal. Until next time, gentlemen!" Giving us a theatrical wink, he waved. "Bye-bye, adios!"
And just like that, having dominated the conversation from beginning to end without missing a beat, Nylon Musk vanished like a hurricane.
Left alone in the cavernous, quiet restaurant, Hyung-jun and I stared at each other in silence.
Neither of us had called him Techno King before he left.
Total win in my book.