Versatile Superstar Rise In Hollywood

by Stayrr

"To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it." ... Two years ago, Aiden came to the United States to experience the American Dream. But after sleepless nights of struggle, just when he was on the verge of giving up, a translucent screen flashed in front of him - it was a System! A System that would make him embark on a journey to Hollywood. And today, he takes his fir

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Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood #Chapter 385. Time Magazine - Read Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood Chapter 385. Time Magazine Online - All Page - FREEWN

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The scandal with the press association stayed at the top of entertainment and even overall news for quite a lot. All the people that were accused were bigshots and with all the public against them, even politicians asked for strict action to take place.

A lot of people in the industry always felt like the press association held too much power for no reason. It was not like they were The Academy of Motion pictures.

This incident was bound to dilute a lot of their powers, especially with the resignation of Philips Fraser.

With cases of sexual assault against him, he was truly done for. And nothing could change it.

When the scandal had first started, everyone had thought that Aiden was done for. For a while, even Aiden felt like getting out of this situation would be hard.

But in troublesome situations, his brain would usually run very fast.

Though, it was true that he was one step away from blacklisting himself. If he hadn't hurried off to create an all out attack on the press association, then he would have just gotten the short end of the stick.

The reality was that after the resignation of Philips Fraser, The American Press association had publicly asked him to take back the award and promised him that they would do their best to change the organisation.

This was no doubt them pushing forward a friendly hand. Although Aiden knew that it was more because they wanted to do everything to build their image back from dirt, he still decided to take up the offer.

After all, he was still a part of the industry and didn't want any problems from the association in the future.

He knew very well that the association wasn't going to disband as they are a part of tradition in regards to the golden period of Hollywood.

So, it was better to accept in the long term.

Aside from that, Aiden didn't get nominated for Oscars. Although he did got nominated for a few other awards and even won a few of them.

Actors guild awards, Los Angeles movie awards and even Saturn awards — All of them chose him as the best actor of the year.

It really filled up his trophy cabinet and when he was not busy attending an award ceremony, he was busy in the magazine photoshoots and other interviews.

"What was in your mind when you were going up on the stage on that day?"

A beautiful reporter asked as she crossed her legs in front of him. She was the one that had come from Time magazine to take his interview.

They were currently sitting in a studio and a photo session was going to be held next.

"A lot wasn't on my mind. To be honest, it was Pretty blank. If I could have, I wanted to not come to the ceremony as I just felt like the award was something I should not take. If I hadn't come, what happened would have been avoided."

"That would be unfortunate, don't you think?" The reporter asked and Aiden smiled.

"Well, going by how things turned out, yes. It would have been unfortunate but at that moment, I really felt like it was my last day in Hollywood."

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"Are actors normally that scared of Hollywood bigshots?"

A trick question!

Aiden knew that as soon as he heard the first line of the sentence. The woman also made a smile like she was holding his neck with one of her hands.

After all, depending on how he answers it, the context could be anything.

Fortunately, Aiden was already very strong when it came to dealing with those sorts of questions.

"It's not about being scared. Think of it as working in a company, now you aren't going to talk against the company you are working for. The industry is kind of like that. A very big, multinational company. And you only have work in it if people like you. Doing something like what I did could be taken as me going against the industry. It's very simple."

After saying that, he added.

"Moreover, I wouldn't have done what I did if I was really scared. It was more about the consequences that could have been anything."

The reporter noted down a few words and continued on. The interview was pretty long and Aiden really wondered which parts of it would be edited and which ones would make it to the magazine.

After the interview was done, he moved over to the next room where the cameraman was already waiting for him.

For the next two hours, he was asked to make a lot of poses.

Click! Click! Click!

"Can you hold your hand a bit higher?"

"Stand a bit on the back and with a straight face. Don't smile. Just look like you are thinking of something profound."

"Yeah, that pose. Make it again and we're good to go."

After getting barraged by countless white flashes, Aiden was finally able to move out of the studio.

"It's finally done."

He said, getting inside of the car after the photoshoot was over. They were going to send him a copy of the magazine as soon as it got published.

From what the reporter told him, they were expecting quite a nice response due to how popular Aiden had been in the recent past.

"You have 'tired' written all over your face yet you seem like the guy all the girls would be hoping to go home with in a club."

Wade said as he looked at him. Both of them were sitting in the backseat and Tom was driving the car.

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"Makeup is a pretty good invention. It makes even a skeleton look good. And I have been feeling it since the week began. It's just not about the whole interview and photoshoot."

"Because of award ceremonies and appearing on magazine covers?" Wade raised an eyebrow.

He was under the impression that those were the easiest things for a celebrity. Award ceremonies are pretty relaxing and depending on your popularity, photoshoot crews treat you like a king.

"Yeah but it's not like I don't like them. They are fine but it's more like I miss the feeling of being on the set. It's been a long time since I was on a set. [The Black Saint] ended almost six months ago."

"True. A lot of time has gone by since then. You have been busy with the release of the movie and then troubles of being an A-lister."

Wade said and thought about it. For some reason, in this business, time goes by too fast if you are sought after. He just realised that he was in his 40s now.

Getting old too fast.

"You are going to take part in the script reading session next week, right? Maybe you will get better then."

Tom said as he looked back from the corner of his eyes. They were currently stuck in traffic.

"Yeah, Olio was excited about it. We have been having constant online conversations these days. It will be nice to meet the cast and crew too."

[Hex] was finally about to start. It was probably the best news for Aiden as he was itching to feel the sensation of immersion again. The feeling of becoming something else. Another person all together.

"Heh, I am going to come with you too that day."

Wade suddenly said and it threw Aiden off for a second. He had mostly been absent from the reading sessions of his past few projects since Tom had taken over.

"Why suddenly?"

"I want to meet Alberto. Producers are mostly there at reading sessions. I want to see his expression."

"Did he do anything?"

Aiden asked and Wade just took out his phone and showed him a few messages.

All of them were from the night the Golden Globes ceremony had taken place.

He read them and it seemed like Alberto was quite happy when Aiden had called out the press association. He had probably thought that he had gotten a reason to get Aiden out of the movie.

[Alberto Dundley: Aiden is out of the movie! Just wait till the press association bans him. He was too arrogant for his own good.]

He read the last message and couldn't help but feel like Alberto had drank expensive wine in happiness that night.

"He's very reactionary."

"That he is." Wade nodded. "He didn't even wait for the whole scandal to die down after all. I'm pretty sure he was already talking with the legal team and Olio about kicking you out. I heard Ava handled him to stay silent but he probably expected you to eventually get banned anyway. It was the opposite in the end."

Hearing that, Aiden nodded.

'He must be fuming right now. I should probably send him the issue of Time and Forbes magazine as a gift when it comes out. He will appreciate it.'

He thought in his mind sarcastically.

"I'm pretty sure he will have an interesting expression on his face next week then."

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Script reading sessions were one of the most important parts of a movie or a series. For a lot of people, it was the first time they would meet the cast and it would be a nice way to get some chemistry with each other as there was no pressure of doing well.

It was just reading out your line one after another and discussing a few scenes.

Though, they can easily turn into a bad experience from a good one depending on the people involved in the project. There are also ego battles taking place in silence.

Especially if big stars are involved.

Each of the A-listers have their own unique quirks and a lot of them are eager to prove themselves, especially towards other actors of similar stature.

Unfortunately for Aiden, [Hex] was full of big names.

"Wade is having a phone call. Let's wait in the cafe till then."

"Okay."

Tom and Aiden sat down in the cafe that was beside Olio's office to drink some coffee. There were still twenty minutes left till the reading session started.

They could go early as he was sure that a few people would already be there but they needed to wait for Wade first.

As they were sitting, Tom suddenly opened his mouth.

"By the way, did Wade tell you about Emma Lander?"

"What about her?"

Aiden asked as the coffee arrived. She was one of the A-listers working on the movie and someone who had a role that was only secondary to Aiden.

She didn't play a love interest or something but instead played the villain that went by the name of 'The Witch Queen'.

"Well, from what I got from my sources." Tom said, making a very serious expression. "She's very close with Alberto and was the first one to get the role. She's also very controlling on the set."

"I doubt she will try anything with Olio. She's going to get scolded. I doubt she will take that with a straight face though."

"Nah not with Olio. Pretty sure she knows her limits with him. She's probably going to try to keep you in check."

Aiden stopped drinking the coffee after hearing it.

"Me?"

"Yeah you. You are the hottest person in Hollywood right now. She probably would feel threatened just because you have the main role. As for others, they would just try to butter you up but would keep her in check while doing that."

When he heard that, Aiden realised that this was going to be his first shoot after becoming an A-lister. He had seen the drama around egos during his time as a lesser star.

People won't focus on him that much then.

But he did play his role as a spectacor. Once, he had even heard about two A-listers who were in a project together but they couldn't deal with each other due to ego issues.

One of them wanted to get out but he needed to pay too much in cancellation fees. In the end, the actor did the project somehow and was depressed at the end of the movie.

So, it was really not just games. It could really affect a person.

As for Emma Lander, he liked her filmography because it was very standard. She started from rom coms for the initial few years, getting the box office pull when they were at the height of popularity.

But after that, she branched out in different types of roles, eventually becoming a better actor and one of the most reliable A-listers.

He did know her personality wasn't the best due to Tom but he didn't really care. In his opinion, her role was extremely good and was something that could even have a movie of its own later on, so she doesn't have to feel insecure due to him.

"I don't want a situation like that." Aiden muttered. "I will just try to talk to her nicely. If it doesn't work out, then you know me. I'm good at these types of things."

Tom smiled when Aiden said that. Taking a sip out of his coffee cup, he muttered.

"I'm sure most of Hollywood knows what type of things you are good at by now."

At the place where the reading session was going to take off, most of the cast was already present. A few people from the crew were also there and food and drinks were on the table for everyone to eat.

It looked like a pretty good atmosphere.

The executive producer, Alberto Dundley and the director, Olio Fermen weren't here, so the cast was just talking among themselves.

But if one looked closely, they would notice that a woman with dyed blond hair was sitting in one corner, wearing what looked like a designer dress.

Around her, there were a few people standing like her bodyguards. She has a bitter look on her face like she was not fed anything since the morning.

Seeing her like that, the other actors talked.

"She looks pissed."

"Anyone know what happened?"

"I don't know. I tried to introduce myself but she just shrugged. Her agent is scary too. Can't even go near her."

"I heard she has a narcissistic personality but didn't know it was like that."

"I guess there's a reason why she was chosen to play a cold witch."

A few people laughed at that joke but when they saw Emma Lander looking towards them, they quickly lowered their heads and refused to meet her eyes.

Hoping she hadn't heard about it, the supporting cast continued to talk.

One of them, a middle aged actor who was playing the role of a magic professor in an academy, seemed to have some information on the reason behind Emma's bad mood.

"I think it's because a few of her scenes are supposedly going to be removed from the script."

"What?"

"Yeah, Olio is known to edit out bad parts from his screenplay from the last minute. Sometimes, he writes scenes during filming itself and her character is getting a bit shorter compared to before. She's probably informed about it and isn't happy."

Hearing the fresh piece of gossip that was straight out of the oven, the supporting cast finally understood what was going on.

Even they would be bitter if their scenes were shortened. Though, most of them were very used to such practices and didn't mind it much.

But the middle aged actor wasn't done yet.

"You know, she won't be this furious normally. It's more so because Olio removed her scenes and added them to Aiden, saying he was the lead and needed to be projected as the hero of the whole movie. I heard it from his assistant when I came to meet him last week."

A few eyes glanced towards Emma but she glared at them again. Her gaze was very sharp like she was going to kill them if they spoke any wrong words towards her.

"Aiden hadn't come yet, right?"

"Yeah, it will be very interesting when it comes. You all just enjoy whatever will happen. Once we are on the set, someone like Olio will handle them."

The middle aged actor advised and it was then that the door to the room opened up.

"Aiden is here."

Aiden walked in with Tom and Wade behind him. Everyone had seen him in TV and photos before but he looked better in real life. There was a sense of calmness in his eyes and he had a good height too.

With all the recent development in Hollywood, he was the man that was becoming too big and no one knew when he would stop.

'Looks like most of the cast and crew are already here.'

Aiden thought and walked up to the group of actors standing together. He introduced himself to them and shook hands.

A few people looked surprised by his friendly demeanour but they talked nicely.

"Let's have fun shooting the movie."

"Yes yes, I'm looking forward to seeing you on the set." The middle aged actor said, shaking hands with Aiden.

Then, he turned and found that Emma was sitting by herself with her agent and bodyguard standing on both sides, like they were protecting her.

As she was a senior, he walked towards her.

"Hello, I'm Aiden Silvereye. We have not met before but I'm looking forward to working with you."

Hearing that, she raised her head and looked at him before standing up. As Aiden was a head taller than her, she could still just keep looking up.

That made her more angry for some reason.

"Oh really?" She asked.

"Ah yeah."

"Well, I'm not really looking forward to working with you but I guess it will change depending on how you act around me."

Hearing that, Aiden wondered for a second if he was hearing it right. Emma's whole tone sounded childish like she was expecting him to work hard to impress her.

'Is she an entitled brat or what?'

He thought but before he could answer, the door again opened and Alberto walked in this time.

The first thing he saw was Aiden and instantly, an ugly expression spread on his face.

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Alberto walked through the door with an aura that producers would often display. Not too approachable but he didn't look too overbearing either.

Still, there was a foul smile on his face like he wasn't happy with something. It was more like he had not slept for two days.

Seeing him walking in, all of the cast and crew went ahead to greet him and introduce themselves. But Alberto just nodded towards them and looked around.

His eyes stopped looking when he found Aiden. The foul smile on his face got worse instantly before disappearing and his eyes sharpened.

Ignoring everyone else, he walked towards him.

'He certainly doesn't look happy seeing me.'

Aiden thought in his mind. He didn't really enjoy meeting Alberto either but this time, he had the upper hand for now.

Unlike him, Emma who was standing beside him was beaming with joy suddenly. It was as if she wasn't acting like an ice princess just a second ago.

A few of the cast members were also surprised to see her like this.

"What happened to her suddenly?"

"She looked like she was ready to go to war just a minute ago. Now, she's acting like a newly wed wife."

"Apparently, she's close to Alberto and is in the movie because of him. She probably thinks of him as her way to gain more control over the project."

Aiden heard the whisper too due to his good hearing but it seemed to have no impact on Alberto and Emma.

When he got close, Emma walked to give him a hug, trying to display that she was very close to the producer.

"Alberto, I have not seen you in a long time. I heard you were in London these past few days."

To that, Alberto just nodded and returned the hug in a cold manner.

"Yeah, I was."

He didn't say anything further and got away from her and walked a few steps ahead to stand in front of Aiden.

Suddenly, Emma's shoulders sunked and her expression broke into a mess.

The producer she acted close with didn't even look at her properly and went straight to the lead actor? The whole exchange was taken like that by everyone in the room.

'Why is he like this suddenly? Is it because my recent movie flopped at the box office?'

Emma thought in her mind but she didn't realise that Alberto hadn't ignored her because he thought of Aiden as better.

He just wanted to have another exchange of words with Aiden.

"It seems like I underestimated your luck greatly. You are extremely lucky to get away from something like this."

"It seems like you are hurt because I wasn't blacklisted? I'm pretty sure you were already in talks with another actor to take over my role but it fizzled out because the press association wasn't able to do anything to me."

"Ah, you were just lucky."

"Is that the excuse you are giving yourself everytime you lose to me?"

Both Alberto and Aiden whispered under their breaths as they shook hands. They were talking in a volume so low that not even Emma who was standing pretty close was able to hear it.

As their expressions were also blank, no one had any idea that there was animosity between the two of them.

Alberto was too egoistic to accept his defeat and although he wanted to make trouble during the shooting, his hands were bound.

After all, it was his project and if it failed due to these things, then he won't have anyone else to blame. So, he could just stay silent for a few months.

As Aiden and Alberto were having their bitter exchange of words, Emma was just standing there, not knowing what to do.

She looked towards her agent and whispered to him.

"You didn't tell me that Alberto was close with Aiden too?"

"No, I'm pretty sure they have bad blood between them. Even now, it's not like they are acting like old friends."

"At least he wasn't ignored."

Emma snorted and the agent quickly tried to think of something to ease her anger. As always, she was hard to handle.

"Anyway, it's not smart to cozy up to Alberto. After all, Olio Fermen is known to have most of the power during shooting. You need to talk to him to get your scenes increased too. It's better to butter him up knowing his reputation."

The agent said and Emma blinked, thinking about it. She found the suggestion acceptable and nodded. As she had not worked with Olio before, there was no familiarity between them.

Olio was a very strict filmmaker, even avoiding a lot of social gatherings and for the past few years, he wasn't even working on a movie.

'This is a good plan.'

She thought in her mind.

"I have another meeting to be at, so I won't be present during the script reading. Like I said before, don't fuck up the movie or I will fuck you up."

Alberto said in a gangster like tone but Aiden just shrugged his shoulders. He left after that and for some reason, Olio walked in five minutes after that with a few of his assistants.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room tensed.

Aiden noticed it and raised an eyebrow.

"Are the other actors scared of Olio?" He asked Wade who nodded.

"Kind of. He has a reputation of a pretty strict director. Once, he even threw out a big actor for coming in late for the shoot. That incident happened at the peak of his directing career and no one was able to utter a word. Directors like him are way bigger than actors after all."

Aiden nodded his head hearing that.

One more reason was probably that Olio was the type to make a distinction between professional and personal life and wasn't too close with any actor.

The reason why he was fine with Aiden was because they had strictly talked about [Hex] and their interpretations of the novel.

Although the other actors greeted him reservedly, Emma walked towards him with a wide smile on her face.

"Mr. Fermen, we only met a few times before. I doubt we were able to have a nice talk."

She said, shaking hands with him. Opposite to her warm attitude, Olio just stared blankly at her.

"We talked enough, I think. I like your interpretation of the character and going by your past movies, you are good enough for the role. Until you need any assistance on the scenes, I doubt we need to get closer."

Emma was already so happy with the praise in the first half of the sentence that she didn't seem to focus on the second half of the sentence.

"Actually, I wanted to talk about the scenes." She said and Olio raised an eyebrow.

"What about them?"

"I got to know that some of my scenes were cut off from the core of the story. I feel like it's better if they get restored as they do a good job on telling the backstory of my character."

"I cut them off for a reason."

Olio simply said but it didn't look like Emma was done.

"I just felt like it was better—"

"I never asked you what was better for the movie. Did I?"

He asked in a raised voice. It was such that everyone heard it in the room and eyes quickly gathered towards them.

Emma was shocked and didn't know what to say.

"You are just an actor and it's not your story. It's mine. I know how to make it better and I don't need to ask you for that. Are you trying to have more control on the project?"

"Ah no."

"Then, just do what is given to you."

Saying that, Olio walked away and Emma was left dumbstruck. She wanted to lash out right at the moment but her agent quickly controlled her.

[Hex] was a big movie for her despite her status as in the last few years, her popularity had gone down.

That's why her agent could only try to cool her down.

After straightening out Emma, Olio walked towards Aiden.

Although he wasn't really scared of him, he had also watched what had happened with Emma and didn't want the thing to repeat itself.

That's why, he decided to just be respectful and not have any demands while working on the project. One needed to act depending on who he was working with in the industry after all.

Aiden pushed his hand forward towards Olio.

"Olio, it's nice to see you. It's been a—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Olio suddenly hugged him. The atmosphere froze and everyone rubbed their eyes, wondering what was happening.

Were they that close? How is Olio even close to someone? Those were suddenly the thoughts in everyone's mind.

Even Wade and Tom were watching with widened eyes.

'What's happening? Is Olio okay?'

Aiden also wasn't sure why the Hitler like director was suddenly acting like this.

"I need to thank you. The press association was one of the main reasons why I didn't get any investments for my project for a few years."

When he said that, Aiden finally understood what was happening.

The middle aged actor who had worked with Olio before also got it and explained to the actors who were still confused.

"Olio and Philips Fraser hated each other and that man was partly responsible for him not getting investments."

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When Olio hugged Aiden, everyone in the room was surprised. The director who had just bashed one of the leading actresses in Hollywood for asking for a few script changes was acting like old buddies with another actor.

Why were they so close? They have never even worked together before.

Those types of questions were thrown around in people's minds. Emma Landen was stunned, not even able to comprehend what was happening.

"Why is Olio hugging Aiden?"

"Are my eyes having a delusion or is it really happening?"

"Wait, is he gay?"

"Maybe that's it. Olio is gay!"

"Idiot! He has five kids. During the time he was not directing, he got 2 more kids. How can he be gay?"

It was only then that the middle aged actor who had worked with Olio before revealed the truth to everyone.

"Olio and Philips Fraser hated each other and that man was partly responsible for him not getting investments."

Hearing that, everyone, including Emma understood why Aiden was getting special attention from Olio.

It also made an early end to any tactics that Emma was planning in her mind to use against Aiden. After all, if Olio got to know, then it won't be good for her.

Olio liked Aiden more than her.

It was very clear!

She was one of the victims of the star complex but she wasn't entirely dumb to not look at things with a clear eye. She knew when to play meek.

That's why, she just shrugged her shoulders and sat in one of the corners. Her agents tried their best to cool her down during the whole script reading session.

'Let's see how you act during the shooting.'

She said in her mind.

As for others, it was very clear to them that Aiden was going to have the biggest bargaining chip in his hand during the whole shooting.

So, it was wiser to cosy up to him.

Barring a few awkward conversations with Emma who really didn't seem to like him, Aiden had a pretty good time during the whole script reading session.

With Alberto not looking over it and Olio being nice to him, he was able to relax.

The other supporting cast also looked like good people that seemed fun to work with.

Aiden was sure that his time on [Hex] won't be bad and he just needed to focus on his character.

After the script reading session, there was still a week before the actual shooting started.

This one week, Aiden was again going to read up on the Hex novel series to get another look at the whole world of it.

Moreover, he was also going to get more comfortable with his costumes and stuff.

Although [Hex] wasn't a superhero movie, there was a distinct style to the tradition of the world and the main character.

The costume designers working on the movie had done a great job on them and Aiden just needed to get a better feel of it.

During all this, he hadn't forgotten one thing that he was still working on.

That was his web novel.

Archer's Ascension

The novel had been posted on Wuxia updates, the largest directory of webnovels in the world for a few months now and at his peak, Aiden used to write 4 chapters of it daily.

But as he had gotten busy, the chapters daily have lowered. Now, he was just posting 10 chapters a week.

Actually, at this point, the novel didn't have to be boosted with a lot of updates as it had already gathered a large fanbase.

With each chapter update, a lot of comments would appear straight away.

That was the proof that the novel was doing well. Though, Aiden was now already on the final arcs in the novel.

His main character had gotten a good amount of proficiency in his skills and it won't be wrong to say that he was already one of the strongest characters in the world of Archer's Ascension.

He had also solved the mystery of his background and founded a kingdom and was learning the tricks of becoming a better king.

By this point, there was not much for him to do.

Aiden could still keep the novel going by bringing in new enemies and maybe, just a completely different dimension into play like other cultivation novels but he felt like that would just be a dent on an otherwise good novel.

So, he wanted to end it. And a grand way to end a novel was only one.

'An all out war. A conclusion to start a beginning into the next epoch of the world.'

He had planned this arc even before starting the novel as he always felt like an author needed to know the beginning and the ending while writing a web novel.

The middle portions are often made after the reader's opinions.

Aiden was planning to end the novel before the shooting of [Hex] begins. Otherwise, it would be too hard to write it as he will get busier with the shooting.

But when Aiden sat down to write the starting of the final arc, he didn't feel like writing it.

'Umm, Is this writer's block? Why am I getting it now?'

Aiden thought in his mind and frowned.

No matter how much he tried, words weren't coming to him suddenly. It was not the first time that this was happening to him, so he was still mostly calm.

He opened up the previous read and read through it before looking through the comments too. There were a few of them that were bad as some readers didn't like a few characters dying.

But mostly, the comments were positive.

[Heyyy boy: The author is probably ending the novel soon. I feel a bit sad but this has been a very enjoyable novel of mine.]

[Harem slut: Man, is he really not going to get a harem? He's a king now, he needs to get more kids out. Why is the author such a pussy to not go for harem. This is a 3/5 novel just because of no harem.]

[The Fool: I hope the author releases a new novel soon as this seems like the start of the final arc. It Has been a great experience till now. Great job, author. How about writing about Showbiz next? I need more of it.]

The comments made him feel a bit better and he felt like he would be able to write now. But for some reason, he still felt like there was something on the back of his mind that was bothering with him.

Something that seemed like a regret.

'Umm what is it?'

He thought before his mind finally told him why he was like this.

'Ah, yeah. The rankings!'

He quickly opened up the novel rankings on the Wuxia updates page and saw that his novel Archer's Ascension was still on the second rank.

The first rank was occupied by I'm the Son of the Villain by 'Soulless'. It was a novel that Aiden had read and in one word, it was like the perfect web novel.

Not because of a mind blowing story or anything. The web novel was pretty simple and the story was nothing new either but it incorporated every single trope of web novels with a great amount of comedy.

A overpowered protagonist, harem, great female characters, Sigma main character and a rich world with a system in place.

It was like an AI had written the novel by taking in every single popular trope.

Actually, Aiden had been trying to defeat the first ranker since the time he had reached the second rank and there were even times when he was close to becoming the number one.

But somehow, 'Soulless' would always increase the difference between them.

It was a bit frustrating to Aiden but he couldn't do anything about it.

Still, he wanted to reach the first rank even for a little while before ending the novel. It was a wish of his.

That's why, he even felt like not writing as right now, it didn't look like Archer's Ascension would be able to defeat I'm the Son of the Villain.

He didn't want to have this one regret as he closed his novel.

'Should I make one last attempt to defeat 'Soulless'? Maybe, writing more chapters will work but I have done that in the past, it didn't work out. Moreover, my novel seemed to have already hit his peak.'

Aiden thought in his mind and wondered about this problem.

But there didn't seem to be any solution.

Not getting anything, he decided to ask a fellow webnovel author that he had become close with. As his popularity had rose, a lot of other authors had texted him to get to know him better.

He had gotten a few online friends like that. Though, he never got a chance to talk a lot due to his real life.

[The Dreamer: Hey, Dragon, I need a bit of help.]

He texted 'Dragon Eternal Sunshine', the third ranked author on the website. A minute later, a reply came.

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In his short web novel writing career, Aiden had realised that authors were far more connected with each other in web novels.

Writing for the same website, they would all have groups where they would talk with each other. As Aiden's stature had grown, he was also invited into one of these groups.

There, he had talked to a few authors but had found out that there were three types of authors. The first one that would try to be friendly with him just because his novel was doing good — The bootlickers.

The second one would act like they don't care about talking nicely and would be in their own space like 'Soulless', the top ranker and the third kind were the genuine ones that would talk about things nicely and won't have hidden intentions in their heart.

The third ranked author 'Dragon Eternal Sunshine' was the third kind.

He was a very talkative person and would often talk about how he had started out with web novels. During college and how he had stuck with it due to the money.

Aiden knew him much better than any other author, so he naturally asked him about the problem he was facing.

Using his pen name 'The Dreamer', he texted him.

[The Dreamer: Hey, Dragon, I need a bit of help.]

A minute later, the reply came.

It was fast but expected. 'Dragon Eternal Sunshine' was someone who was always in front of the screen. Either writing novels or reading one. He had no life outside this which Aiden always felt was a bit sad.

[Dragon Eternal Sunshine: What's up, Dreamer? Been a long time since we talked? I heard your novel is about to end? I'm reading it daily and you have done a great job.]

[The Dreamer: I have been good and yeah, it's ending. I just wanted to ask you something. Is there a way I could defeat 'Soulless'?]

Aiden went straight to the topic but there was no reply for a few seconds. It was only after a minute passed that a reply came.

[Dragon Eternal Sunshine: I have already tried a lot to be honest but it's hard to beat him. I thought you would be able to but I guess there's no way when someone is burning money to advertise his novels day and night.]

'Advertisement? What advertisement?'

Aiden thought about reading the whole sentence.

He had not seen any kind of advertisement for 'Soulless' novel on the website or anywhere for that matter.

He quickly asked what he was talking about.

[The Dreamer: What advertisements are you talking about?]

A reply came soon after he asked that.

[Dragon Eternal Sunshine: Ah, it seems like you don't know but 'Soulless' does heavy marketing of his novel online by using ads. You are watching a video and the ad for his novel will start. Apparently, he had studied online marketing before this, so he's a master of knowing what type of people would read his novel. A few other authors tried it too but they failed as it was too much money to push for a web novel. They weren't making a profit.]

Reading the whole paragraph, several questions came to mind.

He understood that 'Soulless' was marketing the novel pretty hard and that's why he would always get new readers. But if the whole thing was not profitable, how was he able to keep doing it?

Was he earning that much from his published novels? Or was it something else.

There was only one answer that Aiden felt was the right one.

'He must be pretty rich.'

There was no other way around it. 'Soulless' was someone with a lot of money laying around and he didn't mind putting it in his novels until he could see them at the top.

From the start, he wasn't in it to earn money.

[The Dreamer: Thanks. I didn't know 'Soulless' had that much money lying around.]

[Dragon Eternal Sunshine: There are rumours that he's the son of some multinational company owner and other stuff. Anyway, I advise you to give up on thinking that you could beat him. It helped me and I'm very satisfied with my third rank these days.]

Being content with what you have achieved — That wasn't bad advice but Aiden's reply was completely opposite of it.

[The Dreamer: Thanks but I feel like I know a way to defeat 'Soulless'. An easy way actually.]

Saying that, Aiden bid goodbye to 'Dragon Eternal Sunshine'. The third ranked author was confused by Aiden's answer but he didn't try to think too much of it.

Finishing his talk, Aiden felt like it would be pretty easy to defeat 'Soulless' now.

His mindset had completely changed.

After all, if 'Soulless' could market his novel, then why couldn't he? Until now, Aiden had hidden his identity as writing Archer's Ascension was nothing more than a relaxing project for him.

Something that was away from the tag of Aiden Silvereye. With a new pen name, he felt like a different person altogether.

Moreover, he knew that if he revealed his true identity, then it wouldn't be fair with other authors. He wanted to compete fairly.

But now that his novel is coming to an end, he doesn't care that much.

Making his decision, Aiden opened up his Skygram account and linked his novel while making a post. He did the same with his Sparrow account.

In a few minutes, his novel spreaded to his tens of millions of followers.

'Soulless' was the son of a CEO of a big corporation. He had lived his entire life seeing the worst sides of humans.

From his father who was mostly absent to his mom who couldn't care less about her family.

But he always had money.

And he realised early that money was the best thing in the world. With that, he could do anything.

Throughout school, he was the most important person due to the amount of money he had. In college he was the only one driving Lamborghini and dining in five star hotels.

People were always attracted to him due to his lifestyle.

But it always felt lacking to him.

After all, he never truly felt like he was at the top. That people were looking up to him. He knew that people were just looking up to his money.

That's when he found out about web novels. Those have sucked him in and he knew after a few months of reading them that he wanted to write them.

At first, when he started, it was hard but he had a knack for it. So, he adapted very easily and he found good success with it but it wasn't at the level he wished for.

That's when he thought about boosting his novel by playing ads. Anyway, his father was more than happy to give him tons of money every month and there was no better use of it.

He had seen a sudden boost of readers coming to his novel and soon found himself becoming the top author.

Even an author with a better novel than his couldn't dethrone it.

After a few months of playing online ads to boost his sales, he became a master of it and the feeling of being at the top really captured his heart.

He could now flex about his rankings and novels to others. It didn't matter to him how he had reached there.

The only thing that mattered was that he was at the top.

It went on like two years as he defeated several other novels. A few authors complained that he was playing ads but it wasn't cheating. He was just using money for his novel to reach more people.

Though in the past few months, he did feel a bit scared as a new novel came in the market.

Archer's Ascension

It was a novel that appeared out of nowhere and reached the top ten in just a month. It headed straight for the throne soon but 'Soulless' was never going to let that happen.

He had to increase the money he was paying for the ads but it did work. After Archer's Ascension hit its peak and stabilised, he was sure that it wouldn't pose another threat to his top spot.

But he had never thought that the competition was far from over.

On a Saturday morning, when 'Soulless' woke up and opened up the website to check the rankings, he felt shocked to see it.

For a minute, he felt like he was seeing things.

He refreshed the page. Not once but five times but it wasn't a glitch. In front of him, his novel was not on the first place like everyday but on the second place.

Archer's Ascension - 13 million views - 1st rank.

I'm the Son of the Villain - 13 million views - 2nd rank.

The rank was decided on the basis of views and ratings and suddenly, Archer's Ascension had 13 million views.

He was sure that just last night, it only had 11 million views and in a fortnight, they have increased by 2 million.

'How is this possible?'

'Soulless' thought in his mind and at that moment, he suddenly felt his phone vibrate. He was suddenly getting a lot of messages.

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When Aiden had first posted about the web novel, a lot of his followers had thought that Aiden's account had been hacked.

After all, he had never written any online novels before. The whole genre was not mainstream and a lot of people even wondered what a web novel is. Aiden also had never talked about it before, so they were a bit sceptical.

All this time he was making another novel after Behind the scenes and no one even knew. Going by the amount of chapters already posted, the novel even seemed to be coming to an end.

But as it was free and people were doubting whether Aiden was really the author, a lot of people checked it out and just after a few chapters, they realised that it was indeed his novel and his account wasn't really hacked.

A writer's style is always distinct and although Aiden had written Archer's Ascension in a simpler fashion to not look too overbearing, it still carried his distinct style.

A style with an emphasis on flow. It was such that people weren't able to stop themselves from reading the novel.

After posting the links, Aiden got a lot of comments by people who were asking all sorts of questions.

Since when was he writing this? Why had he only just revealed it? And other things. So, Aiden made a separate post to satisfy their curiosity.

[I have been writing this for a few months. It was a personal project of mine and I think it's the right time for me to reveal it to all of you. It's a bit different from my first book, so I wasn't sure how all of you would like it.]

With that, it was clear that his account wasn't hacked or something. A lot of his followers also became more interested as hardly any of them knew about web novels, especially cultivation ones.

Though, those who knew were the most excited. The post actually brought out a lot of silent followers who were readers of web novels.

[Moaning Frodo: So, Aiden read webnovels! Is he the first actor who would understand the mystic daos. Never thought the start of my day would be like this!]

[Daoist snu snu: Aiden is 'The Dreamer'? Damn, I never expected two of my favourite people to be the same person. It's a weird feeling but a nice one. When did he start reading webnovels though?]

[A Spanish cat is better than blue aliens: I think he's always been a reader. At least he talked about anime in a few of his interviews and how he thinks their mode of storytelling is extremely different from Hollywood but more impactful. I think he reads web novels alongside that. Man's a weeb.]

[Top G-hadi: I never read web novels and don't really understand the genre of cultivation. Is it a novel on farming? But it sounds interesting. Anyway it's free and I have time. I will check it out.]

[OP Bald protagonist: Damn, I read ten chapters of it and it's vastly different from Behind the scenes and even Morpheus. It's just in a very different skin but it's definitely great. Sounds like it doesn't have too much emotional depth as it focuses more on the blood pumping parts. I kind of found myself as the protagonist while reading it.]

[Racist Black Cat: I'm not really interested in it but damn, it seems like a popular novel. I am sure about the quality as it looked to be one of the best on the website and no one even knew it was Aiden's novel before this.]

Those types of comments kept increasing and increasing and a lot of people just tried the novel just to see how it would be. A few gave up after the first chapter but those who read a few were instantly hooked.

After all, web novels are written on a day to day basis and it was important for them to be hooking for readers to continue reading. A lot of Aiden's followers have never read a novel like that, so it was a very different experience for them.

Moreover, unlike other web novels that have a lot of wish fulfilment, Archer's Ascension was a lot closer to a balanced fantasy novel. That made it a perfect first read for a person that had never read a web novel before.

With that, one thing that Aiden wasn't expecting was the media catching up on it. Not the top media companies like Vanity or Hollywood weekly but the ones that report on any small thing to keep up with traction on their websites.

They quickly released articles.

Aiden Silvereye revealed his new novel Archer's Ascension on his social media accounts. The novel is free to read and is a passion project from the multi talented individual.

-The Box.

Archer's Ascension, a web novel by Aiden Silvereye is becoming more and more famous every hour as a lot of people are watching it after the celebrity announced that he was writing it.

-Film Times.

Aiden Silvereye revealed himself as the famous web novel author 'The Dreamer', shocking a lot of his fans. His moniker has been writing the novel for a few months and now, it's one of the top web novels on the entire internet. Read to know more about web novels and where you could read them.

-Citra Magazine.

These articles helped increase the flow of new readers on his web novel. A lot of them were also enjoying the web novel as he was getting tons of positive comments.

That made Aiden more motivated to write chapters.

A few hours later, he opened up the website to know how his novel was doing. His phone was constantly ringing today as a lot of people were suddenly texting him about his sudden reveal.

He had only picked up a few calls and had decided to reply to the messages later after writing.

'Ah, my views have increased a lot.'

He thought as he looked at the screen in front of him. It had gained almost two million views in one day. No ads could generate such a huge growth.

With hope in his heart, he opened up the rankings and there, he saw it.

Archer's Ascension - 13 million views - 1st rank.

I'm the Son of the Villain - 13 million views - 2nd rank.

His novel was in the first place, finally.

'Soulless' couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. How could his novel be in second place?

There was a lot of difference between him and 'The Dreamer'. How could he gain 2 million views in one single day?

At first, he thought it's a glitch but after refreshing, he knew it wasn't.

He quickly texted the guy who handles the ads for his novel.

[Soulless: Double down the ads! Don't worry about anything else. I want to reach the first rank fast.]

He had messaged with an obsessed mind. In the last two years, he had gotten so used to being at the top that it felt very unnatural.

All he wanted was to get back to the top as soon as possible.

He was getting a lot of messages on his phone. That's why, he opened it while thinking how Archer's Ascension had gotten so many views in one day.

When he opened up his phone, he noticed that the author's group was buzzing with a lot of people talking about something. He had a hint that they were talking about the sudden shift in ranks.

That's why he started reading the messages.

[Dragon Eternal Sunshine: Did you guys see it? The first rank has a new king. I was not expecting that when I woke up.]

[Lolimon: Yeah, how the hell did 'The Dreamer' do it? I was waiting for someone to dethrone 'Soulless' but he gained almost 2 million views in one night. How's that even possible?]

[Junior sister, you are stuck: He probably cheated. There's no other way. After all, 'Soulless' would never let anyone else get past him.]

Reading that, 'Soulless' thought the same thing. 'The Dreamer' had probably cheated. All those views were surely just bots. There was no way it would be organic after all.

In the past, other people have tried that too but they all have been banned by the website.

'Soulless' was hoping to see the same here. He also calmed down a bit when his mind moved towards that.

But in the next second, a member suddenly revealed the truth. It was the fifth ranked author.

[Anabella maker: There's no cheating or anything that took place. All those views are organic and I have confirmed it. 'The Dreamer' got so many views because his real identity is that of Aiden Silvereye, that actor who was in the news last month. He has tens of millions of followers and all his followers are now reading the web novel, adding to the views. That's why, he got to the top in one night.]

Reading that, 'Soulless' doubted it for a while. After all, a celebrity writing a web novel. That actually sounded straight out from a web novel and these are just wish fulfilments.

But when he actually looked into it, he found out that it was actually true!

Aiden hadn't cheated! He just used up his resources!

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With the reveal of Aiden's identity as 'The Dreamer', his book was suddenly doing great. He had finally achieved the top rank that he coveted all this time.

And it made him happy.

After all, it was the result of his efforts and people have rarely complained about the web novel. It gave him motivation to make the final arc the best in the whole book.

He got to work right away.

At the same time, 'Soulless', the previous number one ranked author was fuming. He couldn't believe what had happened just in one night.

He didn't want to believe it.

He tried his best to turn the whole situation around. After all, he can't lose to a celebrity but in the age of numbers, follower count was something not a lot of people could go against.

'Soulless' tried his best. Even increasing the ads on the novel but the good word of mouth had spread and it was almost impossible to battle against it.

In the end, he had to agree to his defeat. Even if every fibre of his being didn't wanted to accept it.

Aiden's followers were busy trying to make it spread to more people and it was true that the novel was very addictive. It was made in such a way.

So, when someone tried it, they recommended it to their friends and family.

Although it was true that with such a large number of people, it was very normal for there to be different opinions. Some people didn't like it at all and bashed the novel after reading a few chapters while others who were a fan of Behind the scenes felt disappointed.

Aiden wasn't able to do anything with these reviews. With time, more and more bad reviews came out and he could just keep writing while focusing on the positivity.

In just a few days, he was almost down to the last three-four chapters. Although he had prepared a few side chapters, there was no time to write them down with the shooting of Hex starting.

Just a day before that, he got a call when he was writing down the last chapter of Archer's Ascension. The epilogue after the great war and how the main character's life had been changed after it.

It was then that he got a call from Marshall White, the owner of Vikings publishing.

"Aiden, are you free? I wanted to talk with you about something?"

Hearing his soft but firm voice, Aiden recognised that he was calling for business and he had a hunch as to what it was about. To be honest, Marshall was good with him but he rarely called when there was no business to discuss.

"Yeah, I'm free. What's up? How are you doing?"

He asked, getting up from his chair and moving towards the balcony. Cold Wind brushed past his face as he looked at the clouds in the sky.

Marshall's voice came right after that.

"Pretty bad if I'm being honest. Our last two books didn't really work as well as expected. They are good books but niche. So, the company is trying to move towards something mainstream. Though, the graphic novel department is doing extremely well. It's almost like they got a new life after Morpheus.

Aiden was a bit worried hearing that but going by Marshall's tone of voice, it didn't look like he was worried.

'Probably not the first time a few books underperformed. At least, he sounds happy about the graphic novel department.'

Aiden thought and got straight to the topic.

"You probably called to talk about Archer's Ascension, right?"

"Yeah, I knew you would get it. You got calls from others?"

"Yeah, nine calls. Actually, Wade got fifteen himself. It looks like a few publishing companies thought it would be easier to persuade my agent."

"They can't be more wrong."

Marshall laughed. He had an uncanny ability to guess the person's personality just by talking with him a bit. He was very perceptive, knowing that Wade won't do anything that Aiden doesn't want to do.

"Anyway, I don't want the publishing rights to Archer's Ascension. I understand you want it to be free so anyone could have access to it. That's a good thing as an author as you want as many people as possible to read it."

"Then, why did you call?"

"I was hoping you don't share the same feeling towards a comic adaption for Archer's Ascension."

Aiden blinked his eyes hearing that.

A comic adaptation? He hadn't really thought much about it as before Marshall, no one had proposed something like that.

But it was a pretty interesting idea. He had a hard time describing places in the web novel, so a comic adaptation might just be able to do that.

"I honestly never thought too much about it."

"Then, think."

"Well, it does seem like an interesting idea."

Hearing that, Marshall's eyes shined and he quickly found the opportunity he was looking for. He started explaining more on his offer as how this could work in favour of his book and a comic adaption was the way forward.

After all, if out of 100, 10 percent read novels, 30 percent are likely to read comics as it was more visually appealing.

"As you know, we have now got a very capable department with us and Archer's Ascension seem like a great addition to it. As you have already completed most of the story, we would have it very easy. You won't even have to be there to work on the comic and could just approve the chapters as they finish…"

Marshall explained a few things. His plan of the comic book adaptation and how he wanted to target more digital sales with it as Archer's Ascension just seemed like the kind of novel that one would read while hiding from his boss.

Not something one would buy in a comic book store but something one would want to read at any time digitally. Aiden agreed with the notion and found that Marshall indeed had a full vision for the comic adaptation.

'Should I go for it? Or not?'

That was the question in his head after Marshall finished his explanation. There was no talk about money as those types of things are generally better to be talked about in person but his vision was something that impressed Aiden.

That's why he was quick to make his decision.

"Okay, Marshall. That sounds good to my ears. It's better to talk in person though but I believe in you going by our past work together."

"I'm happy you said that. I won't disappoint you. If you want, we can hold the meeting on a Sunday or anytime you want. I will make way in my schedule."

Marshall said with a smile and going by his words, he could see that he was giving a lot of priority to this.

Maybe, he really liked the novel or just felt like he could make it a great comic. After all, with Vikings publishing, Aiden at least didn't have to worry about them not doing good.

"Okay, let's talk further about it later."

"Sure."

The phone call ended after that and Aiden let out a deep breath.

He had started Archer's Ascension as a passion project. But now, it was offered to become a comic and had gotten more than ten million views.

He had done the majority of that without even revealing his identity. So, Aiden was proud of himself.

At the same time, he felt like writing was a great hobby for him and even after Archer's Ascension, he wanted to write another.

Maybe not right away. Maybe not another web novel. But he wanted to write something. This time, something different and something that could push him.

Even if it takes time.

Hex was one of the most expensive projects from Titan studios with an investment of 200 million in it. By comparison, their most expensive project in the last seven years was 80 million dollars, so it was more than double of that.

With that, there was a sense of pressure and how it would do.

Many felt like it was going to be a waste of investment with egos of Olio and Titan studios clashing violently and in the end, the movie would suffer.

There was actually a very good possibility of that. Even with Alberto seemingly trying not to interfere with Olio.

The pressure was also on the crew and the cast.

It could either become the best fantasy movie of the year or it could become something that everyone would want to get off their resume.

So, with heavy feelings in their heart and excitement, they entered the sets on the first day.

Olio was avoiding green screens as much as possible and had made entire sets in a large field for the shooting. It was almost like an outdoor studio.

A lot of the movie was also going to be shot on green screen but that was more because of the fantasy aspect. Even then, the use of green screens was going to be minimal.

With Olio's distinct style, no one knew how it would turn out but they were hoping it to be good.

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The shooting for [Hex] was happening in LA, the mecca of Hollywood. With all the technology lying around the city and a lot of space, it was easily one of the most coveted places for shooting.

Though, a major portion was also going to be shot in places like Dubai and London because of a few scenes. [Hex] had portions of deserts and one of the cities in the world of the fantasy novel was based on London, so Olio wanted to make it as realistic as possible.

All in all, the movie was going to take three months to shoot with the chances of additional shoots later.

The VFX itself was going to take months to do, so Titan studios had already planned everything. From the shooting to the VFX to the release - This was after all their biggest movie in years and it had to earn according to their calculations.

Meetings had already happened about the marketing aspect of the movie and the studio was even in talks to release special products like toys or a mobile video game with the release of the movie.

If they don't start it months ago, then the movie won't be able to release on time.

One of the things that the marketing team had decided was a behind the scenes team to shoot everything to release as materials before the release.

After all, if the movie worked, then people would be very interested in the makings of it. Most mid to high budget movies would do this too, so it wasn't anything innovative or ground breaking.

But they wanted to make it a bit more raw with this one to appeal to people. After all, there was absolutely no need for them to make it a reality TV show.

As for Olio, he didn't really care about it as the only thing he focused on was the movie itself. He just wanted to not be disturbed when he was working.

So, the behind the scenes team that was working on the sets of [Hex] left him completely alone and instead focused on other important people — The actors.

"Johnny, what did the agent of Emma Lander say? You got the nod?"

A middle aged man with a face that looked freshly shaved, asked as he looked at a short guy who was wearing a baseball hat.

"No, her agents don't even let me enter her vanity van, saying that she's in the middle of practising her lines."

"But it will take a few minutes? Didn't she agree before?" He asked with a frown of disappointment. "I want the introduction to start with the actors now that the director had told us to not disturb him. Two other actors also refused."

"Well, you know actors. They have an air of importance around them and they don't really care knowing that their team won't let us show her in a bad light. So, they don't care about what they say. They change in seconds like they have bipolar disorder."

The middle aged man sighed as he looked at the sky in disappointment. It was looking pretty good with the sun out but his day was going completely opposite.

He was again reminded of his bad life choices.

Though in his defence, Ronny Wick had no choice. He had come to Hollywood to become a director ten years ago after someone close to him had passed away but he had only gotten random jobs.

Now, Ron was working on the behind the scene footage of movies. He would make himself feel better thinking that he had come a long way but it wasn't enough, especially when actors would treat them with no respect.

Recently, even his dog had died, so job was really making it worse for him.

'I really don't want to keep doing this but we need to get some footage in today. The first day of shooting is one of the most important after all.'

Ron thought in his mind as he looked at his whole team who seemed to already be used to this kind of behaviour.

It didn't stop their disappointment though.

Around them, everyone looked pretty busy with different jobs. The opening scene had been a success so it was a good start. Now, they were preparing for one of the scenes in the beginning of the movie.

The chase scene — Aiden's character, Blaze Hart was a local thief working for the police against a gang and after his identity would come, he would run away. The chase scene was supposed to be a good introduction for the main character while making the audience a little aware of his powers.

Obviously, with Olio at the helm here, he wanted to make it one of the best chase scenes in recent times and give it a nice mixture of fantasy and reality.

Ron saw one of the crew members carry around some props for the scene and wondered for a second as to how he would direct this scene.

It was then that Johnny, the cameraman spoke.

"How about we go and ask Aiden Silvereye for a short interview for the opening for the video. It would look great if the actor playing the main character started it. After all, we are going for a documentary-like video."

Ron got out of his thoughts hearing that and shook his head.

"Even supporting actors rejected us, saying they don't want to be disturbed. That bi- I mean Emma Lander rejected us. What makes you think that Aiden won't?"

"Because I talked with his assistant in the morning. He was going around offering tea and coffee to anyone he saw. Very nice guy. We talked for a bit and he revealed that he's been Aiden's assistant for two years now."

Ron was pleasantly surprised hearing that. If that was the case, then maybe they could make it work.

After all, an assistant could clearly convince the actor he had worked with for two years.

The question was if they could convince the assistant.

"What's his name?"

"Tom. He's hanging around the makeup room. Aiden's scene is next."

"Then, let's hurry."

They picked up the camera and started walking towards the makeup area with a few other members of the behind the scenes crew.

On the way, they could see the giant sets built just for the scenes. It was all gigantic and the houses built were in such a way that it was easier to climb on them.

'I heard that Aiden would perform this scene himself. He's probably trying to imitate the big action stars who do their own stunts.'

From a directing point of view, it was risky but every director loved a guy who could do his own scenes. It was just more real and they didn't have to worry about editing.

When they reached the makeup room, they found a few people hanging outside. Tom was one of them and John instantly recognised him.

He was talking with a few crew members with a smile.

"Hey Tom."

When John called him out, Tom turned around and for a second, there was confusion on his face before he recalled who he was.

"Ah, you are from the behind the scenes team. Johnny, right?" Tom said as he came forward. "The one whose wife makes the best coffee."

"Yeah, that's me. Haha."

Johnny laughed and nodded his head and Tom gave a friendly smile. Ron found it a bit weird but he just attributed it to him being a very friendly person.

"So, why are you here?" He asked and Ron quickly introduced himself.

"I'm Ron Wick, the person in charge of making the behind the scenes documentary on the project and as we wanted to make it as raw as possible, we wanted to interview Aiden before the first scene. It will obviously be a short interview that won't take more than five minutes. We would be very grateful if he could do it."

Tom nodded hearing that, taking in the request.

"Is the behind the scenes team going to be on the set everyday?"

"Yes, we would try to get as much footage as we can and would edit it out in a two hour documentary as part of the marketing material. We have gotten directives to make it as good as possible."

Tom thought about it for a second. The behind the scenes team became nervous as seconds ticked by.

Maybe another rejection awaited them.

"Okay, I will go talk to Aiden. I don't think he will mind. He tries not to turn away from any type of interviews."

Saying that, Tom walked inside the makeup room and everyone took a sigh of relief. They were finally not getting rejected straightaway.

'No, there's still a chance Aiden would reject us. After all, an assistant won't have too much leeway over him.'

"He agreed. Come in."

All the pessimistic thoughts left his mind as soon as Ron heard that. He quickly moved inside and saw Aiden for the first time in his costume.

He looked ready for the scene.

Although Ron had seen. him before from a distance, it was the first time they would be talking.

"I heard you are the director of the behind the scenes team."

"Yes, if you don't mind, we wanted to take an interview."

"I am okay with that but I was hoping it would be more than just an interview."

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"What do you mean more than just an interview?"

In front of Ron, Aiden was sitting with a smile. His hair was set in a way that it looked a bit messy but something cool. His costume followed a simple pattern with the addition of a scarf attached to it like a mask to cover his face.

It was designed specifically for [Hex].

"Are you having any other actors for the introduction? Like taking interviews from them." He asked instead of answering.

"Not right now. We wanted to take live reactions before their first scenes but most of the prominent actors rejected us. They said they would do it but then backed out at the last moment."

Ron said with disappointment evident on his face. Johnny, the cameraman, also nodded.

"Those scenes might be added later on as an edit but right now, we are only thinking of taking a few answers from the extras working on the set and some crew members."

"In that case, you don't have a lot to add. How about just making it about the stunts in Hex. I'm doing them myself and they are pretty hard as you can guess, so I felt like it would become a good point in the video. After all, you are going to use it for marketing later on."

Aiden proposed and Ron thought about it for a few seconds. It felt way better than just taking a simple interview from Aiden then editing it with a few scenes from the movie.

Actually shooting the scenes of Aiden trying to do stunts looked to be a great introduction.

"We can do that but you won't have any problems, right? I heard that there are chances of the stunt not being successful as the whole sequence needs very precise movement."

Ron asked. He had heard the plans for the whole stunt. It really looked a lot like Olio had tried to make it as seamless and stylish as possible.

As it was a long chase scene, it won't be taken in one shot and had to be redo a lot, so much so that Aiden might not look good if a lot of bad takes happen. Ron wasn't sure that Aiden would want that.

But he smiled.

"You don't have to worry. I'm already practising it for a while with the action and stunt director. Even if it doesn't happen in one or two takes, it's not a big deal. It's not the 70s for people to think that actors in movies are the same as the characters they play, so I don't have to maintain an image."

Normally, actors and their team would look at every material that would be posted online before giving it a go, in case it's not good for the image of the actor. Even Emma Lander had directly told them to try to look like she was a very important part of the whole shoot.

Although he didn't know how that would be possible with her not even giving them a short interview, he still had to comply.

But here, Aiden looked like he didn't really care about all this.

"Okay, we can do that."

Ron said and discussed a few things before moving out of the makeup room. They went in with beating hearts and nervousness on their faces but they came out with relieved faces.

"Rumours about Aiden were pretty true. He's not a bad guy."

"Didn't he be made fun of during [The Black Saint] promotions? That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't agreed to it. He knows how to take a few hits on his image for a large picture."

"Yeah, we might get a good introduction because of him."

While his crew talked, Ron tried to make plans on how to do the shoot. Time moved on as the set was prepared and Aiden appeared for the scene.

Everyone listened to his conversation with the action director and Olio.

"So, we are going to shoot in multiple shots and from different angles. The rooftop running scenes could be dangerous as you can lose the balance but we have protection in place. Just try not to slip. The camera will be there and there, so just avoid that and then, jump there on that spot."

The action director, a bald man, explained. It was not the first time he was getting such an explanation. It was already the fifth time but they were just being careful.

The people chasing him in this scene were trained stuntmen who would have a much better chance at doing the scene smoothly.

But Aiden had immersion through which he could literally become the character. He was counting on it to help him out.

"Are you ready? We have people on all sides to help you if you fall down, so no accident takes place."

Olio asked and Aiden nodded his head.

"Give me five minutes, then we can start."

Hex was a story about multiple characters but somewhere in the complex storyline of ancient gods and prophecies, the one man that was common was Blaze Hart.

Blaze was pretty much a common person, working on the side of the law in an unruly way. A bit smarter than any other commoner while having the luck to rise above his status.

Though, his story doesn't start until he starts getting visions of an impending doom. One that a lot of chosen ones will get but he was a different kind.

As in most of the story, he was revealed to not be the chosen one but he had a piece of a soul of his dead brother who was originally supposed to be the chosen one.

This made him feel more and more responsible for the things that were going to come as he was partly responsible for the death of his brother.

As the story goes on, the character of Blaze goes through a lot of changes in his character that were synonymous to the changes the world was going through due to the opening of ancient devices known as 'Hex'.

At the start of the movie, he was just a carefree thief but those changes in his character as the story goes is the highlight of the whole screenplay.

That's why, Aiden had to nail down every emotion Blaze would go through. With each event, his body language would be different.

'I need to imagine myself as a thief in this world. A cunning thief who doesn't even know what's going to hit him.'

He repeated in his mind as he closed his eyes. A lot of thoughts went through his mind as he tried to stop being Aiden and be more like Blaze.

A bit more immature, carefree yet determined.

When he opened his eyes, he felt like a changed person. He was standing on a ledge and he had to jump from it to land on the rooftop in front of him.

Normally, it would look scary but currently, he just felt like his legs were light and he could jump very high. Heights didn't scare him anymore but it gave him a sense of excitement.

To see how long he could stay in the air.

'I'm going to nail this.'

He thought in his mind as the scene began.

"That's pretty high."

"He doesn't even look scared."

"He has a smile on his face. He must have gotten used to it during the rehearsals."

People whispered as they watched Aiden from a distance. There was a sense of exhilaration just by watching him.

Ron and Johnny were also focusing on it and the camera was shooting it. They were going to edit in a way that didn't give away the scene entirely. Anyway, the final edit of the movie would look very different.

Suddenly, the scene started as a few people gasped.

"Damn, he really jumped."

"He didn't fall. That looked like a good jump. Those rooftops look scary but he's running pretty fast on them."

"Ah, the other stuntmen appeared."

"Won't this break down into a hand to hand combat scene now?"

On the rooftop, two cameras were currently focusing on Aiden who was suddenly surrounded by three people. The whole chase sequence had a few hand to hand combat scenes as Blaze still didn't have any powers but he was exceptional in close combat.

The people watching him saw Aiden dodge a punch and then, he took out a knife before a small knife clash went by. It was pretty cool and it looked like the stuntmen were pretty surprised by how good Aiden was. Or was it just acting?

No one knew and they didn't care. The whole sequence looked pretty cool even to Ron who was a director at heart.

He saw Aiden fighting off the stuntmen and jumping off the rooftop to hang on to a zip line before going through a window. All of it was in several takes but everytime, it looked like Aiden had been an actor star for life.

'I wish I could direct him some day.'

That was the only thought in his mind as he watched.

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It was no surprise to anyone that the Hex story was complex. Supposedly, Olio was planning to shoot at least four to five hours of footage for the movie.

Even Titan studios had agreed to it and it won't be a surprise to anyone if the final edit makes it to be 3 hours long.

That meant that the journey that Blaze would take wasn't short. After all, out of the five hours that was supposedly going to be shot, he was going to be in more than 70 percent of the movie.

The screenplay was really focused on him as the central figure.

Early on in the story, he started off from a thief helping out the police and giving information about the gangs to them.

After the gangs found out about them, he was obviously in danger, so the police chief offered him a job. Not of a spy but to be a part of a special department in the police force.

The department is known as the inquisition department. It was a department set up to deal with all the supernatural forces — The cults, people who lost control over their powers and other ancient beasts that should have already been extinct.

Obviously, he wasn't offered a place here for nothing.

It was because Blaze did have amazing intuition that hinted at him having dormant supernatural powers that prompted the police to keep an eye out for him and the best way to do it was to recruit him on their side.

Blaze also accepted the offer, knowing that if he didn't, then the gangs were simply going to kill him.

There was no other way around.

Today, they were shooting a scene where he was meeting the chief of the inquisition department for the first time. In the church of one of the most famous gods in the world of Hex — Kashen, the God of Steam.

[Hex17 February -2020Act 3Scene 1Take 1]

"Why did you call me here? Is the headquarters of the inquisition department here at the church?"

Blaze asked as he looked at the man sitting next to him. He had a moustache with no additional beard on his face. He was wearing a hat, making him look like a wealthy gentleman.

In today's society, hats and canes were a symbol. The better they are, the wealthier you look.

He was named Walter Finnigan.

"No, the followers would never let us do that. They call it blasphemy. Though, they do allow other things and that's why we are here."

Blaze just looked at him confused hearing that. They don't allow it but they allow other things? He was unable to comprehend it.

Ignoring that, Walter pointed at the statue of the Kashen. He was picturised as a man with a full charcoal body. His statue was also of a similar colour.

Apparently, a wealthy merchant had gifted it to the church, being a follower. It was impressive as the God of Steam was a pretty new god, only rising to significance in the last 50 years since society had moved towards an industrial revolution.

"Are you a follower?"

"No but my brother was. He wanted to be a steam engineer, running the trains."

"Then, you must know the theory around how Kashen became one of the major gods?"

Walter asked and Blaze thought for a second before nodding. He indeed knew about the story and had remembered it as it was quite an interesting one.

"He was an exiled god living in the dark dimension but he managed to escape and changed for the better. He granted knowledge to a follower and was the major reason why steam became such a popular thing in the empire, changing everything."

"Correct. He became one of the major gods out of nowhere due to that and started giving competition to the three ancient gods. Most of the exiled gods saw it and tried to do the same but most of them are exiled for a reason. In the last century, the amount of accidents happening has increased significantly. That's why our department gets more and more funding every year."

Blaze nodded hearing all this. The world of supernatural powers always fascinated him, especially due to the theories around how the world came to be.

The different gods that ruled the humans by using their followers and people who gave up on their lives to obtain the truth of the world.

"Let's go. It's time to meet your new colleagues."

Walter suddenly said and stood up. Blaze did the same and followed him. Strangely, he didn't walk towards the exit door but towards a priest who was looking at the statue of Kashen, probably praying something in his mind.

"We need to see the bishop."

Walter said as they reached the priest. The priest looked at him and Blaze for a second before nodding. They walked off towards the confession room on the left but when they were close to reaching it, the priest turned around and stopped before a wall.

'What is going on?'

He thought as the priest touched a lamp that was put there. Suddenly, he heard a mechanism turn and the wall began to open, leading up a path that Blaze had no idea about.

'A secret path.'

He thought in his mind.

"May the God of Steam be with you."

The priest just said, looking up at Walter and Blaze. His eyes stayed on Blaze for a second longer.

He then walked away and Walter pointed at the new path that had opened up.

"Let's go."

The shooting for [Hex] continued at a rapid pace. Each day, Olio would try to do as many scenes as possible and Aiden witnessed why he was such a hard director to work with.

Him wanting every scene to be perfect was good but he would go to any lengths for that. Once, they kept shooting a simple scene for 36 takes, just because he wasn't getting the right smile from an actor.

The actor was obviously tired, begging Olio to just let it go as he can't do better but there was no way around. The man wasn't going to be convinced.

Finally, on the 37th take, the perfect smile appeared and the scene ended for good.

Aiden also suffered due to this where for some scenes, he had to work way harder than he had imagined. A lot of scenes were done for an hour or two, really breaking Aiden's stamina.

As he was doing his own action scenes too, he nearly got injured a lot of times just because the scene had to be perfect.

He also had to hear a lot of things from Olio when he would make a mistake.

"Why can't you do something simple? It's the 9th take. We don't have that much time just because you can't concentrate."

"Try to land a bit to your left. And in a way that it looks natural. Currently, it is looking artificial. If you can, get a bit injured. That will bring the raw feeling to the scene."

"Again, try to improvise a bit. You need to show more emotions than just that. Blaze is a very charming character. Show me that charm no matter how you do it!"

Now, these things weren't that uncommon as directors would try to be passive aggressive sometimes but coupled with Olio's face that always looked pissed on the set, it was scary.

The only reason Aiden was able to handle it was because Olio was way harsher on other actors. He even made a young actress cry and it was Aiden who had to console her in the end.

Maybe that gave him a better reputation on the set but after that, the other actors were much more friendly with him.

Barring Emma obviously.

That woman was still thinking of Aiden as a competition and would try to be in a verbal argument with him often. He had gotten more and more used to handling her.

Anyway, he realised that she was very scared of Olio and would rather not make trouble on the set due to that. So, even if she talked rudely, she won't try more than that and Aiden was content with that.

After all, most of his focus was on the scenes and his character.

With time, they moved to London and then, Dubai for a few scenes and Aiden also took in the sheer scale of the movie even though he was already aware of it. There were scenes that were purely over the top but extremely cool. Like there was one with a flying ship through which Blaze would fall and then, another scene on the train that was a pure action scene.

With all these scenes that they were shooting, Aiden was not sure if all of them would come in the final edit.

And it would be a pity if they didn't after all the effort put into it.

That's why, when the shoot was about halfway done, Aiden proposed something to Olio.

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[Hex29 March -2020Act 7Scene 3Take 7]

The Royal express was the fastest train in the whole empire and the stories of its speed and the grandeur of its interior was something that every family in the empire would discuss.

Like name, the train was only used by people who wanted the best service and they would mostly be nobles or merchants with a lot of wealth — Both classes coming in the upper echelon of the society.

It would also only run in between special places. And one of these special places was the Dwarven city Metlatopius. The city was built in between mountains and only recently a track was laid out after a treaty was signed between the city and the empire.

Every year, the train would only go to the city two times. Once at the beginning of the year and once in the winters.

This year, again, a lot of nobles were travelling to the city during the winters. The whole Dwarven city was a tourist spot for these people as they wanted to explore it and buy the best pieces of equipment and showpieces.

Joining these tourists this year was the youngest princess of the empire.

And because of her, the security around the train was increased. Blaze was a part of the security team, having been promoted since he had started working in the special department of the police.

"It would be nice if I could take a vacation too."

"The train is a tourist spot in itself."

"Yeah, but we are here for an entirely different reason."

Blaze walked around the train with a guy with red hair. Both of them were not wearing any uniform and were instead dressed like nobles.

It was to mix in with the people in the train. The intel was that terrorists might try to target the train, so both of them were deployed to mix in and keep a close eye on everything.

"Are you sure it's not fake intel? We already got two such cases this month."

The red haired colleague asked but Blaze shook his head.

"No, it can't be. We have information that the terror groups are trying to aim for the princess for months now. If it's true, then train is their best bet. They could finish the job in the middle of nowhere."

"Yeah but isn't this train the safest thing currently? I mean, the sheer amount of security is too much. No one wants to go against so many Hex mages."

Blaze was about to reply when he noticed a person walking towards them. The lobby was pretty narrow, so he had to move aside a bit.

"Sorry, I'm going to the toilet."

The man said as he moved past Blaze and then, his red haired colleague.

Going by his clothes and hints of a southern accent, he looked like a wealthy merchant from the countryside. Why he was going to the Dwarven city would probably be a story of its own.

Blaze started walking away and after a minute later, a thought suddenly passed through his mind.

'The toilet isn't there. It's on the opposite side.'

As soon as he thought that, a terrifying image flashed in his mind. The complexion of his face quickly changed.

The man who looked out of place — He needed to catch him.

"Blaze, what happened?" The red haired asked.

"We need to catch him. That guy."

He said and ran towards him. The man wouldn't have been too far away. He saw his silhouette soon but it was then that a large explosion took place.

A shockwave went across the train and Blaze flew, crashing into a few seats. He casted a spell around him to protect his head and vital parts of his body.

Smoke was everywhere and the train had stopped in its tracks. Blaze could see the entire premium coach on fire.

It was the place where the most important people were sitting.

'The princess.'

Blaze thought in his mind and looked around but the man that he was looking for was nowhere.

It was then that the voice of Olio came out.

"Cut! Okay, good enough. We managed to time the explosions right this time. Good job!"

With this, the scene ended and Olio was also satisfied.

After the scene was over, the crew quickly began to clean the zone where the explosion had taken place.

They were using a modified train lobby to shoot the scene and a lot of people were present at the scene to make sure that all the security protocols are being followed.

As the scene got over and everyone got the green signal, Aiden quickly cleaned himself off a bit before walking towards Olio.

"Aiden, the scene was good. I did feel like we could get something more in terms of facial emotions but your body language made up for it."

Olio said in his titural style. He was both praising and criticising him in the same sentence.

"You can take a break for a while. We are going to shoot a few closeup shots of others before doing one more scene with you."

"Okay."

Aiden said, nodding before wondering if it was the right time to talk about the idea that was going on in his mind for the past few days. The day was mostly over and Olio was looking free for the first time since morning.

"Olio, I actually wanted to talk to you about something important."

"What? Is it about the story or your character?"

Olio asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, it's not. I just have thoughts about the length of the movie."

"Oh."

Olio said but before he could say anything else, one of his assistants came forward to tell him that the camera was ready for the next shot.

This was the time to work, not to do discussions.

"Aiden, how about we talk about it over dinner after the shoot today?"

Olio actually wanted to gloss over whatever Aiden was going to talk about but as he was the lead and had proven himself to have a good sense of movies, he had agreed.

Aiden also nodded and walked towards his seat to rest till his next scene.

After the shooting was over for the day, Olio and Aiden made their way towards a Japanese restaurant that was preferred by the director. Apparently, he had come here a lot as he knew the owner who was a Michelin star chef.

They were able to easily find a place due to Olio's familiarity with the owner. After they sat down, the talk started.

"Look, if your idea or whatever is good, then I will stay for a while. Otherwise, I'm planning to leave after dinner. Tomorrow is another hard day at the set and I hope you sleep early too."

In a blunt manner, Olio started out.

Aiden, who was already used to this type of behaviour at this point, nodded his head and didn't waste any time in bringing in the topic he wanted to touch upon.

"Well, I just have concerns over [Hex]. Not at the screenplay but actually, the length of the screenplay. It's just too big and we are shooting too many scenes that we won't be able to cram into the final edit."

"I know that." Olio muttered as a matter of fact. "When I wrote the screenplay, I knew that it was too big for a movie. The thought of making it a series was also in my mind but like you know, the big screen experience with hundreds of people can't be touched by anything else. So, I was hell bent on making it a movie. As for the edited out parts, I can get them all in a director's cut and release it when the movie starts streaming."

As expected, Olio did know the problem with his screenplay but the man didn't look like he would correct anything. Aiden realised that it was because he wasn't making the movie for anyone else but him.

That's why, he was mostly fine with a lot of content being edited out.

But Aiden had a better idea.

"I have a better idea than that."

As soon as Aiden said that, the food arrived. When the waiter left, Olio alternated between the food and him before gesturing to him to continue.

"What is that?"

"Make it two movies. We are anyway filming at least five to six hours of footage. Even if I edit out some parts, there's enough for two movies."

Aiden proposed. It was a very simple thing in his eyes. With proper editing, two parts weren't hard. Anyway, Olio was planning on future sequels and other things.

Moreover, like this, Blaze would get proper character development instead of a lot of scenes being cut out from the final edit. Like that, it can easily ruin things.

But Olio shook his head.

"No, we can't do that. There's no way we could do it."

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"We can't do that no matter what."

Olio said as he shook his head. He looked very hell bent on this and even his tone was a bit more strict this time, daunting like nothing could make him change his decision.

"Why? I really feel like this is the way to go." Aiden said and knowing this could tick Olio off the wrong way, he added. "Obviously your opinion matters the most here but I'm very interested to know why you are against this. It looks like you have played around with this idea."

"I have." Olio nodded his head. "It's just not possible as making it two parts isn't as simple as you think."

Olio, as a seasoned filmmaker, knew that the best way to do [Hex] was in the form of multiple movies or a long 50 episode series. It was that long. If he was ten years younger, then he would have selected a very young cast and make it a yearly franchise with 7-8 movies in ten years for the whole saga.

But age wasn't on his side.

He was getting old and that's why he wrote the script keeping in mind that he won't be able to do a lot of movies in the same universe as [Hex].

"What is stopping you from modifying it into a two part movie?" Aiden asked, very curious on the specifics.

"The boring first half." He said without even thinking. "The first half of the movie pretty much is the exposition of the world and the characters. There are a few scenes that might make the audience exclaim but they are few. You can't take risks with the audience these days who come to the theatre for adrenaline."

Realisation struck Aiden's face when he heard that.

They have divided [Hex] into two parts during filming with the first half titled 'Blaze's beginning' and the second half titled 'Blaze's conclusion'.

If he thought about it, most of the juicy parts were in the second half of the movie when Blaze would finally reach a certain peak of his powers. Then, it was one action scene after another.

Those scenes were bound to elevate the level of the movie and it would be something that a theatre going audience would enjoy.

'The first half as a standalone movie might have worked a few years back. People don't have that much patience these days.'

Aiden thought about it clearly.

"I understand your point but what about modifying the first half to be more exciting?"

"How will you do that? We would need to go against the books for that. Fans of it might turn on us because of that."

Olio said and they started discussing this topic. Maybe because he was so engrossed in it that Olio didn't call it off for two hours. That completely went against what he had told Aiden at the start about sleeping early.

In the end, he just said, "I understand your concerns. I have them too but I doubt we could make the first half interesting enough to be its own movie. If you have a good idea, we could do something about it but I doubt it will be the case."

After the talk with Olio, Aiden was busy in thoughts.

He wondered what to do. He could just follow up the vision of Olio and not complain. After all, even if they were leaving out a lot of scenes, it's not like the audience would know of it.

In the eyes of the audience, what they would present would be the only thing they would know and Aiden was sure that the editing and everything would be extremely good in the end that even if the audience felt like the movie was slow in the first half, they would enjoy the second half enough to recommend it to others.

He was very confident in Olio's capability.

The only reason he was worried was because he felt like it was a pity that a lot of the scenes would just go wasted. There won't be much attention given to them.

He thought and thought about it and took out the script of [Hex]. It was easily the thickest screenplay he had read. It had taken him almost twice the time of a normal screenplay to read it even if he didn't take any breaks in between.

He read through it again and stopped at the end of the first half. He could see the bad points in it easily. Anyone with a good sense of story would.

After all, there was a lot of exposition in it for the neutral audience who might not read the books. The neutral audience makes or breaks a movie, so they have to keep them in mind.

The first half was an introduction of Blaze, a bit of mystery as he approaches his new job and then more exposition on the world before ending it with a big case that Blaze tries to take. The case was going to connect in the second half, making it look like everything had come in a full circle.

The second half also carried the major fight scenes.

'Even the first two volumes of the series were pretty mediocre.'

He recalled that Hex was a novel that had only been picked up in the third volume and the first two were considered the weakest parts in the series. It had blown up on the fourth volume but the third volume was the one that was touted to be the best.

'I can make it better but how?'

Aiden sighed thinking about it. As a writer himself, he could make some modifications. Add a few fight scenes, make the conversations a bit different. Obviously, he can't change a whole lot as a lot of the shooting was done in the first half but he could do a few things.

Though Olio would not allow it currently.

The man was very firm about what he wanted and how he wanted the things to be. Aiden didn't even have a concrete plan.

But he knew that he had to do something.

'I need to try. Going by my talk with Olio, even he thought about this. I'm pretty sure he himself doesn't like a lot of his scenes being edited out. After all, he's a director.'

He thought in his mind. If nothing came out of it, it was fine. He won't feel bad as in the end, he knew everything was on Olio.

First, he started off by listing down the bad points of the first half. In a way, it was almost like a movie of its own already with its own plot in set. There was even a villain in it and enough things that connect to the prophecy that was the core of the movie.

But the slow plot and not so interesting characters that are there just for the purpose of explaining the power system and world building hampers the first half a lot. It was only in the second half that the characters got way better.

So, the first thing would have been to make the characters more lifelike. Maybe, give them more scenes that are a little personal.

These types of things could easily be handled.

The main problem that Aiden noticed was the lack of exciting parts in the first half. The action set pieces weren't that good. They were very basic. Moreover, even the side characters were very lacklustre even though they have cool powers.

'I need to give them a better fighting style. That will need more budget and other things but let's not worry about that right now.'

He thought as he wrote down a few things.

Then, he typed out new scenes to add in his laptop and added them in the screenplay. He did it for two hours and only then a few good scenes were written. Aiden was going to modify them more tomorrow.

As for the action scenes, he also had ideas about them. His idea was basically taken from the action movies of industries other than Hollywood.

These industries follow their own systems and types of cinema, so they were unique in what they did and didn't have the burden of being Global cinema. Once, he had watched an action movie from his home country where the action was very basic but it had such impeccable cinematography that it was very exciting to watch.

It almost looked like there were a lot of things happening in the scene when it was just punches clashing with a few kicks here and there. The most basic things pumped up by great cinematography and final editing.

Aiden wondered if they could do that with [Hex, especially because it was a fantasy, meaning they could be very creative with different powers involved.

Though, in the end, there was still one thing.

'Climax.'

There was no climax in the first half. They needed a climate that could make people watch the second part. A climax that starts discussions around the movie as people wonder what would happen in the second part.

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Hollywood was known to adapt a lot of movies from novels. A lot of the famous and Oscar winning movies were taken from books and were adaptations. So, the relationship between the literary industry and Hollywood was very close.

In the 90s, there were a few fantasy novels that got adapted into movies but hardly any of them worked because of high budgets and a lack of technology available for the filmmakers. It changed in the 2000s as technology improved by a lot and early superhero and fantasy movies showed the limits of fantasy stories on the big screen.

Fighting a dragon or jumping through buildings in a seamless motion was a cool thing to watch for everyone.

Though, it was still rare back then.

Any trend would get oversaturated with time and with technology only improving, more and more movies of similar type popped up. Some were original but majority of them were taken from novels as adapting a popular novel meant you already have a fan base.

But a lot of these were bad adaptations as directors just changed a lot of things.

They infested the stories with their own viewpoint and not what the original writer wanted. It created dissatisfaction among fans as a lot of stories that could have become big franchises bombed right at the start.

Some of these even gave out statements like how they didn't like the original novel and wanted to do it their way or how they wanted to show the stories in a modern day. They would do it even for stories that stood the test of time.

That's why Olio was careful.

He was someone who had seen the bashing movies would get if they stray away from the source. In the first place, he liked the whole series a lot and wouldn't want to show his own ideas in the middle of it.

He was also aware that since the announcement of [Hex, people were already critical of it.

You would find negative comments on every post of it online. A few common ones were always there.

[Saturday Adams: One more novel series of mine that I grew up with would be ruined soon. I really hope Hollywood producers stop adapting novels.]

[Hollywood's Daddy: Can't wait to see the main character stuck in a bad situation only to be saved by a random female character in the end in the name of progressive mentality and modern movies.]

[DJ Bobby: I really hope it stays true to the source material please. I really want a good adaptation of it and Olio Fermen is capable. Please just don't make it weird due to politics and what not.]

Although these types of people would generally be thought to be in the minority, there were actually a lot of neutral audiences who also think like this. In the end, they just wanted to see the book they have read in live action.

They didn't want anything more.

Olio also wanted to give them just that.

That's why, after Aiden completed the modified screenplay, he wondered how to talk to Olio about it. The worst case scenario here was Olio throwing out his script and telling him to not try to interfere in the movie.

That was something that Olio could do.

He was not a director who liked to talk nicely with actors. It was purely a strict work relationship for him.

Aiden had already seen a few arguments on set that actors had with Olio but mostly, they were one sided and the actors would just cuss him after the shooting to let out their anger.

He has been in Olio's good books till now but that could easily change. That's why Aiden was apprehensive.

[Hex 7 April-2020 Act 8 Scene 2 Take 4]

Blaze looked at the room that was filled with smoke. He had barged into a noble's mansion to steal a secret document regarding the prophecy that connected him. Apparently, the noble was an important member of the church and he had been told to keep the document safe.

The ex thief had managed to steal the document but while leaving, guards saw him and Hazekillers surrounded him. Hazekillers were special knights that used smoke as a way of blinding their enemy .

In the mist, they would attack from every direction and hardly anyone had managed to beat them in a clash.

'I need to focus or I won't make it back.'

He thought in his mind as he saw the mists in front of him move a little. Almost instinctively, he jumped back and escaped a sharp blade.

The blade managed to cut a piece of his robes. In the next few seconds, more and more blades came towards him. Blaze tried to fight them with his dagger but the smart option here was to dodge.

Several blades touched him but his armour saved him from getting injured.

'They are annoying.'

Blaze thought and under the mask he was wearing, his eyes suddenly started glowing. Suddenly, cards appeared from his pocket.

The cards that one would use for playing a game of poker. These cards glowed with a strange energy and the Hazekillers became guarded seeing them.

Suddenly, the cards started to spin and in an instant, the smoke was cleared. Hazekillers widened their eyes seeing that and got an idea of who the person in front of them was.

"Don't let them get close to you." One of them said, proclaiming it to everyone.

"Those cards are emitting a strong energy." Another Hazekiller nodded.

But Blaze just smiled seeing that. Without hesitation, he controlled the cards to strike the Hazekillers in an instant.

The cards moved through the air as if a person was skiing through snow. The Hazekillers tried to block the cards but Blaze was one step ahead of them.

He controlled the cards to dodge the swords and directly aim at their necks. The cards were actually sharper than blades and in an instant, all the Hazekillers fell on the ground. A deep cut on their necks and blood seeping out of it.

They weren't going to survive.

He looked at them with cold, emotionless eyes. If it was him a few years back, he would have been disturbed by such a scene. But now, it was nothing special.

He wasn't just Blaze now. He was also 'The Smiling Joker', an alias that was becoming extremely popular in the underworld these days. About a person who uses cards to slice your neck.

It was then that he heard the voice of the director.

"Cut."

The scene ended like that and Aiden's immersion broke.

After the scene ended, everyone dispersed. Aiden sat down in a corner after making sure that there was no need for a retake.

Then, he checked his character affinity with Blaze.

It stood at 84 percent and he felt like he had a good grasp on him. Though, it was nothing compared to when he was playing Kai. Still, it was much better than the time he used to be at 78-79 at best in affinity.

By the end of the shooting, he was confident that he could move it towards 90. He also felt like he was going to level up soon in acting.

Despite all this, he was more focused on thinking of a plan to make Olio agree to divide the movie into two parts. But he hadn't yet found a way to do so as Olio was very firm in sticking to the source material.

'The only option is to talk directly to him. Although, I know for a fact he would reject me. Not like there's any other way.'

Aiden thought and it was then that his eyes saw a man walk up to Olio. The man was wearing a blue shirt and looked pretty fit even though his hair and beard were completely white.

He was someone who knew how to groom himself. In Aiden's eyes, he looked pretty much like a director of superhero movies he had once met. At least he got the impression that he had seen him before.

The thing that surprised him wasn't at his appearance but the fact that when Olio saw him, he got a bright face, like he was someone he knew very well.

Wanting to know who the strange man on the set was, Aiden walked up to Tom who he had already realised to be something of an informer.

Since Day 1, he had cozied up to most people on the set and was getting every small detail from them. Wade had once told him that Tom had over 10k contacts on his phone alone.

"Tom, who's that man?" He asked as he got close.

"Oh, you don't know him. I was pretty sure you would recognise him. Can't be helped since you never met him before. He's never been on the set too."

Aiden was confused hearing that but at least Tom seemed to know who the man was.

"So, who is he?"

"Samuel Davidson, the son of the original author of Hex and the one who completed his dad's series. He's an author himself too."

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Samuel Davidson

The son of the author of Hex. He was the one who had completed the famous series after his father had passed away. A lot of people have felt like the ending wasn't good as the original author hadn't written it while a lot of the readers were happy about how it had ended.

The views were conflicting but they were always going to be in such cases.

No one liked another author taking over in the middle but there was no choice. Aiden felt like Samuel was very brave to complete his father's work.

After all, it wasn't an easy decision knowing that people might not like it. Some readers actually wanted the novel to remain incomplete as they didn't want anyone else to touch it but the publisher needed to complete it.

That's why Samuel came on board.

'He's a good writer himself. Probably a brave person too. He started writingHex a month after his father died due to cancer.'

Aiden recalled a few novels he had read of Samuel.

He was mostly a children's book author and had also delved into graphic novels and other stuff. He was one of the veterans of the industry and a really talented individual.

"Apparently, he's on the set today as he was free. He helped out Olio a lot during the scripting phase. You could even say that without Samuel, Hex won't take the form of a script. That's why Olio treats him well."

Tom muttered, explaining all the information he had gotten out of one of Olio's assistants.

"When you work together, you are bound to get close." Aiden said and Tom nodded his head.

'I should go talk to him.'

Aiden thought to himself. It was common courtesy to do that but he also had something else in his mind. He had brought out the modified script with him today, so maybe he might as well get some feedback.

Anyway, Samuel looked way more approachable than Olio.

He waited till Olio was busy in something before walking towards Samuel. He was just sitting and looking around the set when Aiden called him.

"Hello, I don't think I have introduced myself."

Samuel raised his head hearing that and was surprised for a second to see Aiden there. He immediately stood up and gave out a smile.

"No, you have not. I was going to introduce myself to you actually. Was looking for you. Thank you for giving life to Blaze."

"That's my job. Your father created him with a lot of care. I always felt that when I read Hex."

"That he did."

Aiden shook hands with him and sat down next to him on a chair. Samuel started talking about how Olio had shown him a few scenes that they had shot and although post production work hadn't been done on them, they looked very neat to him.

He praised Aiden on how he was already looking like Blaze and he really imagined him like this from the start.

Aiden was thankful for his words and after a while, he began the topic of the script.

"By the way, can I ask you something about the script? I heard you were helping out Olio in writing it?"

"Yes, I was a consultant on it. Are you having trouble on some part?"

Samuel asked, raising one of his eyebrows. He looked straight into Aiden's eyes as he shook his head.

"No, it's not that. I was just worried about the length of the script and how half of it won't even make it to the final edit. The movie is already going to be more than 2 hours and western audiences don't like to watch movies longer than that."

"That's true but while we were making the script, there was no way around the length. A more tight script was our idea too but the power system and the world background is too big. A normal audience who never read Hex would have a hard time without all the exposition."

He explained and it was true too. During the writing of the script, Olio also knew about these things and had taken it upon himself to provide a good movie in the end that would be liked by the audience.

Even if the script was too long, he already knew the scenes to remove from the final edit.

The exposition was also done smartly without it feeling like info dumps in the story. Olio and Samuel have followed the basic 'Show, don't tell' rule.

"I understand that but I have an idea around it."

Aiden said and Samuel blinked his eyes, wondering about this idea.

"What idea?"

He asked and Aiden explained his conversation with Olio and his idea on doing two parts instead of just one. Sometimes, filmmakers would do that when the movie they were making was just too big.

Though, sometimes the second part gets cancelled if the first doesn't work.

Aiden also told him how Olio rejected his idea before talking about the modified script he prepared because he still wanted to go for two parts instead of just one.

"I do understand that I might be interfering with the vision of your father and what he wanted to do with Hex but I really felt like a lot of scenes would be left out if we don't do it this way."

Aiden said, showing Samuel the modified script. At first, he didn't know what to say. He did know Aiden was a writer and good one at that but he wasn't expecting him to make a modified script out of it.

Still, he was curious to know how it would be. What changes had he made? If he made it worse? Or actually better?

"Let me read it."

He said, taking the script in his hands and slowly going through it. At first, he didn't see many changes but as he slowly read, he saw some changes. A few more fight scenes and more character developments.

Aiden hadn't done anything significant to major and popular characters but he had added a lot of depth to the small characters that would die or won't appear much as the story unfolds.

They were good changes.

As he read, Aiden was called to do a few scenes. He told him to keep reading and went away. Samuel just nodded, too engrossed in the story of the first half.

Till the middle part, there were significant changes that took the story ahead in different ways. New Povs were shown and the whole script had a new layer of mystery to it.

But the best thing he felt was the climax. Aiden left it on a cliff as the truth of the prophecy that bound the whole story came out. It was done in such a way so that the audience would have no choice but to watch the next part to satisfy their curiosity.

'It's good. I feel like the changes should be tamed down but it's a great script on its own that completely nullifies the boring parts from before.'

Samuel thought in his mind as Aiden returned to his seat. It was just as the children's book author finished reading the script.

"You read it?"

"Yeah, I just finished it." Samuel nodded and turned towards Aiden.

"How did you like it?"

Aiden asked and got a bit nervous. He knew that Samuel would be someone who would know the story of Hex best. Apparently, his father had written the whole story for him as a birthday present and later published it.

His opinion was probably the most important out of anyone.

"It was good. You are a good writer."

"Thanks." Aiden smiled hearing that, then asked. "Now, do you think your father would have liked the modifications?"

Samuel didn't answer the question right away. Thinking of his father, there were a lot of memories in his mind but out of all those, one of those best described him.

It was a memory from the time when he had been writing the seventh volume of Hex. The previous volume had become a bestseller but as he was having trouble writing it, he was reading the whole series again.

It was then that he became angry. Samuel had asked why and his father had promptly replied.

'Why are you angry? You noticed a publishing mistake in the first volume?'

'It's not that. A writer grows as he writes a novel. As I'm reading this right now, I feel like I could have done so many parts better in the first volume. I'm pretty sure the second one is like this too. I never thought about the whole story before writing it, so these problems are common. I can't even rewrite it now.'

On that whole day, his father had been angry and ultimately, drank his favourite scotch before sleeping. Playing that memory through his mind and glancing down at the script in his hand, Samuel made a smile.

"I think yes. He would have loved them. You are really a good writer, Aiden."

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Samuel did like the modified script that Aiden showed him but he still didn't agree to help him talk to Olio right away. It was only after two days that Aiden received a call from him, saying that he thought hard about it and Aiden's idea looked the best if they wanted [Hex] to be popular.

Aiden was obviously happy to know that.

Both of them decided to arrange a meeting with Olio to talk about them. On one of the days that the crew was taking a break during the London schedule, both Samuel and Aiden met him in his hotel room.

For the record, Samuel also lived in London due to his wife being a Brit.

When Olio met Samuel and Aiden, he was confused as to what they wanted to talk about that needed a meeting.

The two of them didn't even know each other well a week ago, so them coming together suddenly was a surprise.

As soon as the meeting started, Aiden explained to him that he modified the script of the first half to something that could become its own standalone movie and that Samuel liked it a lot too.

Hearing this, Olio felt angry at first as he had thought that this discussion was already over. But Samuel tamed him down.

"Olio, at least read the script first. Trust me, you won't dislike it. Even my father would like it if he was alive. Just give it a chance."

Olio frowned hearing that but in the end, he nodded, picking up the script to read it. As a fast reader, he didn't take much time to complete it as he also just glossed over the parts that weren't changed.

While he was reading it, Aiden kept thinking that asking help from Samuel was the best thing. Maybe he was the only person Olio would listen to on the topic of [Hex].

It showed that he respected him and his father a lot.

After reading the script, Olio was in a deep thought, similar to Samuel when he had first read the modified script. He wouldn't say he didn't like it.

Having written all of his movies, he knew what a good script looked like and this was certainly one of them.

But Aiden's idea wasn't something feasible in his mind.

"Look, this is good. I won't lie but I'm still firm on the fact that we can't go with two parts for the movie. Moreover, I don't want the fans to think that we changed the plot."

Samuel quickly countered that sentence as soon as he heard that.

"My father would have wanted to have modifications. At least in the stories taken from the first two volumes. I told you about how he said he could have done both of them better. If there's problems with fans, I would try to give interviews to explain our situation."

"Will they even accept it?"

"They will if the movie is good and you only make good movies." Aiden said. "If they don't, then I will accept every criticism. I won't run away from it as all of this is my plan."

Olio fell into a thought hearing that. Both Aiden and Samuel looked too confident on their stances and it made him feel like his viewpoints weren't strong enough.

Moreover, one part of him as a director also didn't want to lose out on so many good scenes and adding modifications and editing it in a certain way would surely amplify them if they did go for two parts for the movie.

Not like it's not done before.

But the main problem wasn't even Olio. It was investors — Titan studios and in the centre of it was Alberto Dundley.

"Even if I agree, how are you going to make Alberto agree with this, Aiden? The modifications won't take much to shoot but it would inflate the budget and would need a change in marketing budget too as there will be two parts."

"I have already thought about that. It's less likely Alberto would listen to me." Aiden said. An image of Alberto mocking him after listening to his idea came to his mind. "The budget will be a problem too with him but we don't have to only take permission from him. He's the executive producer but there are other producers too. In the end, Titan studios are producing it in house, so a lot of eyes are on this project. We could go past Alberto and talk about our idea with the people who have more authority than him. Let's have a presentation."

A movie doesn't necessarily have to only credit one person as a producer. Normally, there will be lots of them with different roles and expertise. Sometimes, even distributors would come in as producers or actors who were going through the profit sharing module.

Anyway, something like this would need more than just Alberto agreeing to it.

So, Aiden's idea was simple. To have a presentation with the top authorities in Titan studios and let them decide for themselves.

If he works out, it's fine. If it doesn't, then Aiden won't hang onto it.

Hearing that, Olio said that it wasn't as easy as it sounded but Aiden simply shrugged and replied that they could still try.

The three of them talked more about it. In fact, Aiden stayed till dinner and only at midnight returned to his room to sleep.

As for Olio, he agreed to it.

An internal meeting to discuss something important about [Hex].

When Alberto was first informed about it, he thought that some problems had come up during shooting. But after checking, he found out that the shooting was going at a rapid pace and there was nothing wrong with anything.

They were well on schedule and looked to be finishing in one more month.

So, this sudden meeting was unexpected. He asked Olio about it but he refused to say anything, only telling him that he would know in the meeting.

Alberto hadn't concerned himself a lot with the shooting since it started, so he only knew things from the reports that his assistant would give him.

Until now, he had been happy with the progress but suddenly, he felt concerned.

What was going on? Why did Olio want to have a meeting with top authorities in the studio? Why won't he tell him anything about the issue? These questions roamed his mind and troubled him.

As [Hex] was one of the biggest projects in the studio with a top priority, a meeting was quickly arranged.

Most people who were free attended it and even Ava was there. Aiden and Samuel were also attending it obviously.

Alberto was asked a lot about the meeting but he could just remain silent. When the meeting started, Olio finally revealed what was going on.

"Thank you for coming here everyone. The reason I called for this meeting is because I think [Hex] needs screentime to fulfil the vast potential it has."

Hearing that, a member of the board quickly asked.

"What do you mean? We could easily have it end at 2 hours 20 minutes. Big budget movies of that length are becoming the norm these days."

A few people nodded at that but Olio shook his head.

"No, that's not what I meant. I don't think that much length is enough."

"Then, what's the ideal length in your mind?"

"Five hours after sufficient cuts. The movie would easily be that long."

Whispers started taking place hearing that. A movie of that length — No one was going to go watch such a movie as the majority of the audience weren't that free. The attention span in this age was also just decreasing.

"We can't do that." Alberto said, making his presence known to everyone. "A movie like that will fail. We talked about it before, right."

"We did but recently, I was given an idea on how to deal with this."

"What idea?"

Alberto raised an eyebrow.

"The idea to divide it into two parts. I know it looks strange at this point as we could simply opt for a sequel like expected but the first movie itself could go for two parts."

Everyone started talking to each other hearing that and the atmosphere soon turned to something akin of a fish market. No one was trying to suppress his or her voice anymore as there were simply too man

questions.

Expecting it already, Olio quickly calmed them down by clapping his hands loudly and proclaiming, "Everyone, I know you have questions but everything will be explained shortly. I didn't come here without a proper plan."

"Olio, we understand that but the idea of two parts? Isn't it suicide as the first half of the script is pretty... well let's say plain."

A female department head asked as she looked straight at Olio. She was one of the few in the room who had read the script written by Olio.

"Yes it is plain but it's been modified by Aiden here."

As soon as everyone heard that, heads turned towards Aiden. The expression of Alberto here was priceless as he looked at Aiden with a bewildered look.

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When heads turned towards Aiden, everyone was confused for a while. Only Ava, who Aiden had explained everything to before the meeting, knew that Aiden had a hand in the modification of the script.

So, she just simply sat back and enjoyed it.

"What is this joke? Olio, why did Aiden modify the script? When did he become involved in the creative process of the movie? I thought you were the one in control."

Alberto lashed out on Olio and gave a blazing glare towards Aiden.

"I'm still in control but the script was modified by Aiden. He has a writing portfolio on his own. I don't think it's anything too hard to comprehend."

"It's not. Still, he has never written a script before. How can you let such a person handle it?"

"He has a good grip on [Hex] and he didn't write the script. He modified parts of the first half and I liked it. I'm pretty sure that's enough justification for the quality of the modifications."

Olio frowned and looked at Alberto. He didn't like his tone at all but he wasn't going to say anything to him in the middle of a meeting.

Other people whispered among themselves but since Olio looked very confident about the modifications, they didn't say anything.

In the end, this was still something they could reject at the moment.

"Okay, let's see it."

One of the board members, a fat man, said and everyone else nodded. Copies of the modified script were brought out and Olio gave everyone enough time to read through it before starting a meeting.

A few people asked questions from Aiden as they read.

"You have created a lot of powerful characters that weren't supposed to be in the original script? What are you going to do with them in the second half? You would need to include them too."

"Maybe but [Hex] is all over the world and doesn't stay in a single place. Moreover, these characters are originally taken from the main story. They just didn't have enough background or any details regarding their abilities or the gods they follow. We are increasing the lore of the world with this."

Aiden focused on the lore part as afterall, it was going to be a franchise poster boy. If these characters stuck, there could be spinoffs for them easily as he had already given them cool abilities.

"Won't the changes affect the power balance of the world?"

"No, they won't. Most of the changes aren't really that big. They are more to add depth to the world than anything else. Moreover, the characters that are the focus had more of a stylised power system. It looks cool but when you think about it, it's not too powerful."

Aiden explained his changes to the whole board and other executives. Throughout the time, Alberto was the only one who was very against it. Others had a much more open attitude towards it.

Alberto was focusing more on the added responsibility of making it two parts. According to what Olio told them, they would shoot both the parts at the same time as a 75 percent shooting was already over.

They were going to shoot the modified parts later on.

It meant that if the first part failed, the studio would not bother releasing the second part in theatres. There will be much more heavy losses.

On the other hand, a lot of board members focused on the profits.

"If the first part worked, the total box office gross would at least be 600 million dollars and with the second part having more hype around it, it would be 700-900 million dollars at least. That's what we predict. As a lot of the movie is already shot, there won't be a lot of additional investments either."

Olio explained to the board members and executives. More money was something no one disliked. And this sounded extremely good to their ears.

One more thing that helped was the ending of the first part that Aiden had made.

"As you read, the first part will end with a cliffhanger. This is rarely used in Hollywood movies but whenever it is, it would make hype for the second part and the marketing can hold onto it then. Humans are innately curious so most people who watched the first part will watch the second part. We will be able to get the streaming audience too who might opt for the second part in theatres after watching the first on a streaming platform."

Aiden explained to all the board members and questions kept being raised. Alberto was the one who raised the most of them and Olio and he kept answering them.

Finally after 7 hours, the meeting was over.

They didn't give a definite answer right away as there was a need for more meetings but going by the reception, it won't be a problem.

Titan studios wanted more money and they have liked the whole progress till now. Moreover, Aiden could see confidence in Olio from their side.

Maybe it was because of his track record as a director.

He was right in his thoughts as two days later, they approved two parts of the movie.

Titan studios have approved [Hex] to be made in two parts, their most awaited movie of the year. The decision had come after the director Olio Fermen had a few meetings with the board.

[Hex] is boring in two parts — Director Olio Fermen recently announced it in a video with the first part coming at the end of the year. The second part will be released next year as the shooting of it would happen with the first part.

Apparently, Aiden Silvereye had gotten credit for being one of the writers for [Hex: Part 1]. The actor had come up with modifications on the set before Olio Fermen had decided to go with two parts.

Major changes have been made to the first part of [Hex] to make the story crisp. The changes are taken positively by the studio executives surprisingly.

When all these articles came out, a lot of readers of the original series were very apprehensive about two parts.

Most of them didn't care that the movie was going to be in two parts. It just meant a large chunk would be adapted. Just the parts about the modifications weren't taken well by most of the fans.

With writers ruining a lot of anticipated beloved adaptations recently with modifications, anyone who was a fan of movies wasn't happy with them. They just wanted a word to word adaptation.

So, there were a lot of comments about [Hex] going the same way.

[A spy on a balloon: I was very excited about [Hex] due to Olio but now that I read there are modifications, I'm just scared. Only if the trailer and everything feels right, I will go watch it. Even then, not on the first day.]

[Flying honey Bear: This is going to be a trainwreck. I just know it. There's no other way around it after these articles.]

[Sleep is the best job: After the modification, I'm pretty sure this will fail. They won't even earn much in the first part to go release the second in theatres. Everyone hoping this to be good are just on copium.]

Both Aiden and Olio didn't care one bit about these types of comments even if they were a lot. It was better to answer them with their work rather than saying anything online.

After all, if the trailers stick with the audience, [Hex] was a movie people are going to give chances to no matter what. An entire generation has read it as they have grown after all.

It was once the top book series in a lot of countries.

They also didn't have time to focus on the comments. Modifications meant that more work was awaiting them. New scenes meant that they needed to increase the shooting days and it also meant that Titan studios had to invest an additional 50 million dollars on the movie.

New actors were also casted and old ones that were going to appear had to be given more money as their scenes were increased. Those actors welcomed this as no one disliked more money and scenes in this industry, especially actors who weren't that big.

With an entire extra month of shooting waiting for him, Aiden also started helping out Olio on the scenes that were written by him.

Obviously, as a stubborn director, Olio wanted to give these scenes his own flavour so he changed a bit in them. He modified them as he wished and Aiden just stood on the side.

His work was already over as they were going with two parts. He didn't want any creative control over the body, so he let Olio do his thing and focused on his acting.

At this point, he just wanted the movie to turn out well. It had to turn out well since a lot of the failure would be pushed on his head if the movie didn't perform as expected.

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With the decision of making [Hex] in two parts in place, work increased a lot for the production team but as the budget was also increased, they were more than happy to do the extra work.

Actually, they were saying a lot by shooting the two parts at the same time.

It was more because of the fact that the decision had been taken in the middle of the shooting but it was still a great decision. If they had shot the two parts separately, the budget of 300 million dollars would have increased by another 100 million dollars.

Currently, as they were going for two parts, each part's production budget was around 150 million dollars which wasn't much.

Titan studios were keeping a close eye on the shooting and they were more than happy with the progress for now.

Olio having full control of the shooting meant that the studio was taking a backseat and normally when these types of things would happen, the movie would come out well, at least when a good director is at the forefront.

As for Aiden, he was having a bit of trouble during the scenes as the shooting progressed.

It was because the majority of the portions of both the first and second half were shot already and Blaze's character had already gone through a lot of character changes in his mind.

So, shooting the modified scenes meant that he had to go back to a certain mindset of Blaze before the character development. That was harder for him than he thought but it was not like he had not faced such a situation before.

As an actor, directors would often shoot a certain scene earlier or later. It was very easy with post production editing.

There were also issues with dates with certain actors sometimes.

But with Blaze, he had gone through a lot of character development movements so it was very hard for him to go back to a certain mentality.

That's why, Aiden was almost in a meditative state before shooting a very important scene.

'I need to show the vulnerability of Blaze.'

He thought in his mind.

The scene was an extremely important one in which Blaze would kill his brother. Yes, someone who he always thought to be one of the most important parts of his life.

That would change him forever and it would also be the scene in which Blaze would get a piece of the soul of his brother somehow. The one scene that was going to be the climax of the first part of the movie.

There was going to be a marketing campaign around the curiosity of why Blaze killed his brother.

It won't be explained until the second movie, giving people a reason to watch the next part.

As for Blaze, he didn't want to kill his brother and that's why the scene was impactful. It was going to be a scene where he would be the most vulnerable. Someone who had to do something horrific for the greater good of people.

'Greater good destroys some people.'

It was a line Uncle Sam had once told him randomly.

There was always a question of greater good and it would always be something that some people would say to justify their actions. Even if they sacrifice a few people, in the end, they are saving millions.

It was in a way practical no matter how cold.

After all, life was not fair. You need to always take hard decisions in life but going for the greater good was going to destroy some people and change them in ways they could never imagine.

Blaze was one such case.

He didn't want to kill his father. He just never had any choice. It was necessary and something he had to do. Otherwise, the whole world had to pay.

One vs the world — It was an easy decision even if it broke Blaze from inside.

'In the end, you can't help but take pity on him. He's a hollow soul after all.'

Aiden thought in his mind and opened his eyes.

He felt like he was finally ready to do the scene.

[Hex23 May-2020Act 12Scene 3Take 4]

"Blaze, why are you here? What are you doing? Why have you tied me up?"

A man said as he tried shaking his body from the chair that he was tied up to. It was dark and he was not able to see what place he was brought to.

But he could see the silhouette in front of him clearly. He wasn't wearing any mask or something to hide his face.

It was very clear to notice that he was his brother, Blaze. The same brother he had seen in the morning before going to his job.

The younger brother who had been his family for a long time. Tonight, he looked different, like he was restless, a sense of dread had filled him and he didn't know what to do about it.

"Ren, I'm sorry. I will explain everything to you."

Blaze said in a low yet serious voice. There were a lot of emotions in his tone but it didn't pinpoint anyone. He simply looked at his brother, Ren and spoke.

"I recently got a job with the Inquisition department and there, I learned my powers and the duties that come with it."

Saying that, he pulled out a card from the air and it started flying. Ren widened his eyes seeing that. His brother was one of the supernatural people, the ones who are only talked about in whispers.

He knew that he had gotten a job but he simply thought it was with the police.

"I won't go into my powers but one of those helps me know snippets from the future. A seer, you might call me." Blaze explained with a blank expression on his face. "These visions helped me know about you. You remember the time you got into an accident. The one where you were in a coma for a long time."

Ren nodded his head. That was the most impactful point of my life. He worked as an assistant to an archeologist and during one of the excavations, he came across a relic.

It was a relic of a dark god and he had fallen into a coma due to it, before a bishop from the church had intervened.

"The relic did more than put you in a coma."

"What do you mean?"

Ren raised an eyebrow, confusion written on his face. The whole situation was extremely creepy to him, especially with his brother being so weird.

"It puts a curse on you. A curse that not even the church was able to find out. A curse that could become the end of the world... I'm sorry. I had to do it."

Blaze said and from his pocket, he took out a gun. He put in three completely black bullets in them and took a deep breath. These bullets were called 'Demon purifier bullets' and they were the only way to give Ren peace.

'I don't want to do it... but this is the curse of seers.'

Being a seer is never a choice as you would often see the bad parts of your loved ones life. Their lows, their secrets and even their deaths. He had also seen such a future of Ren, a future in which he had lost himself and killed millions, creating the worst imaginable plague in the history of mankind.

A plague that humanity couldn't control.

That's why, Blaze had to stop it right now. When he had the chance. There was no other way.

"Blaze, what are you saying? I'm completely normal. The bishop said that. Even then, if you think I'm not, we can go to the bishop again. There's no need to point a gun at me. It's not you."

Ren said, trying to explain as he looked at the face of his brother.

It was the saddest expression he had made in all the years they have lived together. His hands were shaking, holding the gun and his eyes were becoming red.

"I'm sorry. I'm extremely sorry. I love you."

"Blaze, lower the gun. I'm your brother and I'm not cursed. Don't do something that you might regret in the futu—"

Bang!

A bullet hit Ren's chest.

He looked down at the hole that was created on his chest and the blood that was slowly seeping out of it. In front of him, his brother was standing with a shaking gun. His whole body was shaking.

Drop!

A tear dropped on the ground.

Bang!

Another bullet left the gun and struck Ren's chest.

Ren wanted to say something but all of it was happening too quickly. His own brother was becoming his killer. Before he could utter another word, he felt a sensation in his heart. A strong, powerful sensation that felt like a storm.

He started screaming as his neck suddenly started blackening. Veins appeared on his arm and face and one of his eyes became red.

"The demon is taking over."

Blaze muttered and another gunshot rang in the place. This time, it didn't head for the chest but straight to the face.

His brother died, looking at him with widened eyes. It was one of the most cruel deaths but the demon stopped.

Blaze had saved the world but he kept crying because he lost his own world.

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On the ground, Blaze kept shouting as the bullets killed his own brother. No, he killed his own brother.

In front of him, his brother was still looking at him eyes wide. The demon inside of him had tried his best to take over his brother but ultimately, he had died alongside him.

Blaze had managed to kill him. He had managed to save the world.

But he himself wasn't happy. Tears were running through his face and his legs were shaking as he fell to the ground, completely defeated.

He kept shouting as the scene came to a close.

"Cut!

Olio's voice sounded out as Blaze became Aiden. The immersion broke and Aiden realised that there were more people around him than the actor who was playing the character of Ren.

It took him a few minutes before he was able to truly come back to the real world.

Emotions of Blaze were like a turbulent storm and it was hard to subdue them. Only after he did it was he able to stop his body from shaking.

Olio noticed this and realised that Aiden had immersed too much into the scene.

"You did a good job there. The editing team is going to have a field day with the scene as we need several versions of it."

"Hope they like it."

For the first part of [Hex, the scene was only going to contain Blaze shooting his brother and there won't be any explanation given to it. Only in the second part would it be explained.

Aiden was sure that if the first part worked, there were going to be tons of fan theories on it. Though, as the book was already out, most people would already know the answer to it.

Still, a majority of the audience in today's world would rather wait for the next part to come out than read the books.

"Anyway, we are pretty much at the end. A lot of months have passed." Olio said as Aiden stood up, dusting himself off.

"I'm kinda looking forward to ending it actually."

"You didn't have a good time on the set? I wasn't even that harsh on you." Olio laughed and looked at him while he shook his head.

"Nah, it's not that. Blaze gets too chaotic as the story moves. That becomes his end too. I want to get to the end fast. Give him rest. Unlike someone like Kai, he's pitiful and never wanted such a situation."

If he thinks about it clearly, in the last stages of his character transformation, Blaze would be a shade of Kai.

An equally crazy character but just he will be more of a good person. He never wanted to hurt someone innocent but he lost himself in his powers due to the death of his brother.

In the end, while Kai kept pleasure in the pains he gave to others, Blaze was the exact opposite. He felt bad yet he had no choice.

Aiden felt like it would be better if such a character got its end soon.

Among the fans, Blaze was a very popular character due to that. A lot of them have actually begged the author to give him some happiness somehow. But the author was hell bent on making him a character that shows that not everyone gets happiness in life after a point.

'You will get your end soon, Blaze.'

Aiden thought as they moved to another scene. The days were limited now and everyone on the set was trying their best to give a happy ending to a project that was one of the biggest ones on their portfolio.

The shooting was on the final day now. For months, the whole crew had been on it day and night and finally, it was at the end.

The final scene chosen to be shot was a very simple one. In it, Blaze would just wake up after the war for the Hex weapons had ended and look at the end. His one hand has been amputated after the fight, so he only had one left.

The scene was just him looking at the sun. A short, simple one but the crew had decided to go with it, so they could shoot it in one take.

"Everyone, I know I have given you hard days in recent times. You probably cussed me more than my ex wife but this is the end. Are you all ready?"

Olio shouted in the mic and a few people chuckled. They told him that it was worth it or the experience was good enough. Few actors who were scolded hard by Olio also smiled at his words.

At least he was aware of his antics.

"Get the lights and mic in place. Aiden, are you ready?"

He asked, looking at Aiden who nodded his head.

Aiden closed his eyes and prepared himself for what would be the last scene. He didn't know if he was prepared for it.

He had already done all the other scenes with Blaze, so he felt like it was fine. His journey was almost over. Still, it was always sad when he had to say goodbye to a character.

[Hex28 May -2020Act 13Scene 3Take 1]

Blaze opened his eyes and looked around. He was in his room. He didn't know what time it was but it was probably morning. He felt refreshed, meaning that he had gotten enough rest.

Yet something felt missing inside of him.

He looked on his right and saw that his arm wasn't there. It was a wooden arm fixed in its place that was there just for show.

'It hadn't set in that I lost an entire arm. I doubt it will ever set in.'

He thought in his mind and tried to get out of his bed. Normally, he would head straight to eat and just do whatever he felt like. At this point, he rarely cared.

After all, he was now just waiting for his death.

There was nothing to look forward to.

But that day, his steps stopped and instead of going downstairs, he headed towards the window. He didn't know why but he felt like looking at the scenery outside the window.

The war was already over and he was curious to know how the world is going on. He had isolated himself, preparing himself for his death. The war had made him overuse his powers, making his powers a kind of a poison for him.

In the end, there was no cure for it, so only death awaited the man who had saved the world.

Reaching the window, he hesitated. He pondered whether he should open it or not but in the end, he used his only working hand to open it. Suddenly, a ray of light struck him, bathing him in a warmth that he had forgotten.

He blinked his eyes and looked up at the sky. The sun, bright as red, was out in the wide sky that seemed to be its playground. Birds were happily flying under it and the whole world seemed to be at peace.

It was vastly different from the time that the war was going on.

Watching it, Blaze fell into a trance like state and a thought entered his mind.

'Maybe in the end, I did a good thing.'

He thought and smiled, watching the sky. That was a warm smile.

It was at that moment Olio's voice sounded out.

"Cut! It's a wrap!"

The shooting was finally over.

The production team of [Hex] had finished the shooting of the fantasy adventure drama. Both the parts have been shot simultaneously and it looks like Titan studios are extremely confident in the product.

[Hex] first part is going to take a different approach from the books. Aiden Silvereye posted a photo of the wrap party with the crew, thanking everyone. Read all about it on our website.

Articles soon come up after the wrap of the whole shooting. Another movie was done by Aiden. The results were yet to come but it was way more confident with his recent projects.

As an actor, his script sense had gotten better with each project. He was even touted as someone with great script sense.

His system obviously helps in that but Aiden himself had contributed to it. After all, he was a writer, so his eye for good stories could be trusted.

Though, it was another thing if the projects would be profitable.

With that done, Aiden had time till December before the shooting of 'Project Dream' will be started. In the few months, he was planning to add something to his schedule.

After all, it was not like him to just take a whole few months break without any reason at this point of his career.

So, he had a few things in his mind already like taking filmmaking classes or learning martial arts.

Though, before he could even try them, an opportunity arrived on its own.

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The shooting for [Hex] was over and Aiden had actually completed two movies for the next two years with this. With 'Project Dream', he had three movies planned to be released in the next two years.

But Wade wanted him to do two more alongside this to consolidate his place as an A lister. If not two, at least one more in the next two years.

Aiden also agreed with that, so after shooting 'Project Dream', he was planning to have another release in the year.

Though, both [Hex] and 'Project Dream' were big budget extravaganzas with the former being touted to be a fantasy blockbuster and the latter a risky project which would either be a big hit or a flop.

So, the next movie needed to be something small.

Something more innovative. Something that could fit in the two big extravaganzas. Something that would be more of a risk project.

A small movie that Aiden could be proud of.

Wade and him were not in a rush to sign such a project, at least in the current year, so it was still a plan for the future.

Aiden was actually thinking of doing something like a comedy or a parody. Genres that he never tried before. He had been playing more serious characters in his whole filmography.

The only characters that were a bit more playful were teen characters and even then, it was not a rom com most of the time.

Though for now, Aiden was busy with something else.

"Hey, Aiden, do you think I can get something like a laser in the game for my character? You know the red one from that machine human movie. It looked very cool and flashy?"

Uncle Sam saved as he moved to make a gesture like he was shooting beams out from his palm.

A few people in the studio chuckled seeing him like this. Other actors that were standing at the back also smiled among themselves.

It was kind of refreshing to see old people being so vibrant.

"No, Uncle, your character is of a Draconian blacksmith. They don't shoot lasers from their palms?"

"Then, can I make the gesture of a fire breathing dragon?"

"No, in the game, the Draconians evolved to control their fire, so only their bodies got heated up and they could conjure up small flames to help them with tasks. That's the description for them."

Aiden explained, looking at his Uncle who looked like he was just happy to be here.

Currently, they were standing in a studio to shoot a few scenes for the game God's World. His Uncle was in a mocap (Motion capture) suit and looked to be having the fun of his lifetime.

There were other actors also in the studio and Cory was also present.

"Your uncle is a pretty interesting guy. Can we keep his personality in the game too? The character was going to be more stoic but this is fun. We need characters like that."

"Go on. Not like he was much of an actor anyway. He will have a better chance playing by himself."

Aiden said and just nodded. He went back to his seat and leaned against the wall as he saw his uncle having fun.

'The last week has been fun.'

Aiden had taken time to get off the character of Blaze and it had worked for most part. These days, he was just having fun and was now accompanying his uncle during his motion capture scenes.

His rest days were actually over today as he had a meeting in the afternoon about his next move as a celebrity. As he was thinking about that, his phone rang.

It was Wade.

"Aiden, you would be able to come for the meeting right?"

"Yes, I will be. It looks like Uncle Sam will be in the studio the whole day. So, I will just come right now and we can start it."

"Okay."

The phone cut after that and Aiden stood up. He said goodbye to his uncle and Cory and left the studio.

Sitting in his car, he thought about his career in recent years. It has been one big step after another.

But in that process, he wasn't able to focus on certain things. He had only been focusing on his acting and it showed in his system as his acting skills were just increasing.

Though, due to a majority focus on acting, his other skills like writing and singing were left behind.

Although he liked acting the best and was living a dream life as an actor, he knew that the other stuff was equally important as it gave him a choice to be more than just an actor. A versatile superstar.

Aiden didn't want these skills to be wasted. So, today's meeting was about it.

One more agenda was also Aiden's rising stardom and a need to go out of Hollywood, especially countries in Asia with a lot of population.

When Aiden reached the office, most people from his team were already present in the meeting room. After some greetings, he sat down and Wade started.

He was the one presiding over the meeting.

"As you know, in recent years, thanks to your movies and a low-key social media presence, you are able to become a sought after actor that is now being counted as one of the biggest stars in America. Most of your fan base consists of young people. Though a lot of fangirls are there, there are a good number of boys."

"That's obvious since I sang a lot of pop songs and a lot of my movies were a hit due to students and just people in their early 30s."

Aiden said and everyone nodded. A movie like [The Black Saint] was extremely popular with young people as they liked the gore stuff better and it also managed to click with older people due to the messages of society in it.

Though, that was a rare case as his other movies like [Action Hero] or series like [Sherlock of the Shadows] are focused on teens from the start.

No matter how good these projects are, teenagers are way more likely to watch them.

"Still, with the current trends, you have reached your limit on social media and you are not getting exposure like before to people to follow you or be your fan. Most people in America already know about you."

Aiden had reached a limit and he needed to break the current wall in front of him. But it was hard. After all, being an A-lister means that you are already one of the most popular faces in the country.

"The strategy you have used till now could be done in Asian countries too which means we would go for a more worldwide fanbase. It will surely help. The same is true for Europe. Although places like the UK get a lot of American shows, they do have their own series and movies too. It's the same in lots of parts in Europe and you have never truly broken out there before as you need to compete with their celebrities."

Wade said and Sasha nodded her head, agreeing with his points.

"In Asia, the competition is harsher. India might be a good place as it's your home country and they get a lot of American content online but the same can't be said about Korea or China."

"China is a huge market but it's just getting closed in recent years."

"Yeah, a lot of our movies earn hundreds of millions there, so the producers are worried it will get totally shut down."

A few people discussed and for a while, it looked like the topic was shifting but it soon went back to Aiden's popularity and ways to break in different markets.

"You can try working in films around the world but that's a strategy that's never going to work. You can't work in 6-7 movies a year and at most, you could do cameos."

"Asian cinema is mostly closed for people outside the native country anyway. People don't accept others."

Aiden nodded his head.

Even in India, although there were popular actresses from outside India who would learn the language, the actors were always Indians because the stories were more male centric in nature in the mainstream cinema.

Though, that was changing with time.

"I don't think I should go the movie route anyway. I have enough movies in my line and Hollywood movies generally get famous in other countries too. I doubt I need to do roles in other countries' cinema for now."

Aiden said and Wade nodded. Tom, who was just listening to the conversation till now, opened his mouth.

"Then, what are you going to do to break out in other countries?"

"I have plans."

"Like what?"

"I was thinking of making another mini album. It's been a long time since my debut album."

Aiden said and everyone in the room was a bit surprised. After all, Aiden hadn't talked about singing in recent years. He was not even seen with a guitar or something, so the perception was that he was over his singing career.

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Worldwide fame — Being called as a Global superstar.

How many people could be called a Global superstar in the whole world? Four? Maybe Five. The number was very low as it was not a feat anyone could touch and it was just getting lower in recent years.

It was because getting such worldwide fame never had any formula attached to it. A lot of times, people were just lucky. Especially when it comes to actors.

One movie of them would get Global fame and from there, a smart actor would try to only select scripts that could appeal to a lot of people. Scripts with universal themes.

They would also try to visit the countries that their movie had gotten successful in to accumulate the fans that they have gathered. With that, the people there await the release of their next movie.

With changing markets, many people think that it was way easier to be a Global superstar thanks to superhero movies as they are arguably the movies with the widest releases, aiming for the family audience.

Thanks to that, a lot of actors would get exposure in the whole world and people everywhere would recognise them. But the reality was a bit different.

People would be fans of the character in superhero movies more than the actor. It was something that even actors working in superhero movies have pointed out.

The role could be done by anyone barring a few exceptions.

When it comes to singers, it was a bit easier for them as music has a global appeal to it. You don't have to understand the lyrics or the language until you like the sound of it.

It was something that connected the whole world and didn't have language barriers.

That's why, a lot of people think that the only Global superstars could be musicians as they would fill a stadium anywhere in the world.

It was a statement that even Aiden agreed with.

"When you released your mini album, it made waves in a lot of European countries too. Although not all songs were popular, a few reached the Top 10 position in charts. You were also considered one of the rising singers in the world and there was a lot of hype around concerts."

"In the end, concerts didn't really materialise."

Aiden said and everyone in the room nodded their heads. A few people in the back leaked out a frown.

There were plans for concerts after the mini album and an eventual tour to different countries but nothing happened. Aiden got too busy with his movies.

"Well, it did help us as you got some of the best movies of your career but you have failed very harshly in the singer popularity chart. It has been two years since one of your songs has been in the Top 100 music charts."

"Yeah the only songs that made it there were from [Agnas] and I doubt we could count them as completely yours."

Saying that, Wade turned towards Tom who showed Aiden a few stats regarding singers these days. It included the list of most streamed artists and the popularity index in North America and other countries.

"Well, in the last two years, you went from 9th most streamed artist of the year to the 27th. Your popularity as a singer has dropped significantly as other singers have come up and a lot of chartbusters albums have premiered."

Tom passed him his tab and kept talking.

"We conducted a survey with your fans and more than 80 percent think of you as an actor rather than a singer."

"Isn't it due to the fact that I got a lot of my fans in the last two years?"

Aiden recalled that the number of followers had exploded after the release of [The Black Saint]. A lot of people have liked his acting and decided to be his fan.

"Yes, it is. But it's a bad thing for your singing or writing career."

He nodded and looked at the tab in his hand. The list of the current most popular singers in the country and worldwide were displayed with streaming numbers and other things.

He recognised the top few singers. They were the true singing superstars and were famous in tons of countries. One of them had recently sold out a concert in Korea and Japan which gave a statement of his popularity.

As he scrolled down, two familiar names stuck out.

'Cameron and Rachel.'

Both of them were doing pretty well in the last two years. Cameron had launched an album right after [Agnas] and it had been very successful. After that, he kept releasing his new songs every now and then.

He was currently the 9th most streamed artist in America according to the chart, the place where Aiden was previously.

As for Rachel, she was still with Cyco media and had become their top star, standing at the 7th position in the most streamed artists. Aiden had heard her songs and she had genuinely improved a lot.

She had also gained composing skills and would often write the lyrics of her songs now.

'It seems like they have really put me behind.'

Aiden sighed and thought that.

He knew it was inevitable as in the end, he was working on a wider spectrum than just one field. But it still felt like he had lost.

His competitive spirit was hurt but Aiden knew how to handle it.

After he scrolled down a lot, he found himself at the 27th position and his position was just going down and down. It would be at 50 if there's no music out for the next year by estimates.

New singers are coming out more and more these days thanks to online platforms.

"It looks like the market is very competitive these days."

Aiden said after going through the charts and everything else. Pop songs and 80s inspired music seemed to be the trend these days.

"Yeah, so if you really want to make an album, we need to make entire plans. Get some arrangers and other musicians to work on the song. Though, do you need songs or you would make most of your songs yourself?"

Wade asked and Aiden thought about it for a while. But his mind was already clear. He could sing other's songs but he never really felt like his own until he made it himself.

So, he would rather work hard on making his own songs. Even improving his composing skills in the process.

"I will make my own songs. It's better that way."

"Good. We could promote your songwriter image more then." Sasha said and Aiden nodded his head.

"Do you have plans for your songs? Like ideas?" Tom looked at him and Aiden smiled promptly.

"I actually do. I have been focused on acting for a long time but It don't mean I never got new ideas for songs and novels. I feel like this is the best time to do it."

Wade made a confused expression hearing that and picked up a word out of it.

"Novels? You're gonna work on one?"

"No, not now. Like, I don't want to have a situation where focusing on two things ruins both of them. I just said I have ideas and it's no good to let them stay in my mind. So, after the album and 'Project Dream', I can work on a full fledged novel and like Sasha says, it adds to the image."

Everyone nodded and they soon started talking more about the album. Making a group to work on the project and other things.

Aiden took it upon himself to work on the songs but even in it, they needed songs that could work in today's climate. Music industry changes a lot every year.

"I feel like we should target European countries for the album and do tours there. After all, the whole purpose of the album is to increase Aiden's fame."

Tom said and a few people nodded. His idea of tours was a good one as they could finish a tour in a month.

Though, that meant that the album needed to be released fast. Although there was a choice of just doing the tour after Aiden finished up his shooting.

"If the purpose is Global fame or at least exposure in different markets, then shouldn't we target more of Korea and Japan. A lot of groups from there are trying for western popularity. A song together with a K-pop artist could work very well. Aiden could do a tour of Korea too."

"But people have no idea of him there. His movies never got a wide release in Korea. We at least need them to know him a bit before making a collaboration."

"Yeah but we can't wait for that. It's better to go ahead with it. Japan is actually a better option in this case."

Aiden listened to the conversations happening. Collaborations sounded good but in his head, he was thinking of the ideas for songs.

There were a lot of songs to be made in his mind but they were the ones that Aiden had already done before.

The ideas from his team were fine too but they were nothing new.

It was tried and tested.

He needed something else. At that moment, an idea struck him!

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Singers have tried a lot of marketing tactics to sell their albums. Though, oftentimes, there would be a whole marketing agency working on ideas to market an album.

Even then, a lot of the albums coming out would be generic in terms of marketing.

After all, it was easy to hold onto the popularity of the singer or just make a catchy beat that could go viral instead of thinking of a unique marketing idea.

This had also worked very well in the past with several hit digital albums. Music was the easiest thing to spread, so just making it catchy and having it used by a lot of people in short videos was enough.

But Aiden had different things in mind.

When the idea struck his mind, he played around with it for a moment. Like a lot of members of the team, he was also thinking about collaborations with different artists but he wanted them to be more than just for marketing reasons.

At the same time, he wanted the album to spread through songs. Not due to anything else.

After collecting his thoughts together, he proposed a theme for his album.

"Hey, how about we try to collaborate with the top bands of each decade to make songs? Like songs from each era? You said that songs from the 80s and 90s were making a comeback right?"

Aiden looked at his team who looked confused at his proposal.

"Yeah, they did make a comeback. It's like modernising a tune from the 80s. Even Hollywood is remaking a lot of their old stuff these days, so I guess the music industry is going down the same route."

Wade said and Aiden nodded his head before giving out a smile. He started explaining his idea for the theme of the album.

"So, my idea is basically not to collaborate with the current famous singers but to make songs with the famous bands and singers of the 80s and 90s then 2000s. Every few years, the top singers shuffle. Some get into different fields while some retire. With the current trend, it would help us and give us a unique touch."

"But that won't help us get more stream numbers or popularity. That sounds noble but I don't know if it will help make the album popular."

One of the members of his team asked that question. It was a young man and everyone waited for Aiden to respond to him.

He already had the answer ready.

"Well, you think those bands aren't popular?"

"I mean, there's a reason why they ran out of popularity." The young man replied.

"They did but their music never did. Even now, those songs. The original ones might not have a respectable number of streams but there's been tons of remixes of those songs. Hollywood movies are incorporating them in a lot of their movies."

In recent years, especially the last decade, a lot of movies in action or comedy genres have taken help of old songs by remixing them in their soundtrack. The funky music had helped elevate a few scenes for Hollywood.

It was one of the reasons why the old music was coming back to fashion. In a way, it was like a cycle.

"Even if you say that these bands or singers are a thing of the past, there will still be fans of them around. Or at least people who had been fans of these groups. Nostalgia is a thing."

"Yes, it worked like magic during [Agnas]."

Tom said and everyone around them nodded. They all agreed with the fact that music had lived on even though the identity of their singers hadn't.

Music was often like that.

"One more thing is that if the music is good enough, who is singing it wouldn't matter. We all know that in the end, an album sells because of the contents. And an album in the end needs good music."

Like that, the theme of the album has been put into place.

No one disagreed with Aiden as his points were very clear and sane. He had always strived to do something unique and this was definitely on the lines with that.

But one more thing was left to discuss.

"But how will we target a wider demographic country wise? Going for the theme of 'Sound of different eras' might work for America but we were always going to make this album more Global."

Sasha asked and Aiden had also thought about it.

"Well, that would be handled by a European tour, right? I was always looking forward to going on a tour. Singers gain a lot of fans as they travel around the world. Moreover, we could go for bands that were always popular in countries in Europe. That will help."

"What about Asia?"

"I think we could do a collaboration with an Asian artist next year for that. Let's focus on Europe for now."

Aiden's mind was only focusing on one thing at one time. Asia was in mind as everyone knew that the power was shifting in recent years, both in Hollywood and the music industry.

Asian artists and movies have started to slowly earn more and more as time went by. And they would surely compete neck to neck with Hollywood one day.

So, it was a priority to target it when he could.

But for this album, it was just better to focus on Europe and just making good music.

His team got to work very quickly after the meeting as they needed to work on multiple things. Collaborations were also not going to be easy as they were not trying to work with a current artist but an artist from the past.

It was hard to reach them and there was no guarantee whether they would agree to it.

So, the team searched out a lot of artists and marked out a few of them. Popular artists from the 80s, then from the 90s and then from the 2000s. There were lots of groups associated with these eras. Each decade had 30 famous bands and singers overall.

Some fizzled out in a few years while others ruled for a decade.

It was tough to get these singers to collaborate simply for the reason that a lot of the bands have disbanded and others have retired. It was very tough to get the disbanded bands together and Aiden wasn't going to try either.

After all, a lot of the bands would disband due to fights and won't want to work with each other again.

Aiden was not confident to solve differences that have lasted decades. So, his team was mostly looking for bands that were in good touch or were still active in some form.

Other than that, a marketing team was set up to push out the album. At least get the first word out that Aiden was working on something.

For this, Sasha asked Aiden to post a photo of him with a guitar and some papers around the room to make it look like he was working on something.

That photo was edited a bit before being posted on his social media.

I'm working on something new these days. Stay tuned.

With that caption, it was done and just tens minutes later, the comments on the post exploded. Aiden had no idea that a lot of his fans were actually looking forward to another song from him.

[I'm from Ohio, mf: So, does this mean what I think it means? Or it's just an ad or something along those lines because I would be very angry if it's an ad. I freaking want another Aiden song.]

[Skyneves: Aiden is finally back! I was extremely worried he had made a complete shift to acting. As a fan who founded the fan group due to his singing, this is the best news I have gotten in the day.]

[Hairy Allen: I never knew Aiden sings. I looked at the comments here and damn, he used to be a well known singer. I never got into the music side of him before but guess, this is my cue.]

[Send Dudes: I really hope this is an album rather than just one song. It's been so long and I'm tired of listening to old songs by Aiden. He doesn't realise how much talent he has when it comes to singing.]

[Newbie MeTuber: Hey, can anyone subscribe to my MeTube channel? My dad never came back after going to buy milk and I have to feed my sick mom. I play Dancing Dragons by the way.]

[Hollywood Insider: Shut up kid! Go beg somewhere else. This is the moment of a guy coming back from his exile to do great things. Let me silently be a part of it.]

Not only his fans, even others in the industry noticed it. A lot of celebrities who were following him, the people he has collaborated with before.

And most specifically, people who considered him a rival.

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In a room that looked like it was cleaned just now, a woman was looking at the screen of her laptop. A cup of sizzling tea was placed right next to her, a part of her daily routine but she wasn't even touching it.

It was going cold but she didn't care to drink it. Her whole focus was on the screen in front of him, the words written on it. One news after another.

Actually, she was just browsing through her socials as a daily routine to see what people were saying about her.

It had become another habit as she had gotten sensitive to things.

This was something she couldn't ignore as being in her place, there were people always talking about her. Being a centre of attention was not easy especially when the attention was put on by the media.

Daily, there would be malicious tabloids about her making it look like she was sleeping with everyone in the industry and how she was buying up awards. It was done by rival companies to put a dent on her image.

Her company would handle it most of the time but it was still taking an effect on her.

She had gotten better in recent times though.

As she was reading through the articles and people's comments, a post was suddenly recommended to her. It was a post by a person who would rarely come on social media and she would often just stalk him to see what he was doing in his career.

She clicked on his post and while reading it, her eyes went wide.

'He's making a comeback.'

That was wild news to her as she had assumed that he had given up on his singing career. Maybe not given up but he was way more focused on his acting career that was just going upwards.

If they went by popularity, he was much more popular than her due to his movies right now.

'Why is he suddenly making a comeback? Just when I was preparing another mini album? Is he doing it deliberately? No, he's not that type.'

She thought in her mind as she let out a frown.

It was then that her phone started to ring.

She saw it was her assistant and picked up the call. Though, she wasn't in any mood to talk suddenly.

"Miss Rachel, good morning. I'm downstairs ready with the car. We need to go to the studio today to record the first song and then, there are a few meetings today too."

He said in a low voice after making his greeting.

"Cancel the recording session. No, shift it to the evening. I will first attend the meetings. There's something important we need to take care of."

She said and her assistant didn't seem to have any understanding of what she was talking about but he still nodded his head and cut the call.

He cancelled the meeting right away and informed her agent about it.

'It seems like we are again going to be rivals if your post is what I'm thinking.'

Rachel thought in her mind.

From the last time they had met, a lot had changed. She had now more power than she could imagine but Aiden had still been someone who she thought of as a big rival even now.

Although she had defeated Aiden during the reality show, he had undoubtedly won every other battle in their careers.

Other than Rachel, there were also other people who were surprised to see Aiden's post. Out of them, Grey who was already on the verge of retirement was very happy after finding out that Aiden was making a comeback.

He even commented on the post.

[Grey: Excited to see what you would conjure up this time.]

His comment alone got over 20k likes. Other than him, there were singers who looked up to Aiden as he was one of the few who had come out of a reality show and made a name for himself.

The judges of X-Star also commented as they have always supported the contestants that had made it big from their show.

On the other hand, there were people who weren't happy.

These people were the ones who had lost to him in streaming sales and other stuff when he was releasing music and they were still salty about him.

After all, humans were very petty sometimes.

Out of all these, there was one person who was not surprised seeing Aiden hinting at a comeback. He was someone who knew Aiden very well, especially in recent times.

'He's finally making a comeback.'

He was sitting in his car when he had seen Aiden's message and before he knew it, he was smiling.

"Ah, he finally got bored of movies."

Cameron thought as he leaned against his seat. After the release of [Agnas, he had asked Aiden about his plans for songs going forward.

After all, they had been part of a movie that had taught them a lot musically. Especially Aiden who seemed to have been inspired by Agnas.

He wanted to know how Aiden's music would improve after that but the answer he had gotten was that Aiden wanted to focus on movies. Maybe he was already in talks to play Kai again back then.

That's why he moved away from singing.

But now, he was back and Cameron couldn't be more happy.

"Ah, I really want to know what type of music you would come up with, my friend."

He said and just stayed there for a while, thinking of Aiden's old songs. Cameron wanted to know how much Aiden had improved and what type of new songs he would compose.

Just in those thoughts, he felt like good days were ahead for him as a music lover.

"It looks like the reaction online has been very positive."

Aiden said and looked at the countless messages in front of him. Almost all of them were positive and he even replied to a few that were from the people who knew him and to a few fans.

It looked like a lot of people had been looking forward to an album from him.

"Doesn't it put pressure on you to make a great album this time? You look very relaxed."

Wade said as he came into the meeting room. Aiden was still in his office, talking more about the themes of the album and other things the whole day.

"It does but I have ideas. My skills have gone up after [Agnas]. I'm actually excited to work with the bands to make some good music."

When Aiden said that, Wade sat down and smiled. It looked like he had some good news for Aiden.

"Well, regarding that, we got some leads. We talked to a few bands and singers that were active during those times and a few of them looked interested. Although, most of them straight up said no as they have just retired or their vocals have gone bad."

"So, who you got?" Aiden asked curiously.

"We are still looking at the 70s. Most singers from that time are actually dead. Others can't even hold a guitar. There's a female singer from the late 80s who agreed, so we might get the deal with her but from the 90s, we got someone special."

"Who?"

Wade made an expression like he had a pleasant surprise for Aiden before revealing it.

"You know of "The Boys" right?"

Aiden nodded when he heard that word. "The Boys" was the most popular band in the 90s and they were artists that were popular all over Asia and had the record of selling out a concert completely in Japan back then.

Though in the 2000s, they have retired after their vocalist left the band for a solo career.

"I contacted all the members. Three of them agreed to come back for a collaboration while the fourth one, the drummer, rejected it because he's having his third wedding this year. Though, the band is cordial with him."

Aiden ignored the third wedding part and began to ask questions.

"What about the vocalist?"

"The rest of the members haven't been in touch with him for over a decade now. We don't have any chance of getting him as he's just living a good life as a millionaire."

Aiden thought about it.

With three members, the band was incomplete but maybe, this is what Aiden was going to get. After all, getting all the members together didn't sound easy and he didn't want to wait till the drummer's honeymoon was over.

Moreover, he knew that 'The Boys' was one of the most popular bands from the 90s. He might not get a better group to collaborate.

He was also interested in their music and it would be fun to write something like that.

That's why, Aiden nodded his head.

"Okay, let's go with 'The Boys' for the first song of the mini album. I can be the vocalist of the song anyway."

"Okay."

Wade nodded and like that, the album production started.

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"People say I might lose it all..."

"There will be a day I might lost..."

"But they don't even know my resolve..."

"I will take my chances and give it my all..."

In the car, Aiden was hearing a song 'Blessings' that was almost 25 years old but for some reason, it felt very relatable as it talked about a person coming out of nowhere and trying to do new things to rise.

It was obviously written by 'The Boys'.

Aiden had gone through every song last night and all of them offered something new to him. Each album had its own flavours and mixtures to them but there were a few central themes that were a constant.

Theme of 'Starting from the bottom and rising to the top'. Themes of 'Struggle'. Themes of 'Depression'.

All of these things were connected to each other and it was because all the members of the band had risen from poverty to become so big. They all related to those terms and other people did too.

After all, these were universal themes.

Struggle and poverty was everywhere in the world and it was never ending. It was one of the main reasons why the song 'The Boys' became such a massive sensation.

'I mostly wrote only about love and heartbreak and those themes. Good chance to do something very different.'

He thought in his mind and it was then that Wade called him out, breaking him away from his thoughts.

"Aiden, we are here."

"Ah, okay."

"Try to be a bit respectful. Older year artists rarely have good things to say about new ones and it often leads to differences between them. 'The Boys' never had major scandals about them, at least not with the two we are going to meet today."

Aiden nodded his head. From what he had heard, most of the major scandals involved the vocalist of the band. He even was once involved in an orgy party with a bunch of celebs back in the 90s.

'No wonder, he got STDs later in life after leaving the band.'

Aiden thought in his mind and got out of the car. He was going to meet the two members that had agreed to collaborate in a cafe.

As he entered the cafe, Wade led him to the seat where they were supposed to meet. It was in the VIP section of the cafe.

Apparently, it was a cafe used by celebrities often in New York.

Soon, he saw two people who looked like they were a few years older than Uncle Sam. Both of them saw Aiden and Wade too and got up from their seats.

'Eddie Filkins and Drew Fisher.'

His eyes first fell on Eddie. He had white hair and a moustache that made him look like an old action hero, especially with his body that hinted that he was a gym freak. Even though he was short, there was an atmosphere to him that was hard to ignore.

He used to be the guitarist and the main lyricist of the group back in the day.

Standing next to him was Drew. With dyed black hair and apparent wrinkles on his face, he gave the atmosphere of a bartender in a classy bar.

He was the guy on the keyboard and although he was the least popular out of all them, he had a bright atmosphere about him.

He was the first one to shake his hand.

"It's nice to meet you. Actually, I was surprised when my manager suddenly texted me about a song. I have not been a part of a song for years." He said in a voice that was softer than what Aiden had perceived in his mind.

"Yeah, he was talking about how he forgot how to play keys." Eddie said and Drew quickly retorted.

"My fingers just need time to recall the feeling again."

Aiden turned towards Eddie after that. Unlike Drew who had retired, he was actually still a part of the industry, just as a songwriter.

In the past, he had written songs that had featured as soundtracks in movies.

"I was very surprised to know you wanted to collaborate with a washed up band." Eddie said as he faced Aiden.

"I like your music. I doubt that's washed up." Aiden replied. "Moreover, you probably know the theme of my album."

"I heard." Eddie nodded. "It's a good idea but every album needs good songs. Otherwise, even if it gets a million streams, people won't come back to it."

"I plan to make an album like that."

Eddie smiled at the self confidence. He could see in Aiden, a similar fire like he used to exclude, just much brighter. He had achieved so much coming from nowhere too, just like him and his band.

"Can you do that with old artists like us?"

"Like I said before, you might have retired from the band but your music never retired. I'm putting my trust in it."

Aiden said as a matter of fact.

They sat down in the cafe after getting to know each other better and straight up started talking about the song they were going to make together.

Eddie was going to work with Aiden on the song as even in the past, he mostly had the most contribution in the production of the band's albums.

On the other hand, Drew just looked happy to be a part of it. Maybe, he was recalling the days of the past when he hadn't retired.

"First of all, you are going to be the vocalist right?" Eddie asked and Aiden nodded his head.

"Yes."

"Then, we already have most of the band here. From what I know, you can handle instruments but we need a drummer."

Eddie said and Drew asked quickly.

"Can't we just go with a song that doesn't use a lot of drums? Maybe something more on the lines of electronic music."

"No, I already have a tune in mind." He said, looking at Aiden. "Me and Aiden could work on it slowly but a drummer is a necessity. Without him, the tune won't look the same as I'm planning a part where there will be a 30 second solo."

Eddie tapped on the table with his fingers and talked. Aiden was sure that he was thinking of the song in his mind. He would himself do it sometimes.

He just observed him for now as according to his system, Eddie was a master in composing and lyrics.

[Composing: Level 9]

[Lyric writing: Level 8]

He was at a level that was higher than Aiden and Aiden could see why he had been one of the top songwriters around. Even then, he was under utilised.

"We can get a drummer. I can contact one. It won't be that hard to find."

Wade said, sipping on his coffee.

"No, we need someone good. Not just any random one who works on a contract. I know a few but all of them are already involved in different bands and won't be able to come. Moreover, we need someone who can match our synergy."

Eddie looked at Aiden and Drew before continuing.

"I listened to songs of you, Aiden. I feel like me and Drew would match well with you. There will be a synergy once we practise together a few times but we need a good drummer that could match us."

'A good drummer.'

Aiden closed his eyes and thought about it.

He understood the importance of a good drummer especially in a band but it was very hard to find a good drummer. Though, there was one he knew.

Probably the only drummer that he could trust.

"I think I know someone."

He said, looking at Eddie. Aiden didn't know what the guy was doing these days but it looked like it was the time to find out.

As Aiden was talking with Eddie and Drew, Rachel was in a meeting to discuss her upcoming album. It was already announced, so there was no going back on it.

Her fans just didn't know when it would be released.

"It seems like Aiden Silvereye is really going to release a new album. I tried to look for information about it and it seems like he's collaborating with old bands and singers for it."

Martha, her manager said as she looked at her.

"Our album is already in production. Do you think he's going to release it this year too?"

"Probably. You know he's a genius when it comes to songs. He's a big competition even if he hasn't done anything for years. He's known as the one who completed Agnas's last song, so everyone in the industry is looking forward to seeing what he would do in his new album."

A lot of people in the industry were even looking at Aiden as someone with the talent of Agnas. Though, he was more of an actor and that disappointed a lot of people.

Hearing that, Rachel was in thoughts for a while before making a decision.

"Let's not worry about him and face him head on if it comes to be."

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After becoming a star, Aiden had never really gotten time to connect with people outside work. Like it's been years since he had met his acquaintances in 'The Rabbit hole' bar or a few of his friends that he had before becoming famous.

It wasn't because he looked down upon those friendships after becoming big. He just never had time.

His work was exhausting and Aiden was a person who liked to spend time with himself more than someone else — The true definition of an introvert.

But whenever he would meet someone from his past, it would be interesting to see how they have changed. Some would be doing extremely good in life while others not so much.

When he met Jackson, he felt like he came in the middle.

"What happened to your hair?"

"You are asking why I'm bald?"

"Yes. Last time we met, you were trying to grow your hair. Why have you suddenly gone bald? Are you getting hair fall with age?"

Aiden asked the question that was in the mind of Wade and Tom too. Even other people in the studio were staring at Jackson who still had the same goofy smile on his face.

It had been a few years since Aiden saw him and although Jackson did look a bit older, the most striking thing about him was the loss of hair.

He was completely bald now. Even giving Aiden the impression of an actor who would do a lot of 'family action movies'.

"No, it's not a hairfall or anything. I just shaved it off." Jackson said as a matter of fact.

"But why?" Wade asked, looking at him with pity. He knew a few bald agents himself and none of them had been happy with their bald head.

One of them had to resort to growing his beard and putting on his sunglasses to get girls these days. Whenever they meet, the guy will be in a cap to hide his bald scalp.

"Well, I told you that my band broke up right. We were doing a lot of shows in Europe and the Middle East when a few people had a fight and the record label told us to break off as we didn't reach their expectations."

Jackson had been telling that story straight from the airport to the studio. Aiden had felt bad hearing that but it looked like he was already over it.

But it didn't explain why he had a bald head.

"Anyway, I was angry about it, so I kind of shaved my head off in a hotel room and started liking how I looked. I mean, the guy who has gotten the most chicks in the world is a bald guy, right."

Jackson laughed saying that and Aiden could only think that this was a very silly reason.

He was expecting something like a superstition but this reason was even worse than that.

'At least he looks like he's enjoying life.'

Ignoring his bald head, Jackson had really become a pretty famous drummer, especially among musicians. He also had earned good money and was now just travelling the world these days.

That's why he was free when Aiden had called him.

"Anyway, you have not lost your skills alongside your hair, right?" He asked and Jackson smirked.

"I will never lose them."

As he said that, the door to the room opened and Eddie and Drew walked in. They walked towards Jackson and Eddie squinted at him.

"He's your drummer."

"Yup."

"Jackson Brown."

Jackson introduced himself and shook hands with both of them. The atmosphere quickly got serious as all of them were professionals and not friends.

Having older guys working with you meant that they would strictly talk about work as there was hardly anything common to talk about due to the generation gap.

Music was the only common thing among them.

"I have seen some of your videos. You are good but we would need more from you on this song."

Eddie said, looking at Jackson and he raised one of his eyebrows.

"More? Like how?"

"Like I want someone who can put on a performance that seems like he's possessed. That kind of performance. Can you show me a sample?"

He said and passed him sticks. Eddie was only going to be able to tell more after seeing Jackson perform live.

Jackson nodded his head and walked towards the drum set that was already arranged for him. He sat down and took a deep breath, trying to concentrate.

A few people whispered among themselves, wondering if he would be any good. Only Aiden looked at him with confidence on his face.

It was because his skills had increased to another level.

[Drumming: Level 9]

For the next twenty minutes, everyone kept looking at him as he played drums with all his heart. And he played it in a way that stunned everyone.

His song with 'The Boys' was going to be the main title song for the mini album. Aiden had decided that and because of that, the song needed to be perfect.

It needed to be a song that could connect with the audience in a way that they could share it with everyone they knew. For this song, Eddie and him went through a couple of themes and tunes.

Although Eddie has a higher skill level than Aiden, he wasn't bossy or arrogant and fully realised that it was Aiden's song and not the 'The Boys'. Moreover, he was also curious as to how Aiden made his songs.

It was rare to find a musician who does all of his songs by himself.

So, Eddie just observed him as he talked about the type of song he wanted to do. He did give his advice once in a while but they were making good progress everyday.

For the style of the song, they were clear on what they wanted to do.

A theme that suited both 'The Boys' and Aiden. The theme of struggle but Aiden wanted it to be a song more about destiny.

They worked hard to prepare a base tune for it. They needed a tune that was strong yet something that grows on people. An electric guitar or just something else.

After struggling with it for a few days, they finally got a good tune that satisfied the both of them. Eddie decided to work on it alone to make it even better and Aiden took the chance to write up the lyrics for the song.

'The lyrics need to tell a story like always.'

There were a few basic things always in his style of composing. So much so that it was more about telling a story than anything else.

The story could be his. Someone else's or just a story that he made up in his mind. But for this song, he was clear as to what type of story he wanted to tell.

A story of destiny and fate.

These were very complicated topics for everyone in the world. After all, were they even true? A lot of people think that our lives are already written and we were just puppets doing things that we didn't choose.

But Aiden disagreed with it.

He felt like our destiny was around us and more often than not, life would try to guide us to choose it. But in the end, it was still our decision.

If one wanted to stay in the slums or rise above them to get a better life for himself. One doesn't have anyone else to blame for the decisions he makes.

It won't always work out and not everyone is bound to be special. But that's just how the world worked and there was no going around it.

Aiden added his story to it and tried to put down lyrics around it.

He scraped a few papers while writing down lyrics as it was hard for him to pin down the lyrics that really suited the tone. But in the end, he made progress, albeit slowly.

With a song like this, the problem was that it was sounding more like a motivational song than one that sounded more personal. Aiden wanted to create a song that a person could hear and get hope that one day, it will be fine while at the same time, thinking that the novel was extremely nice to listen to.

Not a motivational song to hype up the person for a small time.

In the end, he was able to pen down a few good lines and then Eddie helped him out to build on it.

The man was really a professional and as he saw Aiden's lyrics, he was quickly able to deduce what Aiden was trying to do.

Working with him, Aiden felt like he was learning a lot of things.

His skills were also slowly rising.

[You have gotten experience.]

[Your composing skills are rising.]

[Your Lyric writing skills are rising.]

These notifications were the reason that Aiden was able to put more thought into composing. After all, knowing that he was improving, Aiden was more motivated.

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As Aiden and Eddie were working on the main title song for the album, Aiden was also making other songs on the side. After all, the album needed at least 5-6 songs.

One song with the 'The Boys' and one song with another female artist from the 80s was already decided. Unfortunately, they weren't able to find any artists from the 70s that were willing to work with him. It was also understandable as decades have gone by.

So, that era was eventually scrapped.

Instead, they went with an artist from the 2000s and that was easier. Grey was actually from that decade. His peak was then, so Aiden just contacted him and he agreed to lend his voice to a song.

Though Grey was already planning to retire so, other than lending his voice, he won't be able to promote the song a lot.

That was fine with Aiden as anyway, it wasn't going to be a title track. He was planning to make it more of an indie pop song with a fresh vibe and a small topic that Grey could easily master.

Even after these three songs, he needed three more.

For the three, he first decided to go with a romantic song, kind of like the wedding song that he had made once. That was actually his viral song and he was interested in doing something like that again.

The other two songs were more diverse and thoughtful with one of them based on the fall of the French Kingdom in 1789 with the French revolution. Aiden was a fan of history and because of that, he felt like that point of time was extremely significant to the whole world.

Ideologies, philosophies spreaded after that point.

He wanted to write a song from the perspective of someone who was a noble but someone who empathised with the pain and suffering of the poor.

The last song was something that was hard for him to construct but in the end, he decided to go with a feel good song about two fictional characters meeting to go on an adventure.

In his brain, these songs were forming as stories. Musical stories that needed grand music to elevate them to the next level. Stories that stay with people, even if they are very simple in nature.

For the wedding song, Aiden made a very simple tune that anyone could sing. A melody that couples could sing together and simple yet thoughtful lyrics to go with it.

For a romantic song, he always felt like there doesn't need to be a lot of complications in it. It just needs to be warm.

But for the other songs like the one based on the French revolution, he made a grand tune and used a lot of instruments like an orchestra was playing it. It needed to look like a song that one would hear in a theatre.

At the same time, he only used instruments that were popular around those times to make it look more authentic.

Any modern music would ruin the ambience of the song.

Frankly speaking, it was one of the hardest compositions he had done as there was a lot of research involved but that was the fun part too. After all, a song like this had rarely been done before by him.

There was a challenge to it.

For the last song, Aiden used a daydream of him in his teen years as the backdrop of the story. He had written it down as it was very interesting to him. A man from a desert and a girl from Iceland going on a Globe trotting adventure together to solve a mystery.

Both meeting each other hoping that it would be the start of their story.

It was a very silly story but Aiden had fun writing it down in a song. After all, creativity could come from anywhere and this was the proof of it.

He kept working on these songs day and night as time passed. His skills kept increasing day by day.

[You have gotten experience.]

[You have gotten experience.]

[Your Lyric writing skill has advanced to Level 7 from Level 6.]

[Your composing skill has advanced to Level 8 from Level 7.]

The album has managed to again increase his rank.

"Can you increase the pitch a bit, Aiden?"

Eddie asked as he looked at Aiden inside the booth. They were currently recording the title song that was called 'Dreams'. The recording had been going since the morning and it was going pretty good till now.

That was mostly because of Aiden's special skill.

"Okay."

He said and took a deep breath. Concentrating, he started the verse again.

"I may be down in the dumps but I'm gonna rise..."

"Arise to be someone..."

"Someone with a dream..."

As he sang, his voice took the form of a silver light that was slowly touching the gold mark but there were only hints of it. Some small sparks but nothing else.

He hadn't done enough to reach the next rank yet but he was getting there.

The silver light in the air buzzed as Aiden raised the pitch in his voice. When it got too much to the level that he felt like the light was becoming a bit weak, he lowered the pitch.

Like that, he recorded the verse again and again.

But compared to a typical recording, this was easy as before Eddie could even tell him to do it a bit differently, Aiden would already be doing it.

It was like he was reading his mind.

"Aiden, he knows his voice too well. It's rare to see a singer being so aware and his musical sense is probably one of the best I have seen till now."

Eddie muttered under his breath as he listened. Jackson, who was sitting next to him, smiled and explained to him.

"He's always like this. He would know where he's making a mistake and how to make a verse better. It's easy to work with him because of that."

"It's almost like he has perfect pitch."

Eddie said. He had rarely seen someone with a perfect pitch as it was very rare even in the music industry.

Perfect pitch basically means someone who could hear every note in the air. Every great musician has it. Even Agnas was someone with this ability. Eddie was actually jealous of people who have it as a skill.

Jackson smiled as he heard that. In the past, he had wondered about it too.

"Maybe he does have it. It's hard to explain his skills sometimes. You should ask him later?"

Eddie nodded hearing that and focused more on the recording. They had already recorded the instrumentals and were now going for vocals.

After that, there was also a lot of other work like mixing all of it together and putting it in a way that it makes sense.

As they worked on the recording, the door to the room suddenly opened and Wade walked inside with a look of worry over his face.

Aiden saw him and came out of the recording booth.

"Wade, what happened? You look worried."

Everyone looked at him and Wade nodded his head before revealing wish was going on.

"It's not a matter to worry but I felt like I should inform you about this. The album will be released in two months right?"

"Yes." Aiden nodded his head. That was enough time to record all songs and prepare for the live performances that would come up with it.

He was going to release it just before [Hex] would start promotions. All in all, a busy schedule was coming up for Aiden.

"Then, we would have competition."

"Competition? From who?"

"From Rachel. She's releasing her new album in two months too and I heard a rumour that she wants to clash with you."

Hearing that, Aiden felt a bit surprised.

Singer's album clashing was nothing new. A lot of singers would release songs all over the year. One could even say that tons of songs are released every week all over the world.

But it was different for top singers.

Even if two albums were completely different, fans would deliberately start a competition, then it would start to look like a clash. Obviously, sales would be affected too.

Although most people stream songs, there are still a lot of fans and neutrals who will buy digital copies of the album. So, two big singers releasing at the same time wasn't a good thing.

Many top singers would avoid clashes due to that.

Although Aiden honestly wasn't a top singer now after his hiatus, his rivalry with Rachel had history and history had value.

He could see that she was still having a competitive mindset against him. There could be a variety of reasons for that but Aiden wasn't going to get into it.

Though, one thing was clear if both of them clashed, the internet would again be buzzing.

'Should I avoid it to have some peace?'

He thought in his mind.

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'Rachel...'

Aiden thought about her. Their relationship had always been hot and cold. From the start, she disliked him but to be fair, she was someone who disliked everyone.

But after their collaboration, they have gotten close and Rachel had even told him that she was thankful to him for giving her a chance.

After all, it was because of that one song that her career had finally started moving forward in the right direction. She had gotten chances from her label after that and rebranded herself with new singles and albums.

She now even had a song with over a billion views.

That was a very big accomplishment as a singer and even Aiden knew that clashing with her might turn out bad for both of them. But he was also sure that Rachel was someone who wanted a clash.

Maybe because in her mind, he was someone who she had not beaten completely. A perfectionist worked in weird ways after all.

'I won't be surprised if she has a hitlist in her bedroom with every singer she wants to defeat in the charts.'

A weird image of Rachel formed in Aiden's mind as he smiled to himself.

He wondered whether he should just give up on releasing his album this year to escape her but that sounded like something that was very against his nature.

Moreover, she might see it as him running away.

"I doubt we could do anything."

Aiden said as he looked at Wade who nodded his head. He was apparently thinking the same thing as him.

"Yeah, a clash is unavoidable. Cyco media isn't really something that avoids these things. They are pretty much like the big baddie of the record labels."

"Yeah and didn't you say you had a fight with one of their stockholders?"

Aiden asked, suddenly remembering an incident during the time of the first mini album. Jackson also looked at Wade, wondering if that was true.

But Wade shook his head.

"It wasn't really a fight. We just had some disagreements and he was not listening to me." He said, then changed the topic, not wanting to dive into what had happened in that one particular meeting. "Anyway, I will keep an eye out on her activities."

"Don't do that." Aiden said suddenly. "Just ignore her. Let her do her own thing and we could do our own."

"What about the clash?"

"It's gonna be more between the fans. As for Rachel, I'm very sure she wants to beat me but if we start to focus on her, then it might affect us. Let us do our own thing and not worry about other external stuff."

Eddie silently nodded his head hearing that. That was a much more sane way of going through things.

Focus on yourself and worry about external factors later.

"Anyway, let's focus on the recording for now."

Eddie said, ending the conversation.

Wade sat down in one of the corners, messaging Sasha and others about how to go with the clash of Rachel.

Although Aiden said that it was better to not react to it, Wade still was going to make some plans to deal with it.

In case, things go wrong.

Things happened at a rapid pace in the next two months. It was recording day after night with different singers and then practising his vocals more and more.

After that, there was practice of live acts and other things. Aiden felt like he was doing the same thing everyday and it was a vicious cycle but he knew that it was important.

If he doesn't do it, there would be mistakes during the live act and he can't afford that.

There was also a sense of rustiness to his voice and that only went away after he practised more.

Thankfully, he had good people around him and it was fun spending time with them.

Drew would tell him a lot of things from the time that he was still active and Eddie was fun to talk with about music. He was someone who was like an encyclopaedia. Someone who had made music his whole life.

As for Jackson, it was always nice to spend time with him because it was an indication of how far they have come compared to X-Star. One should always know the place they have started from to keep themselves grounded.

That's what Aiden believes in.

Every night, Aiden was going to bed by seeing a lot of system notifications on his system display.

[You have gained experience.]

[You have gained experience.]

[You have mastered the silver light.]

[Your control over the silver light had increased.]

[You have gained experience.]

[You are close to advancing to the next grade in your singing skill.]

These messages told him that he was on the right part and like that, the time for the album release came.

A day before the album release of both Rachel and Aiden, a few journalists from a magazine that focused on the music industry were talking about it in their leisure time while drinking coffee.

All of them had been a part of the industry for years and although they were not a direct part, journalists and reporters were often the overseers of any industry.

They would know everything in and out as they would observe a lot and would be passed a lot of information from different sources.

So, their perception of the industry was very sharp.

"I was pretty sure one of them was going to be postponed by a month or so. But it looks like I was very wrong. The industry rarely sees clashes."

One of the guys said as he sipped his cold coffee. After talking about the politics of a spy balloon in the air, they have started discussing the current popular topic in the music industry.

The rematch of Aiden and Rachel.

"Rachel was never going to miss this opportunity. She sees Aiden Silvereye as her biggest competition. She admitted it in an interview even though she was all praise for him."

An older woman said. She had taken a lot of interviews of different celebrities, so she knew about this. It was one of the facts about Rachel.

"Why though?" Another man, a fairly young one this time, asked. "Her career was made due to getting an opportunity to sing in Aiden's first album right? That song was everywhere back then and Rachel got a lot of fan popularity."

The man actually wanted to say she got a whole simp army after that but he didn't sound professional. Some types of men liked a woman who looked like she could trample over them.

"Yes, that's what had happened. I'm pretty sure she has respect for him due to that but it runs deep. They are the most popular contestants to come out of X-Star and although Rachel won, Aiden was out in the early rounds. But their careers went in opposite directions. She was probably insecure that she lost in life despite winning the competition until that song happened."

"So, although she has respect for him, the insecurity is still there."

"Yes, she wants to beat him to finally prove to herself that she's better."

The woman explained and everyone nodded but the young journalist still seemed a bit confused and asked.

"Isn't she already more popular than him?"

"As a singer, yes but her rise was subsequent with Aiden's fall as a singer and that was because he wanted to focus on acting. As a celebrity, he's miles ahead as he's already one of the most popular commercial actors."

Another man explained more about it. He was one of the senior journalists.

"She probably wants to beat him one on one and this is her opportunity. Moreover, the fans are already fighting."

He showed everyone his phone. On sparrow, trends were up and in the comment sections, fan groups were already against each other, talking about how they would defeat each other.

It was a bit weird as it was nothing to fight about.

But these were mostly people who were watching both Rachel and Aiden since X-Star. Others were those who have become fans of them as they moved in their careers.

A lot of them were teens and fan groups could often become toxic.

Even though Aiden's fan group was mostly mature but outside the core fans, there were a lot of teens.

Moreover, people like 'Chad Putin' and 'Moaning Frodo' just liked to see some chaos, so they don't stop these fan wars.

"Must be nice. I can make a full report on it after the results come out." The young journalist said as he finished his cold coffee.

He wondered who was going to win in this clash.

His bets were on Rachel, simply because of the simp army behind her with the Cyco media marketing team.

At the same time, he was sure of her victory due to the collaboration she had done for the main title song.

'She really got a super famous k-pop group to work with her.'

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After the announcement of Aiden's new album titled 'Voices of the past', his fans were very excited. The album title signified his collaboration with artists from the past and a small teaser was also launched, making fans know that the album would have the same quality as his previous ones.

At the same time, fans of the singers that he was collaborating with were also excited.

After all, it was their return.

Though, a lot of people were not happy that not all members of 'The Boys' were returning but it wasn't something they could do anything about.

They could just be happy with whatever they were getting.

One more thing that happened was right after the announcement of Aiden's album, Cyco media also announced the date on which Rachel's next album would release.

Many people were surprised that her date was the same as Aiden's album launch but some weren't surprised.

The media also got something to talk about.

A lot of articles were being written to fuel the clash of Aiden and Rachel after years.

Aiden Silvereye and Rachel would once again be competing with each other as both their albums would release at the same time. This marks a new chapter in their supposed rivalry.

Rachel, the winner of the third season of X-Star would finally have a chance to defeat Aiden Silvereye, the most popular contestant from that season as he tries to return to his dead singing career.

Will Aiden Silvereye return be unsuccessful due to the launch of Rachel's new album on the same day? No one knows but it's going to be interesting to see who wins among those.

Articles like these were rampant on the internet and Wade even wondered whether someone was paying the media to fuel up this clash but in the end, it was just a case of the media grasping at straws and making news out of a small thing.

Exaggeration was one of the most important things in the media world.

The fans also got to it and started fighting with each other.

[Rachel's Simp69: Who dared to think that Aiden will win against the queen of cold stare? She will trample over him and make him beg... Wait, I kinda want that too.]

[Moaning Frodo: I really don't know if that's a troll account or an actual one with kinks. Weird world we live in but I really enjoy it. Hehehe.]

[My dad is a MF: It's kinda nostalgic to see Aiden and Rachel releasing albums. I used to follow them during X-Star. After that season, everything went downhill. Though, I'm still Team Rachel here and yes, I'm a simp.]

[Chad Putin: Bring in more troll warriors. Let's show Rachel's simp army what we are capable of. We are going to stream Aiden's songs all night when they are released. I'm even working on a law on it.]

[Antertainmemt: Man, that Putin troll account is funny.]

[Hollywood Insider: I used to think that too until I looked at international news. The Internet is a very crazy place, my friend.]

[Victoria's Umbrella: Aiden is going to get incinerated in the upcoming clash. There's no way a washed up singer can go against Rachel. Most of my friends listen to her songs and she's extremely famous with high schoolers. They have too much free time for all this.]

[Skyneves: Kind of agree but Aiden rarely loses. His songs are something that young people rarely like but he's been a hit every time he released. Moreover, he has plans for everything. He won't be doing this clash otherwise.]

"Tom, are you nervous?"

Aiden asked as he looked at Tom who was going through five phones and a laptop, checking different sites and reading comments. They were sitting in their office and it was ten minutes to the launch of his new album.

Yes, Aiden had decided not to do a media launch or anything and just release the song at 12:00. Most of it was digital work and there were no pre-orders for the physical album either.

It was very low key but that was just their marketing plan.

In the past few days, Aiden had interacted more with fans online to make them know that his album was coming. In his words, believe in your work and leave everything else to your fans.

He didn't want to overdo stuff. It was actually completely opposite Cyco media's strategy for Rachel's album.

In regards to his album, the music videos and everything were ready and they were going to be uploaded once each week while all the songs would be on Melody, MeTube and other websites and apps from tonight.

If it's good, it will spread.

"Yes, I'm nervous. We have not promoted much and it seems like a lot of people are looking forward to Rachel's album. Her following is very big with high school and middle school students." Tom said as he looked at Aiden.

"Don't think too much on it."

"How are you even relaxed?" He asked, looking at Aiden who was always calm. The last time he had not been calm was during the Golden Globes ceremony.

He should be the most nervous person but he looked calm.

"Actually, I'm nervous too. I'm coming back after a long break. There's a chance I will lose to Rachel and then, the media will try to say I have a failed comeback. Those things are in my mind too."

He said, shrugging his shoulders. A few people glanced at him, apparently not believing him.

"You don't look nervous."

"Looking and being is different. Just because I'm nervous don't mean I need to show it." He whispered to Tom, then gestured to him to look around the room at the other members of his team. "If I'm too nervous, they are going to be more nervous. That's why, knowing how to act is good."

He smiled. Aiden knew that being the centre of attention meant that how he acts would affect people around him.

So, he always made a conscious effort to look fine.

'I'm nervous but at this point in my career, I have learned how not to take stuff too seriously that it harms me.'

Aiden thought in his mind and Tom nodded his head, understanding what he was saying. For the nth time, he felt impressed by him.

At that moment, the door to the room opened and Wade walked in.

"The album is up. Did you all check?"

"We are checking."

Tom said as he quickly checked up the music charts. Other members of the team were also looking at him. A lot of people were waiting for the album, so as soon as it was up, they started listening to the songs.

"A few comments online are up."

A member of his team said others quickly surrounded him and his laptop to check the comments.

[Lithium Miner: Man, the title song is very nice. I wasn't expecting such a song but it really has that flavour of old 'The Boys' song. The drum part is too good.]

[I'm Fatman: Aiden hasn't really done any romantic songs in this album aside from one. Even his song with Grey is more philosophical. Love all of them till now.]

[My dad's a whore: I didn't like half the songs but the title track made me cry. It's really beautiful and I would be listening to it the whole day. I really hope a music video on it is up soon.]

Thankfully, most of the comments were positive.

"How are the comments?"

Wade asked from the sofa.

"Most are positive. I can see a few negative ones but it looks like those are from Rachel's fan army. They are known to say shit about other songs."

"That's like most fan bases."

Everyone talked and it was then that the music charts were refreshed. Aiden quickly looked at them. They were the instance charts and not the main ones that would only change once a day.

These charts would refresh every hour but they were important as doing good in them meant that you will do well in Global charts.

"Two songs are at 45th and 47th position."

"I found one at 33rd position. These are the songs we expected not to work too well, but they are doing great for now."

"There's one on the 19th. Where's the title track though?"

The members asked and it was then that Aiden saw the ranking of the title song with 'The Boys'.

"It's in 7th position on the instant chart. That's a lot higher than we estimated."

Wade nodded his head. Their estimations were around 10-15 positions on the chart. If they have achieved that, they would have been happy but the reception had been better than they expected.

But there was still one question.

"What ranking is Rachel at?"

Tom asked and everyone had the same question in their heads. Aiden doing good was not enough. Rachel had to do worse than him.

"Let me see. She's on..."

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"One of her songs is at 57th position. One more at 35th, 29th and uh...24th... Let me look at the title track."

Tom said as he scrolled the charts to find the title track of Rachel's album. When he found it, his eyes went wide as he looked at the position the title track was at.

It was a very surprising position for him.

"What place is the title track on, Tom?"

"It's... on the 3rd. Higher than you."

When everyone in the room heard that, they didn't know if they could believe it. Any song starting so high wasn't normal. Even the 7th position that Aiden had gotten was very high, especially considering that he was making a comeback.

It was safe to assume that his album was already going to be a success just on that.

"How can it be so high?"

"Even Rachel's last album's title track didn't open up so high. How did she get so much popularity suddenly?"

"Do you think the clash helped her?"

"Maybe Cyco media is doing something. That's possible."

Everyone started to whisper around in the room and suddenly, it looked like they were in a panic mode. Although Aiden had told them to not worry about Rachel, they had subconsciously made it a goal to beat her.

It was at that moment that Aiden opened his mouth. Until now, he was just listening to the title song from Rachel's album on his headphones.

After listening to it, he realised one thing.

"Ah, it's not Rachel actually. It's more to do with the fact that the title song is with a famous K-pop band. You know of 'Soul' right?"

People nodded when they heard that and finally recalled it.

Soul was a K-pop band that was extremely famous in the west after they had broken out a year ago. They have amassed a large group of teen following, even more than Rachel and Aiden.

"But Soul are just collaborating, right?"

One of his team members asked and Aiden shook his head.

"No, the song is actually divided in two parts with Soul having a lot of verses to them. It's almost like it's an equal song rather than just one or two verses. The song is as much theirs as Rachel's and you do know K-pop fans, right? They go to any lengths to stream the song."

Everyone nodded their heads. K-pop in the west was not new as it had been a while since they had broken out. With them, they have brought out a culture of stans which basically meant a stalker fan.

Most of their fans are hardcore and although stuff like this existed in the west too, K-pop fans would even make different accounts to stream the song, making the song high up in the charts one way or another.

That's why, western singers try to stay clear of them and even try to collaborate.

There was one incident where a popular female singer had collaborated with a famous K-pop band but she had only gotten like one line in the song but that song had broken all records.

It was only because her company told her to.

The singer had later termed it an embarrassment.

"So, what are we going to do now?"

Wade asked as he looked at Aiden and he thought for a while.

'What can I do? I have good fans but they are not hardcore enough to go against K-pop fans. I guess I need to rely on my biggest strength.'

Smiling to himself, Aiden opened his mouth.

"We will give it a bit of time. The neutrals need to hear the song first and then decide."

In regards to any celebrity, there were three types of people. The fans, the haters and the neutrals. The fans and the haters were self explanatory but the neutrals consisted of the highest numbers.

They were people that knew the celebrity but weren't fans or hated him for some reason. They would watch his good work and reject his bad work while having a pretty mild impression about him.

It was the same with music.

Aiden had a good fan base but most of the streaming numbers and MeTube views are due to the neutrals who randomly found his song and liked it. His popularity among that type of audience was actually very high as he had always strived to produce good work.

So, he was hanging on them.

As the song gets more exposure, more people will hear it and his popularity among the neutrals would surely help him out.

That's what was in his mind and as the days progressed, it did happen.

His songs climbed the charts and the streaming numbers increased day by day. When the music video of the title song landed, it got 15 million views in a day and 17 million views the next day.

These were not small numbers.

The title song also got to the 3rd position on the charts but Rachel and Soul's song was also running with the same speed. It got 19 million views on the first day on MeTube and was now on the number one song on the Melody charts.

Soul's fanbase was continuously pushing the song online everywhere and it even came in as a trend on Sparrow. The group fighting them was Aiden's fanbase alongside 'The Boys' fanbase.

Yes, Aiden had managed to revive the dead fanbase of 'The Boys'.

At first when the song had landed, it was only listened by the younger demographic as Aiden's fanbase was mostly that. But in a couple of days and due to radio, lots of middle aged and old people have heard the song.

These were the ones that used to be the stans back then.

Although, it was hard as the lead vocal of 'The Boys' was not collaborating with Aiden but he had countered it by using a few popular tunes of 'The Boys' in the song.

These tunes were enough for the fans to recognise who the band was as they were nostalgic.

Eddie and Drew were constantly checking out the comments that were being directed towards them online.

[Cemetery Manager: I wasn't able to believe it when I heard the iconic tune of 'The Boys' on the radio in the morning. I thought it was my delusion but when I looked it up, I was so surprised to see that they were back. Not all of them but it still made me remember those days of my teenage years in the 90s. Love their song!]

[Zombie Girlfriend: My son showed me their new song and I was so surprised to see Eddie and Drew still looking so good. I really hope the song succeeds and they make a formal comeback with all of them. There need to be concerts that old people can go to.]

[Size doesn't matter: I discovered 'The Boys' after listening to their song with Aiden and Holy sheep, they were so good! I never thought that 90s music would sound so good. I'm going for a marathon run of their albums and I love a lot of their songs.]

These types of comments were everywhere and it made the two of them feel like they have made the right decision by coming back.

Same type of treatment was with the other singers that Aiden had collaborated with but it was not to this level.

Weirdly, each of his songs had surpassed other songs of Rachel and were higher in rankings but Aiden wasn't able to surpass the title track no matter what.

Everyone knew that it was the real battle and a week after the release of the album, Rachel clearly has a lead.

Rachel looked down at the stage in front of her. Fans were shouting and cheering her on. There were placards at the back and people had an excited smile on their faces.

But she wasn't happy.

She was sweating as she had just finished her performance and the reason she wasn't happy was because the shouts in the room weren't directed to them.

There were a few but they were buried under the shouts of 'Soul'.

"Soul! Oppas, please look at me! I'm your biggest fan."

"I love all your music! Can I get a hug? I even flew to Korea once to attend your concert."

"Hey! They looked at me! Wow! I'm so lucky!"

[Author's note: Oppa means big brother or a way to call someone older than you affectionately.]

Rachel glanced at the waving boy band that was trying to give some fan service to their fans. They looked exhausted but there was a smile on their faces like meeting their fans and performing in front of them was the biggest pleasure of their lives.

Due to all this, she felt a bit empty.

'This doesn't look like my song for some reason.'

That thought suddenly entered her mind and she shrugged to get it away from her head.

Although it was supposed to be her song, the fans and the reason it was so up in the rankings, that wasn't her.

It felt weird.

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Rachel wanted to frown, standing on the stage but cameras were everywhere. In even a small show, a lot of people were recording it and if she looked annoyed, then it would be picked up by some journalists.

That's why, only after finding herself on the back stage did she show her real emotions. A frown engulfed her face and she quickly walked inside the room allocated to her.

She sat down on her seat and thought about stuff.

She was feeling weird these days, like she had not stressed this much for a long time. She knew it wasn't healthy and although her song was on top of the charts, the feeling was not nice.

She just felt like she didn't deserve it.

Maybe it was just an effect of collaborating with a group that was way more popular than her. More like, a group that had way too many hardcore fans.

Anyway, she was going through a feeling she had never felt before due to this.

At that moment, the door to the room opened and her assistant walked through the door.

Seeing her looking like she was going through some sort of grief, he quickly asked.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm. Why are you here?"

She asked and her assistant quickly replied. Although he was worried about her condition, he knew it was bad to privy more knowing that Rachel was a very private person.

"We were about to leave for the shooting of 'The Rory Chambers show'. It's best if we could reach there in time as Rory Chambers is strict about starting his show on time."

"I understand."

Rachel frowned, hearing that. She wasn't in a mood to give out an interview, especially on a talk show where one has to exaggerate or at least be humorous.

But there was no choice.

As her assistant was leaving the room, she suddenly asked an unexpected question.

"Hey, what did I say when we were going through the artists to collaborate with? You were in that meeting right?"

Her assistant thought for a bit and replied.

"Yeah, you asked to get someone with the biggest fanbase. That's why we got Soul. You wanted to neutralise the fan base of..."

He stopped his words there, knowing that if he said more, Rachel's expression would just grow worse.

He nodded his head and left quickly while Rachel kept thinking to herself.

Every song of hers that she sang herself and even wrote the lyrics of was not doing well in comparison to Aiden's songs. The only song that had done so well was the title song.

It felt bad when she thought about it.

Maybe her insecurities have really made her take a very wrong decision?

"I have not seen him that happy for like 10 years. He has a good family and everything else but he always looked a bit lonely. I guess, music really makes up a big part of his life."

Eddie said as he and Aiden looked at Drew who was giving hugs and autographs to fans. They were in the middle of a fan meet and a lot of 'The Boys' fans appeared.

It was the first time Aiden was seeing so many middle aged women in a fan meet but it was very refreshing to see. Their fans have become adults but they have not forgotten him.

"I'm glad he's happy. He worked very hard during the recording."

Aiden said and Eddie just smiled.

"I'm thankful to you actually. Although I don't show it, I needed this as much as Drew. I realised it when we were on the stage yesterday. I miss the feeling of being a rockstar."

His voice sounded very genuine and Aiden nodded while smiling.

"If it wasn't you, the song won't be half good. Every legend should have a comeback anyway."

"But we weren't able to beat Rachel. Aren't you sad about it?"

Eddie suddenly asked and Aiden thought about it for a second before shaking his head.

"I listened to the song. I liked it. Not Rachel's usual style though. As for beating her, I rather not think about it. I am not on X-Star anymore. The desire to beat her or something like that isn't there. I'm just glad our song is doing well."

Maybe it was a bit of a cliche answer.

But Rachel wasn't someone Aiden wanted to see as a rival. He considered her more of a friend, especially after they have worked together.

He had grown in recent years and just beating her won't give him anything. He felt like it was low of him to think like that when he was the owner of a system.

He needed to be better than that.

After all, his system revolved around him getting better and not around him beating others in some competition.

"Ah, you talk like an old man." Eddie smiled.

"Maybe. I do feel like I'm getting old fast. Time has passed by very quickly in recent years."

Project after project. It had made him tired and Aiden wanted to take a break now. Maybe he should try to go meet his mom or even get a girlfriend.

He did feel lonely these days.

'Maybe I should call Ava out for some coffee sometime? She's been busy.'

He thought in his mind and it was then that he got a message from someone. Someone he wasn't expecting.

[Hey, wanna meet?]

It was a message from Rachel.

As Aiden was busy promoting his songs by doing shows and appearing on TV programs, his team was keeping an eye on how the songs were doing all around the world.

Especially Tom who was keeping 6 phones and 2 laptops to go through music charts and streaming data from every country with a focus on Europe.

"Okay, it's number 12 in Germany, 17 in Austria. That's low... 5 in France. Going good France! Then, 8 in Turkey... It's in the top 20 of most music charts in Europe and we already sold over 20k physical copies all around the world..."

He muttered, checking out different music charts and the reviews from the critics.

Some reviews called the whole album a breath of fresh air from a musician that was sorely missed for a long time while others felt like Aiden forgot his roots while trying to be more innovative.

Though, even with those types of reviews, the public opinion was extremely positive as there was something for everyone in the album.

You want romance, there's a romantic song. You want something to vibe, there's a pop song. You want some motivation, there's something for you too.

Tom saw the album like that but there was something lacking that was hurting him and making him feel uneasy. Not the album itself but the reception of it.

For his plans of seeing Aiden as the biggest star on the planet, he needed the album to be a big hit. It was a hit already, especially the popularity in Europe would make any other singer in America jealous.

The album already achieved what it was trying to achieve.

But Tom felt like it could be better.

Maybe not for Aiden but for Tom, it was a thorn that Rachel's title song was on the 1st position on the charts while his was on the 3rd. It will be 2nd soon but that was just not enough.

"It doesn't fit well with the legacy of Aiden. I need it to be bigger, better. A superstar that never lost! Wait! There's one thing I can do!"

He muttered and suddenly, a maniac-like smile appeared on his face. His brain had gotten an idea.

An evil idea that Aiden might scoff at but he wasn't Aiden. He didn't have rules. Just a goal.

He quickly looked around to notice that he was all alone and realised that it was the perfect time to act.

He took out his phone and called a number that was simply titled 'Unknown number'.

A few rings later, someone picked it up and a woman's voice came out.

"Tom, is that you?"

"Hey, how have you been?"

"Good but why did you call me? Our debts are already cleared with you. And I doubt we are friends anymore. So, what's the deal?"

The female voice asked, looking very sceptical of Tom and he smiled.

"I can call you anytime I want. Our relationship is years old. Anyway, I need your help to break out the news."

"I don't do it anymore."

"Do it once."

He said and stayed firm on his words. Knowing the woman, he knew that she would help him out.

After all, they have a deep relationship.

"Think of it as my birthday gift for your brother. You are the only one I know who can do it."

He said and leaned against his seat. A minute went by and he was sure that she had frowned. But that was the hint that she had agreed.

"Okay, what do you want me to do?"

"Look into Soul, a Korean boy band. I heard they have extremely strict arrangements due to their agency. If people are controlled a lot, they want to rebel and that might get them in problems that don't seem coming."

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"So, she texted you to meet her. Alone? What was the tone like?"

"How will I know from a text?"

"Maybe by emojis but I doubt she uses any. Her texts would be as cold as her eyes if not colder."

Aiden sighed as he heard that. He was currently in a parking lot of a cafe that Rachel had called him to meet in.

It was a cafe that was close to the office of Cyco media and it seemed like this place was visited by employees and celebrities from the record label frequently.

But before he could get out of his car, Cameron had called him.

At first, it was just to say congratulations about his album succeeding but eventually, the conversation moved on to Rachel.

"Hey, can I ask you a question?" Cameron suddenly asked and Aiden nodded, his instincts telling him that the question was going to be stupid.

"Go on."

"Did something happen between you and Rachel? Like there was always a weird sexual tension between the two—"

"There's nothing of that sort."

Aiden interrupted him and said. Even the thought of something like that happening sent a chill down his spine. He liked challenges but they were good to a level.

"Really?"

"Yes, we were always rivals. Then friends, but I guess now back to rivals. I really hope we sort out whatever is between us but I don't even know what it is."

Aiden said honestly and Cameron replied after a bit of thinking.

"I think she's just insecure."

"Why?"

"Lots of reasons. She always thought of you as some sort of competition in X-Star. Although after she beat you and won the competition, she got smug for a while until your song defeated hers. After that, she was probably depressed as her career went nowhere and you kept climbing like you were on some lift and she was given an old ladder that was breaking down. Think about it for a moment."

Aiden went silent suddenly.

Thinking of it, he admitted it was like that and there was no denying it. It was only after he offered her a song that she blew up and after that, Cyco media used it to get more publicity by releasing solo singles.

"I think that after she started gaining popularity, she felt like she hadn't done it alone and you have helped her out a lot. You know her personality. She wants to do everything herself, so this would have been in her mind all the time."

Cameron's voice was making more and more sense every second. Even Aiden wondered how he had gotten so smart suddenly but thinking about it, he realised that Cameron probably had spent more time with Rachel than him on X-Star.

He probably observed her a lot as they were the biggest competition to each other till the finals.

"Maybe that's why, when she got a chance to beat you, she did everything to achieve it, taking it as a proof that she was good on her own and that she would have been successful either way. Her rivalry stems in her traits and insecurities. And as you know, celebrities are the most insecure people."

"I know."

Aiden said and after talking for a bit more, he cut the call.

Cameron's call was unexpected but it gave him some information before meeting Rachel. As he thought more about it, his words looked more and more right.

But the question of why she had called him here was still not answered? Did she have anything to say to him or was it just something else?

'I guess I will know for sure when I meet her.'

Aiden said, getting out of the car and making his way in.

When he entered the cafe, he quickly spotted Rachel. She was wearing a white dress and had a hat on her face. A mask was placed on the table, hinting that she was trying to get out of public sight while coming here.

He sat in front of her and she seemed surprised at his sudden arrival but quickly calmed down.

"Congrats on your album. I liked it a lot."

"Thanks."

Rachel muttered, not saying anything else and just ordering. Aiden did the same and it took a while before any conversation could start.

He kept observing Rachel as she didn't start any conversation.

She hadn't really changed much in recent years. Her face was still the same but for some reason, there was a certain charm to her now. Aiden had heard that being in front of the camera all the time could make you look more pleasing.

Other than that, her atmosphere was also less cold today. At least he could tell that she wasn't here to pick a fight.

"So, why have you called me here?" Aiden asked.

"I wanted to... talk." Rachel said with a bit of hesitation in her voice.

She tried to gather her words but nothing came to her mind. She didn't know how to talk about this.

In the end, she just ended up asking a question.

"Did you like the title song of my album?"

Aiden thought about the question in his mind and was about to say 'yes'. After all, it was rude to say no but Rachel glared at him with her cold, icy eyes.

"Say the truth."

"It's very catchy but it's not your usual style. Very different. Don't suit you at all. They made your voice heavily autotuned. I got the feeling that it was plastic. You know, those manufactured products. It sounded like that. Moreover, you were overshadowed. Your voice isn't used to this much modification so it comes out weird while Soul's vocals were natural. They adapt to this kind of music."

Aiden put down his real thoughts about the song.

He had listened to it a lot in the past few days and he sounded very catchy but he can't help but feel like they ruined Rachel's voice.

There was not even a part where she could use her high notes.

It sounded like a song that would be popular as the background music of 30 second videos but apart from that, it won't age well. In simple words, a can of beer instead of fine wine.

"Like I thought." Rachel muttered, lowering her head. "Those were my exact same thoughts when I listened to the song."

She felt embarrassed that Aiden had straightforwardly talked about all the bad things in her song. She knew them but it was still different when someone would point it out like this.

"Why did you agree to it then?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I wanted to beat you."

"Enough to ruin your voice. You can do much better, you know and why do you even want to beat me?"

Aiden looked at her. He liked a rivalry but not one where Rachel was going to ruin her own voice to get more streaming numbers. A popular song was not always a good song.

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could have made it without your help."

She said the same thing that Cameron had told Aiden.

For a second, he pondered on the fact that Cameron knew her so well but he quickly moved on to the conversation. His thoughts could wait.

"You have done a lot already. You don't need me. Nor you have to beat me."

He said and as Aiden was about to tell her to get some therapy to get over her insecurities, Rachel said something unexpected.

"I realised that."

"... You did?" Aiden looked at her, not expecting her to already realise the problem.

"Yeah I did. There was a lot of chatter around our clash and even though Cyco media tried to fuel it, you kept silent. To be honest, I felt insulted when you did that. I thought that you looked down on me but..."

"It's not like that." Aiden said and she nodded her head.

"You just were trying to enjoy your own music and not focus on external things. When I thought about it more, I realised you acted the same during X-Star. Focusing more on yourself than the others."

Aiden was mainly like that due to the advantage of having a system.

Although he had come across people who had better skill ranks than him, he had never felt like he wouldn't be able to beat them. Due to his system, his competition had always been with himself.

That was a change of mentality that system brings with him.

Moreover, Aiden knew that he was not going to release an album as often as his movies. Singing was a secondary skill to him, so he tried to enjoy his time doing it rather than worry about the results.

"When I thought about it, I observed myself and felt like I'm doing a disservice by constantly worrying about you or some other singer. I guess I have gotten very sensitive in recent times."

She said and made a smile. A smile full of sadness.

Aiden kept silent as she lowered her head again and muttered.

"That's why, I'm sorry."

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There were only two options that Rachel saw for herself before coming to talk to Aiden.

Either she was going to stay competitive with Aiden and keep trying to force out a rivalry that Aiden didn't want to such an extent. Or she could be better and try to focus more on herself.

The first option was going to drag her to a path of no return and Rachel knew that she was going to be lonely as time went on.

She didn't want that.

That's why, reconciling with Aiden was the only one for her. Although he felt that Rachel was going against her personality, she had already thought it out.

'She has really grown. Something must have happened.'

Aiden thought in his mind, seeing her like this.

Humans won't really think so deeply about themselves until something big has happened to them. He didn't know that Rachel had started having these thoughts after finding herself lonely on the stage.

But he has a hunch.

"You don't have to say sorry. I'm happy that you seem to be growing as a person. It's going to—"

As he was talking, he suddenly noticed something strange. A strange golden light appeared around Rachel. It was just a spark but he noticed it.

Realising what it might be, he opened up his system and saw that Rachel had advanced in her skill level.

[Rachel Rose] [28]

[Singing level: Intermediate Grade 10]

[Special skill: High notes]

She was only in Intermediate Grade 9 when she had come to talk to him but now she had levelled up. He was again reminded of Rachel's extraordinary talent.

The first time he had seen her, she was in Intermediate Grade 2. In a few years, she had almost reached the advanced level.

That was extraordinary but it made sense for someone like her.

'I guess things are more mental for her right at this level.'

He thought in his mind and saw that Rachel was looking at him weirdly.

"Why are you suddenly staring at me? Now that I think about it, you do that a lot."

"It's nothing." Aiden said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Sure. Although I'm not gonna act like an enemy around you, I will still say that you have a way of making me uncomfortable by staring. It's almost like you staring at my soul."

Aiden wanted to say that it was actually really like that but he refrained himself.

He tried to move on in the conversation now that everything looked fine between them but suddenly, he got a call.

He saw that it was Wade and picked it up.

"Wade, what happened?"

"Ah, go look at the news. Like just open up your phone and see the front page of any entertainment portal."

Hearing that, Aiden was silent for a second, wondering what had happened. His face went blank for a second and even Rachel noticed.

"Did I get into some scandal I have no idea about?" He asked, thinking if he had done something in recent time. But there was nothing.

If he was being honest, his life had been like an NPC these past months. Very carefree like he was just one of the million people on the street.

"No, you didn't. Just look it up."

Wade said and cut the call. Aiden quickly opened up an entertaining portal on his phone and just the first news article was enough for him to know what was going on.

Reading it, he had a shocked expression on his face.

'Why did this happen? I didn't even do anything this time.'

Aiden thought in his mind. Normally, stuff like this would only happen after he had made some sort of a deal to clear out his path but this time, that hadn't happened.

It happened randomly. How strange!

"What happened? Why did you have a shocked face?"

Rachel asked, unable to hold off her curiosity.

"See this."

Aiden showed her the phone and after seeing her, she was way more shocked than Aiden. Her eyes went wide and her expression was like she had caught her future husband in bed with another man.

"Is it real?" She looked at Aiden.

"I mean they did provide proof. These things are easy to verify anyway."

On the screen, there was a news article about Soul and it wasn't a good one.

Breaking news! Explicit chats of members of the Korean boy band Soul got leaked with various girls. In the chats, there are photos of them that they sent to the girls they were talking to. Korean industry has been in frenzy with this news, especially because a few of the girls seem to be underaged.

Rachel wasn't able to believe it but the news was spreading fast. There was no way to ignore it.

She looked at Aiden and sighed.

"I will leave. I need to see this mess for myself. Though, I guess you are going to win again."

She clicked her tongue and Aiden could only show a helpless smile.

"Good luck."

She left after that and Aiden just wondered why this had happened while finishing his coffee.

Online, the news of K-pop boy band Soul and their explicit chats have spread all around. A lot of Hollywood entertainment news portals were excited to publish the news as most of them have gotten the tip that the chats were genuine.

They have not gotten any response from Soul's agency either.

If it wasn't genuine, then they would have said something, meaning that there was truth in the matter.

Although a celebrity talking to a minor like this wasn't new in Hollywood and some people would even ignore it after a few days, the situation was extremely different in Korea.

The society was more conservative and the film industry was extremely toxic where agencies would even tell their stars to not date or maintain a facade to sell a character.

They need to do that so the K-pop idols could be the boyfriend of the fans and not one girl.

It was a rule that every agency follows and in the past, an idol dating has impacted their career. This was much worse than that and there was no comparison.

Even the law could get into it as the chats were with minors, so there was a lot of trouble awaiting the K-pop band.

Tom was right. If someone was oppressed a lot, they would try to break out. Though, even he hadn't expected that he would find such things. When his sister had sent him those messages, he was shocked.

But it had made him feel a bit better about doing it.

At least Soul weren't all innocent. They were paedophiles.

Aside from this, Soul's whole fan group was in distress. At first, they tried to make it look like it was a conspiracy theory at first but the truth wasn't something they could hide for long.

Even they had to accept it.

When it had settled down, a lot of their fans had suddenly lost hope in them while others were awaiting a press release from their agency, hoping it was just fake news.

Still, the impact was mostly negative as Soul's Sparrow handle lost almost 200k followers in a single night. The same was with the streaming numbers that have suddenly slowed down.

The entire focus of the fan group was on keeping the song at the first place until now but now, they didn't really care about it. The scandal had taken their attention.

[Moaning Frodo: Man, I was extremely confused when I woke up to the trends of #Horsey and #Explicit chats. It seems like the Soul members have nice kinks. They might be bastards but they are men of culture. I approve!]

[Gay Sparrow activist: It's extremely fun to see the meltdown from celebrity fans. They go around making it look like the celebrity is the next coming of Jesus but they end up like Satan's servant. No one can be good with all the money, power and attention.]

[Idle Stalker: No, it's all a big conspiracy theory. My oppa said he's a gentle lover. How can he have weird kinks?! Not like I'm complaining, I don't mind some play hehe. But no! He's innocent!]

[Bald Billionaire: Okay, my days of stanning K-pop groups are over. They are just like other Hollywood celebrities, just with a curated image. The last time, it was a female idol who was into pagan stuff, now this. I would rather take a celebrity going to gay orgies.]

[Young Fruit smiley: So, it looks like Aiden is going to win again in the streaming numbers. His numbers are going up and Soul is going down from all lists and getting into the top of newspaper headlines. I'm really feeling like Aiden is blessed or something. This always happens.]

[I take on 5 men: Either he's the son of a gangster or he's very well connected. Or just incredibly lucky. Can't really say but it's fun to know that he always. Well, aside from some failures.]

[Hollywood Insider: I hope he takes some break after this. I enjoy his movies but he looks tired these days and looks like he's just doing things instead of truly enjoying them.]

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The mess with the K-pop idol group Soul took them down in the end. They were immediately called back to Korea by their agency and because of that, Rachel had to go to the live shows alone to promote the songs.

Cyco media was unhappy about it but there was nothing they could do.

The whole Soul fandom was breaking down at the moment and no one could save it. There was a saying that an idol loses half his fans after a dating scandal.

And this was on another level.

Day by day, Rachel's title song growth went down on Melody and MeTube while Aiden's title song with 'The Boys' kept growing at the regular pace and soon, it became the top song around.

On Melody, it had gotten over 170 million views in a month and on MeTube, the numbers were even higher with 190 million views on the music video. Like this, it was easy to say that in a year, the song would cross 500 million views, bringing in a lot of revenue for Aiden.

Though at this point, he really didn't need it.

He had already invested in things due to getting a financial advisor and was getting passive income from a number of places.

Moreover, his advertisement fees were just increasing and it was the same for his movies. The big thing was still God's World that was going to be released next year.

The game was in development for a while and they have made significant progress on it. If it's successful, Aiden would have shares in a rising game company.

Maybe not now, but in 10-20 years, this would fetch him millions of dollars every month and just the valuation of it would be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Currently, his main focus is still on doing live shows with 'The Boys' and other singers that Aiden have collaborated with and spread his album.

He was also enjoying doing stage shows.

But somewhere, there was a fatigue at the back of his mind that was not easy to ignore. It was like an itch that wasn't going away.

Actually, he had already tried ignoring it for a long time but everytime, it would return. After a long talk with Uncle Sam, Aiden realised a few things. Things that weren't something that he could just overlook.

So, he decided to act on it himself.

"You were at Sam's house yesterday? He told me you slept on his couch."

Wade said as he took a bite out of a sandwich. Today, he wasn't wearing a suit or anything. Something he would wear whenever he had an important meeting or event to attend.

He always says the line, 'Clothes make the man. Different clothes for different occasions' and follow it.

Today, he was in his casual clothes as it was a week off for everyone. Aiden would do it after every successful venture of theirs to give his team a small holiday, knowing that they have worked extremely hard in the past few months.

He was currently at Aiden's place as he had nothing better to do.

"I slept at his place."

"You were playing games?"

"Only for the first two hours. After that, we were talking."

Aiden said. Wade put down his sandwich before asking.

"What were you talking about?"

"Just things... I had some advice to take from him."

Hearing that, Wade squinted at Aiden.

"Advice that correlates to you wearing those nice clothes and setting your hair. You look like you are getting ready for a wedding but I doubt you are going to one. You were sick of weddings early on due to your wedding song."

Aiden smiled hearing that and turned towards Wade.

He was wearing a white shirt and a jacket over it with the best pair of pants he had. With his hair all set up, he looked like he was playing the role of a handsome playboy in a movie. But there was a gentleness to him.

"Well, yeah, it correlates and I'm not going to the wedding."

"Then, where?"

Wade raised an eyebrow. In his mind, he wondered about the places that would make Aiden spend time grooming himself.

"Are you going to the party of some famous filmmaker whose movie you want to be a part of? Or are you going to some book club? Or just a lecture on filmmaking. Maybe you are meeting up with Joseph to talk about your recent album?"

"Why are all your options some sort of a meeting related to work?"

Aiden asked, finding it amusing.

"Because you are a robot who only works and works. When you are not working, your actions make me think you are some depressed teenager who can't get out of his house. I only let it go because all geniuses are weird. I'm actually glad you not more crazy."

Wade laughed and Aiden looked at the time, feeling like he was getting late. He smiled at him and decided to end the conversation.

"Anyway, I'm going now."

"Wait, you haven't told me where you—"

"I'm going on a date."

He said and left the house while Wade kept blinking his eyes, going over and over on the words Aiden had told him.

"Did he say a date? That robot is going on a date!"

He kept muttering that as he wondered whether Aiden was for real.

After leaving his house, he quickly got in his car and started driving with a smile on his face. It was after a long time that he wasn't going to any work. Maybe that's why he felt fresh.

It was a feeling that Aiden had almost forgotten.

When he reached his location, he looked around and after checking that the address was right, he parked his car outside the house that looked more like a mansion and rang the doorbell.

After a while, the door opened, revealing Ava who was wearing a blue dress and looked at him with wide eyes, apparently surprised that he was dressed so well.

He kept looking at her for a while. It was after a long time that they were meeting. Though, they kept talking via texting.

"Are you ready?" He asked and she nodded her head, getting out of the house. After locking it up, they started walking towards his car and Ava couldn't help but ask.

"So, is it what I'm thinking it is?"

"What do you mean?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.

"Is it a date?"

She asked and looked at him with a straight face. He just smiled and opened the door for her.

"Yes, it is. You said yes without even knowing it? Were you expecting something else when I asked if we could go out?"

"I was just confirming it."

She said and sat down in the car, looking pleased. They have known each other for a few years now and although they have gotten close, she had never thought that she would be going on a date with Aiden one day.

Especially, because he had always ignored this aspect of his life, until this point.

She had also gotten busy with her work. As one of the main figures in Titan studios, she always had a lot of work. Enough that it was hard to have a life of her own.

"So, I heard about your album and what happened with Soul?" She looked at him, trying to not let the atmosphere become awkward. "You didn't have anything to do with them, right?"

"No, I don't. I was even surprised that it happened so conveniently for me. But I don't think I have any way of leaking out such a big thing."

"Who knows? You are pretty well connected from what I have seen."

Aiden smiled hearing that. He did know reporters and even paparazzi but they would only do an exchange with him rather than helping him out for nothing. And he didn't have anything to give to them.

The only thing he had was the 'Luck coupon' that he was only going to use when his career was close to ending.

"If we are going by connections, then you are the biggest one I have. I heard you helped to appeal to the press association in my favour during the Golden Globes fiasco."

"I just did what I felt was right."

Ava said and it was then that they reached their location. He parked the car and they got out of it

"So, are we watching a movie?"

"Yup."

"But why here?"

Ava looked at the theatre in front of her. It looked very old and it was actually one of the oldest theatres in town but it wasn't in a good position as the building still looked old and hadn't been renovated.

There could be tons of better theatres in town.

"It was the place I used to watch movies during my first year in America. They actually show old movies for a low price every Sunday and I would watch them as I wasn't able to afford others. It was a big event in my life back then."

He said as they walked inside.

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