I leaned back as the library's fluorescent lights flickered, the hum of the cooling fans sounding like a digital choir. The screen was a sea of green. My $100 hadn't just grown; it had mutated.
The leverage had worked like a magnifying glass over a sunbeam. Because I had entered at the exact millisecond before the Japanese central bank's whisper hit the wires, the slippage was non-existent. My account balance now blinked a staggering $1,450. In one hour, I had made more than a month of grueling plumbing shifts and "donations" from the Principal.
"This is the heartbeat," I whispered, my eyes reflecting the glow of the charts. "This is the true essence."
I wasn't just thinking about thousands anymore. I was thinking about the compound interest of power. I saw myself standing atop a glass tower, the world's currencies flowing through my fingers like sand. I'd be the ghost in the machine that every billionaire feared.
But I wasn't the only one watching the screen.
Thousands of miles away, in a penthouse office overlooking the neon sprawl of Hong Kong, Julian Vane—one of the "Big Five" Forex moguls—swiped a finger across a massive glass display. A red alert was pulsing on his dashboard.
"Sir, we have an outlier in the retail sector," a young analyst said, scurrying over with a tablet. "Account #4492. A small fry. He put a hundred bucks on a 500-to-1 leverage and hit the peak within three pips of the pivot point. The timing is... mathematically improbable."
Vane, a man whose tailored suit cost more than a suburban house, took a sip of vintage scotch. He looked at the trade execution log. A tiny blip in the vast ocean of the global market.
"Improbable?" Vane chuckled, his voice a smooth baritone. "No, it's just luck. The boy caught a tailwind. Every day, a thousand idiots throw their lunch money at the wall; eventually, one of them hits a bullseye. He's probably some teenager in a basement who got lucky while guessing. Don't waste my time with 'anomalies' that can't even buy a decent watch."
Vane swiped the alert away, sending my profile back into the digital abyss. To the gods of finance, I was still just a mosquito. He didn't know that the "mosquito" had a System designed to drain the world dry.
Back in the library, I felt a strange chill, like a shadow had passed over my soul. I ignored it. I withdrew $1,200, leaving a small stake to keep the account active. I needed liquidity. I needed to look the part of the behemoth I was becoming.
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: WEALTH THRESHOLD REACHED. ]
[ NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED: 'THE GOLDEN RATIO' ]
[ DESCRIPTION: YOU CAN NOW SPEND MONEY TO TEMPORARILY BOOST YOUR LUCK STAT. ]
I stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the linoleum. I felt tall. I felt untouchable. My ribs didn't even hurt anymore. I walked out of the library, the $1,200 already burning a hole in my digital wallet.
As I passed through the hallway, I saw Kit leaning against a pillar, watching the exit. She looked like she was waiting for someone. Me.
[ TARGET: KIT ]
[ CURRENT THOUGHT: "HE WAS IN THERE FOR THREE HOURS. WHAT IS HE HIDING?" ]
I didn't stop. I gave her a dismissive nod—the kind a king gives a peasant—and kept walking. I had to go to the bank. I had to feel the physical weight of my first "merit-based" victory.
The mogul in Hong Kong thought I was lucky. Kit thought I was hiding something. They were both right. But neither of them realized that the "anomaly" was just getting started.