Chapter 7: Seeds That Don't Ask Permission
Money didn't appear.
It circulated.
That was the difference Min-jae understood earlier than most adults ever would.
By the time he turned twelve, he had accepted a simple truth: no matter how sharp his mind was, he was still legally invisible. Every won he touched would have to pass through someone else first.
So he chose his intermediaries carefully.
His uncle on his mother's side ran a small import business—electronics parts, mostly. Nothing impressive. Barely profitable. But the man had one useful trait: he listened when people spoke calmly and confidently.
Min-jae never talked numbers with him. Never talked profit.
He talked timing.
"This brand will get popular soon," he said once, flipping through a catalog like a bored kid.
"This supplier will raise prices next year."
"Selling now is better than waiting."
The uncle laughed most of the time.
But not always.
And the times he didn't laugh? Those were the times he acted.
Small shifts. Minor decisions. Stockpiles sold early. Contracts signed slightly ahead of schedule.
Nothing that could be traced back to a child.
By thirteen, Min-jae noticed something change. His uncle stopped treating his comments as coincidence. He started asking questions.
That was dangerous.
So Min-jae pulled back.
Second rule: never let curiosity mature into suspicion.
At school, he stayed quiet. Middle school politics bored him. Popularity meant exposure, and exposure meant variables he couldn't control.
Instead, he focused on structure.
Law fascinated him—not because of justice, but because of boundaries. Who could do what, when, and how far they could go before someone else intervened.
In his past life, law had been a weapon used against him.
This time, he would learn how to hold it properly.
Teachers noticed his essays. Clear logic. Unemotional arguments. No childish idealism.
"You think like an adult," one teacher said.
Min-jae smiled politely.
No, he thought. I think like a survivor.
By high school, the world started catching up to his memory.
Companies he remembered as giants were still recruiting aggressively, burning cash, consolidating supply chains. The country buzzed with ambition and quiet desperation.
This was the window.
Min-jae began keeping notebooks—not diaries, but ledgers. Dates. Names. Events that would matter ten, twenty years later.
He never wrote outcomes.
Outcomes could change.
He wrote pressure points.
Who needed cash.
Who needed silence.
Who needed someone else to take the risk first.
The system spoke again, briefly.
[Cumulative influence: minimal]
[Risk exposure: low]
Good.
He didn't want help. Help came with attention.
When university applications loomed, everyone expected him to aim high. He didn't resist.
He aimed precisely.
Korea's top law university wasn't just about education—it was a gate. Judges. Prosecutors. Corporate legal heads. Politicians in waiting.
Access disguised as academia.
When the acceptance letter came, his parents cried. Neighbors congratulated them. Teachers nodded like they had always known.
Min-jae bowed his head, grateful, humble.
Inside, he was already planning the next decade.
University would give him three things:
A legal shield.
A network he could later weaponize.
Time to quietly prepare his first real move.
The money would come later.
It always did.
That night, lying in his dorm bed, he stared at the ceiling and felt it again—that distant presence, silent but aware.
He didn't speak to it.
He didn't need to.
This wasn't a story about gods.
It was about ownership.
And Min-jae intended to own what had once owned him.