Later that evening, Jake set up the new laptop on his desk.
The difference was obvious immediately. The system booted almost instantly. Charts loaded without hesitation. Switching between platforms felt smooth and effortless.
Everything responded exactly when he touched it. He logged into his trading account and looked at the balance again.
132,480 VM.
The number had grown further that morning.
Jake leaned back slightly in his chair and let the quiet satisfaction settle in. This wasn't imagination anymore. He wasn't surviving on hope or small deposits. He was building something real.
A knock sounded at his door. Before he could answer, Aliya pushed it open and leaned against the frame. "So," she said casually, "when you become a mysterious rich guy, are you going to forget your humble beginnings?"
Jake didn't look away from the screen. "You are my humble beginnings."
She smirked. "Rude." Then her eyes drifted toward the laptop screen. Charts. Numbers. Balance. Her expression sharpened. "…Jake."
He calmly reached forward and closed the trading platform before she could read anything clearly. Aliya folded her arms. "Suspicious behavior."
Jake turned toward her. "Curiosity killed the cat."
"I'm not a cat."
"It'll still kill you."
She huffed, but the grin returned almost immediately. "Fine. Keep your secrets. But when you start buying cars and penthouses like those social media traders, I want credit for believing in you early."
"Noted," Jake smiled faintly. "Though I'm not sure where you get the thought that you were supportive." He murmured softly so that she couldn't hear.
She lingered for another moment before leaving the room. When the door closed again, the quiet returned. Jake turned back toward the laptop and reopened the trading platform.
132,480 VM.
The number felt different now. Not just survival. Not just stability. Momentum.
Real momentum.
And if the week continued the way it had started, the changes coming next would be even bigger. Jake leaned back in his chair, letting the quiet excitement hum beneath his calm expression.
For the first time in his life, the future wasn't something distant he hoped for. It was something he was actively constructing.
---
Thursday morning felt subtly different. Jake noticed it the moment he stepped onto campus.
Jake adjusted the strap of his backpack and continued walking across the courtyard with the same relaxed pace he always used. From the outside, he looked completely ordinary.
Inside, however, a quiet current of energy ran beneath his calm. The past three days had been strong. Exceptionally strong.
He slipped his phone from his pocket as he walked and opened his trading app.
Balance: 254,320 VM
The number glowed softly on the screen. Jake slowed his steps for a moment as he looked at it. Not in disbelief—he'd watched it grow trade by trade—but seeing it there still carried a certain weight.
"Nearing three hundred thousand." He locked the screen and slid the phone back into his pocket.
Just a week ago, the hospital bill had felt like an impossible mountain standing between him and financial collapse. Clearing it had been the only goal that mattered. Now?
It was already behind him. He pushed open the doors to the study hall and stepped inside.
The quiet atmosphere greeted him instantly—low murmurs of conversation, the faint tapping of laptop keyboards, sunlight filtering through tall windows along the wall. Jake walked toward the corner seat he had begun using over the past few days.
He sat at the same seat. Same view. Same routine.
Routine minimized variables, and fewer variables meant fewer mistakes. He set his backpack down beside the chair, opened his laptop, and logged into his trading platform, opening the gold chart.
The moment it appeared on screen, the shift came. It was always like this. One instant the market looked like chaotic movement—candles rising and falling with no clear purpose. Then his left eye pulsed faintly, and the world sharpened.
Clarity settled into place like a camera lens snapping into perfect focus. The randomness disappeared. Price action began to make sense.
Every candle had intention. Every hesitation carried meaning. Liquidity pools became visible like currents beneath the surface of water. Patterns that had once taken hours of analysis now revealed themselves almost instantly.
Jake leaned slightly forward, his breathing slowing as his mind slipped into the familiar state. The state where the market felt readable and predictable. He glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen.
*09:08*
He had roughly an hour. "One hour," he murmured quietly. That was all he needed.
The first setup appeared about ten minutes later.
Price pushed downward into a resistance cluster that had formed during the Asian session. The move was aggressive, almost too clean—sellers chasing momentum as the candles extended.
Jake watched without touching the mouse.
Liquidity sweep.
The pattern was obvious once he looked closer. Retail traders would see a breakout and rush to join the move, believing price was about to run higher. Institutions, however, were preparing to do the opposite.
Jake waited.
Patience had become one of the most valuable skills he possessed. Entering too early meant unnecessary risk.
Then the confirmation came. A sharp rejection wick printed across the resistance zone. Jake entered short. Four positions opened in quick succession.
The position size was slightly larger than what he had used earlier in the week, but it was still within his rules. Discipline mattered more than speed.
Price hesitated for a moment. Then it began to rise.
+15 pips.
+31.
+48.
Jake felt the familiar surge of adrenaline flicker somewhere deep in his chest. It wasn't overwhelming anymore—just a controlled spark of excitement as numbers climbed.
He closed one of the positions and secured the initial profit. The remaining trades stayed open. Price rose faster now, momentum building as trapped sellers rushed to exit their positions.
+72.
+89.
Jake closed everything. He leaned back slightly and exhaled through his nose before checking the account balance.
288,540 VM
For a moment he simply stared at the number.
Not because the money wasn't real—every trade had been executed with careful precision—but because his life only weeks earlier had looked completely different.
He closed the trading window and rested his hands briefly on the table. "Keep moving," he told himself quietly. "One good trade doesn't change the rules."
Another opportunity formed roughly twenty minutes later. This one came faster.
Price attempted to recover after the earlier rise, forming what looked like a temporary bearish retracement. But Jake could already see the weakness behind it. Liquidity had been taken. Momentum was fading. He entered again. The trade unfolded almost as cleanly as the first.
By the time his clarity window began fading—the subtle mental exhaustion that always followed the enhanced perception—Jake leaned back and checked his results.
Balance: 336,880 VM
He ran a hand slowly through his hair while staring at the screen. "Okay…" he muttered under his breath. "That's nearly seventy thousand in one morning." Not simulated. Not theoretical. Real money.
Jake closed the platform and shut his laptop before he could stare at the numbers any longer. Obsession had a way of creeping into the mind if you let it.
And obsession led to mistakes. Discipline, on the other hand, kept him growing.
Still, as he packed his laptop into his bag and stood up from the table, the excitement moved through him like a quiet electric current.
At this rate… One million didn't feel impossibly far away anymore.
"Jake."
He had just taken a few steps toward the exit when the voice stopped him. It came from behind him—female, calm, familiar. Jake turned. Catharine, the class rep, stood a few feet away, holding a tablet against her chest.
She looked much the same as she always did in class: composed posture, neat clothing, long braids tied back carefully. There was a quiet confidence about her that had always set her apart from most of their classmates.
But today her expression carried something else as well. Curiosity and relief. "You're back," she said. Jake nodded once. "Been back for a few days."
Catharine studied him more carefully now. "You been way too quite since you returned," she said. "I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for one of my friends told me you been coming to class when I told them you have been gone a little too long and thought we should pay you a visit at the hospital."
"Been back a couples of weeks actually." Jake responded with a face that had question marks. 'Yeah, I think we might need a new class representative.'
"Yeah I heard. Are you feeling better though?"
Jake shrugged lightly. "Nothing permanent happened."
She didn't smile, but the tension in her expression softened slightly. "I'm glad," she said. For a moment neither of them spoke.
Jake realized that the last time they had actually talked had been before the accident. Back then Catharine had simply been another classmate—someone intelligent and friendly but outside the narrow focus of his survival and also the class rep.
At the time, he had been too busy worrying about money to think about anything else.
"You seem different," she said suddenly. Jake raised an eyebrow. "Recovered."
She shook her head. "That's not what I meant."
Her gaze moved briefly over him before returning to his face. His clothes were still simple, but they were cleaner now, better fitted. His posture carried a quiet steadiness that hadn't been there before. "You seem… lighter, quieter and calmer," she said. "You and Alex were always the loudest in class but now it's just Alex. Which is why I hadn't noticed that you were back."
Jake didn't answer immediately. Because she wasn't wrong. "As for being lighter, I'm just sleeping better lately," he said eventually. "Need to save the energy for the final exams."
Catharine held his gaze for another moment, as if debating whether to ask something else. Then she decided against it. "Good," she said simply. "See you in lecture." She turned and began walking away before he could respond.
Jake watched her for a second before shifting his bag on his shoulder. Then another voice cut across the room.
"Yo."
Jake turned again. Three guys stood near the entrance of the study hall.
They were dressed the way people with money usually were—effortlessly stylish, expensive watches, relaxed confidence in their posture. The kind of presence that came from never having to worry about whether their next expense would empty their account.
At the center of them stood Mason.
Tall. Athletic. His watch flashed briefly in the light as he adjusted the sleeve of his jacket. His expression looked neutral but his eyes weren't. They were locked on Jake. Not casually but intentionally.
Recognition flickered across Mason's face for a brief moment. Then something sharper followed—something like mild irritation mixed with curiosity.
Jake felt the shift instantly. The room seemed to quiet slightly as the two of them looked at each other.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Mason looked away first. He said something quietly to his friends with a faint smirk before turning and walking out of the study hall as if the moment had meant nothing. As if Jake were irrelevant.
Jake didn't react outwardly. But inside, something settled firmly into place. A calm awareness— not emotionless, but controlled.
Jake adjusted the strap of his backpack and walked out of the study hall without another glance behind him. The sunlight outside felt warmer than it had earlier that morning.
---