"Liam Hemsworth, you are already one week late. When are you going to pay your tuition?" the old lecturer asked in a cold tone.
In front of the other students, he didn't lower his voice at all when bringing up such a sensitive matter.
Liam became uncomfortable as he received the gazes of everyone in the classroom.
750 dollars.
Just that amount, yet he couldn't afford it.
"I'm sorry, Mr. John. My mother is sick, and I was forced to use the money I had saved to pay for her medical treatment," he answered in a soft voice.
"That is exactly why you should register for insurance. What is the point of studying economics if you don't even register for insurance? Liam, you know this is not a public university, and even public universities are not free."
"Mr. John, please give me three more days—no, tomorrow, I will pay it tomorrow."
Liam would do anything because he didn't want to stop attending college.
If that happened, his mother might die from sadness, and his future would become even more uncertain.
He was determined to do something.
It wasn't that there was no way, but it was extremely risky.
"One day is not possible. This will be your last class unless you pay today." Mr. John remained indifferent.
He left without looking at Liam again. Even the other students only gave him sympathetic looks before leaving the classroom one by one.
Liam felt despair, but then—
DING!
(Cheat System has been activated!)
(Cheat System: a system that grants you various cheats.)
(The first: Trading Cheat, a cheat that will show you the prices of stocks, currencies, or coins five minutes into the future.)
(Other cheats will be given when you need them!)
Liam, "..."
Reading the text on the virtual screen that appeared out of nowhere, Liam instinctively looked at the TV above the whiteboard.
It displayed the current prices of Nasdaq stocks.
And his eyes widened.
(Meta: 572.99 > 572.34)
(Nvidia: 172.33 > 173.00)
(Apple: 255.67 > 254.99)
"Liam, I didn't expect you to be struggling like this… I have 300 dollars, you can use it first..."
A man with messy hair approached Liam, offering a loan.
Jack Scott, the only friend he had in this university filled with pragmatic people.
Liam felt touched because he knew there wouldn't be any student other than Jack who would offer him a loan.
Everyone here had a big ego. Even the women wouldn't glance twice at anyone who didn't have money.
But Liam shook his head.
"No, Jack. I already have a way," Liam replied.
"A way? How are you going to get money?" Jack asked.
"Sit down!" Liam pulled his hand, making him sit beside him.
He then took out his Android phone, a phone that couldn't even be sold for 10 dollars, a phone that only had 2 GB of RAM in an era of 12 GB RAM.
Even more pitiful, there was a flash drive plugged into the phone, the only way to increase its memory because the external memory slot could no longer detect storage.
"You...?" Jack was stunned because what Liam opened was an online loan application.
Jack had just found out that Liam had that application.
What shocked him even more, there was debt recorded there.
2000 dollars.
"Li-Liam, are you crazy? You borrowed this much from an online loan? How much interest do you have to pay? No, what did you even use the money for?"
"You think a few hundred dollars is enough to treat my mother? It's fine, I heard no one will come after you as long as the amount is not too big. I can still borrow 100 dollars."
"You want to borrow again?"
"Just watch!"
Liam really borrowed again.
Jack didn't understand what he was trying to do.
The money from the application was immediately transferred into Liam's bank account.
After that, Liam opened the browser and entered an address.
(Polycrypto.com)
"This?" Jack froze.
He played on this site, and he was the one who told Liam about it.
However, Liam didn't keep playing because he didn't have money, he had only tried using a 5 dollar bonus and lost on his first attempt.
While Jack was still frozen, Liam deposited 100 dollars.
"Li-Liam, wait!" Jack grabbed his hand.
But Liam ignored him.
He showed a serious expression as he selected the Bitcoin Up or Down menu.
It was a gamble, guessing the price of Bitcoin within the next five minutes, the most extreme form of trading because being wrong meant losing money instantly.
However, when entering that menu, Liam instead showed a strange smile.
A new round.
(Price to Beat: 77,547.99)
(Price Now: 77,548.02 > 77,540.99)
(Up: 51 Cen / Down: 49 Cen)
There should only be the Price Now, but Liam's eyes also saw the price five minutes into the future right after Price Now.
It would go down.
He locked that price. That was the final price at the end of five minutes in one round.
The System apparently also allowed him to lock that price so he wouldn't forget. If it wasn't locked, every passing second would cause the future price he saw to change as well.
But the point was, this round would end below the Price to Beat.
(Price Now: 77,655.02)
Suddenly, the price rose drastically, something that was of course not unusual.
Within five minutes, Bitcoin's price would always fluctuate. A rise or fall of 100 or 200 dollars was normal.
Fluctuations could even happen dozens of times within those five minutes.
Because of that, it was extremely difficult to predict the price at the end of a round.
With that increase, the price for Down dropped to 20 cents per share, while the price for Up increased to 80 cents per share.
Liam pressed the Down option, then pressed the All button.
(100 Dollars > 500 Dollars)
"Ahhh..." Jack screamed in fear, but Liam quickly pressed the Buy for Down button.
The order went through.
Instead of increasing, the 100 dollars immediately dropped to 75 dollars in an instant because the Bitcoin price continued rising, causing the Down price to fall to 15 cents per share.
"I bought too early," he said.
"Liam, you're crazy!" Jack then shouted loudly, startling the remaining students who hadn't left the classroom yet.
There were also other students passing by near Liam.
They didn't care about Liam at first, but when they saw his phone, their steps stopped.
"Are you crazy? You bet 100 dollars?" one of them said.
Hearing that, other students began to gather.
This had already become a trend and a daily topic among young people.
Talking about it or watching others play was something they did when they had nothing else to do.
"It's still going up."
"It's gone quite far, there's no way it will go down, right?"
"Who knows... This is always unpredictable. I've seen it go up and down like this fifteen times in a single round."
"Seriously? Bitcoin moves like that?"
"What's impossible? Crypto liquidity is quite low. Unlike stocks, the price can move quickly even for Bitcoin with such a large market cap."
"This is brutal, better stick to spot trading even if the profit isn't fast."
"True, a lot of people go crazy playing this."
"Ohh, it's starting to go down again."
"30 cents per share for Down, he's already in 50 dollars profit."
"Liam, cash out now!" Jack ordered.
However, just after he said that, the Bitcoin price suddenly rose again.
The Down price dropped to 13 cents per share.
"Damn it, how is there even time to cash out when it's this fast... Liam, you should have set a cash out using a market order," Jack said in an annoyed tone.
"Not until this ends," Liam replied.
If the result was not correct, then this System was a fraud.
Entering the fourth minute, the Bitcoin price was still far above.
There were no signs of it going down. The Down price had even dropped to 7 cents per share.
Those watching began to shake their heads.
However, when it entered the last 40 seconds countdown, the Bitcoin price started to fall, and it was quite fast.
(Price Now: 77,589.01)
(Up: 85 Cen / Down: 15 Cen)
(Price Now: 77,580.01)
(Up: 75 Cen / Down: 25 Cen)
(Price Now: 77,579.01)
(Up: 65 Cen / Down: 35 Cen)
"What are you waiting for, damn it!"
But Liam didn't let go.
20 seconds later.
(Up: 95 Cen / Down: 5 Cen)
The prices per share for Up and Down flipped again.
Not because the Bitcoin price rose again, but because with so little time remaining, people began buying Up and selling Down even though the Bitcoin price was still moving downward.
In the end, it was useless if the Bitcoin price only kept falling without passing the Price to Beat.
'I should have bought it now,' Liam thought.
He knew the final price, but not the movement.
If he bought Down at 5 cents, then the result would be multiplied twenty times.
100 dollars would become 2000 dollars.
Of course, situations like this didn't always happen. This was much rarer.
When Jack and the others began to sigh and thought Liam would lose his money, the chart on the screen suddenly moved like someone slashed it from top to bottom.
The Bitcoin price dropped drastically in the last five seconds, and in the final second, the drop became even more ridiculous.
(Price to Beat: 77,547.99)
(Price Now: 77,540.99)
"What?" Jack and the others couldn't be more shocked.
They even rubbed their eyes in disbelief.
"It dropped 7 dollars below the Price to Beat?"
"This really happened."
"Damn it, I thought it was impossible to pass the Price to Beat."
"Does this mean a profit of 400 dollars in five minutes?"
"Yes, he got full profit because he didn't cash out before the result."
In fact, Liam's account balance had already increased from 100 to 499, one dollar short of 500 due to the platform fee.