Back in the sterile, anonymous confines of his hostel room, Marc laid the fifteen €100 notes out on his bed in a neat, overlapping fan.
The crisp paper, smelling faintly of the betting shop's stale air, was a tangible symbol of his victory, a physical manifestation of knowledge turned into power.
In his past life, a sum like this would have been a month's salary after tax, a cause for careful budgeting and a wave of profound, if temporary, relief.
It would have meant paying off a credit card bill, perhaps treating himself to a new coat, or simply having the luxury of not worrying about an unexpected expense for a few weeks.
Now, it was just ammunition. It was seed capital. It was the first, tiny cog in a machine he was determined to build.
He dismissed the thought, the ghost of his former, smaller life, and focused on the System interface, which was glowing softly in the dim room, its ethereal blue light a stark contrast to the grimy surroundings. A new notification was blinking insistently in the corner of his vision.
[System Points (SP) available: 10]
[System Points are the currency of potential. They represent your capacity for growth and adaptation. Use them to unlock and upgrade skills that will aid you in your Main Quest. Choose wisely. Potential, once spent, cannot be refunded.]
[Would you like to open the Skill Tree?]
"Yes," Marc whispered, his curiosity a sharp, tingling sensation.
This was the part that felt most like the video games he had sometimes played in his youth, a welcome, understandable mechanic in a world that had become utterly incomprehensible.
The screen dissolved and reformed into a complex, branching diagram that looked like a cross between a corporate flowchart and a star chart from an advanced civilization.
At the center was a single, glowing orb labeled [Host: Marc Ashford]. Branching from it were several main categories, each representing a core pillar of the life he now had to build.
[Business Acumen]
[Financial Trading]
[Networking]
[Sports Knowledge]
Most of the skills were greyed out, locked, their descriptions tantalizingly unreadable.
They hinted at a future of immense capability: [Corporate Law Mastery], [Geopolitical Analysis], [Hostile Takeover Strategy]. But for now, they were far beyond his reach. Only the most basic, entry-level skills in each category were available for purchase.
He instinctively navigated towards the [Financial Trading] tree. This was where his war would be fought, in the digital trenches of the stock market. One skill, right at the base of the tree, caught his eye: [Market Analysis - Level 1].
[Market Analysis - Lvl 1][Cost: 10 SP][Description:]Grants the ability to parse publicly available financial data with enhanced speed and accuracy.
The System will process news feeds, stock tickers, and market sentiment, filtering out noise and highlighting statistically significant patterns.
At Level 1, the System will occasionally flag minor, localized market opportunities with a high probability of success.
It was perfect.
His future knowledge was his strategic weapon, his map of the war. But he needed a tactical tool, a real-time intelligence briefing to help him navigate the day-to-day noise of the market.
He couldn't remember every stock fluctuation, every minor corporate merger. His memory was for the big picture, the seismic shifts. This skill would handle the small skirmishes, the daily battles that would build his fortune.
"Invest ten points into Market Analysis," he commanded, his voice firm.
[Confirm: Spend 10 SP to unlock Market Analysis - Lvl 1? This action is irreversible.]
"Confirm."
The 10 SP icon in the corner of his vision vanished with a soft chime. The [Market Analysis] skill on the tree glowed brightly for a moment, a pulse of blue light that seemed to travel down the branch and into the central orb of his being.
A wave of information, or rather, a new way of processing information, seemed to flow into his mind. It wasn't facts or figures, but a new kind of clarity.
It was like he had been looking at the world through a blurry, smudged lens his entire life, and someone had just wiped it clean, twisting it into perfect, sharp focus.
Then, just as the description had promised, a new alert popped up on his screen. It was flagged with a bright, pulsing icon labeled [System Opportunity].
[Opportunity: Imminent Buyout Detected][Company:] Data-Stream Solutions Ltd.
[Status:] Small, local data-processing firm based in Salford. Currently undervalued due to poor management and lack of market visibility.
[System Analysis:] A surprise acquisition offer from a larger tech conglomerate, Innovate Corp, is scheduled to be announced in 72 hours. The offer will be significantly above current market value, representing a premium of approximately 1,900%.
[Probability of Success:] 95%
[Note:] This opportunity is time-sensitive and requires immediate action. The window for investment will close before the announcement.
Marc stared at the name. Data-Stream Solutions. It didn't ring a bell.
It was too small, too insignificant, a piece of financial chaff that would have been completely lost in the grand historical narrative he carried in his head.
This wasn't his memory at work. This was the System. This was his new, unfair advantage in action.
Suddenly, a memory, sharp and bitter as bile, surfaced from his past. It was 2019. He was sitting in his drab, grey office cubicle, the air smelling of stale coffee and quiet desperation.
He was scrolling through the financial news on his lunch break, a form of self-flagellation, a way of looking at a world he wasn't a part of.
He'd read an article about a small, obscure biotech firm that had been bought out by a pharmaceutical giant, its stock price multiplying by twenty in a single day.
He remembered the impotent envy, a familiar, sickening pang in his gut. He remembered thinking, "If only I had known. A thousand pounds… just a thousand pounds would have changed my life. I could have paid off my debts, put a down payment on a small flat, quit this soul-crushing job…"
He had been a spectator, always on the outside looking in, reading about the fortunes being made by others while his own life stagnated.
He was the man who read the history books; he never got to write a single sentence.
He looked from the ghost of the news article in his mind to the glowing blue screen in front of him. The opportunity wasn't in the past. It wasn't a story he was reading. It was right now. It was happening. And he wasn't powerless anymore.
This was the moment everything changed.
The bet on the football match was a clever trick, a one-time exploitation of a specific, vivid memory.
This was different. This was a repeatable process. This was a strategy. This was how he would build his empire, one System-flagged opportunity at a time.
He had the information. He had the capital. Now, he just needed a way to get into the game.
His €1,500 was a pittance in the grand scheme of things, but invested correctly, it could be the seed from which a forest of wealth would grow.
He knew he couldn't walk into a major brokerage firm like Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs with that kind of money and expect to be taken seriously, especially not to invest in a high-risk penny stock that was, to all outward appearances, a complete dog.
He needed someone who operated in the greyer areas of the financial world.
Someone who didn't ask too many questions, who valued a good tip over a client's pedigree, and who was willing to deal in the small, speculative investments that the mainstream firms wouldn't touch.
His mind, now buzzing with a newfound energy and focus, sifted through the memories of his youth in Manchester.
He remembered the stories, the whispers in the pubs he used to frequent with his mates.
A man they called "Mickey the Mouth," a semi-legitimate, fast-talking broker who dealt with the kind of high-risk, high-reward ventures that were too small or too shady for the big boys.
He was a financial bottom-feeder, a shark who swam in the murky waters of penny stocks and private placements.
Finding him would be a risk. Dealing with him would be an even bigger one. Mickey was known for his exorbitant commissions and his questionable ethics.
Marc looked at the glowing screen, at the 95% probability of success. In his old life, he would have dismissed it as too good to be true.
He would have been too scared, too cautious, too beaten down by a life of playing it safe and still losing.
He would have let the opportunity slip by, and in a few days, he would have read the headline and felt that familiar, sickening pang of regret.
But that Marc was dead. He had died in a pub in 2026, his heart broken by a football team and a life of unfulfilled potential.
The new Marc, the one with a second chance and a ghost in his vision, was a gambler. He had just bet his entire net worth on a football match. Now, he was about to bet it all again on the stock market.
And he had a feeling this was just the beginning.