Five years blew away just like that.
And I can hear what you're thinking—but what do you expect from humanity's lowest? Did you think I'd turn into a genius overnight?
Reality is different, my brothers.
Those early years weren't glamorous. No secret treasures. No ancient masters. No sudden enlightenment. Just a kid with an "S-rank Economy Affinity" trying not to starve to death.
But to rise in a world ruled by money… I needed more than intuition.
I needed experience.
The Market Rat
For five years, the old town market became my ecosystem. Not my workplace—my hunting ground. A place where every stall, every customer, every bargain, every argument was a data point only I could see.
People started calling me a Market Rat.
Not as an insult.
Okay—mostly as an insult.
But even rats survive because they know the streets better than anyone.
From dawn until night, I moved from stall to stall, observing, advising, predicting. Not for money. Not yet. But for something far more valuable:
Access.
You'd be surprised how fast doors open when you help a fruit seller triple his weekly profit. Or when you tell a butcher which days his customers will splurge and which days they'll hold back because of wage cycles.
By age fourteen, vendors would yell my name across the street.
"Montig! What's the price trend today?"
"Oi, kid! Should I restock or wait?"
"Do people buy snacks during cold weather or hot? Tell me!"
If I wanted to disappear, I couldn't. The market had already claimed me.
I became its unofficial analyst.
The market loved me.
The market fed me.
And slowly…
The market shaped me.
An Economy Without Borders
Now, here's something most people never realize:
Economy doesn't exist only in banks or stock exchanges.
Economy exists in every decision humans make.
Why a mother hesitates before buying milk.
Why a fisherman sells at a loss on Thursdays.
Why gamblers bet more after losing.
Why old men trade stories the same way merchants trade goods.
Everything is a transaction.
Everything has value.
And I—somehow—could see the numbers behind them.
They appeared in subtle ways:
A faint glow when someone was about to make a profitable choice.
A dull color when something was overpriced.
A flashing warning when a deal was unfair.
I didn't fully understand it, but I followed the signals.
It felt like the world was whispering secrets exclusively to me.
The Second Window
On my fifteenth birthday, something new happened.
Another ping echoed in my skull.
Another window appeared.
[Economy Skill Unlocked: Margin Insight]
— Predicts profit margins of any product within 5% accuracy.
I froze.
This was different.
This wasn't just intuition.
This was a skill.
Margin Insight turned the market into a transparent glass box. I could look at a fruit stall and instantly know:
Cost: $23
Estimated selling price: $34
Max sustainable profit: 32%
Predicted price drop in 2 days: -14%
Was it legal?
Who cares.
Was it cheating?
Absolutely.
Did I use it?
Oh, brothers…
I abused it.
The Dominoes Begin to Fall
My first target was a stall owner named Kreg. A greedy guy, but smart enough to follow instructions. His stall sold imported spices—expensive stuff most villagers avoided. On normal days, he barely made anything.
I walked up to him and said, "Skip stocking Cardamon and Cinnamon this week. Buy Paprika instead. Triple quantity."
He frowned. "Paprika? Nobody buys that here."
"They will."
"How would you know?"
"I just do."
He snorted. "Kid, you talk like a prophet."
"Then treat this as prophecy."
He hesitated only because my advice had never failed before. In the end, he trusted me—and bought the paprika.
Three days later, a food vlogger uploaded a video titled "Top 5 Spices You Must Try."
Guess what was #1?
Paprika.
Demand exploded.
Villagers, tourists, even restaurant buyers rushed in. Kreg sold out every single packet by noon. By evening, people were offering to buy his empty jars at ridiculous prices.
Kreg made ten weeks' worth of profit in one day.
And me?
I got my first real payment:
$50.
Not from Kreg—he was too stingy.
From a rival stall owner who asked me to "bless his business too."
That's when I realized something about human nature: people don't fear geniuses.
People fear what they don't understand.
And I was becoming something they couldn't explain.
A Market and a Boy
By sixteen, I wasn't a Market Rat.
I was the market's beating heart.
Every vendor watched me.
Every change in price followed me.
Every rumor, every trend, every shift in demand seemed to orbit around me.
I didn't control the economy.
But it was starting to bend toward me.
The old men whispered:
"That boy… he's predicting the future."
"No. He's creating it."
They weren't wrong.
Economy isn't just numbers.
It's psychology.
It's motion.
It's influence.
The moment people believe you control the market…
you actually start controlling it.
The Birth of Reputation
One evening, as I was closing a deal between two textile vendors, another glowing window appeared:
[Title Unlocked: Budding Capitalist]
— Influence over small-scale markets increased by 15%.
And at that moment, I understood something:
This power… this system… this strange window attached to my soul—
It wanted me to rise.
Not as a fighter.
Not as a magician.
Not as a hero.
But as something far more terrifying to the world:
An economic anomaly.
The first domino had fallen.
The chain reaction had begun.
And from that day onward…
the market was no longer my playground.
It was my empire-in-training.