Ethan looked at his reflection in a side-mirror of a sedan. The grease was still there, but the man beneath is level up completely. His jaw-line was sharper, his eyes were clearer. He felt like a high performance engine that had finally received a well due tune-up.
With $100,000 in his account, he didn't head for a cheap motel. He walked into a high-end department store. The clerks looked at him with disgust, their noses wrinkling at the smell of the workshop. Ethan ignored them. He walked to the men's grooming section.
Total cost: $4,500.
Ethan stood before a full-length mirror, adjusting the cuffs of a midnight-blue Armani suit that fit his 7.5 strength frame of broad shoulder and chiseled chest. On his waist he wore a Balenciaga luxury belt and on his foot, there a pair of Balenciaga leather flat firm shoes. His whole attire costs 20,000 USD.
The 7.5 appearance and 6.5 charm were now fully visible. He no longer looked like an orphan from a border village. He looked like a man with a plan.
He glanced at his wrist, where a Vacherin Constantin Chorona24 time piece ticked with silent, mechanical perfection . A masterpiece of engineering that costs 24,000 USD. Which is more than enough to buy Jack dilapidated garage.
He pulled a new iPhone 17e from his pocket the screen is bright and steek which costs him 600USD.
Step one: Capital, Ethan thought. One hundred thousand was a start and it was almost all of it gone for his grooming.
He spent the next three days traversing Miami's financial district and high-end pawn shops, using the Eye of Discernment. The world was no longer just buildings and people; it was a sea of data.
[Object: Modernist Painting][Hidden Value: Authentic early work of a rising artist][Current Price: $2,000 | True Value: $150,000]
[Object: Distressed Tech Startup Shares][Potential: Patent for solid-state cooling][Current Price: $0.50/share | Projected Value: $12.00/share]
Ethan was ruthless. He didn't buy for passion; he bought for the margin. He flipped the painting within forty-eight hours to a private collector for $140,000.
With nearly $240,000, he turned his attention to a small, struggling logistics company facing a lawsuit. The market saw a sinking ship. Ethan saw something else through the System's lens.
[Entity: Swift-Path Logistics][Hidden Potential: Pending contract with a national retail giant, 98% probability of success][Risk: Negligible. Lawsuit is a bluff.]
Ethan contacted the owner, a desperate man on the verge of bankruptcy. He offered $200,000 for a 40% stake in the company. The owner, seeing no other way out, signed the deal immediately.
Twenty-four hours later, the national retail giant announced the partnership. Swift-Path's valuation skyrocketed. Ethan didn't wait for the peak. He sold his shares back to a venture capital firm that was late to the party.
[Transaction Complete][Wealth Updated: $2,150,000]
He checked the blue panel. The numbers were satisfying. He had turned his starting capital into two million in less than a week.
His muscles felt tense. The surge in his attributes made him feel a constant, simmering energy. He wasn't just richer; he was hungrier. The financial foundation was laid. Now, his mind turned toward the System's primary requirement: offspring.
But first and foremost he needed to finish a task first.
Ethan sat in the back of a luxury car he had just leased and made one last stop to his dilapidate apartment complex, where Mr. Edward Henderson the land lord who had spent the last eight weeks threatening to throw him out along with his baggage.
Ethan first straightly entered his apartment, where the smell of cheap detergent and the stench of dampness hit his nose. He took what was usable and threw away the rest. Then he went straight to the office of Mr. Edward pulled a stack of crisp bills from his pocket and let them on his counter, here is your rent and said he is moving out. Before Mr. Edward could speak Ethan vanished from the spot.
The Armani Fabric is rustling as he walked towards his black Honda civic. And got inside the car and drove away. And Mr. Henderson who followed him stared as the car spade away leaving dust and exhaust smoke away.