The week progressed at a pace that was becoming the new normal for Max: a fluid architecture of identities that he managed with the skill of an orchestral conductor.
His days were a mosaic where every piece fit with surgical precision.
Mornings belonged to iron and sweat.
His relationship with Laura Soler had evolved from technical instruction to genuine camaraderie—a truce zone where shared effort erased the campus hierarchies.
During one session, as she positioned herself in the blocks to practice explosiveness, Max stood to the side, allowing his [Coach’s Eye] to filter reality.
In his vision, Laura’s movement broke down into force vectors and tension angles.
“Your initial push is almost perfect,” Max commented casually, stopping her after a sprint.
“But I’ve noticed your left shoulder rises a fraction of a second before the right.
You’re breaking the symmetry of the kinetic chain and losing a millisecond of pure power right at the start.”
Laura stopped, panting, and looked at him with an arched eyebrow, caught between skepticism and curiosity.
She returned to the blocks, focusing obsessively on the alignment of her shoulders.
Upon firing off, the start was visibly cleaner—a burst of contained energy that propelled her with a new fluidity.
She stopped a few meters ahead and walked back toward him, her eyes shining with wonder.
“That…
felt different.
Much better,” she admitted, evaluating him as if seeing him for the first time.
“Since when are you an expert in biomechanics, Max?”
“I read a lot,” Max replied with an enigmatic smile, hiding the fact that the System was providing him with data that Olympic coaches would pay a fortune to obtain.
In the afternoon, the sweaty Max disappeared to make way for the methodical student and the silent strategist.
He navigated his classes with overwhelming efficiency, thanks to his [Eidetic Memory] absorbing knowledge effortlessly.
This left him enough time to observe the dynamics of the Investors Circle, identifying weaknesses in the profiles around him—those who, by force of results, had accepted him as one of their own.
On Monday, the routine broke with the arrival of a sleek, black sedan in front of the residence.
The rear window slid down, and Victoria’s face appeared, wrapped in an aura of aristocratic authority.
“Get in, consultant,” she said with a predatory smile that anticipated a challenge.
“Let’s go see the canvas.”
Her cousin’s apartment was a statement of status: a vast space in one of the city’s most exclusive buildings, with windows that transformed the skyline into a living painting.
However, it was naked—a shell of glass and marble without a soul.
Victoria handed him a tablet with minimalist design references and materials that screamed “expensive.”
“The budget is $20,000,” she stated, watching him out of the corner of her eye to gauge his reaction.
“For the living room, the dining room, and the master bedroom.
The goal isn’t to spend it all; it’s to demonstrate judgment.
Every dollar you save from that $20,000 goes straight into your pocket.
Plus, you’ll take a 10% commission on the actual value of whatever you acquire.”
She made a dramatic pause, locking her eyes onto his.
“I want to see if your previous success was a fluke or if you truly have the talent to see value where others don’t.”
“I have the perfect place to start,” Max replied, unfazed.
He then gave an address the driver recognized immediately: back to Silversmith Street.
Elias Morales received them with the effusiveness of someone who had found a valuable partner.
“The young master strategist!” the old man exclaimed, wiping his hands on his leather apron.
“Have you come to rescue more treasures from oblivion?”
What followed was a display of unexpected synergy.
Victoria, with her infallible taste educated in Europe’s best galleries, moved through the shop like a hawk, identifying lines and styles.
“That leather sofa, Max.
Look at the frame.
It’s an original Danish design from the middle of the last century.
It’s worth a fortune on the auction market, but it has a water stain on the back leather.”
“No one will see it if we place it against the north wall of the living room,” Max added, stepping closer to evaluate not the stain, but the solidity of the oak frame.
They worked in tandem: Victoria provided the aesthetic vision, and Max provided the asset logic.
They secured the Danish sofa and a teak dining set with pure lines for a fraction of their real value, but the apartment still cried out for more substance.
Max knew that the $20,000 budget, in his hands, felt like a weapon of war.
“Elias, we need more,” Max said, leaning over the wooden counter.
“Specifically period lighting and high-end textiles.
Do you know anyone who shares your…
standard of quality but keeps a low profile?”
The old antiquarian smiled, pleased to be treated not as a simple shopkeeper but as a key informant.
He pulled out a worn leather notebook, its yellowed pages filled with handwritten notes, and scribbled two addresses with the slowness of someone handing over a treasure map.
“Tell them Elias Morales sent you,” he said, closing the book with a sharp thud.
“They’re good people—the kind who prefer to let their work speak for them.
And for fabrics…
well, you have to see Widow Alonso at ‘The Golden Thread.’ She’s a difficult woman, but her silks are poetry.”
The afternoon transformed into a “tour of hidden assets.” Their first stop, “The Broken Reflection,” was a narrow basement that smelled of dust and static electricity, cluttered to the ceiling with lamps from every conceivable era.
Victoria moved among the objects with feline elegance, dismissing pieces with a single glance from her educated eye.
“Fake.
Fake.
Too shiny—the patina is artificial, likely acid applied yesterday,” she murmured, moving with the confidence of an expert in an auction room.
Suddenly, she stopped in front of a dusty lump in the darkest corner.
“That one.”
It was a classic Italian arc floor lamp, its fluid steel lines covered by a decade of neglect.
Max stepped closer and, after a quick inspection, noticed a slight defect in the original wiring.
“Perfect,” he whispered to himself.
It was the ideal “defect”—something that would scare off an ordinary buyer but that he could use to sink the price, knowing a simple repair would restore its four-figure value.
Their next stop was “The Golden Thread.” The shop was small and silent, permeated with a heavy scent of mothballs and the dignity of other times.
Widow Alonso, a woman with a sharp gaze and hands that seemed to know every fiber in the world, watched them from her corner.
While Victoria lost herself in a sensory trance among rolls of velvet and natural silks, Max found his objective: a massive Persian rug rolled up in a corner, discarded because it was dirty and had a faded edge.
However, the knot structure was impeccable; it was a museum piece camouflaged under a layer of grime.
“The sun stain cuts the price in half,” Widow Alonso explained, detecting Max’s interest.
“No one wants a defective asset these days.”
“The stain is just a story of where it’s been,” Max replied calmly.
“But the quality of the weave is eternal.”
They bought it along with some heavy linen curtains that Victoria approved with a brief, self-assured nod.
The afternoon became a journey through corners of the city that Victoria, in her years of privilege, had never stepped into.
As the sunlight began to turn orange, they stopped at a small cafe with marble tables and the smell of freshly ground beans.
While stirring his espresso, Max broke the silence, meeting the gaze of the woman who, for a day, had stopped being his sponsor to be his partner.
“Victoria, can I ask you something?
This whole opportunity…
the contact with your cousin, the access to this budget…
why?
What do you really gain from this?”
Victoria took a long moment before answering.
She observed the street bustle through the cafe glass, and for an instant, the “ice queen” facade cracked, revealing a more human truth.
“Boredom,” she admitted, and her honesty was more impactful than any market figure.
“My world is suffocatingly predictable, Max.
The same faces, the same parties, the same empty conversations about who bought what.
You…
you’re an anomaly.
You don’t play by the rules we were all taught.
You see value where others see trash, and you do it with a calm that I find…
intriguing.
You make me think in ways I didn’t know I could.
It’s…
entertaining.”
She paused, and her voice dropped a notch, becoming almost confidential.
“And yes, I wanted to test my investment.
I wanted to know if you were a real genius or just the luckiest kid on the planet.
Today you gave me the answer.”
The confession sealed a new level of understanding between them.
It was no longer just a transaction; it was an alliance of minds that recognized each other.
Revitalized, they completed the last few minor purchases.
By the end of the day, the cousin’s apartment was no longer an empty space, but a container for strategic assets.
Back in the car, as the sedan glided silently toward the residence, Max opened his laptop and started the spreadsheet.
The numbers, in their coldness, told the story of an absolute victory.
Budget: $20,000
Total Spend: $15,500
Savings (Max’s Profit): $4,500
Commission (10%): $1,550 Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Total Profit for Max: $6,050
Victoria looked at the numbers, genuinely impressed.
“Well done, consultant.
You’ve exceeded expectations.” Without hesitation, she took out her phone and transferred the money.
[Transfer received: +$6,050]
[Previous Balance: $1,270 ($1,305 – $35 for ice cream)]
[Current Balance: $7,320]
The black sedan stopped in front of the student dorm with the silent precision of a predator returning to its den.
Victoria, leaning against the leather backrest, turned her head toward Max.
The streetlamp light filtered through the window, outlining her face with a softness she rarely allowed on campus.
“Well, consultant,” she said, and a slow smile, both suggestive and challenging, curved her lips.
“You’ve proven that your hands are good for more than just typing buy orders.
But you still owe me a dinner.
And now that you have your own capital…
I won’t accept anything that isn’t worthy of your new bank account.
I’ll text you when I’m free.”
She stared at him for a second longer than necessary, a silent invitation in her gaze, before Max got out of the car.
Max entered his room feeling the comforting weight of victory.
It wasn’t just the money—a quick check of his investment platform confirmed that between the budget savings and his 10% commission, he had just injected over $6,000 fresh dollars into his balance—it was the validation.
He had played on the field of the elite, with physical assets and real negotiations, and he had won on his own merit.
He sat at his new laptop.
The screen light illuminated a smile of satisfaction reflected in the varnish of his mahogany desk.
He logged into his email to check the evening market reports, but a notification at the top caught his eye.
It was from an anonymous sender.
The subject line consisted of a single word, laden with classist venom: “Social Climber.”
Max’s smile evaporated.
The air in the room seemed to chill instantly.
He clicked the message.
There was no text, only three attachments.
He opened the first one: photo1.jpg.
It was him and Victoria on the Social Club terrace.
They were laughing—an image of absolute complicity.
The photo was taken from a high, distant angle; the grain of the image betrayed the use of a telephoto lens.
It was surveillance, pure and simple.
He opened the second: photo2.jpg.
Him and Isa, leaving the Faculty of Economics.
They were close, immersed in one of their technical and hermetic conversations.
Through the stalker’s lens, the seriousness of the talk looked clandestine, almost conspiratorial.
Max’s heart began to beat with a dull, heavy rhythm.
He opened the third: photo3.jpg.
It was the embrace with Laura on the track.
The moment of triumph, the warmth of sweat and the joy of the gold medal, all captured and frozen.
In that image, Laura’s vulnerability and Max’s protection were exposed, stripped of their context, and turned into something sinister.
An icy shiver ran down his spine.
This wasn’t hall gossip or murmurs of envy.
This was a deliberate campaign.
Someone was hunting him, documenting his every move, mapping his daily life to find the exact spot to bite.
The afternoon’s euphoria dissolved like salt in water, replaced by a paranoid lucidity.
Max looked toward the dark window of his room.
For the first time since his return, he felt truly vulnerable.
His rise had been too fast, too bright, and he had just attracted a shadow that wasn’t looking to compete, but to destroy.
The social war of lounges and cafes had evolved.
The hunt had just begun.
Somewhere on campus, someone held a camera, waiting for a moment of weakness.
And Max knew, with an icy certainty, that this time he couldn’t just stand by.
He had to use [Player Mind] to stay calm, but he needed a counter-strategy.
Fast.