“Preparations are finished. Now the war begins!”
I finished my morning training.
It hadn’t been that long, but the training had clung tightly to my body.
It had only been about a week, but the effects were enormous.
The internal-energy efficiency that the Celestial Dragon Divine Lord had implanted in me exceeded imagination.
My weak tendons became strong.
Just the right amount of muscle attached to my body.
My head was always clear and refreshed.
Even the math I had half given up on in the past—once I looked at the formulas, I could understand most of them.
Even English vocabulary and sentences settled into me quickly.
This was a completely new world.
As waste matter left my body, it felt like even the grease that had been clogging up my brain was being drained out.
At the same time, the Taeguk Five-Elements Dual-Intent Internal Method became increasingly familiar.
The Celestial Dragon Divine Lord, during the illegal private tutoring, had said—
At a certain moment, once I reached the boundary, I would be able to divide my brain into two parts and use them separately.
I wasn’t at that boundary yet.
Since I was already up, I used the opportunity to weed the orchard.
It was a small orchard, so about an hour was enough.
It was my first time doing real labor.
It felt awkward, but not unpleasant.
My parents were startled when they saw me coming in after weeding.
Seeing that sight… I reflected a lot.
Having been born as the son of an orchard farmer, I had lived uselessly for a long time.
Seeing my father, eyes misty to the point of tears, just made me embarrassed.
My twin younger sisters caused a commotion, saying the sun must have risen in the west today.
In the past, I had never left my room under the excuse that I was “studying.”
But in truth, all I ever did in my room was read books and surf the internet.
Dying and coming back to life changed my personality as well.
It felt really good… but I couldn’t recommend this method.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this.”
A graphic more beautiful than any famous painting filled my eyes with pleasure.
Lines of every color glowed brilliantly.
Stocks begin with graphs and end with graphs.
The power structures, the ants, the events of the era, and the desires of human beings—that was the painting of the world they created.
Yesterday, I received my public-authentication certificate.
The clunky old computer groaned as I installed the securities-company program.
The so-called HTS program.
Using the experience I once had while working at a securities firm, I optimized the program so it would be comfortable for me to use.
The setup was complete.
I opened the login window of Kaum Securities, which many individual investors used.
Blue, red, and yellow lines greeted me.
Just looking at the graph made my heart pound like seeing a first love.
Even as a minor, Kaum opened an underage account for me using my mother’s guarantee.
Unlike the future, securities companies were still friendly toward me.
But there were many restrictions.
In 2006, anyone under twenty was considered a minor.
I didn’t realize how many daily hurdles I would have to clear before becoming an adult.
“From day one, I’m going straight in as a minor!”
I coated my entire body with recklessness.
I opened the watchlist for Kosdaq Planet77—my target.
Inside my head, the graph of Planet77 surfaced.
Trading was calm because no official announcement had appeared yet.
The operator forces had probably already secured their genuine volume.
Planet77 would be delisted from the Kosdaq a year after this operation.
It was regrettable, but I couldn’t reveal that fact.
The stock market was a legalized gambling arena permitted by the state.
There existed those who bore the responsibility of monitoring threats to everyone.
And there existed devils wearing the mask of finance.
There was no person who had invested only once and never again.
Addiction.
Before that name, humans were nothing but saints.
“Hmph, you’ve stockpiled your buy-and-sell quantities nicely. Cute brats.”
It was the classic tactic of stacking fake quantities.
“Is this the so-called ghost-hands hitting the order book?”
You bastards are all screwed today!
It was a method of placing quantities at the upper and lower price levels to maintain a certain order-flow condition.
Ants without information couldn’t approach easily because they were frightened by the volume.
It wasn’t a stock with particular potential anyway, so there weren’t many investors.
Besides, today was operation day.
Through both the graph and the order window, I could sense the precise defense against the infiltration attempts of other forces.
“Shall we go in?”
I began buying lightly.
A micro-cap stock with a market cap of 50 billion won, starting the day in a downward market with an opening price of 2,250 won.
These bastards get pumped several times over.
Perfect to play with right now.
Tadadadadak tadadak.
The sharp clacking of typing echoed in the room.
Ttiring! Ttiring.
Like a proper stockbroker, my fingers quickly executed the buy orders.
Slowly, like a fisherman adjusting his bait, I trimmed the stock.
There was nothing bad about being careful when the operator forces were being twitchy.
Like that, two hours before the morning session ended, I used my 20 million won capital, pulled a full 40-percent margin, and finished placing 50 million won worth of orders.
It was the magic created by margin funds.
Because of me, the downward market turned into an upward market glowing red.
With a final average price of 2,500 won, I purchased exactly 20,000 shares.
“Those punks must be pissed.”
I could picture the operators’ panicked faces.
As a rapid-growth stock researcher, everything looked clear to me.
The 50 million won that got executed in the early morning was now enough to lightly tease the nerves of the small-cap operator forces.
Beginner investors didn’t know.
Behind every explosive rise of a stock, there exist operator forces granted permission by the major shareholder.
“Well then, please take good care of me. Hyungnims~.”
I closed the trading window.
Moving averages, candlestick charts, stochastic, Bollinger Bands, order-book walls, investment sentiment lines—none of those indicators make a sound.
All indicators follow the laws set by the operator forces.
Knowing that, I quietly solved a single math problem to clear my mind.
A gentle mountain breeze drifted in through the open window.
Waiting pleasantly for the tteuteuril jackpot to burst, I immersed myself in my own regimen.
* *
“Funds have moved out of Kaum!”
“How much!”
“About 20,000 shares.”
“Hmph…, some bastard noticed and came digging.”
“What should we do?”
“What do you mean what! Make the announcement in a bit. That much needs to be divvied up. Whoever it is, he’s a talented bastard.”
The operation room located in a Gangnam officetel was filled with hot tension.
A suffocating sense of pressure flowed.
This operation was expected to yield hundreds of billions of won.
Even after sharing with the major shareholder, the operators would still pocket a great deal.
The stock market was burning hot.
Funds that had fled the housing market were being funneled into the stock market.
The operator forces knew that you must strike at times like this if you don’t want competitors biting at your heels.
Even the Financial Supervisory Service kept its mouth shut during stock frenzies.
When everyone goes insane over stocks, you can only get a scrap of the masses’ excitement by lightly stirring things up.
“We don’t know if other bastards will barge in. Listen carefully. If this blows up here, we’re all dead!”
The team leader gave a warning while chewing on a cigarette.
Private capital had come in.
If anything went wrong, over ten people would have to shed blood for this to end.
* * *
I placed the sell orders.
The massed buy window at the top of the order book—
I hurled the shares right at it.
Ttiring! Ttiring!
As the sell orders completed, an intense alert sound rang.
“That’s it!”
Looking at the Kaum Securities account information screen, I clenched my fist.
Time flowed quickly.
Having died once, I understood what the meaning of a single day in this era was.
A preparation period given before stepping out into the world—overflowing in amount, yet insufficient.
I lived a disciplined life every single day.
The Celestial Dragon Divine Lord’s “general training(?)” baseball videos also helped.
I got up at dawn, went into the mountains, exercised, and came back down.
Before the sun rose, I removed weeds from the orchard.
To grow organic apples, I could not use pesticides.
Farm crops are things that are born into the world through the sweat of a farmer’s brow.
I spent my days with the heart of a devout monk.
I solved the accumulated problem sets I had bought and stacked up until now.
The stiff pile of papers I once used as a pillow for cheap napping during my exam-student days made me feel ashamed.
Not one or two sheets—the textbooks and problem books stained with the oil of my face were the mirror of my younger self.
“W-Wow, is this all money?”
My heart turned red with shock at the red numbers recorded in the settlement column.
It was a jackpot!
I liquidated all of Planet77, which I had dragged with full margin until the end of the third trading day.
It was the harvest that the magic of margin trading had created for me.
It had hit the upper limit for three consecutive days.
Together with the announcement that they had developed a bio-recognition diagnostic device in cooperation with the Electronics Component Research Institute, it hit the upper limit for three straight days.
Unlike the future where the limit would be 30 percent, the current daily upward limit was capped at 15 percent.
But even that alone was a jackpot.
“Hah, 46 million won in only three days… this is honestly terrifying.”
My 20 million won capital had laid golden eggs.
Even after settling the margin, the three-day profit still left me with 26 million won.
That was the amount remaining after paying both fees and margin interest.
This was why stocks were frightening.
There had even been research saying that stock addicts were addicted to the same hormones as gambling addicts.
I blankly stared at the number 46 million won for a moment.
It was an amount of money I had never once touched in my entire life.
“Whoooooo.”
I took a long deep breath.
My thumping heart slowly calmed down.
“This isn’t even the beginning.”
If I’m getting moved over this level of money, I deserve to be scolded.
“Hit it harder! I… my stomach is hungry.”
My greed flared up like a blazing fire.
The more money there is, the better.
I hadn’t forgotten the days when I had no money and ate nothing but instant noodles.
The days in Noryangjin when eating a single cup-rice gopbaegi just once was a wish.
“Today, you’re the chosen one!”
Money must circulate to be money.
Among the neatly organized graphs, I picked one bastard.
Next week, a new-drug development announcement was scheduled to appear.
Skynuripam.
A graph that had drawn a clean upward curve toward the sky.
I hadn’t expected my rapid-growth stock research to be this useful.
My heart pounded.
Even in my stockbroker days, I never had profits like these.
A stock cheat sheet given only to me.
If I didn’t eat this, I’d be an idiot.
“Full margin!”
The magic of margin funds created by the stock system was a partner that would lead me into the world of wealth in a short period of time.
The opportunity was extremely good.
In the margin-trading market operation rules implemented in 2007, Article 89, Clause 1 had not yet been enacted.
There were no regulations yet restricting one-month usage by margin users.
It was an opportunity that wouldn’t last long now.
“Margin funds, you know I love you dearly, right?”
I hurriedly loaded up on stocks using margin.
The suffocating heat of midsummer had not cooled—the narrow back-alley goshiwon room.
Inside that cramped box that felt like it could collapse and rot away at any moment, I wrote the myth of an ant being born.
And the protagonist of that myth was me.