7 Acquiring Currency

My heart is racing and I can feel a drop of sweat rolling down my neck. I stare at my screen displaying dozens of graphs while nervously tapping on my desk.

*Any second now…*

The timer on my phone reaches its end and my fingers move as fast as they can in a motion I practiced countless times. My mind is set in a routine I have experienced for far too long. My window of action is short, so I have to act quickly.

Buying, selling, and buying again.

I trained as much I was able to endure, spending hours glued to my chair to shave off a single millisecond on my execution time. This turned into an obsession, the struggle of a human mind against perfected algorithms that processed more information in a second than I could in an entire lifetime.

I sense a tremor in my hands as my frantic clicking continues, my heart is pounding but I keep my head cool and continue. My hands are burning with how fast I force them to move but I endure the pain, it will only last another second…

Time slows down as I finish the sequence I have spent countless hours refining and optimizing, the final step that will change my life. But only if it's executed at a very precise moment, a millisecond is enough to turn my efforts into a complete failure.

But it was done.

After spending entire days slaving behind this screen and countless Rewinds, I finally succeeded.

I am a millionaire.

To understand the situation, we have to go back in time, for a week to be exact.

Everything began the day after my shopping spree in the Dimensional Bazaar. I was woken up by a text from Riley who was apologizing for his forced exit. It was 'Enforcer stuff' so I didn't ask too many questions since I was far too aware of what it entailed.

It usually ended up with someone dying.

I stretched and left the warm embrace of my bed for the sweet kiss of caffeine that forced me to fully awake. I drank two cups today since today would be a special day. It was the first day of me abusing the Rewinder to play the stock market, and I would have a good start.

The next few days passed as well as one can expect when having access to the future: Everything went pretty smoothly and my initial investment had grown nicely. I would spend my days stuck in front of my screen, waiting for the right time and the right fluctuations in price to maximize my profits. And I wasn't even paying attention to what I was trading. I just looked at the graphs from the future and planned accordingly. But I couldn't spend my entire day watching the graphs since the fluctuations would happen at very precise intervals. So it left me with a lot of free time.

I spend that free time by doing useful things… well, some useful things. I played a few rounds of Hearthstone here and there. I even went out to eat with Riley a couple of times. But you can't blame me for having fun; I would've gone insane if I spent all of my days working.

And I worked hard, real hard. To an outside view, I spent the last hour reading the end of a big book. But in reality, this hour had already been repeated six times thanks to the Rewinder. And I didn't count how much time I wasted during certain short-term fluctuations. I had to redo them a lot because my timing was off by a single second.

But it paid off: Browsing the HiddenNet and reading the books I bought taught me a lot of things.

First, it seems I have no talent for magic at all. I failed to cast the first spell in the book that was supposed to show how big my mana reserves were.

The book said this spell was so easy that it was practiced by infants.

It was a big blow to my self-esteem.

However reading about my struggles on the HiddenNet revealed an interesting fact: Most humans weren't able to use mana to its full potential. This was disheartening, but my case was even more special.

Most normal people not associated with the Hidden World could, with some training, at least cast the spell for a second or two. But I wasn't even able to channel a single drop of mana despite trying a lot of different methods.

Another heavy blow to my self-esteem was learning that I was a magical cripple.

But all was not lost: Reading the book about enchanting taught me I could at least practice enchanting. Although it will be a lot more expensive compared to a normal person.

Enchanting was just like writing a program on something while infusing magic in the letters. This was somewhat of a problem since the surfaces needed were usually too small for what the enchanter wanted.

But this problem was avoided by using a language capable of delivering a lot of meaning in the least amount of characters possible.

This was the reason every enchanted item I saw had the same runes on them. The book didn't go into many details but it mentioned that it was based on an ancient language from another universe. But this created a major problem: Each character was extremely specific, so there were a lot of them.

And I mean a lot, like 10 figures minimum.

The reason I could practice enchanting without mana was revealed to me in a chapter about large-scale enchanting. The enchanter would, instead of using his own mana, rub Magicite crystals on the enchantment until they broke. The written characters would then absorb the released mana like a sponge.

The good news is that I could order Magicite on the HiddenNet, or just buy a crate of the things in the Bazaar. But the bad news is that they were not cheap, even the price of the low purity ones that contained a pitiful amount of mana was not something I could scoff at. I also learned that the crystal the Jason dropped on the poker table was a high-grade Magicite worth an insane amount of Credits. No wonder everyone reacted like they when they saw it...

But this led to our present situation: I had grown a lot of capital and a once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself. I could add two more zeroes to my investments. But the only problem is that the fluctuation that allowed for this insane return only lasted for two seconds. It was an eternity for trading algorithms worth millions of dollars but an almost impossible task for me.

So I tried and tried… I probably repeated the same actions for an entire week. And when I say an entire week, I mean the full 7x24 hours.

But now this is all over, and I am sipping on a soda while grinning like an idiot at the amount of money displayed in front of me.

I laugh like a madman while feeling a tingling sensation in my chest. And the first thing I did to celebrate my well-earned success was to…take a long and restful nap that lasted two days.

...

"So there's still nothing?" the stern woman in front of me asks after reading my report.

"I'm afraid not," I say while lowering my head. "We tried everything: We questioned people and even investigated the Occult Club. But we found nothing."

My mother sighs and plays with her long black hair. She closes her eyes while she taps on her old wooden desk covered by stacks of paper. I look at her in more details since I didn't see her for a long time: She looks like she gained ten years in the last few days.

"Listen, I will see if I can assign more personnel to this case. Those disappearances are causing quite a ruckus. And it's only a matter of time before someone from an important family gets kidnapped. We also have to worry about the police. If this continues they will notice that something is weird and investigate. And I can't be bothered to deal with those incompetents right now."

I nod in agreement, causing her to smile.

"Riley, my dear… I'm sorry to dump all of this on you, especially when you already have all of your classes to worry about."

"Don't worry. I can always drop out if it gets too overwhelming. But it provides the ideal cover for investigating the college area so I would like to avoid that option if it's possible."

My mother's phone suddenly rings, she glances at the device and looks very displeased, "I'm sorry, but I need to take this call."

I nod and leave her office, I am about to head outside but I am stopped by a familiar figure leaning against a wall.

"So how did it go? Is that old crone still as unreasonable as ever?" Steve asks in a mocking tone.

My shoulders slumps, "You know she has good reasons to act like that when you're there right? Or do I need to remind you who nearly unleashed Hellfire in the neighborhood?"

"I was six! And what kind of irresponsible person leaves a crystal filled with the stuff in the living room?!"

"And who trapped our sleeping cousin in an endless loop of portals? She still refuses to talk to you after all those years."

"She deserved it! She kept stealing my stuff!"

"And who also-"

"I get it, I get it. Please stop," my brother interrupts. "So what did she say about the disappearances?"

"She will grant us reinforcements. But I doubt we actually have any available."

"Yeah, I have my doubts too," Steve says.

"So what are we going to do now? The Occult Club was a dead end like usual and even our Tracking spells couldn't find a single lead."

My brother nods, "Yeah, it's like these people just vanished-"

Our phones ring at the same time so we look at our devices. I raise an eyebrow since it's something from one of our patrols, but the contents of the message freeze me in place.

"Holy shit..." Steve mutters.

The pictures show the victims of the disappearances, but with no organs left in their bodies.

...

Really, this place must have some sort of spell on it. Or it's populated by the most oblivious people in the world. Nobody even raised an eyebrow when I emerged out of the storage room with a big cardboard box in my hands.

Carrying a big box filled with literal rocks isn't a fun experience. I feel I like I am reborn when I finally arrive in my apartment.

I then open the box, revealing a large amount of transparent crystal with just a hint of blue at their core.

That's right: I just bought my first batch of Magicite along with one of the best engraving tool I found. It's beautiful and looks like an expensive pen covered in minuscule runes. The shopkeeper said it could engrave anything, and I am inclined to believe him since I paid 20,000 Credits for it.

*Now it's time to test it out, so let's see what I need to write.*

I pull out my phone and look at the eBook I found on a forum for hobbyist enchanters. It's a nice repertoire of simple enchantments and I am about to test the first one: A basic heating enchantment.

The first step is the material, a small steel plate from the local hardware store. Now I need to engrave the runes, so I press the button on the pen. My movements are fluid and I barely feel the metal under the instrument.

It also looks like the pen has some autocorrecting function since the grooves I carve are all the same depth no matter how hard I press on the pen.

*The first step is the absorption rune.*

This is something common to all enchantments: It's the rune that allows the enchantment to absorb the ambient mana to function. I struggle to copy the intricate design displayed in front of me but I finally succeed after half an hour.

The next step is the control rune that's intertwined with the absorption rune. It allows the user to regulate the amount of mana going into the enchantment. The control rune isn't difficult to write but intertwining it with the absorption rune is where the real difficulty lays.

I compared enchanting with programming, but it's more like electronics. Each rune is a component and I have to hook the right inputs and outputs together.

I take a deep breath and drop the engraving pen after half an hour of nerve-wracking work. A sense of pride fills my chest when I look at the sloppily engraved steel plate while massaging my painful hand.

*Now for the last part...I need to supply mana to the enchantment.*

I grab a Magicite crystal and rub it on the engravings. The light in the crystal fades while the engraving glows and the plate flashes for a brief moment. In the meantime, the crystal turns into sand and crumble. The recovery from the flash takes some time since my eyes are hurting a little, but I quickly regain my vision.

*This is the moment of truth!*

I touch the control rune before putting my hand on the heating rune. I shout in joy when I feel the heat coming from the plate.

The rune is fun to play with but I realize something: I need containment runes around the heating rune or the heat will spread into the plate and burn my finger.

I also realize the limitations of the absorption rune I used since it's barely enough to heat my hand. But browsing the book revealed that multiple absorption runes existed. Each of them has different activation conditions and each allow different amount of mana into the enchantment.

The most complicated ones even require the incorporation of Magicite crystals into the rune. But I won't try it now: The book mentions that the crystals have a tendency to explode if not engraved properly.

I stop browsing the book when I find the containment runes and add them to the plate.

And here it is, after two hours of engraving, the finished heating plate that can barely heat a glass of water.

*I shouldn't become too discouraged, I'm still learning…*

The next days were spent by practicing my enchanting and doing some research. Scouring the HiddenNet for more runes allowed me to find an EBook detailing most of the known runes. I could enter a sentence and the file would give me a picture of the corresponding rune. But even the simplest ones looks to be out of my league, at least for now.

The rest of my free time is spent researching something very important: Time travel.

I looked at everything I could get my hands on, from dubious forum posts to old notes of mages from a different universe.

They all talk about a similar thing: Physically going back in time with some sort of artifact or spell. But I found nothing about what is happening to me.

I also found some articles about sending data back in time but they all failed. I even read rumors saying that experimenting with time travel could lead to the collapse of the universe.

This is scary, but at least I know this isn't true. My universe shows no sign of collapsing despite my ridiculous amount of Rewinds.

…I hope I didn't break some kind of dimensional barrier that will allow eldritch horrors to spill into our universe.

"Well, this was a waste of time…" I mumble to myself as I throw another book about time travel on my bed.

This book is the compilation of the research of a scholar that dedicated his life to understanding time travel. His conclusion is that it's something completely impossible to accomplish.

So I still don't have a clue on how the Rewinder works.

A deep sigh escapes my mouth as I look at my phone, showing I didn't sleep during the night again. I'm having trouble keeping track of the 'normal' time now that I use the Rewinder every day.

I need fresh air, so I decide to do something I didn't do for days… or weeks, and go to class.

The familiar lecture hall makes me feel better. It's nice to know that some things are still normal despite all that happened. I enter the large hall, take a seat at the back and pull out my laptop to take notes.

The professor, a man in his forties, enters the hall and causes most of the chatter to die down.

"Welcome, now today we will talk about-"

But he suddenly stops talking and freezes in place. At first, nobody notices, but the oppressing silence causes some worried whispers to spread around.

*This is not normal, something's wrong…*

I reach for my gun, but a sudden scream comes from the front row. I don't have to look very far to see the reason behind this scream.

The professor got cut in half.

The body hits the ground and reveals a figure clad in a used jet black robe holding a thin blade dripping with blood.

Screams of terror resonate through the hall. Some students rush for the doors but are stopped by a yellow barrier. Those who try to escape are cut down by other robed figures that are emerging from the shadows.

"You can't run!" The figure standing where the professor was says in a deep eerie voice that resonates in my head.

*This barrier, and the way they came out of the shadows… It's magic!*

I don't know what those figures want but I know I need to contact Riley. I type my text as discreetly as possible but there is no reception.

*Shit! They probably jammed it!*

The figure in the center laughs, "There's no point in trying to contact anyone! We have this building under control! And everyone shut up or you're all going to die!"

He raises his head up when I try to use my Interdimensional Phone, "I said there's no point! We blocked the mana from coming in there!"

He points towards the back of the room, "Go check the back, someone is trying to force mana out of here and I don't like it, it gives me a headache."

One of the other figures nods and teleports in the back of the room. He scans his surroundings and finally settles on a crying girl and pierces her head.

I grit my teeth as I try to contact Riley again and again.

"It's still not stopping! Whoever is doing that should stand up or we'll be forced to kill more!"

Two other figures jump into the students and slaughter them like cattle.

"Shut up you bastard! Die!" Someone stands up and his body wobbles, revealing two red horns on his forehead.

The horned man raises his hand and light accumulates into his palm. The figure just laughs and threads of dark energy coil around the horned man. They drag him to the table once he can no longer move. The figure pulls a knife out and laughs even more as he stabs the man in the forehead.

Good god… I can't stay here and do nothing!

I pull out my pistol and shoot the nearest robed person who is about to strike down another student. The body slumps to the ground and black mist oozes from its wounds. But I have no time to observe what the mist is since I am sent flying by a beam of dark energy. I crash into the wall, leaving a crater behind me while I hear cracking glass.

"Oh? Don't think a personal shield will save you! "

Two figures emerge from the shadows with raised swords. I dodge the first blade while the other is deflected by my shield. I don't waste time and jump out of their reach before shooting the robed assailants, causing the black mist to ooze out of their bodies. The mysterious gas accumulates in a small cloud above the one still dissecting the screaming horned man.

I empty my magazine on him. But he just laughs when the bullets reach him and do no damage.

"What, do you think you're the only one who's prepared? Go get him!" Another set of attackers run towards me. I reload as fast as I can while taking cover under the tables to avoid a volley of beams.

*At least those guys aren't too hard to kill-*

But my jaw drops when the black mist seeps into the corpses of the dead students. They rise up and join the ranks of the mysterious attackers.

This terrifying sight makes me hesitate for a second.

This second of hesitation decides the end of the battle: I hear glass breaking quickly followed by a sharp pain all over my body. I feel something welling up my throat and realize in horror that I am coughing blood. I also notice that multiple blades are poking out of my torso.

The last thing I see is the faces of the robed creatures, which look like desiccated corpses.