Chapter 8

At Desk One's routine meeting, Brock stood at the front, his expression cold and unreadable as he summarized the day's battle and laid out tomorrow's strategy.

"Although today's overall market performance was poor and our team also recorded losses, our risk control measures were relatively effective compared to other teams. What we lost today, we'll find a way to recover tomorrow. Aside from standard operations, there's nothing else that requires special attention, correct?"

A trader responded at once, "Yes, sir. The broader market trended downward today. We mostly followed the contingency plan and executed some hedging in key sectors to manage our exposure. No other unusual activity."

"Yeah, it looks like this downtrend may continue for some time. Stay alert over the next few days and keep risk control strict."

"Yes, sir."

"You've all worked hard. Today... let's call it early."

The words struck like a blessing.

'Leave early? Seriously?' Cheers erupted in silent hearts.

Elon's spirits soared. He could finally rush home and run that dungeon raid!

The guild master had even texted earlier, reminding him not to be late tonight.

…

There was a saying: Many of the world's most significant events often take place while you're fast asleep.

And the reason was simple: the earth is round.

While you snore away in the Western Hemisphere, the Eastern Hemisphere may be witnessing an upheaval of historic proportions.

By the time you rub your sleepy eyes the next morning and glance at your phone, you discover that on the far side of the planet—in a time zone utterly different from yours—the winds of change have already begun to reshape the global order.

This time was no exception.

…

The next morning, before dawn, the trading floor was ablaze with light.

Traders, who had abandoned sleep the moment rumors spread, rushed into the office. Now they crowded together, faces drawn tight with tension.

Some were sweating at the brow. The entire space bristled with a restless, volatile energy, like a hornet's nest that had just been kicked.

"Mr. Magnus! Mr. Magnus! Have you seen the news?!"

A young trader practically slammed Brock's office door open, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief.

"I've seen it." Brock's voice was steady—unnervingly steady.

No one noticed the fist clenched on his knee, the whitened knuckles betraying the force with which he gripped.

"Those Flyndonesian bureaucrats… have they lost their minds? Making a move this massive without a single warning, without even a whisper of wind beforehand? Just a sudden strike out of nowhere?! What the hell are they trying to pull?!"

Another trader couldn't restrain himself and started swearing in outrage, his voice thick with fury and disbelief.

Yes. Just hours earlier, while most of Xandenia's population slept soundly, a thunderclap of news had exploded across the globe—one that sent shockwaves through entire industries.

No, thunderclap didn't even begin to cover it.

For the financial markets—and especially for frontline traders like them—it was nothing less than an earthquake. A sudden, violent quake, magnitude eight or higher.

[Breaking overnight announcement from the Flyndonesian government: Effective immediately, the country will cut its nickel ore supply by 30% and formally implement export control measures.]

Flyndonesia was the world's largest nickel producer!

Its role in the global nickel market was nothing short of pivotal.

But in recent months, due to a combination of global economic pressures, nickel had slipped into a temporary oversupply. International prices had tumbled, and Flyndonesia, inevitably, had been dragged down as well.

The market had long anticipated that the Flyndonesian government might roll out some "symbolic" measures—perhaps a minor production cut or a few public statements to calm investors.

But no one expected this.

They weren't playing by the rules at all.

They didn't move for so long, and then, when they finally did, they flipped the entire table.

"If it had just been a five percent cut, fine—that would've been understandable, within reason. But this? This is insane! A straight thirty percent slash?! Do they have any idea what kind of shockwaves this will unleash on the market?!"

"Exactly!" another trader snapped, his voice sharp with frustration. "They could've at least dropped some hints, given the market a little time to react! Instead, they played dead all this while, acting like nothing was coming, only to launch a sneak attack out of nowhere? What the hell is this supposed to be?!"

A thirty percent reduction from the world's largest nickel supplier.

That number wasn't just a shock.

It was a deep-water bomb dropped into a placid lake—one that would send violent, possibly even earth-shaking ripples through the global nickel supply chain, and by extension, the broader energy and materials industries.

And it revealed something else, too.

The Flyndonesian government had clearly run out of patience with the "rotten state" of the nickel market. They weren't tinkering at the margins anymore. They had chosen the most extreme, most aggressive way possible to turn the tide.

The consequences were immediate.

A massive supply gap would open in global nickel.

And industries heavily dependent on the metal—especially the battered, long-dismissed battery sector that had been drowning in pessimism just yesterday—might suddenly find themselves reborn under the pressure of this supply shock.

"But not every battery company is going to soar because of this," Brock's calm voice cut through the heated clamor.

"The logic is simple: companies without sufficient nickel reserves, with no stockpiled raw materials, will be crushed by skyrocketing costs. They'll be ruthlessly eliminated from the market, with nowhere to cry. On the other hand..."

His eyes swept over the anxious faces before him. "...those who planned ahead, or even those who stumbled into fortune with warehouses full of 'excess' nickel ore—overnight, they'll transform from pariahs into prized assets. The market will beat a path to their door, and they'll make a killing."

Yet the true, fatal danger filling the trading floor wasn't simply a question of who profits and who loses.

The real problem was this—

A huge number of trading teams, perhaps even the majority, had bet heavily that battery-related stocks would keep sliding under bearish pressure.

To chase profit, they had already piled into massive short positions—yesterday, and even earlier.

That—that was why this normally composed, elite team of traders now looked so shaken, so frantic, so utterly rattled.

If, when the market opened, battery stocks really did pivot and rocket upward on this news, then those sitting on mountains of shorts... their losses would avalanche, compounding at geometric speed.

It would be catastrophic. Enough to wipe traders out of the game entirely.

"Has Research put together a list of companies holding nickel reserves?" Brock's voice cut in again. This was information they needed immediately.

"N-not yet, sir," one of the traders stammered. "Research only just got the news too. They're scrambling, trying to pull data together as fast as they can. But... but I did hear a rumor. Word is, here in our country, among battery-related companies, there's only one with significant nickel reserves."

Only one?

The moment that phrase—only one—hit Brock's ears, it was like a lightning bolt cleaving through the fog of his mind.

A name he had scoffed at just yesterday, dismissed as irrelevant, now branded itself onto his consciousness like a searing-hot iron.

His heart clenched.

"Don't tell me..." His voice came out hoarse, almost disbelieving. "Is it GreenOracle?"

The trader blinked, then his eyes lit up.

"Yes! That's it! You're right, it's GreenOracle! You knew already? That's the same name I heard! They're saying GreenOracle's stock might hit the daily limit up at the open… and maybe keep hitting it for several days in a row!"

Brock said nothing.

He just stood there, frozen in place, his eyes unfocused as he stared into the void before him. It was as if some invisible force had locked his body in place, leaving him motionless.

The voices around him—his colleagues' chatter, the frantic debates, the sharp, uneven breaths—seemed to recede into the distance, fading away until silence pressed against his ears.

"Mr. Magnus?" a subordinate called uncertainly after watching him stand there, unresponsive, for far too long.

No reply.

Inside Brock's mind, only one name echoed again and again. One face, one figure he had dismissed just yesterday as a fool, a reckless upstart, a pampered "nepo hire."

Elon.

The chairman's hire.

Yesterday... Elon... had taken every single cent of the simulated trading capital allocated to him and, in a move that looked nothing short of idiotic, shoved it all—every last bit—into one stock.

GreenOracle!

Brock felt as though his very blood had turned to ice.

That newcomer...

Did he already know?

Did he somehow know this would happen?

"No wonder..." The realization detonated in his mind like a thunderclap. "No wonder yesterday afternoon, when I told them they could leave early, that guy was grinning ear to ear, laughing like a weasel that had just raided the henhouse!"

At the time, Brock had found that smile strange, even irritating.

Now he understood.

That wasn't the silly joy of someone thrilled to get off work early.

That was... the victor's smile.

Flyndonesia's sudden, irrational, utterly unhinged counterstrike—no ordinary trader could have foreseen it. Not just them—even on a global scale, not a single top-tier analysis firm, not any so-called intelligence agency, had the faintest inkling it was coming.

There hadn't been the slightest whisper of warning on the market.

"But..."

The disbelief clawed at Brock.

'That nepo hire who couldn't even be bothered to diversify his portfolio yesterday... How the hell did he know about this?'

A prickling numbness spread across Brock's scalp, and a chill shot up his spine, exploding at the crown of his head.