The morning air was thick with Manila smog, the kind that clung to your lungs and left a metallic taste on your tongue. Rafael shifted in line outside the government's business registry office, a crumbling building with peeling paint and a flickering fluorescent sign that read: Department of Trade and Industry.
His shirt was plain, a little wrinkled, his face drawn from sleepless nights, but his eyes burned with quiet determination. In his pocket were the neatly folded documents the Codex had prepared for him.
Proposed Company Name: AquaPure Technologies
Business Type: Manufacturing & Distribution (Water Filtration Products)
Initial Capital: ₱50,000
Of course, he didn't have fifty thousand pesos. What he had was ₱12,800 scraped together from selling straws, plus the Codex's precise instructions on how to "massage" the paperwork without raising alarms.
When his number was called, he stepped forward. The clerk behind the desk barely looked at him at first, just another dreamer in an endless line. Her nails were painted a fading pink, her blouse slightly oversized. When she finally muttered, "AquaPure, huh? You're not the first with water products. Most of them last six months, maybe a year," Rafael caught the dull bitterness in her tone.
The Codex whispered:
'Subject: Emilia Cruz. Husband ill. Salary insufficient. Bribery acceptance probability: 72%. Loyalty if treated with respect: 64%. Potential ally in bureaucracy.'
"I intend to last," Rafael said quietly.
Something in his voice made her glance up. His eyes weren't desperate like the others. They were sharp, focused. After a pause, she stamped his papers. "Good luck, Mister dela Cruz. The system's not kind to small players."
For a flicker of a moment, there was sympathy there. Rafael tucked the certificate away, marking her name in memory.
That same week, the first rebirth began. His humble water straws now bore a sticker: AquaPure. A tricycle van painted in mismatched blue and white carried the brand through Manila's streets. In his neighborhood, the small assembly continued, but under a new structure the Codex had drafted—basic contracts, disclaimers, the language of business.
Those who worked with him were no longer just neighbors. Rosa, a stout woman with calloused hands from decades of laundry work, hummed old kundiman songs as she pieced filters together. "As long as this pays for my apo's school shoes, anak," she laughed, "I'll work day and night."
Beside her sat Jericho, a wiry seventeen-year-old balancing school with part-time labor. He claimed the extra money was for a motorbike, though Rafael noticed how coins slipped into his mother's purse instead. The Codex flagged him: 'Risk-taker. Strong loyalty. Possible apprentice material.'
Deliveries came alive through Kuya Bong, the tricycle driver. Always talkative, always grinning, but with eyes that saw more than he let on. One evening as he parked the van, he muttered, "Boss, careful. Word's spreading about your straws. Too much money in the water business. Some people don't like competition."
Rafael only nodded. The Codex hummed in his mind, recording every word.
Far across the city, in a glass-walled Makati office, other voices discussed him. Notes shuffled in the hands of Victor Tan, a nervous young analyst who kept adjusting his glasses. "Registered last week, sir. Fifty thousand initial capital. No major investors. Too… clean."
Beside him, Joel Marquez leaned back, scar along his jawline catching the light, smirking. "Either a scam or someone with brains. Either way, not ordinary."
Their superior, Ramon Villanueva, tapped his pen against the polished desk. A man who radiated control, he narrowed his eyes. "Dig deeper. Quietly. If AquaPure is disruptive, I want it before the vultures move."
The air in the room tightened. Their hunt had begun.
Back in his rented room, Rafael counted another stack of wrinkled bills. AquaPure Technologies was only days old, yet it already moved product. Rosa laughed while working, Jericho hustled, Bong carried news from the streets, Tess wired up makeshift tools, and somewhere in a Manila office, his name had been spoken.
The Codex whispered with mechanical certainty:
"First layer of protection established. Market foothold secured. Host survival probability increased by 18%."
Rafael snorted. "Eighteen percent? Still terrible."
But as he looked at the stamped certificate and the cheap printed stickers carrying his company's name, a fire rose in his chest. For the first time in his life, he wasn't just surviving.
He was building something.
And every person who touched this journey—clerks, drivers, neighbors, even enemies—would become part of the story.