'What kind of place is this?'
Rowan felt genuinely confused as he stared at the imposing structure. It was a huge building constructed from polished stone and glass, with well-dressed people in expensive suits constantly entering and leaving through revolving doors, their expressions ranging from ecstatic to devastated.
His natural curiosity was instantly piqued. These people looked wealthy at first glance, carrying themselves with confidence or desperation. So, driven by that burning curiosity, he jumped out of his taxi and walked inside to investigate, leaving the vehicle parked at the sidewalk.
After entering through the grand entrance, he found himself in a massive hall with soaring ceilings. Directly ahead stood an enormous electronic board densely packed with rapidly changing information, glowing brilliantly.
Various stock names were listed in organised columns:
Sunshine Grand Hotel, Malibu Club, Philly Storage, Saintheart Shipyard, numerous cargo companies, taxi companies, real estate firms…
Red and green numbers flickered rapidly in mesmerising patterns, the display packed with complex stock codes and real-time prices, arrows constantly rising and falling in chaotic waves.
Rowan stood there frozen, staring at the moving data in complete bewilderment. The endless numbers looked like swarming ants crawling across the board; he honestly couldn't tell what any of them actually meant or represented, but occasional emotional outbursts echoed through the cavernous hall.
Someone suddenly shouted excitedly, pumping his fist, "It's rising! It's actually rising!"
Another person's face turned deathly pale as he stared at his losses. He walked out of the trading hall like a walking corpse, his eyes vacant and unfocused, looking genuinely ready to end it all.
Some people clutched thick stacks of cash desperately while anxiously urging brokers to execute trades immediately, their voices pitched high with stress. Rowan became even more intensely curious about this strange system.
So he approached a professional-looking broker to ask questions, trying to understand it all.
He learned the complex system was called the stock market. Each flickering data set represented a specific company's current share price and its fluctuation over time. You could potentially profit significantly from exploiting price differences through strategic trading, buying low and selling high.
You could also use something called leverage to dramatically amplify your available capital for bigger gains or catastrophic losses. For example, with 10,000 in actual cash, you could leverage up to 100,000 in purchasing power, but if the stock price dropped enough that losses exceeded your original principal, you'd be forcibly liquidated automatically.
In other words, you'd get completely wiped out financially, losing everything.
Those pale-faced people he'd seen earlier? Many had leveraged far too aggressively and lost absolutely everything in minutes. They were probably heading straight to jump off a bridge into the harbor right now…
Seeing this fascinating thing that resembled gambling yet somehow wasn't exactly gambling in the traditional sense, Rowan found it absolutely captivating. He opened a trading account immediately. He had accumulated over 5,000 in hard-earned cash from his taxi work, so he decided to invest 1,000 experimentally just to try the system. Losing that amount wouldn't hurt too much psychologically.
His phone interface gained a useful new feature: real-time stock monitoring with alerts and graphs. After studying the complex interface for a while, scrolling through different stocks, he gradually realized he had absolutely no clue what he was doing strategically.
He was a complete beginner and couldn't read the trends or patterns at all. He'd need to learn slowly over time through experience and research.
So for now, he went back to driving his taxi and earning a steady income.
He currently works for a very small, struggling taxi company barely staying afloat. The boss was a perpetually miserable-looking middle-aged antelope man who always seemed depressed and bitter, like he personally owed everyone in this city money.
There was actually a legitimate reason for his constant misery, as Rowan soon learned. Liberty City had numerous competing taxi companies fighting viciously over limited customers, competing fiercely and even sabotaging each other's vehicles and drivers regularly. Thus, his taxi company was genuinely struggling under the intense competition.
Rowan learned through talking with different people that his frustrated boss desperately wanted to sell the failing company before he lost even more money. This revelation sparked an ambitious idea in Rowan's entrepreneurial mind. Maybe he should actually buy it himself and turn it around.
He asked his boss directly how much money he wanted for his company.
The answer: 50,000 cash.
It sounded like an enormous sum initially, but now Rowan had a concrete goal driving him forward. He decided immediately to grind money relentlessly until he could afford to purchase the entire taxi company outright.
This would be the crucial first step of building his eventual business empire across Liberty City. Imagining his future filled with luxury cars, sprawling mansions, and beautiful companions, Rowan laughed happily to himself, daydreaming.
With such a clear goal motivating him, he kept enthusiastically picking up passengers throughout the day and night.
At a busy intersection, a massive orc passenger opened the rear door and squeezed himself into the back seat, his huge frame nearly filling the entire space. Rowan swallowed nervously at the intimidating sight but drove professionally toward the requested destination without complaint.
They arrived at a rundown old neighborhood with crumbling buildings. The orc climbed out heavily and tried to simply walk away without paying the fare.
"Hey! You didn't pay!" Rowan shouted indignantly.
The orc completely ignored him and kept walking away casually, dismissing the complaint.
Rowan's eyes instantly turned bright red with rage. He always cleverly evaded police fines when possible, but today someone was trying to evade paying HIM? The hypocrisy and injustice hit him right in the face.
"You stop right there!" he yelled furiously, jumping out.
He got out of the taxi and marched determinedly toward the much taller, more muscular orc. The orc noticed him approaching aggressively and tried to run away.
Could he actually escape?
Absolutely not.
Rowan, fueled by righteous anger, quickly caught him despite the size difference.
If you can't run away successfully… then you fight.
"Waaaaa!" the orc roared.
"I'll fuck you up!" Rowan shouted back.
The orc attacked first, swinging wildly, and Rowan lunged forward to meet him head-on. Though he'd never learned formal swordsmanship or martial arts in real life, he definitely knew how to throw desperate punches. They grappled violently on the dirty street.
"Take this!" Rowan yelled.
Punch for punch, blow for blow… the orc hit devastatingly hard, and it hurt badly; the game's pain feedback was uncomfortably realistic, but Rowan's adrenaline surged powerfully through his system. He completely ignored the mounting pain and kept punching relentlessly, refusing to give up.
They fought fiercely for what felt like minutes.
KO
Rowan barely won the brutal confrontation.
Panting heavily at the street corner, his face badly bruised and bleeding from multiple hits, he still managed to smile triumphantly through the pain. He'd gotten his hard-earned money through sheer determination.
[Cash +128] [Cash +150]
The orc lay completely unconscious on the pavement, defeated.
Rowan's HP bar was dangerously low at only 20 remaining points. He felt genuinely dizzy and sore throughout his entire body; the game's uncomfortable realism hurt more than he'd expected from the Dreamscape.
He immediately drove straight to Saintheart Hospital for treatment.
Inside the clean facility, a gentle elf nurse with kind eyes treated his injuries professionally. As Rowan was treated, his heart fluttered unexpectedly… She was so nice and attentive… he thought perhaps he should get injured and come here more often just to see her.
The medical treatment cost 200 cash, but he didn't mind spending it at all.
"Ah… it still hurts here!" he complained, pointing to his ribs.
The nurse checked him again, carefully and thoroughly.
"And here too!" he added, pointing elsewhere.
After checking several supposedly painful areas, she gradually realized he was clearly pretending and exaggerating to extend their interaction. Her initially kind face turned noticeably cold, and she pinched his arm sharply in punishment.
"All healed now? Then get out!" she ordered firmly.
Rowan hurried away obediently, grinning despite being caught.