Jake's finger hovered over the trackpad.
Then stopped.
A quiet exhale left him as reality returned with cold precision.
His balance was zero.
Even if his analysis was perfect, there was nothing to execute. No capital. No margin. No second chances.
He leaned back slowly in his chair, eyes still fixed on the gold chart. The clarity was still there—sharp, precise, almost unnervingly so. Every movement of price felt readable, like a language he'd somehow become fluent in overnight.
But clarity without capital was useless.
A weapon without ammunition.
Jake closed his eyes briefly, steadying himself.
*Don't rush.*
*Observe first.*
He opened them again and moved with deliberate calm. Instead of forcing a trade he couldn't place, he logged out of his empty brokerage account and opened a secondary platform.
Demo account creation took less than a minute.
He selected an initial balance: 20,000 Veyra Marks.
The number felt ironic. More money than he currently possessed, yet entirely fake.
Still… it would serve its purpose.
The chart remained open on gold. Price hovered near a resistance zone he'd already mapped mentally. His left eye pulsed faintly again—not painful, just… active. As if whatever had changed inside him responded only when he focused.
Jake rested his elbow lightly on the desk and leaned closer.
The market moved.
He saw it.
Not in the vague, hopeful way he used to. Not in the "maybe it will go up" guesswork that destroyed small accounts every day.
This time, it felt structured.
Intentional.
He could see where liquidity sat. Where stops clustered. Where price was likely to sweep before moving decisively. It wasn't magic—it was clarity taken to an unnatural extreme.
His expression remained calm.
Inside, however, his thoughts sharpened.
*If this is real… then everything changes.*
He watched another candle form. A small pullback. A false push upward.
A trap.
Jake moved the cursor.
"Let's confirm," he murmured quietly.
He marked a zone. Waited.
Seconds passed.
Then the shift came—exactly where he'd anticipated. Momentum building beneath the surface before showing itself fully. The kind of move experienced traders spent years trying to read consistently.
Jake didn't hesitate anymore.
He clicked.
*Sell.*
Four small positions. Conservative lot size. Tight, disciplined structure. Even on demo, he treated it like real money. Old habits—good ones—still mattered.
The trades executed instantly.
He sat back slightly, eyes fixed on the screen.
At first, nothing happened.
Price moved sideways. A few pips against him. A weak attempt upward.
A week ago, that would've made his chest tighten. He would've doubted the setup, closed early, sabotaged himself.
Now?
Nothing.
His breathing remained steady. His gaze unmoving.
Because he could *see* it.
The market wasn't reversing. It was gathering. Building pressure before release.
And then—
It dropped.
Not violently. Not dramatically.
Just decisively.
The candles began stepping downward with quiet confidence, as if obeying a script only Jake had access to. His positions slipped into profit almost immediately afterward.
+10 pips.
+18.
+27.
Jake didn't smile.
He simply watched.
Minutes passed. The downward momentum continued, pausing occasionally before pushing again. Each pause aligned with levels he'd already mapped subconsciously.
It was almost unsettling.
After roughly forty minutes, his positions hovered deep in profit. On a real account with proper sizing, this would have been significant.
On demo, it was proof.
Jake moved his cursor and closed all positions at once.
*Profit: +1,842 VM*
He stared at the number.
Meaningless in reality.
But meaningful in implication.
Slowly, he leaned back in his chair and exhaled through his nose.
"Again," he said quietly.
---
The second session confirmed it wasn't luck.
This time he waited longer before entering. Observed more. Tested whether the clarity faded.
It didn't—at least not immediately.
For nearly an hour, the world of charts made perfect sense. Every movement had structure. Every fake-out looked obvious. Every true push felt visible before it happened.
Jake placed two more trades.
Both clean. Both profitable.
And then—
It stopped.
Not gradually. Not gently.
One moment the chart felt alive with meaning.
The next… it was just a chart again.
Jake blinked once.
The clarity vanished like a switch had been flipped off.
He leaned forward slightly, narrowing his eyes at the screen, trying to force the same understanding back into place.
Nothing.
Just normal analysis. Guesswork. Probability. The messy uncertainty he was used to.
He sat still for several seconds. Panic creeping its way in.
"No no no, please don't disappear on me." He said, his voice breaking a little.
Then he looked at the clock on his laptop.
Exactly one hour since he'd first felt the shift.
Jake didn't move.
His mind was all over the place, assembling conclusions.
A time limit maybe?
He glanced back at the gold chart.
Asset specific or not?
He switched to EUR/USD.
Nothing.
Back to gold.
Still nothing.
He leaned back slowly, fingers resting lightly against the desk.
"An hour, I'll see tomorrow." he murmured.
His tone wasn't excited. It sounded like someone trying to keep themselves from panic.
Because the alternative of the effect being a one time thing was something he didn't want to think.
---
Over the next three days, Jake tested everything after realising that the issue was just a time duration and that he really could perfectly analyse the market.
He did it carefully, quietly and methodically.
He treated it like research, not gambling.
Every morning, he opened demo trades only when the strange clarity returned. Every session lasted almost exactly one hour. Sometimes a few minutes less. Never more.
The ability only worked on the gold market.
Not currencies. Not indices. Only gold.
And during that hour… his accuracy bordered on absolute.
He didn't win every second of every movement—no system could do that—but the overall direction, the major pushes, the high-probability entries… they unfolded exactly as he saw them.
After each session ended, the clarity disappeared completely.
Like a door closing.
Jake wrote everything down.
Limitations. Timing. Mental state. Even his physical condition. He wanted patterns, not assumptions.
By the end of the week, one conclusion stood above all others.
This wasn't luck.
This was an advantage.
A terrifying one.
---
Friday afternoon, Jake closed his laptop and sat quietly in his chair.
Sunlight filtered through the window, casting soft lines across the floor. The house was silent—his parents still at work, his sister out with friends.
He reached for his phone and opened his banking app.
Balance: 15,247 VM
His savings.
Everything he had left in the world.
He stared at the number for a long time.
If he funded a real account and lost it, there would be no safety net. No second chance. No job waiting to recover from the mistake.
"If his ability is real…
If it worked exactly as the demo showed…
Then this isn't risk.
It is leverage. And I am going to use it to change my life."
Jake locked his phone and set it down slowly on the desk.
His expression remained calm, but a decision was forming with quiet certainty.
He would not rush blindly.
He would plan.
Because once he stepped into the real market with real money, there would be no going back to being ordinary.
And Jake had no intention of staying poor.
Not anymore.
He reached for his laptop again, eyes steady.
"Let's see," he said softly, "how far this can really go."
___