Chapter 2 I said, Again!

The transition from the freezing mud of Connecticut to the crystalline void was a violent sensory whiplash. Leo didn’t just wake up; he was surged back into existence.

His lungs expanded with air that tasted like ozone and expensive minerals. There was no hospital bed, no soft lighting, and certainly no grieving family.

Pain didn't exist and certainly not in this world.

He was lying on a floor that felt like solid light, looking up at a ceiling that didn't exist. Instead, a shifting nebula of violet and gold swirled infinitely above him.

His ankle didn’t hurt. He sat up, rubbing the joint, and found the skin smooth and unbroken.

The grapefruit-sized swelling was gone, like it was never even there—replaced by a strange, humming vitality that throbbed deep in his bones. He flexed his foot, astonished by the total absence of pain.

“You’re late,” a voice snapped.

Leo jumped, his sneakers squeaking on the glass-like floor. Standing a few yards away was a man who looked like he’d stepped off a high-fashion runway in a fever dream.

He looked barely twenty-four, with skin as pale as moonlight and features so sharp they felt like a personal insult to anyone with a normal face. He wore a high-collared, obsidian-black robe that seemed to swallow the ambient light, and his long, silver hair was pulled back with clinical precision.

“Who the hell are you?” Leo asked, his voice still raspy from the blizzard. “And where am I?”

The man let out a long, theatrical sigh, his eyes rolling toward the nebula.

“My name is Xan. I am a Guardian. A warrior-scholar of the First Circle. A man who has spent three centuries mastering the flow of global energy. And currently, I am the most miserable being in any dimension because the System has seen fit to tether me to a broken, shivering mortal with the charisma of a damp sponge.”

Leo blinked, uncertain of what he uttered.

“Three centuries? You look like you’re waiting for a callback for a skincare commercial.”

Xan’s eyes flashed with a cold, ancient irritation.

“Do not mistake my lack of wrinkles for a lack of lethality, boy. If it were up to me, I’d have left you to turn into a frozen statue on that driveway. But the System has designated you as the next candidate for the Godzillionaire seat. Why? I haven't the slightest clue. You possess no lineage, no spiritual foundation, and you smell of cheap wine and failure.”

His words felt like a slap to the cheek but it held nothing to what he had been through.

Leo stood up, his jaw tightening. The humiliation from the Zhang estate was still fresh, a raw wound in his mind.

“I didn't ask for this. I just said yes because I didn't want to die in a ditch.”

“A classic human motivation,” Xan sneered. “Fear. How original.”

Xan paced around Leo, his movements so fluid they looked like a glitch in reality. He didn't walk; he glided, his presence heavy and suffocating.

He stopped inches from Leo’s face, his eyes searching Leo’s retinas as if reading his very soul.

“I have no children,” Xan said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I have no desire for an apprentice. I find the concept of ‘parental guidance’ to be a tedious waste of my immortal lifespan. But the mandate is clear. I have three years to turn this pathetic pile of meat into something that can handle the weight of the world's true wealth.”

Leo tried to back away, but his feet felt rooted to the crystalline floor. He could feel the power radiating off Xan, a pressure that squeezed the air from his lungs and made his own newfound vitality feel like a dying spark.

“Since I am forced into this role,” Xan continued, a cruel smile playing on his lips, “I have decided to make your existence a living hell. If the System wants you to be a God, I will first make sure you know what it’s like to be a demon. You will learn to manipulate the markets like a puppeteer, and you will learn to fight like a man who has nothing left to lose.”

Before Leo could ask what he meant, Xan’s hand blurred. A palm struck Leo’s chest, not with the weight of a hand, but with the force of a speeding truck.

Leo flew backward, skidding across the crystalline floor for what felt like miles. He crashed into an invisible wall that resonated with the force of the impact, momentarily stunning him.

“Get up,” Xan commanded, his voice echoing through the void. “We have three years. In this space, time is a suggestion, but pain is very much a reality.”

The training began not with books or lectures, but with a brutal, relentless assault on Leo’s limits. Xan didn't teach; he dismantled.

He would conjure holographic displays of complex financial algorithms—ghostly numbers that dictated the rise and fall of nations—and force Leo to find the flaws while simultaneously dodging physical strikes.

“Concentrate!” Xan shouted, a shimmering blade of light narrowly missing Leo’s ear. “You are looking at the price of oil, but you are ignoring the political instability in the sub-sector. If you miss the connection, you lose ten billion. If you lose ten billion, I break your arm.”

“I can't... I can't think with you swinging that thing at me!” Leo yelled, ducking as another strike whistled over his head.

“Then you will die poor and stupid,” Xan replied simply. “The world of the Godzillionaire is not a quiet office in Manhattan. It is a battlefield where your enemies will cut your throat while you’re checking your portfolio. Look at the numbers, Leo! See the patterns!”

Hours bled into days, and days into months within the void. There was no sleep, only brief moments of meditative rest that Xan allowed when Leo’s heart was on the verge of stopping.

Leo learned that the Zhangs’ wealth, which had once seemed so vast, was nothing more than pocket change in the eyes of the Guardians. He learned about ‘Shadow Liquidity,’ ‘Temporal Arbitrage,’ and the ‘Blood-Debt Markets’—concepts that made Yale’s economics curriculum look like a coloring book.

Xan was a nightmare of a teacher. He was arrogant, impatient, cruel and took visible pleasure in Leo’s struggles.

When Leo failed to predict a simulated market crash, Xan would force him to run across a floor that heated up to the point of blistering his feet. When Leo’s form in hand-to-hand combat was sloppy, Xan would use a flick of his fingers to toss him into the air and let him fall onto the hard crystal.

“Why do you hate me so much?” The words fell off of Leo's lips, he soaked in the warm breeze of the evening—or what felt like an evening—as he lay panting on the ground, his knuckles raw and bleeding.

“I don't hate you,” Xan said, looking down at him with those ancient, tired eyes. “Hate implies an emotional investment. I simply resent your mediocrity. You are a reminder of how far the standards have fallen. You want to win? You want to go back to that Connecticut mansion and show them who you are? Then stop being a victim.”

Leo looked up at the arrogant immortal. The anger he’d felt in the snow was still there, but it was changing. It was becoming cold. Hard.

“Again,” Leo said, pushing himself up on shaking arms.

Xan raised an eyebrow, a flicker of something—perhaps not respect, but at least curiosity—crossing his face.

“You haven't mastered the short-sell maneuver for the Tokyo transition yet. Your legs are shaking. You’re pathetic.”

“I said again,” Leo spat, his eyes locked on Xan’s.