Chapter 23: The Dilemma

The sun slid behind the maze of rooftops, and Tondo turned the color of rust. Timothy swung the iron gate shut and dropped the bolt with a solid, satisfying clank.He killed the lights, leaving only the warm glow inside the container office. The oscillating fan ticked each time it swung past center. A faint smell of tire shine and fresh leather still hung in the air, like the echo of a long, loud day.

He sat, cracked his knuckles. This has been a long day. But looking at the cars that were still on the lot, he knew for sure that flipping cars was good business for a reconstruction system.

For a man like him, who had once lived with nothing, he now dreamt of having everything. Not just comfort, not just a house with a gate and an air-conditioned room. No—his mind reached further. He thought of names that stood at the top of the world: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos. Titans who had reshaped industries, not just bought and sold in the shadows of them.

If he wanted to be like Musk, Zuckerberg, or Bezos, he couldn’t stay in cars forever. A dealership was a good cover, a good stepping stone, but it wasn’t the kind of business that ballooned into billions overnight.

He rubbed his temples. "So what industry does?"

His fingers hovered over the laptop keyboard before he finally opened a browser tab and typed:

"What are the fastest-growing billion-dollar industries?"

Dozens of articles, reports, and infographics appeared. Timothy’s eyes flicked rapidly as he read.

Technology. Energy. AI. Pharmaceuticals. Renewable power. EVs. Software as a Service. Biotech. E-commerce.

Every word felt like a door to a different future.

But what was the capability again of his Reconstruction System? Well, one thing for sure was that it could reconstruct anything. And not just into its prime condition—no, it could also reconstruct an object into something that didn’t even exist yet. Something from the future.

The brain enhancer pill was proof. A handful of cheap mentos, fed through the System, spat out capsules straight out of a science fiction movie. He had swallowed one and felt his neurons ignite, his brain firing like a supercomputer. That wasn’t science of the present—it was something else, a glimpse of technology decades, maybe centuries, ahead.

Timothy leaned back in his chair, the whirring of the old oscillating fan filling the silence of the container office. His laptop screen glowed with market forecasts and industry projections. Articles spoke of billion-dollar valuations, unicorn startups, trillion-dollar global sectors. Words like AI, energy, biotech, e-commerce, renewables repeated across every site.

He drummed his fingers against the desk.

Well the talk in the industry is Artificial Intelligence as there was seemingly a race to it between nations. But, how could he use his reconstruction system to make a complex AI system? AI is already off the list. He needs something, how about technology? It requires a huge funding and definitely not feasible for a college student like him. After all, what credibility does he have aside from his being an average at best.

"This is hard..." Timothy muttered under his breath, frustration creeping up from him. Flipping cars is good but the reconstructing system is too overpowered to be used to restore second-hand flooded cars.

Timothy leaned forward, chin resting on his clasped hands as the thought sank in.

The stock market.

For decades, it had been the playing field of the rich. A world where fortunes rose and fell in seconds, where information was more valuable than gold. People studied charts, trends, and economic signals like they were deciphering prophecies. Others simply cheated—insider trading, leaks, collusion. But what if he could skip all that?

What if the System gave him something better than any hedge fund algorithm?

His fingers tapped restlessly against the desk. He remembered the way the brain enhancer pill had been born from nothing but cheap candy. If the System could reconstruct a piece of junk into advanced biotech, then why not software? Why not data systems?

"Predictive engine..." he muttered, the phrase tasting electric on his tongue. "What if I reconstruct a calculator into a program that predicts stock movements? Or maybe even a phone into an AI assistant that spits out tomorrow’s winners and losers?"

The idea sent a shiver down his spine.

The car dealership had made him rich in pesos, yes. But he knew pesos weren’t the real currency of power. Dollars were. Markets were. A billion pesos was impressive in Manila; a billion dollars shook the entire world.

And if he could predict the stock market with accuracy...

But then, his logical mind fired back.

Stocks weren’t simple. Prices weren’t always rational. Even the best analysts in Wall Street admitted that human fear and greed shaped markets as much as supply and demand. Could the System give him something to cut through that chaos? Or was he simply fantasizing?

He leaned forward again, restless energy building inside him. Still, it’s complicated.

How about pharmaceuticals? Like the brain enhancer pill. Yeah, good luck convincing scientists how he made the pill. Cure for cancer? He can’t start his own pharmaceutical company. The best thing he could do if he would go down that route is to sell the formula to the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world.

But even that was dangerous. The moment he sold something so advanced, the wrong people would start asking questions—where did this kid from Tondo get access to knowledge that billion-dollar labs hadn’t cracked in decades? They’d demand proof, drag him into tests, dissect him and the pill until they found an answer.

Timothy rubbed the back of his neck, a cold sweat prickling. "No... pharmaceuticals are too hot to touch. Not yet."

He clicked to the next tab, scanning another industry list. AI. EVs. Renewable energy. Each had promise, but each came with its own set of walls—capital, factories, patents, scrutiny. He imagined himself trying to compete with Tesla or Google and laughed bitterly. That wasn’t ambition, that was suicide.

"Well, I’m not giving up. Still, I’m not going to live my life with this system by just flipping cars."