6:30 pm.

The end of a workday. Park Junwoo and Kim Yonggun seemed determined as they continued to work. Woosung picked up his briefcase and said his goodbye, but no one even noticed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yoon Gihwan was also focused on his monitor.

They all remained seated.

‘Is it because of what I said earlier?’

He wasn’t a nice guy. He only did things beneficial to him. That meant that he would drop anything or anyone unnecessary. If they wanted to work with him, they had to prove their skills.

‘If they want to be with me, this is the least they can do.’

Woosung left the office.

As soon as he left, Woosung received a text.

“I sent you a 100,000 dollars deposit.”

Woosung replied immediately.

“Thank you. As I told you earlier, I will send the system to you in a document format by next Wednesday. I will not be able to finalize all the details, so please understand.”

“Haha, whatever you say. I trust you, little brother.”

Woosung knew what that meant.

“Do whatever you think is necessary.”

“You know what to do. Take care of it.”

“You can do it yourself.”

Vague requests were always the scariest. Woosung replied immediately.

“I will do my best.”

“Hahaha. Of course.”

Woosung took a deep breath.

100,000 dollars.

He was another step closer to his goal. When he got home, Woosung turned his computer on and checked his bank account.

$122,400.50

In his previous life, he took 10 years to save 100,000 dollars, but this time, it took less than 2 months.

“I will make sure to add a lot more 0’s to my balance.”

He felt proud of himself. He was going in the right direction. His mother called him just then.

“Son, dinner’s ready.”

“Be right there.”

Woosung transferred 20,000 dollars and left his room.

The dinner table was bare with modest dishes, but it was more satisfying to Woosung than having a meal at an expensive hotel.

“Mom, I just transferred you 20,000 dollars, so pay back the rest of your mortgage.”

Kim Eunjung trembled as she asked.

“What?”

“I did another extra project with that guy you met and I got paid more. We need to pay back all the debts first.”

“B… but you already gave us 20,000 dollars. You got another 20,000 dollars?”

Woosung tried to change the topic.

“This miso soup is great.”

“What? Why would he give you 20,000 dollars?”

Woosung shrugged.

“I’m that good.”

Kim Eunjung tried to remain calm. She worried for Woosung as she remembered what his friend said at his graduation. She asked nervously.

“You… you aren’t involved in illegal online gambling, right?”

Woosung proclaimed with confidence.

“I told you it’s not like that. Jang Gwangchul hired me for a project and I got paid for it.”

Kim Eunjung was still anxious. He could see her hand shook in her own agitation.

“B… but why would he give you so much money? I heard the car he gave you is also worth over 100,000 dollars, and he gave you another 20,000 dollars?”

“Not for free. I worked for it.”

Kang Gichun turned to Woosung and said seriously.

“Woosung, I make a little over 1,000 dollars a month as a security guard. You told me you would make less than 2,000 dollars a month.”

He sounded angry. He thought Woosung was lying to them. Woosung realized his parents would not believe him without proof. He brought out the contract with Jang Gwangchul and showed it to them. Kang Gichun and Kim Eunjung read it carefully.

Their worry turned into joy and pride as they realized that Woosung was telling the truth.

“Woosung…. This is real, right?”

“Yes. Of the 700,000 dollars, my portion will only be about half. I have to pay my co-workers with the other half.”

“Even then… it’s 350,000 dollars…”

“Just be patient. I will buy you a nice apartment in Gangnam soon.”

Kim Eunjung couldn’t contain her emotions.

“When did my little boy grow up?”

Woosung became emotional too. If he stayed, they were all going to cry.

“I grew up because you fed me so well. I’m done eating. I have to get to work.”

Woosung went back to his room.

***

After transferring 20,000 dollars, he had 102,000 dollars left.

He needed much more money.

Woosung checked the KOSPI first.

1734.

It was too high to buy any stocks right now. In October, it would drop to 900’s. That would be his chance to make money. He thought about dabbling in real estate, but he didn’t have enough funds.

Woosung deliberated to himself about big future events he could take advantage of. He opened the file he created and looked through it.

“Hmm…”

Nothing major would happen soon, at least not anything that could make him money. The only thing he could do now was work on Jang Gwangchul’s system.

Most programming occurred in following steps.

1. Analyze the request. Understand exactly what the customer wants.

2. Organize the list of functions.

3. Design.

4. Develop.

5. Test.

6. Maintain.

He only had a limited amount of time and not enough of it for himself. He skipped the first two steps and went straight to the third stage.

Design.

There were many things to design. He had to decide on the physical servers for the program which functions to upload on each server, the relationships between them, and the software.

“I should check what’s available on Amazon Seoul Region.”

Woosung didn’t want to buy an expensive server. Instead, he planned to use the Amazon Web Services and pay as he goes.

“Thank God EC2 is available. This is the only thing I need.”

EC2 service could be the foundation.

“I can upload the program here.”

Woosung checked the functions available on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and designed the system architecture.

***

Woosung felt exhausted as he went to work.

Last night he ended up working till 4 in the morning. He almost worked all night except his mother noticed the light in his room and insisted he go to bed. Despite his fatigue, Woosung felt happy.

“My concentration level is amazing now.”

It wasn’t just his IQ that improved. His concentration and patience all enhanced as well. Woosung was satisfied with the way he was now. He smiled as he greeted everyone.

“Good morning.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Good morning to you too, Woosung.”

“How’s it going?”

None of his co-workers looked well. Their eyes were half closed. He spotted cans of energy drinks and coffee all around their desks and some lying on the ground.

‘They must be working really hard.’

Park Junwoo stood up and asked Woosung.

“Hey, I made a list of things to inform the infra department. Could you take a look?”

Woosung was glad to help. Unlike his cold demeanor yesterday, Woosung had a tender tone.

“Haha, of course.”

Kim Yonggun also stood up and asked for Woosung.

“After you’re done there, could you have a look at my test codes?”

“Sure thing.”

Yoon Gihwan also asked Woosung.

“Newbie, after you are done with these two, come and see me.”

Woosung was about to answer when a stranger greeted him from behind.

“Hello. I’m an assistant manager from Daeyang System. My name is Jaejin Kim. I wanted to let you know that my PM would like to see you now.”

Woosung had an idea of what the meeting would be about.

‘Is he thinking about giving me that job? This is sooner than I expected…’

Woosung looked at Yoon Gihwan, who reacted as expected.

“You can’t order us around like this. You should’ve at least sent us an email to let us know ahead of time. This is unreasonable.”

Kim Jaejin bit his lips.

“G… General manager.”

“Dammit, that stupid Kwon Taegyun.”

Kwon Taegyun.

He was the PM of Daeyang System. Yoon Gihwan frowned in fury, but Woosung calmed him down.

“Let’s just hear him out. There is no need to shoot the messenger.”

Yoon Gihwan stood up quick in response. Kim Jaejin looked at Woosung in awe.

‘Wow… General manager Yoon actually listened to that guy…’

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Kim Jaejin sighed and guided them to Daeyang System’s conference room.