Backstory ll

Money.

Most people believed money changed people.

Victor Kane believed something different.

Money didn't change people.

It revealed them.

As Victor sat alone in the academy's business lounge during the three-day break, slowly spinning a gold coin across the table, memories surfaced one by one.

Not memories of success.

But of where his philosophy truly began.

Long before Genesis Academy.

Long before Genesis Points.

Long before he learned to negotiate.

Back when he was just a child trying to understand one impossible question.

Why did everyone always want something?

Victor was six years old.

The Kane Estate stood on a hill overlooking one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

It wasn't a home.

It was a symbol.

A mansion of black stone and glass.

Luxury cars lined the entrance.

Private security patrolled every corner.

The dining room alone was larger than most people's houses.

Everything looked perfect.

Everything looked expensive.

Everything...

Except the people.

His father, Richard Kane, was one of the most powerful businessmen alive.

Entire companies rose or collapsed depending on a single decision he made.

People called him a genius.

Others called him ruthless.

To Victor...

He was simply a stranger who happened to share his last name.

His mother, Eleanor Kane, rarely spoke.

Always elegant.

Always smiling in public.

Always silent at home.

The mansion echoed with servants' footsteps.

Not family conversations.

Every night at exactly seven o'clock...

Dinner was served.

Not because the family wanted to eat together.

Because it was on the schedule.

One evening, six-year-old Victor ran into the dining room carrying a drawing.

"Dad! Look what I made!"

Richard didn't look up from the financial reports in his hand.

"What is it?"

"A picture of our family."

His father glanced at it for less than a second.

"Your proportions are incorrect."

Victor blinked.

"...What?"

"The perspective is uneven."

"The shading lacks consistency."

"The value is sentimental, not practical."

He returned to reading.

"You spent three hours producing something worth nothing."

Victor slowly lowered the drawing.

His small smile disappeared.

That night...

He quietly threw it away.

The next morning, his grandfather found the drawing in the trash.

Harold Kane was nothing like Richard.

He had built the family's fortune decades earlier.

But unlike his son...

He smiled.

He laughed.

He told stories.

He picked the drawing out of the bin.

"You made this?"

Victor nodded.

"I wasn't very good."

Harold looked at the picture.

"I think it's wonderful."

Victor frowned.

"Dad said it had no value."

Harold smiled.

"Your father measures value with money."

"I measure value with memories."

Victor tilted his head.

"Who's right?"

Harold chuckled.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"What you're trying to buy."

Years passed.

Victor became one of the brightest students in the country.

Economics.

Statistics.

Psychology.

Negotiation.

His father taught him personally.

Every lesson began with the same sentence.

"Everything has a price."

Richard would place two glasses on the table.

One made of crystal.

One made of plastic.

"They both hold water."

Victor nodded.

"So why is one worth more?"

"Because people say it is."

"Exactly."

His father smiled.

"Value isn't real."

"It's agreed upon."

Then he leaned closer.

"And if value can be created..."

"It can also be manipulated."

Those words became the foundation of Victor's worldview.

When Victor turned ten, Richard brought him to his first board meeting.

Executives in expensive suits filled the room.

Some looked confident.

Others looked terrified.

A company was failing.

Hundreds of employees would lose their jobs.

The executives argued for hours.

Some spoke about loyalty.

Others spoke about families.

One executive pleaded,

"If we close this division, over five hundred people will lose their livelihoods."

Richard asked one question.

"Will keeping it open make money?"

Silence.

"...No."

Richard signed the documents.

"Close it."

The meeting ended.

Outside the room, Victor finally asked,

"Weren't those people important?"

His father answered without hesitation.

"They were."

"Then why fire them?"

"Because a business that saves everyone goes bankrupt."

"A business that survives can hire thousands later."

Victor thought about that for days.

Sometimes...

One loss protected something bigger.

It wasn't kindness.

It wasn't cruelty.

It was calculation.

At twelve years old, Victor experienced something that changed him forever.

It was his birthday.

The mansion was filled with guests.

Politicians.

Investors.

Celebrities.

Everyone smiled.

Everyone congratulated him.

He received dozens of expensive gifts.

Luxury watches.

Designer clothes.

Rare collectibles.

The celebration looked perfect.

Late that night, after everyone had left, Victor wandered into one of the hallways.

The house was quiet again.

He overheard two executives speaking near the entrance.

"Do you think Richard actually cares about his son?"

One laughed.

"He cares because Victor will inherit the company."

"So if Victor weren't the heir?"

The second man shrugged.

"I doubt we'd even be here tonight."

Victor stood frozen behind the wall.

For the first time...

He wondered.

Did everyone come because they cared about him?

Or because of his father's power?

The next morning, he decided to find out.

Over the following months, he secretly asked dozens of classmates to spend time with him.

Whenever he offered gifts or paid for lunch...

Everyone accepted.

The day he stopped paying...

Almost everyone disappeared.

One by one.

Until only one boy remained.

His name was Daniel.

Victor smiled.

"So... you're still here."

Daniel shrugged.

"You still owe me a chess rematch."

Victor laughed.

It was the first genuine laugh he'd had in months.

Maybe...

Maybe one real friend existed.

A week later, Victor discovered Daniel had been paid by another student to get close to him and gather information about his family.

Even that friendship...

Had a price.

That night, Victor sat alone in the mansion's enormous library.

His grandfather found him staring at the fireplace.

"You look troubled."

Victor didn't answer for a long time.

Then he quietly asked,

"Can someone like me ever know if people truly care?"

Harold sat beside him.

"Sometimes."

"How?"

Harold smiled sadly.

"You can't."

"You can only choose whether you're willing to believe."

Victor frowned.

"What if I choose wrong?"

His grandfather looked into the fire.

"Then you'll get hurt."

Victor lowered his eyes.

"...I don't want to get hurt."

Harold gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Neither does anyone else."

"But building walls keeps pain out..."

"It also keeps people out."

Victor didn't respond.

Because deep inside...

He had already made his decision.

If every relationship carried a cost...

Then he would become the one person who always knew the price before making the deal.

No surprises.

No betrayals.

No false expectations.

Just value.

Just transactions.

Just certainty.

Years later, when Genesis Academy asked each student to describe how society truly worked...

Victor wrote a single sentence.

"Every relationship is an exchange. The only difference is whether people admit it."

Unlike Adrian's belief in logic...

Or Lucien's belief in kindness...

Victor's philosophy wasn't born from cruelty.

It was born from disappointment.

He had searched for something priceless.

And every time he thought he found it...

Someone handed him the bill.

"What is your earliest memory?"

It was the first question every student answered during Genesis Academy's admission interview.

Most students wrote about family.

Birthdays.

Friends.

School.

Joy.

Pain.

Adrian remembered equations.

Lucien remembered his father's smile.

Victor remembered his family's mansion.

When the interviewer reached Elias Noctis...

The room became strangely quiet.

The interviewer smiled politely.

"So..."

"What is your earliest memory?"

Elias looked at the blank paper for nearly a minute.

Then he picked up the pen.

He wrote only four words.

"Opening my eyes alone."

Nothing else.

The interviewer frowned.

"You don't remember your parents?"

"No."

"Your hometown?"

"No."

"Your last school?"

"No."

The interviewer stared.

"You remember... nothing?"

Elias smiled faintly.

"I remember people."

"But not myself."

Many years earlier...

Snow covered the mountains.

A violent blizzard swallowed the world.

Visibility stretched no farther than a few feet.

Somewhere deep within that endless white...

A little boy slowly opened his eyes.

He couldn't have been older than six.

He lay inside the ruins of a collapsed stone chapel.

His clothes were torn.

His hands were covered in dried blood.

He didn't know whose blood it was.

He stood.

His head pounded.

He looked around.

Broken benches.

Shattered stained glass.

Burned wooden beams.

Silence.

No voices.

No footsteps.

No memories.

Only one thing remained.

A silver pendant hanging around his neck.

On the back were three words.

Do Not Forget.

Forget what?

He had no answer.

He wandered through the snow for hours.

Perhaps days.

Time meant nothing.

Eventually...

An old man found him lying unconscious beside a frozen river.

The man's name was Gideon.

A retired historian.

He lived alone in a small cabin hidden among the mountains.

When Elias awoke...

Warm soup rested beside his bed.

The old man smiled.

"You're awake."

Elias looked around.

"...Where am I?"

"My home."

"...Who am I?"

The smile disappeared.

"You don't know?"

Elias slowly shook his head.

The old man became silent.

For a long time.

Finally...

He spoke.

"Then perhaps..."

"You get to decide."

Months passed.

Gideon never forced Elias to remember.

He never searched newspapers.

Never questioned him endlessly.

Instead...

He taught him.

History.

Literature.

Languages.

Philosophy.

Not because Elias was gifted.

Because knowledge gave direction.

One evening...

Elias asked,

"Why are you helping me?"

Gideon looked toward the fireplace.

"When I was young..."

"I believed every question had an answer."

He chuckled quietly.

"Age teaches you that some questions are more valuable than answers."

Elias frowned.

"I don't understand."

"You will."

Elias learned quickly.

Too quickly.

Within a year he read books written for university students.

By ten...

He debated scholars who visited Gideon's cabin.

By twelve...

He noticed something strange.

People often lied.

But not with words.

With silence.

A visitor once spent three hours discussing politics.

Before leaving, Elias asked,

"Why did you never mention your daughter?"

The man froze.

"I... didn't think she was relevant."

Elias quietly replied,

"People avoid what hurts them."

The visitor's eyes widened.

Later...

Gideon asked,

"How did you know he had a daughter?"

"I didn't."

"You guessed?"

"No."

"I noticed."

"The framed photograph turned upside down."

"The untouched birthday card."

"The second chair that nobody used."

Silence.

Gideon smiled.

"You don't see details."

"You see absences."

That sentence stayed with Elias forever.

As he grew older...

Questions followed him everywhere.

"Where were you born?"

"I don't know."

"What happened to your family?"

"I don't know."

"Is Elias your real name?"

"...I don't know."

People laughed.

Some thought he was joking.

Others believed he was hiding something.

Eventually...

Even Elias began asking himself.

Am I hiding something?

Or was it taken from me?

One rainy afternoon...

While cleaning the attic...

He found an old locked wooden box.

Gideon had never mentioned it.

Inside...

There was only one photograph.

The picture had been burned around the edges.

Three people stood together.

A woman.

A man.

And a child.

The child's face had been scratched away.

On the back...

Only one sentence remained.

"If he remembers... everything changes."

Elias ran downstairs.

"Gideon!"

The old man looked at the photograph.

His expression changed for the first time in years.

"...Where did you find that?"

"In the attic."

Gideon slowly sat down.

"You weren't supposed to."

"...Who are these people?"

The old man closed his eyes.

"I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"Because I promised."

"Promised who?"

Silence.

The fire crackled softly.

Finally...

Gideon answered.

"The people who wanted you to live."

Elias didn't sleep that night.

Not because he was angry.

Because he finally realized something.

Someone...

Somewhere...

Already knew who he was.

Which meant his missing past wasn't an accident.

It had been hidden.

Deliberately.

Years later...

When Genesis Academy sent recruiters to evaluate him...

One interviewer asked,

"What motivates you to become the perfect human?"

Elias looked out the window before answering.

"I'm not trying to become perfect."

"Then why are you here?"

He touched the silver pendant still hanging around his neck.

"The people who erased my past..."

"They're connected to this academy."

The interviewer blinked.

"...How can you be so sure?"

Elias smiled.

"Because they stopped hiding the moment I accepted the invitation."

For just a fraction of a second...

The interviewer's expression changed.

Almost imperceptibly.

But Elias noticed.

He always noticed.

That tiny reaction told him more than any confession ever could.

He had guessed correctly.

Genesis Academy wasn't just testing him.

It was watching him.

And somewhere behind its walls...

The truth about the boy with no past was waiting.

Elias didn't intend to win the academy's games.

Not at first.

He intended to solve the only mystery that had ever mattered.

Who was he...

Before someone decided the world should forget?