Eli woke to a Learnville transformed.
The market square, once vibrant with shouting traders and shimmering promises, was now a battlefield of despair. Stalls stood abandoned. Parchments fluttered in the cold wind. A grim banner stretched above the chaos:
"Market Crumbles: Weaver's Wool Down 40%!"
Cries echoed as traders clutched their heads, their fortunes unraveling like loose threads.
Atop her untouched stall stood Vara, sly as ever, holding up a glowing coin.
"StarCoins—safe from the crash!" she crowed, a vulture circling the fallen.
Eli's heart sank.
His carefully chosen shares of Weaver's Wool—his fortress—were bleeding value.
The hourglass from Chronos felt cold in his pocket.
The promise of compounding was drowned beneath the tide of fear.
Even his red box—the one that once felt sacred—now seemed like a cruel joke.
He ran to the Great Library, shame clinging to him like frost.
Benjamin sat by a roaring fire, calm in the storm.
"You've seen winter, Eli," he said gently. "Come. Speak your fear."
Eli collapsed into a chair.
"Everything's falling apart! Weaver's Wool is crumbling—I should've sold… or bought StarCoins like Vara. I trusted the plan, but maybe I was wrong."
Benjamin rose and walked to a chest tucked deep in the library's corner.
He opened it slowly, revealing faded parchment stock certificates, each marked with red ink.
"These," he said quietly, "are my mistakes."
Eli blinked. "You?"
"I lost half my fortune during the Great Collapse. Mills, forges… even these," Benjamin said, lifting a tattered Weaver's Wool certificate.
"I wanted to sell. I doubted everything—myself, my rules, my patience. But I remembered what my teacher once told me:
Markets move like seasons. Winter always passes."
Eli stared, unsure. "But… what if this time is different? What if winter never ends?"
Benjamin led him to a chart pinned on the wall—a jagged line, rising and falling, over centuries.
"Fear says this time is different.
Wisdom says this has happened before.
Ask yourself: Is Weaver's Wool broken? Are its looms silent? Are its dividends gone?"
Eli took a breath. "No. It's still running. Just… out of favor."
"Then hold," Benjamin said. "You bought with a Margin of Safety. That's your shelter.
Speculators flee when frost hits.
Investors stay, tend their soil, and wait for spring."
Eli opened his red box.
His fingers traced the words:
Hold through storms. Focus on value. Trust time.
He looked at Benjamin's mistake wall again.
What once seemed like failure now looked like proof that scars can become strength.
"You kept going," Eli said quietly.
"And so will you," Benjamin replied, with a rare smile.
"Tomorrow, we plant a new seed—one overlooked, one undervalued. Your journey isn't ending—it's evolving."
As Eli stepped outside, the wind still carried whispers of panic.
Vara's pitch echoed in the air like a false hymn.
But Eli didn't stop.
He held his red box close.
The hourglass was warm again in his hand.
And deep inside, his resolve—like the market—had begun to rise again.