A sleepless night.
Yet Levi felt no trace of fatigue. When the first faint light of dawn pierced the darkness and draped the sleeping city in a hazy golden edge, he was standing in a cheap roadside motel room, staring at the mirror and examining a brand-new version of himself.
The hot shower not only washed away all the grime and the nauseating stench of sewage pipes, but seemed to rinse off as well the coldness and numbness that had clung to him for nearly fifty years. A disposable razor bought from a corner convenience store scraped away the unruly stubble on his face, revealing sharp, well-defined features. It was a strange face—still carrying the clean-cut outline of his former life as an overworked office worker, yet carved by the merciless fires of World War II and decades of frozen sleep into something far more weathered, colder, and harder than his age suggested.
The man in the mirror had black hair and black eyes, his gaze calm like a bottomless ancient well, utterly undisturbed. He wore the black jacket and jeans stripped from a street thug—slightly oversized, but on a body reforged by the super-soldier serum into a near-perfect frame, they instead gave him a relaxed, unruly air.
He was no longer the old soldier sleeping beneath the ice, nor the office drone who had dropped dead at his desk.
He was Levi—a ghost living in 1995, carrying unimaginable treasure in his mind while being flat broke in reality.
He pulled the crumpled roll of cash from his pocket and spread it out on the bed, counting carefully. After deducting the motel room fee and last night's ravenous meal, he was left with one hundred and three dollars.
One hundred and three dollars.
Levi looked at the money and let out a self-mocking smile. What could this amount do? Forget investing in something like Yahoo stock—he couldn't even afford a computer capable of accessing the internet. In this era, he had no identity, no bank account, and no startup capital. All those business plans in his head that were decades ahead of the world were nothing more than treasure maps printed on scrap paper—worthless jokes.
He needed money. A lot of it.
What was the fastest way to get rich?
Countless ideas flashed through Levi's mind. Robbing a bank? Too risky, too loud. What he needed most right now was to stay low, to blend into the world like a true ghost. Becoming a mercenary? That was familiar territory, but he had no immediate connections and didn't want to expose himself to certain organizations too early.
His gaze finally fell on his own hands—long, powerful fingers with clearly defined joints. These hands, enhanced by the super-soldier serum, possessed strength, speed, and neural reaction time far beyond any ordinary human. His brain was nothing less than a human supercomputer, its processing speed and memory capacity terrifyingly efficient.
That left only one answer.
Gambling.
To ordinary people, casinos were bottomless pits that devoured wealth and lives. But to him, they were nothing less than ATMs with their vault doors wide open.
He carefully folded that precious newspaper again, tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket, and walked out of the motel.
During the day, he didn't rush into action. He spent a few dollars on lunch at a roadside fast-food joint, then wandered the streets like a real tourist, seemingly aimless. As he walked, he greedily observed this world that was both familiar and alien, stuffing every useful detail into his mind—the car brands on the streets, prices in store windows, the clothes people wore. All of it helped him rapidly fill in the fifty-year gap in his understanding, transforming him from a living fossil of a bygone era back into a modern man.
Night fell once more.
Levi entered a bar on the outskirts of the city, nestled in a rough neighborhood where all kinds of people mingled. The moment he pushed open the door, dim lighting, deafening heavy metal music, and a thick stench of alcohol, cigarettes, and hormones hit him head-on. On the dance floor, bodies twisted wildly, venting the pressure built up during the day.
Levi went straight to the bar and ordered the cheapest beer.
"Hey, buddy," he nudged a fat white man sitting beside him, drinking alone, and lowered his voice. "Want to make some extra cash?"
The fat man squinted at him drunkenly and waved him off irritably. "Get lost, kid. I'm not in the mood."
Levi didn't get angry. He quietly slid a twenty-dollar bill next to the man's glass. The green Franklin looked especially tempting under the dim lights.
The fat man's eyes lit up instantly. He casually covered the bill with his large palm and slipped it into his pocket like a magician, then glanced around warily before leaning closer.
"What do you want to know?"
"Anywhere around here where people play cards?" Levi asked. "The kind where the stakes are high."
The fat man sized him up, suspicion and disdain barely concealed in his eyes—as if saying, You? Playing big? Still, money talked.
"Down the street out back, there's a basement called the Queen of Spades," he whispered. "Owner's name is Butcher. Bad temper. Kid, I'd advise you not to go looking for trouble there."
"Thanks."
Levi set down his barely touched beer and left the bar.
Following the directions, he quickly found the so-called Queen of Spades. The entrance was an abandoned dry cleaner, with only an inconspicuous side door left ajar. Two hulking men stood guard outside, built like iron towers, watching everyone who approached with cold, emotionless eyes.
Levi walked up.
"Member?" one of the men asked, extending an arm thick as a tree trunk to block him.
"Friend sent me," Levi replied calmly, his gaze unwavering.
The man studied him for a few seconds, apparently finding nothing threatening in his slightly lean build, then stepped aside to let him through.
The moment Levi pushed open the heavy iron door, a hotter, denser wave of air rushed over him, reeking of sweat and cigar smoke. The basement was packed, noisy, and smoky enough to sting the eyes. The space was small but fully equipped—dice games, roulette wheels—but the most crowded area was the blackjack tables in the center.
Levi's goal was clear. He walked straight to the table with the smallest minimum bet and exchanged all the money he had left—eighty-three dollars—for chips.
He sat down quietly, like a stone dropped into a lake, stirring no ripples.
The game began.
The dealer was a middle-aged man with a blank expression and long fingers, dealing cards with practiced, mechanical precision, as if he'd repeated the motion tens of thousands of times.
Levi didn't rush to bet. He simply watched, appearing like a cautious newcomer. In reality, his mind was running at a terrifying speed.
Every card dealt was memorized instantly. The subtle rhythm of card friction during shuffles, the fleeting micro-expressions on other players' faces when they hit or stand, even the slight changes in their heartbeats driven by tension or excitement—everything was captured by his enhanced senses, then integrated, analyzed, and calculated in his brain.
To him, this was no longer gambling.
It was a math problem—one where all the variables were already known.
After observing two rounds, he began to bet.
His wagers were small, just the minimum chip each time. Yet at every critical moment, he chose perfectly when to hit and when to stand. His hand always beat the dealer by the narrowest, most improbable margin.
Either twenty-one. Or twenty.
Five consecutive rounds—he won them all.
The money wasn't much, but a 100% win rate had begun to draw the dealer's attention. The dealer's movements grew slightly stiff, his eyes flicking toward Levi more and more often.
Levi didn't care. He pushed all his winnings forward, increasing the bet.
What followed was a pure solo performance.
His stack of chips grew like a snowball rolling downhill. The other players, initially indifferent, shifted to shock and curiosity. A few gamblers already down on their luck started following his bets and won a few rounds themselves, looking at him with awe, as if he were a walking god of fortune.
Half an hour later, the chips in front of Levi had grown from a pitiful eighty-three dollars into a small mountain worth over five thousand.
Sweat beaded on the dealer's forehead. He cast a subtle plea for help toward a suited floor manager standing nearby.
The manager walked over, casually patted the dealer's shoulder, and personally took over.
"Lucky kid," the new dealer said with a professional smile that didn't reach his eyes. His shuffling was faster, flashier—clearly a veteran.
Levi smiled faintly and said nothing, simply pushing half his chips forward.
A new round began.
The manager's hands moved like lightning, with a nearly imperceptible twitch of the wrist during the deal—a classic casino trick.
But under Levi's dynamic vision, every movement played out like slow-motion film, crystal clear.
"Hit," Levi said calmly.
A card.
"Again."
Another card.
"Stand."
The manager's expression changed. He inhaled deeply and flipped his hole card—nineteen. A solid total.
Levi turned over his cards.
An Ace. A ten.
Exactly twenty-one.
A wave of suppressed gasps rippled through the room as all eyes locked onto the mysterious Eastern man.
The manager's smile vanished completely. He stared at Levi as if trying to bore a hole through his face.
"You're cheating!" he slammed the table, shouting, trying to overwhelm him with sheer intimidation.
Levi lounged back in his chair, spread his hands innocently. "I'm just lucky. And good at math."
"Take him to the back and have a talk," the manager ordered, signaling to two enforcers by the wall.
The two men—both over six feet tall—strode over and clamped Levi from either side, their massive frames casting him in shadow.
"Our boss would like to have some tea with you," one of them said with a fake smile, his grip on Levi's shoulder strong enough to crush a normal man's collarbone.
Levi stood obediently, still wearing that relaxed smile. He glanced at the pile of chips now worth over ten thousand dollars and said to the manager, "Keep an eye on those. They're mine."
Then he followed the enforcers into a small room at the back.
The room was bare—just a table and a few chairs. A bald, heavyset man in a floral shirt sat behind the table, slowly polishing a silver revolver with a velvet cloth. This was the owner: Butcher.
"Kid, you've got some nerve cheating in my place," Butcher said without looking up, his voice low and oppressive.
Levi pulled out a chair and sat down on his own, crossing his legs. "I told you, I'm just good at math."
"Good at math?" Butcher sneered, slamming the gun onto the table. "I don't give a shit how good you are. Leave the money here, break one of your hands, and we'll call it even."
Levi burst out laughing, the sound sharp and clear in the cramped room.
"What're you laughing at?" Butcher's face darkened, the air turning heavy.
The two enforcers behind Levi stepped forward at the same time, joints cracking ominously as they closed in.
Levi's smile vanished. His eyes turned ice-cold. He stood slowly, rolled his neck, bones cracking softly.
"I'm laughing," he said, staring at Butcher, "because you got two things wrong."
"First—those money chips are mine. Every last dollar."
"And second—"
Before he finished speaking, he moved.
So fast it left only an afterimage.
The enforcer on his left felt a blur—then a palm pressed lightly against his chest. The force looked gentle, yet carried an irresistible, terrifying penetration. The man felt no pain, only a numbness in his chest, as if an invisible hand had crushed his heart to a stop. His massive body swayed and fell backward, eyes unfocused—dead on the spot.
At the same time, Levi twisted his body at an impossible angle. His right leg snapped out like a steel whip, tearing through the air and smashing into the other man's knee.
Crack.
The sickening sound of bone breaking echoed through the room. The man collapsed to his knees, leg bent backward unnaturally, pain knocking him unconscious before he could even scream.
Less than one second.
Butcher's grin froze. Horror flooded his face as his mind struggled to process what he'd just seen. Instinctively, he reached for the revolver.
But someone was faster.
Levi appeared in front of the table as if he'd teleported, slamming his hand down over the gun—and over Butcher's fat hand.
"Ahhh!" Butcher screamed as Levi crushed his grip, bones on the verge of shattering.
Levi leaned in close, whispering in a flat, emotionless voice into his ear:
"Second—the one losing a hand is you."
He twisted.
Crack.
The crisp snap of a broken wrist, followed by Butcher's heart-rending scream, echoed through the small room.
Levi released him, letting Butcher collapse to the floor, clutching his now-limp hand and wailing. He picked up the silver revolver, expertly popped open the cylinder, and dumped the bullets onto the table one by one, where they rolled and clinked. Then he tossed the empty gun back onto Butcher.
From his pocket, he pulled out a one-dollar bill and gently placed it on the table.
"That's your tip."
Without another glance at the carnage, Levi turned and walked out.
In the casino hall, the screams had silenced everyone. The music had stopped at some point. When Levi reappeared, all eyes fixed on him—filled with fear and awe.
He returned to the blackjack table, where the pale-faced manager shakily packed all his chips into a black cloth bag.
Levi took the bag, weighed it in his hand. Satisfying.
He didn't look back even once as he strode out of the Queen of Spades and into the cold, free night air.
A bag full of cash in his hand.
A newspaper pointing to the future in his pocket.
The first pot of gold—secured.
The method might have been rough.
But the result?
Very satisfying.
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