Spending my way to Godhood: I am the heir to a fortune.

The Scavenger’s Trap

"Sign the surrender, Lucian," his uncle, Lord Robert Vance, said, shoving a thick parchment scroll onto the low stone table. "You're ten years old with zero mana, you can't even light a candle with magic, let alone manage a kingdom-tier trade guild. Hand over the remaining routes before the Crown throws you into the workhouses."

Lucian gripped his oversized coat tightly around his chest, his knuckles white, the velvet collar still bore his father's faint scent, and the raw grief of losing both his parents in the warehouse fire just two weeks ago.

 Tears prickled the corners of his eyes, but he bit his lip, refusing to let his uncle see him cry.

"My... my father said the guild stays with the family," Lucian choked out, his voice small and trembling. He shrank back against the wall, overwhelmed by the looming shadows of his uncle and Royal Auditor Kael. "The law says I have until midnight on my birth-date to keep the charter."

Auditor Kael sneered, stepping forward with a heavy gilded seal. "Do not cite laws you barely understand, child. Your parents left behind a debt of fifty thousand gold coins to the Crown, look around you! The vault is empty, you are a helpless orphan living on borrowed time, what can a weak, fatherless boy do in six hours?"

Lucian buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. He wasn't some criminal mastermind; he was just a terrified kid whose world had collapsed. Every night since the fire, he had woken up screaming from nightmares of the flames that took his mother and father, now, the people who were supposed to protect him were tearing away the last pieces of his home.

"Six hours, Auditor Kael," Lucian sobbed, clutching a small, worn wooden toy dragon his mother had carved for him. "Please... my mother said the vault belongs to the Vance bloodline, you can't just take it!"

Robert spat on the polished floor, disgusted by the boy's weakness. "Fine, cry all you want, brat, we wait until midnight, when you fail to produce fifty thousand gold, the guards will drag you to the black mines."

The heavy doors slammed shut, locking Lucian in total darkness.

The moment he was alone, Lucian collapsed onto his knees against the cold stone floor, curling into a ball. Hugging his knees to his chest, he finally let the tears stream freely down his face, his small chest heaving with silent, desperate sobs, he missed his mother's gentle voice, he missed his father's firm hand on his shoulder telling him everything would be alright.

"I'm sorry," Lucian whispered into the empty air, burying his head in his arms. "I'm sorry I'm not strong enough. I'm sorry I don't have mana."

Desperate for any warmth, he crawled toward the corner of the room where a lone, dusty iron chest sat the only thing his parents had left in the private vault that wasn't seized by bank liens.

With shaking hands, Lucian flipped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside lay a single velvet bag holding ten gold coins, alongside a black metallic cube covered in faded, dormant runes, a strange heirloom his father used to keep on his desk.

"Ten gold," Lucian whimpered, grabbing the metallic cube and pressing it against his chest like a child holding a security blanket. "Papa... Mama... what do I do?"

Overwhelmed by fear and frustration, he squeezed the sharp metal box tight against his chest, a jagged corner sliced through his thin sleeve, cutting his skin. Crimson blood smeared across the faded runes.

The metal cube vibrated violently, a pulse of blinding violet light shot out, illuminating the dark vault. The blood vanished into the metal, and a cold, mechanical voice chimed directly inside Lucian's head.

[System Initialization: Prodigal Wealth System Online.]

[Host Identified: Lucian Vance (Age: 10).]

[Current Cultivation: None (D-Rank Trash Core).]

[System Rule: Wealth is Power. Hoarding yields zero growth. Spending fuels absolute supremacy.]

[Conversion Ratio: 1 Gold Coin Spent = 1 System Attribute Point / Instant Mana Conversion.]

Lucian gasped, staggering back and wiping his nose with his sleeve as a translucent blue screen floated before his tear-stained eyes.

[Initial Balance Detected: 10 Gold Coins.]

[Emergency Quest Activated: Spend 10,000 Gold within 5 hours.]

[Reward: Tier 1 Arch-Mage Core Awakening + S-Rank Class Unlock.]

[Failure Penalty: Total Mana Core Collapse (Instant Death).]

Lucian stared at the glowing letters.

 "Instant death?" he squeaked, his voice cracking. "I... I don't have ten thousand gold! I'm just a kid!"

Before he could panic further, the system chimed again:

[First-Time User Bonus: 100x Credit Leverage Unlocked for 60 Minutes. Spending limit temporarily raised to 1,000,000 Gold.]

Lucian sniffled, staring at the massive row of zeros floating in the air. He didn't fully grasp the complex mechanics, but he understood one simple truth: the voice in his head was giving him money, and money was the only thing that could stop his uncle from destroying his family.

A faint ember of defiance lit up in the young boy's chest. He wiped his face, gripped the black cube tightly, and stood up on his trembling legs.

Before he could take a step toward the exit, the heavy vault doors were suddenly blasted off their hinges in an explosion of splinters and blue fire. Through the swirling smoke stepped a masked assassin carrying a glowing spell-blade.

"Lord Robert sends his regards," the assassin sneered, raising the glowing blade above the terrified ten-year-old. "He decided not to wait until midnight."