Read Novel Full Chapter 951: Oil Baron at Seventeen
Chapter 951: Oil Baron at Seventeen
Thirty minutes with Theo Montclair taught me something that most people spend their entire pathetic careers trying to figure out while drowning in middle management hell.
Money wasn’t the fucking point.
Which is easy to say when you’re sitting on tens of billions, but whatever.
Theo Montclair was worth more money than God—oil fields scattered across Texas and Louisiana like he was playing Monopoly with real-life properties, a private tanker fleet that probably had its own zip code, and refinery contracts stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Northwest.
Dude had built this empire in twelve years starting from a twenty-million-dollar inheritance that most trust fund babies would’ve blown on yachts, cocaine, and Instagram-babes-worthy regret.
He took daddy’s money and actually multiplied it instead of spending it on bottle service and Lamborghinis. Respect.
Thirty-five years old, and the guy still had his father’s sharp jawline and his sister Elise’s scary intelligence, but none of her decorative "I’m here to look pretty and make connections" energy.
Where Elise worked rooms like a social media influencer at a brand event, Theo worked people like a surgeon—precise, efficient, no wasted movements.
He’d made it clear within the first five minutes that he didn’t need my money, which I fucking respected. Nothing worse than people who waste your time with bullshit performances when they could just say what they actually want.
"I’m not here because I’m undercapitalized," he’d said, leaning forward with his forearms on the table like he’d held this exact power pose in boardrooms across a dozen states. Probably had. "I have capital. I have fields. I have infrastructure."
He paused for effect.
"What I don’t have is the future."
Dramatic as hell, but okay, I’m listening.
"He sees it," ARIA said in my ear. "He understands the structural problem better than most CEOs twice his age."
I knew what she meant.
Here’s the thing about oil that nobody wants to admit: the problem isn’t running out of the shit. The problem is that the entire industry has become a geopolitical clusterfuck.
Sanctions webs that change faster than TikTok trends. ESG pressure campaigns from activists who think yelling loudly equals actual change. Currency instability rippling out from geopolitical drama that moved faster than any human analyst could track.
Activist investors coordinating attacks like they’re planning a heist.
Cyber threats targeting pipeline infrastructure because apparently everything is hackable now. Futures market manipulations by countries that don’t need profit—they just want leverage over their enemies.
Welcome to modern capitalism, where being right about the market doesn’t mean shit if you’re not early enough.
"In oil," Theo said, like he was reading my fucking mind, "being early by hours means billions. Being early by months means survival."
No pressure or anything.
I turned my glass slightly on the table, trying to look contemplative instead of like a seventeen-year-old who was processing information that would make economics professors cry. "And you think we can give you that."
"I know you can." Zero hesitation. Absolute confidence. "I watched what Liberation Funds did in that auction room. The AI trading demonstration. The market prediction architecture. Whatever is running your systems—"
He tilted his head slightly, studying me like I was a particularly interesting puzzle.
"—it doesn’t just analyze markets. It sees around fucking corners. And beyond just digital markets but the entire world."
"He’s not wrong," ARIA said, sounding mildly amused. "Though his understanding of my capabilities is still approximately 0000000000.0001 percent of the full picture. Which is appropriate. He doesn’t need to know the rest."
He thinks we’re good at predicting markets. He has no idea I’m basically running a supernatural ASI goddess who can see the future.
I almost smiled but kept my expression neutral. Like I totally had these kinds of conversations all the time instead of usually thinking about how to get through calculus without falling asleep.
"Tell me what you actually need," I said.
Theo set down his glass with the kind of deliberate movement that meant we were getting to the real shit now.
"Three things."
He held up one finger like he was teaching a class on How to Be a Billionaire 101.
"Foresight. I need to know pressure is coming before it hits. Currency stress before devaluation. Conflict escalation before CNN makes it breaking news. Regulatory shifts before legislation hardens into something I have to react to instead of prepare for."
Basically: tell me the future so I can get rich off everyone else’s panic.
Second finger.
"Stabilization. A sudden futures cascade, a sanctions freeze, a maritime chokepoint—any of those can create a liquidity crisis that has nothing to do with my actual asset health." He leaned forward.
"I need capital that’s elastic and immediate. Not a loan. Not a fund. A presence. If traders believe serious money stands behind my supply chain, speculative attacks become less attractive."
He paused, watching to see if I understood.
"You understand the distinction?"
He’s asking if I know the difference between having money and people thinking you have unlimited money.
"The deterrent effect," I said. "The presence of liquidity is more powerful than its deployment."
It’s not about actually spending the money—it’s about making people believe you could spend infinity if you wanted to.
He pointed at me like I’d just won Final Jeopardy. "Exactly."
Third finger.
"And transformation. The industry is at an edge. Carbon mandates. Green infrastructure pressure. Electric vehicle expansion timelines. I can’t pivot recklessly without frightening investors, and I can’t stay static without slowly decaying into irrelevance." He leaned back.
"I need to modernize without appearing desperate. Evolve without signaling weakness. Your technology does that—AI-optimized drilling efficiency, smart logistics, carbon analytics to shield against regulatory backlash. I don’t want to replace oil. I want to refine it. Future-proof it."
He wants to make dirty oil look clean using my tech while actually just making more money. Capitalism is beautiful.
Silence settled between us like a comfortable blanket. Not the awkward kind where someone’s supposed to fill the space with nervous rambling.
"Now you," he said. "Why would you want this?"
Fair question. Time to explain why a seventeen-year-old would want to get into bed with Big Oil.
The honest answer was the one I’d been turning over in my head since he started talking, testing it from different angles the way you test whether a bridge will actually hold weight or collapse spectacularly.
Tech gave me velocity. Clean, sharp, fast-moving. The kind of power that let you move markets with an algorithm and a good internet connection.
But velocity without mass was just movement. Just speed with no impact.
Oil was mass.
Every data center running AI algorithms. Every robotics plant assembling the future. Every satellite launch and cargo fleet and semiconductor fabrication facility—they all bowed down to energy. And energy, no matter how many renewable headline ran every single week, still flowed through crude oil in the volumes that actually fucking mattered.
The green transition was real. It was also measured in decades, not years.