You are correct in that you are seeking to create a wealth engine. I call it personal economy. You are seeking to maximize the inflows/outflows of the dollars that pass through your hands.
Keep yourself as close to debt free as personally possible. Learn the secrets of maximizing your credit score.
Taxes and interest are the two greatest expenses that anyone pays during their lifetime. Create a tax management strategy for the former as well as seek to redirect the latter into your personal bank.
Create a business to create income on the side.
You will want to work a job and your side business simultaneously for awhile.
Study (and implement) passive cash flow creation.
Real estate, an online business, private lending, and others are great side businesses. Sales (and marketing) is the name of the game.
An alternate path would be to study (and implement) portable skills such as photography, programming, copywriting, et al. These skills will allow you to work anywhere in the world as well as go freelance.
Practice being debt free personally while utilizing debt for your business. Businesses and many industries such as real estate and banking use debt heavy (leveraging) to create cash flow.
Debt is credit. Credit is finance. Banks create credit. The previous statement is straight from the horses mouth of the Bank of England, the second oldest central bank in the world.
Investing is form of spending (allocation).
You can accelerate your personal and business financing if you study banking and become the banker. Arguably, your need for finance is even greater than your need to invest throughout your life.
Study (and implement) economic philosophies that resonate with you. I, personally, practice full reserve banking, FI/RE (Financial Independence/Retire Early), and the Austrian School of Economics, although I will study Keynesian Economics and fractional reserve banking because these are the models that governments, banks, and academics use.
The two books I would recommend towards beginning to change how you think with regard to money (and economics) are Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Becoming Your Own Banker by R. Nelson Nash. From there, you can branch out to what interests you as you specialize.
Any financial vehicle has its pros and cons as well as risk. Mitigating risk is extremely important with regard to financing, investing, and speculation.
There is the art (practice) and science (theory) of these topics. Do both.
Do your own studies. Formulate your own thoughts. Come to your own conclusions. Implement what you've learned. Note the results thereafter. Adjust.