The wind howled through the alleys of Dravenhall, curling around the battered concrete buildings like a ghost searching for its home. The city never slept — not because it was alive, but because it was haunted. By its past. By broken dreams. By the illusion that tomorrow would be different.
For Raizel Numas, tomorrow had never been a matter of chance. It was a matter of design.
The Helios Grid had stabilized. Across hundreds of neighborhoods, lights stayed on for the first time in months. Blackouts had become rare. Energy bills had dropped. Businesses whispered his name like a myth, unsure whether the rumors were real: a boy who built the future while others still argued about the past.
Yet Raizel knew the Grid was only step one — a test run, a foundation for something far greater.
In the last three months, he had been silent, deliberately hidden, letting the world speculate. While others watched the headlines and theorized in forums, Raizel was building his empire quietly — line by line of code, investment by investment, algorithm by algorithm.
He had used the Grid's data system to create Intros AI, a neural framework capable of mapping human behavior, consumption patterns, and technological demand across multiple sectors. It learned from every household connected to the Grid. What people ate. When they slept. What they searched. What they feared.
Most would see it as unethical.
Raizel saw it as preparation.
Using masked blockchain identities, he deployed Project Blackroot — a silent network of shell companies, each specializing in niche sectors: nano-satellite development, quantum chip design, energy storage, and predictive biotech. Each startup was "founded" by a different name, operated by AI-run management, and legally protected by legal shields written by AI-lawyers Raizel trained himself.
The money began to flow. At first, tens of thousands. Then millions. Then steady streams from venture capitalists who didn't know the true owner of the technology they were investing in.
Raizel didn't need fame.
He needed control.
Inside his room — now upgraded into a lab that would humble most national research centers — Raizel stood in front of a sleek, dark-glass interface that spanned the length of his wall. Charts, data feeds, predictive curves, threat reports, satellite feeds — all pulsed before him like a living organism.
Selene sat behind him, cross-legged on a stool, sipping black tea. Her face looked tired, but her eyes were sharp.
"You're running too fast," she said. "You're seventeen. You haven't even finished school."
"I finished school the moment I was born," Raizel replied flatly. "They just didn't notice."
She chuckled. "People are starting to whisper. Not about the Grid. About you."
"Let them," Raizel murmured. "They won't understand until it's too late to stop me."
Meanwhile, things at home had shifted.
His mother had stopped worrying about bills. Their bank accounts had been filled anonymously, enough to secure their lives for years. New appliances appeared mysteriously. Kiran, still in the hospital, now received private care from the best medical firm in the region — Raizel had bought the firm last week through Blackroot.
His parents had no idea where the money came from.
And Raizel wanted to keep it that way. For now.
Luka, however, was slipping faster. After multiple confrontations, Raizel stopped trying to convince him. He instead assigned two stealth operatives to shadow his brother, intercept threats, and clean up messes quietly.
He still hoped Luka would come back.
But hope had its limits.
One evening, Raizel received a notification. A file decrypted itself from deep inside the Helios system — not sent, but activated.
It was a voice. Old. Robotic. Possibly recorded from decades ago.
"If you've found this… it means the Threshold Device was awakened. You're not the first. But you might be the last. Proceed with caution. Beyond dimensional energy lies the core fabric — and it is fragile."
Raizel froze. This wasn't a message of discovery.
It was a warning.
He encrypted the file immediately and locked it into a local system disconnected from the web. No one else would hear it. Not yet.
He spent the next week running diagnostics on the Threshold Device (the ancient technology his team uncovered underground), working to understand how it had been activated before. The deeper he probed, the more it became clear: someone, years ago, had tried to unlock something they didn't understand. And they had vanished.
This wasn't a power source.
It was a veil.
On the 6th night of uninterrupted study, Raizel finally left the lab. The hallway lights were dimmed. The house was quiet. His mother and father were asleep. Luka was out, again.
Raizel sat alone in the kitchen. The silence was overwhelming — the kind that pierced deep into his bones.
He opened his messaging system and stared at a draft addressed to his family.
He wrote:"You won't hear from me much longer. But know that you'll never want for anything again. I will send support. Monthly. Quietly. If you ever need me… you won't need to call. I'll already know."
He stared at the message.
Then deleted it.
He made the decision that night.
In the coming year — after his 18th birthday — he would leave this place.
This country was a womb. But it had grown too small. The world beyond, the nations layered with tech, capital, opportunity, danger — that was where Raizel's true empire would begin.
He would build companies not bound by location but by purpose.
One for AI evolution.One for deep ocean colonization.One for space resource mining.One for constructing quantum intelligence.One for ethical consciousness storage.
They would grow silently.Then suddenly.Then inevitably.
The next morning, Selene entered the lab to find Raizel standing before the Threshold Device.
He turned to her and said one thing:
"It's time I stop reacting to the world... and start building the one I want."