Summer break brought me exactly what I needed—a quiet place where my mind could settle,and endless time to focus on the experiments that had begun shaping my future.
Most days, I wandered deep into the forest,far from people,letting the silence of nature act as a laboratory for Retacode.
One of those days, while walking through the trees as usual,I came across something so strange that I stopped in my tracks.
A massive, perfectly spherical stone.
Its surface was smooth except for a few scratches from nearby branches.Beneath it was a wide crater, like something enormous had fallen from the sky.
But the strangest part?
I had been in the village for almost a month…and I had never seen anything like this before.
When I asked the villagers, they insisted no such stone existed in the forest.
Which left only one terrifying possibility:
I had created it.
Somewhere in my experiments—somewhere in the symbols I barely understood—I had produced a permanent, physical object without even realizing it.
I felt cold.I wanted to run home and check my code immediately,but the villagers had already grown curious from my questions.A crowd formed and followed me into the forest.
It didn't take long for them to find the stone.
They circled it, whispered about it,debated theories.
By the time I realized I had caused this entire spectacle,it was already too late.
So I walked home quietly.I would deal with it later.
If I truly had the power to create matter…then there were far greater implications waiting for me.
I checked my recent code line by line until I found the cause—strange symbols I had used without fully understanding them.
It really was my doing.The stone had likely materialized high above the groundand then fallen straight down into the crater.
Thankfully, no one had been hurt.The boundaries I set to limit the scale of my experiments had worked.
…
This discovery pushed me forward more than anything before it.It meant I wouldn't run out of materials ever again.Eventually, I could even produce the badges myself.
But for now, the stone was my first successful creation.
My days became divided:strengthening system security on one side,and developing new Retans on the other.
Balance was the most exhausting part.Each ability had to be tested under countless conditions,because the smallest mistake could trigger a chain reaction.
Meanwhile, the villagers kept spreading rumors.Since there were no drag marks or signs that the stone had been moved,the "alien theory" somehow became the most popular one.
Late one night, I returned to the forest to fix my mistake.With no one around, I could finally use my abilities freely.
First, I reduced the stone's weight dramatically.Then I increased its fragilityand slammed it against the ground.
It shattered into large fragments.
I summoned wind to gather every piece into a single spot,then erased them using quiet, controlled bursts—soft explosions that left no trace.
I filled the crater with dustuntil the forest returned to its original state.
This incident, I hoped, would eventually fade from memory.
My time in the village gave me more than I expected.It sharpened my skillsand filled my mind with new ideas.
One idea excited me more than anything else:
the day I would distribute the first badges.
Once they arrived,I would create a floating stall in the skyand hand out the badges myself.
A mask would hide my identity,preserving the mystery,while the system's miracles would speak louder than any words.
No one would dare deny what they saw.
Months of work had finally brought the system to completion.
There were now over thirty Retans—each with unique purposes.
I prepared clear guidelines for new usersand established the conditions for how Retans would be assigned.
A user's experience, personality, and compatibility all mattered.Some Retans could be requested directly,but only after passing a series of tests.
By the end of three months,summer had ended.
I returned home to prepare for my final year of high school.
But the start of school didn't feel like the beginning of anything ordinary.
Because the day the system would reveal itself to the world…
was almost here.