Aaron progressed from class to class, doing his best to field a barrage of questions from Rykker.
“Alas, I understand, Sir Aaron,” Rykker said with excitement in his tone.
“This power rule of derivatives…
it is much like a transmutation spell, is it not?
A way to diminish the magnitude of a life force while simultaneously releasing part of its essence—its mana, so to speak.
The spell consumes a part of itself to empower the caster.”
Aaron paused for a moment, taking the time to register what the General had just said.
“You actually grasp this type of math?
Magic users actually use Calculus to create spells?” Aaron said incredulously.
“So, with magic, to lower the power, you must first bring the energy down to multiply the current form, thereby removing a piece of the whole and that is the foundation of transmutation?”
Aaron pondered further, sorting out the possibility of applying Calculus to magic.
He knew that Calculus was the study of continuous change and accumulation.
Therefore, in a magical system, a mage might treat energy as a variable and use derivatives to find the rate of change for transmutation—or integration to accumulate ambient energy.
In that specific context, it describes the process of “optimizing” a spell by breaking down the complexity to reduce the ‘power’, in this case, the mana needed, using calculus to manage the change.
Aaron let out a breathless, mocking laugh.
It was impossible, and yet the logic was undeniable: Calculus was the hidden pulse of magic.
The realization sparked a sudden, yearning hope.
If the universe operated on such rigid, calculable laws, then ‘impossible’ was just an equation he hadn’t solved yet—and the General’s ticket back to his home planet may actually be within reach.
***
Later in the day, Aaron stepped into the gymnasium for physical education, where the humid air smelled of industrial floor cleaner and old sweat.
He took his place on the perimeter of the sprawling, circular blue mats that dominated the center of the room.
Beside him, dozens of other students shifted restlessly in their athletic gear, their chatter echoing off the high steel rafters.
The instructor, a stocky man with a whistle tucked into his collar, stood in the center of the mat.
He moved with a practiced, momentous grace as he demonstrated various wrestling techniques, breaking down the mechanics of double-leg takedowns and the leverage required for a clean sprawl.
To the rest of the class, it was a standard lesson on body positioning and center of gravity.
To Aaron, however, the experience was layered.
Rykker, observing through Aaron’s eyes, provided a continuous stream of tactical analyses in the back of his mind.
As the teacher lunged forward to show the mechanics of a high-thigh entry, Rykker’s observations arrived with sharp, analytical precision:
“If the fledgling dared to ensnare my limb in that crude arm bar, his folly would be his undoing,” Rykker rasped, an invisible smile playing on his lips.
“I would invoke the Fireman’s Carry.
It is a merciless transmutation of momentum, turning the lad’s own fervor into a plummet so swift he would find himself staring at the heavens, questioning the very ground beneath him.
That is the true alchemy of combat: weaving an opponent’s aggression into the thread of their own descent.”
***
The afternoon sun filtered through the high, grit-streaked windows of the high school media center, casting long, dusty beams across the “Study Hall” section.
Aaron napped; the lack of sleep overtaking him.
Slumped over a scarred oak desk, his cheek pressed against the cool, laminated cover of a notebook, his breath steady and rhythmic in the weighty silence. Follow the newest chapters on novelping . com.
Rykker stilled his thoughts, Aaron’s gentle snoring fading as he turned his inward gaze to the day’s revelations.
His mind, wise and steeped in the arcane, began to weave together the distinct threads of Aaron’s physics lectures and the fundamental truths he learned growing up in the Sunbringer Clan.
He marveled at the Laws of Thermodynamics.
To Aaron, they were mere calculations on a whiteboard, but to Rykker, they were the echo of a familiar song.
He realized with a jolt of clarity that the conservation of energy was not just a physical rule—it was the very heartbeat of transmutation.
No, it was more than that.
It was the foundation of all magic.
No.
Even more.
It was the root of everything.
He had always viewed magic as a divine gift of the soul, yet here it was, hiding in plain sight, governed by the same rigid mechanics that kept a star burning or a stone falling.
It was a staggering epiphany: the principles of magic were not absent from this world; they were simply waiting for a catalyst.
If the laws of science governed the physical, and those same laws mirrored the foundations of the arcane, then Earth was not a “magicless” wasteland.
It was a dormant engine.
***
He felt a surge of foresight; a thrill that bordered on terror.
If the rules of Bartuii could be translated into the language of physics, then magic could be forged here, too.
It wouldn’t be gathered from the air like a gift; it would be engineered, calculated, and reclaimed through the very science Aaron so effortlessly mastered.
The boundary between the lab and the ritual circle was beginning to dissolve, and Rykker realized that Aaron wasn’t just a host—he was the key to awakening a world that had forgotten how to breathe.
***
Rykker drifted deeper into the echoes of Aaron’s academic day, his consciousness skimming through the boy’s memories like a scholar in a vast, borrowed library.
He lingered on Aaron’s foreign language class, his mind humming with a realization that was as unsettling as it was fascinating.
Despite never having heard a single syllable of Mandarin on Bartuii, Rykker found the intricate tonal shifts and the complex strokes of the characters perfectly legible.
It wasn’t that he was learning; it was as if he were remembering through Aaron’s own neural pathways.
He theorized that by inhabiting Aaron’s form, he had gained access to the boy’s library of knowledge—a subconscious data stream in the mind that allowed him to bypass linguistic barriers.
This connection went beyond mere words.
It explained why the dense equations of physics felt less like alien sorcery and more like a long-forgotten dialect of the arcane.
If they shared a mind, did the barrier between host and spirit truly exist?
Or was the very essence of their souls beginning to blur, sharing every symbol and conceptual piece of data?
A chill of curiosity struck him: if he could grasp Aaron’s understanding of history and language, did that mean Aaron could eventually reach back, accessing Rykker’s own library of knowledge and memories?
To test the depth of this mental bridge, Rykker focused on a complex Mandarin writing prompt Aaron had struggled with earlier.
He didn’t just understand it; he mentally drafted a response with a poetic elegance that Aaron’s teenage mind hadn’t yet mastered, weaving Rykker’s wisdom into Aaron’s modern vocabulary.
Seeking further proof of this synchronicity, he turned his attention toward the World History lecture.
As the instructor droned on about the early 1900s, Rykker listened with rapt intensity.
He wasn’t just hearing a story about another world; he was witnessing the collective unconscious of a planet he was only beginning to understand.
***
Rykker continued drifing down the rabbit hole of Aaron’s knowledge and snagged on a single, jarring fact from Aaron’s earlier AP Biology lecture: the dwindling population of the polar bear.
To a mind that understood the infinite conservation of energy, the idea of a species—a complex, self-sustaining biological creature—ceasing to exist felt like a mathematical error.
He wondered how Aaron could rest so soundly while the very laws of biological survival seemed to be unraveling on the planet.
“What is a polar bear?” Rykker asked.
The silence stretched, filled only by the distant hum of the air conditioning unit.
Aaron lifted his head up from the desk, furrowing his brow.
General Rykker was a brilliant scholar of mathematics, literature, and physical combat, but he was a total stranger to the planet he was currently on.
“A polar bear,” Aaron began, carefully forming the words, “is the largest land carnivore on this planet.
Think of a bear as a massive, powerful, furry creature—but imagine it’s adapted to live entirely in the frozen, white, northernmost part of the world.”
Rykker paused, his curiosity piqued.
“White?
Like snow?”
“Exactly.
Polar bears live in areas where ice and snow meet the sea.
The sea ice serves as a platform for catching seals, which are their main food source.
Polar bears are massively strong, with claws that can kill instantly.
Their fur is thick and white, almost perfectly camouflaged against the ice, which helps them stalk their prey.
They aren’t just big, General, they are giants.
A male can weigh as much as ten human men.” Aaron gestured, trying to convey the scale.
“They have massive paws, like dinner plates, that act like snowshoes and paddles, allowing them to traverse thin ice and swim for days at a time.”
“If they are so large and powerful,” Rykker asked, his logical mind searching for the flaw, “what could possibly kill them?”
“That’s the tragedy,” Aaron said quietly.
“They are carnivores and apex predators, but they are specialists.
Since there’s almost no vegetation, they rely on the ice in the sea to hunt seals.
As this world warms, the ice melts, shrinking their habitat and hunting grounds, making it harder for them to find food.
This causes them to go hungry or forces them to travel massive distances to find food.
It’s not a battle they can fight with physical strength, General, it’s an environmental collapse.”
Rykker absorbed this, his expression moving from curiosity to a solemn understanding of a new kind of combat—a fight for survival against an invisible enemy.
“A creature born of ice, dying because the ice itself is leaving,” he murmured.
“That is a cruel paradox.”
“Yes,” Aaron agreed.
“That is why they are called ‘endangered’—they are on the brink of being gone forever.”
Sorry for the heavy science.
I felt it was necessary for the story progression.
It was also important to me that I write facts accurately.
Too many times I’ve come across content that isn’t accurate.
I figured if it bothers me, it bothers others.