Shane's consciousness returned in a nauseating wave of pain. His body was a single, throbbing bruise. The world was upside down and jostling. It took him a moment to realize he was being dragged, his arms slung over the shoulders of two hulking beastkin, his boots scraping against the cold stone floor.
"I can't believe you actually did it, Rothmaek. Now you're getting what you wanted, aren't you? A meeting with the cell leader. Though I'd have preferred to deliver you in a smaller box." Varkol. He was walking ahead, his posture rigid with anger.
"Do you think the representative will be there?" one of the beastkin grunted, adjusting his grip on Shane's arm and sending a fresh spike of agony through his ribs.
"Shut up and walk. This failure doesn't rate that kind of attention," Varkol snapped, glancing back at Shane's wondering body. "My anger might have made me go overboard, the cell leader wanted him conscious and compliant, not halfway to the healers' ward. Now shut up and walk."
Cell leader? Representative? Orders? The words cut through Shane's pain-fogged mind, and he let his head loll, feigning unconsciousness as they turned down a series of increasingly unfamiliar corridors. The air grew colder, smelling of pine and ancient wood, 'I haven't been to this part of the institute yet' Shane thought
A heavy door creaked open. Shane was hauled into a large room and unceremoniously dumped onto a cold, hard floor. He kept his eyes shut, playing dead.
The door opened again. Slow, deliberate footsteps approached.
"You are supposed to be Intelligent," Varkol's voice was a low sneer. "You always boast about it. But you've been underperforming since the explosion. I know you are awake, you have been for a while now, so get up. The others are waiting."
Shane felt an intense cold begin to seep through his clothes from the floor. Frost was inching toward him. Reluctantly, he pushed himself up, his body screaming in protest.
Varkol looked down at him, a mix of contempt and something else—frustration? "This was supposed to be a formality. You passed the test. You get to become one of us. But you've been disappointing. You kept everyone waiting. So move."
Shane's legs were shaky, but Varkol didn't care. He grabbed his arm and dragged him through a winding wooden corridor deeper into the structure. Ritualistic tapestries lined the walls. Carved animals—foxes, stags, serpents, bears—glowed faintly with glyphwork. Every few steps, Shane passed flickering braziers filled with black flame.
They entered a wide, circular chamber sunken into the floor. Stone seating lined the edges, with concentric rings of platforms descending toward a central basin filled with blue mist.
Shane was shoved into a stone chair. Surrounding him were nearly two dozen people, each wearing a variant of the Larzano uniform, half their faces covered by different animal masks. Three other figures, dressed in entirely different garb with full masks—a jackal, a cobra, and a raven—stood apart, their presence radiating authority.
The room was silent, save for Shane's ragged breathing.
The jackal-masked figure stepped forward. Its voice was synthesized, cold and mechanical. "The Nexus was breached. The leyline conduit was damaged. This was the objective." It tilted its head. "When we learnt that you were the one responsible for such feats, Rothmaek. We were... skeptical. Your history is one of failure and madness."
Another voice, from the raven mask, was softer, almost melodic, but no less impersonal. "Yet, every investigation showed you succeeded. The spatial anomaly was precisely as you theorized. The higher representative is... pleased."
A deep, gravelly voice came from the goat mask. "Varkol's... enthusiasm... in the dining hall was unauthorized, so consider it a test of your durability. You survived, even if it was barely. Consider it your final entrance exam. And your punishment for overstepping."
Shane's mind raced. 'A test? They call someone nearly beating me half dead a test? Who are these people?'
The jackal-masked speaker turned its head slightly. "And now, you, Shane Rothmaek, are one of us. Part of the family. You now carry our protection."
Varkol, who had been standing stiffly to the side, flinched almost imperceptibly at the words "part of the family"
"Varkol Lonais, step forward." the voice called.
Varkol stepped into the center of the circle and dropped to one knee, his head bowed.
The raven-masked figure approached and placed a shimmering black cube into his palm. "Your cell has done a great deal for us. As promised, we award you this." The figure then turned its hidden gaze toward Shane. "Do not make the representative's favor a waste."
With that, the three fully masked individuals seemed to dissolve into shadows and mist, vanishing from the chamber.
Varkol stood, dusting off his knee, a look of triumphant satisfaction replacing his previous anger. He raised the cube. "Congratulations. We have our prize. Now we can begin the next phase." He then walked toward the only sofa in the room. Shane was certain it hadn't been there a moment before.
Varkol placed the cube on a side table beside the sofa and bowed his head. "Sister. The token from the representatives."
A hand, green and slender, emerged from the shadows of a deep hood and rested languidly on the armrest. The fingers tapped once—a sound that echoed in the silent chamber. All eyes were fixed on this lone figure, the true power in the room. Shane felt a dizzying wave of disorientation, the world beginning to swim around him as he stared, trying to comprehend the green hand…
The world swam back into focus with the gentle insistence of a knocking sound. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Shane's eyes fluttered open. The familiar, opulent darkness of his dorm room ceiling greeted him, the runes along its edges pulsing with a soft, steady blue light. He was in his bed. 'How did I get back here?' The sheets were rumpled beneath him. A deep, aching soreness permeated his entire body—a vivid reminder of Varkol's fists.
He sat up slowly, wincing. The memory of the treehouse chamber was a fractured, surreal dream, the masked judges, the cryptic praise, the cube, and the green-handed figure on the sofa. Had it been real?
The knocking came again, more persistent this time. "Prince Shane? Are you awake? It's Elroy."
Shane pushed himself out of bed, his body screaming in protest. He pulled on a fresh tunic and opened the door. Elroy stood there, his wolf ears twitching nervously, a tray of food in his hands. His eyes widened at the sight of Shane's face.
"By the spirits, Your Highness! The rumors are true," Elroy gasped, quickly stepping inside. "You stood up to Varkol Lonais? And lived?"
"Barely," Shane grunted, his voice hoarse.
"It was foolish, but… also somewhat brave," Elroy admitted, though he looked terrified. "But that's not all. I heard… I heard a piece of information about the third-year trial: the third-year trial has a sixty percent fatality rate. My Prince, you must prepare."
Shane looked at Elroy, the one constant in the chaos. "Elroy, what do you know about magic? Real magic. Not theory."
Elroy looked taken aback. "Me? I'm just a first-year. IRA circulation, basic elemental theory… I'm an IRA user, My prince, My knowledge of magic is limited."
Shane nodded, his decision made. The beating was a brutal lesson. He couldn't fight. He needed to think. He dismissed Elroy with thanks, his mind already elsewhere.
The Grand Archive
Shane returned to the silent library. This time, he went straight for the practical shelves: "The Arcanum of Energy: IRA and Magicka," "A Treatise on Innate Talents," "Fundamental Thaumaturgical Calculus."
A chart depicted two distinct energy pathways flowing through a humanoid figure. One was labeled IRA, described as the energy of the body, of will, and physical prowess. It was shown emanating from the muscles and bones, a fierce, red-gold energy. The text explained that those with Physical Talents—Warriors—cultivated IRA to enhance their strength, speed, and endurance beyond mortal limits. Their progression was measured in straightforward levels of mastery: Mortal, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, Legendary.
The second pathway was labeled MAGICKA, a cool, blue-silver energy depicted swirling from the environment into a core in the chest and then out through the hands and mind. This was the energy of spells, of bending reality to one's will. Those with Magical Talents—Mages—channeled Magicka, and their power was measured by the complexity of the magical circles they could form and control: 1st-Circle, 2nd-Circle, and so on.
A footnote sent a chill down Shane's spine: *"It is a known axiom that a Level 1 Demi-human, due to their inherently denser biological core, can generate and wield more Energy than a Level 1 Human, often making them a match for a Level 2 Human combatant."*
From what he read, the charts of energy pathways, the descriptions of Talents, the cold footnote about Demi-human superiority—it all painted a picture of a world governed by ruthless, quantifiable power. A world where he was less than nothing.
Frustrated, he opened "Fundamental Thaumaturgical Calculus."The introduction was a revelation.
"To the layman, a rune is a magic symbol. To the Master Enchanter, a rune is not drawn; it is solved. It is the visible answer to a complex equation that describes a specific interaction between Magicka and reality. This is the First Principle: Magic is a science, and runes are its mathematics."
Shane's breath caught. He read on, feverishly. The book laid out the Standard Runic Formula (SRF), the foundational law of all enchantment
[Desired Effect]∝
[Environmental Resistance]
[Magicka Input]×[Cause Modifier]
The text explained it in clear terms
The Enchanter's Goal is to balance the equation. Too much Magicka for the Effect causes an explosion. Too little, and it fizzles. Perfect balance creates a stable, permanent enchantment.
The Variables: "Desired Effect" had to be quantifiable ("create a light of X intensity," not just "create light"). "Cause Modifier" was the intent—the specific "shape" of the spell. "Environmental Resistance" was the cost of imposing will upon the world.
This wasn't just magic; it was magic based on intense calculations. And then, he found it in an appendix of unsolved "Thought Exercises":
Problem 7: The simple energy Scanner Rune. Design a runic sequence that can interpret ambient magicka to identify a target's properties.
Proposed Formula:
Where ⊕ denotes a thaumaturgical convolution, and ≡ ΔE demands an equivalence to a change in output state, creating a readable information signature. The primary obstacle is the instability of the convolution operator ⊕; no known material can sustain the energy flow without catastrophic decay.
The more Shane looked at it this equation was a mess of unfamiliar operators (⊕, ≡) and symbols (Ω, ρₘ), but its structure was hauntingly, profoundly familiar.
Shane's breath hitched. A sharp, sudden pain lanced through his temple. The runic equation seemed to warp on the page, and increasingly familiar, the integral ∫, the partial derivative ∂... they morphed into the familiar forms from his previous life he couldn't remember, the word physics came to his mind. Most of the equations slightly mirror what he already knew but a few notations were unknown
Like [∫(∂M/∂t) dΩ] and [∇⋅(ρₘ v)] Present in the equation
Still, he knew ≡ ΔE... Must be equivalent to a change in output state. Information.
This was the mathematical soul of a scanning function. It was like looking at the principles of a system written in a cipher. The underlying logic was the same, only the notation and equations were alien.
Shane's heart began to pound. The memories were gone, but the knowledge remained, If a Rune was just a magical expression of a physical principle, then maybe the rules of that principle still applied. Could he use the equations he knows to solve the ones on this page? Could he "hack" the magic of this world with the physics from another?.
If that was true Shane realized that he might have just found a way to protect himself during the trial and in this world. He needed to become an Enchanter, he needed to derive a working Rune, He needed a lab and tools. From the book, to enchant a rune, special sets of tools and materials are needed, And He needed to talk to someone who would understand this. Someone who wouldn't just dismiss him as mad. Someone who had seen his "otherworldly" designs and hadn't immediately laughed, but there was only one person he could feel was fitting for that spot for whatever reason.
Gathering his notes, Shane left the archive. He had no idea where the person was, but he had a name. He stopped a nervous-looking first-year student in the hallway.
"I need to find Aimee Vi Stromsto. Where would she be?"
The student pointed a trembling finger toward the eastern courtyard. "I don't know..... but try The—the old alchemy treehouse. In the Whispering Woods grove. Everyone knows it."
"Thank you," Shane said, already turning away. The boy blinked, stunned by the courtesy from the infamous prince, but Shane didn't notice. His mind was already elsewhere, racing with equations and possibilities.
He set off with a determined, aching stride. 'If I can fully use my newfound physics knowledge mixed with these world Runic equations, I might as well survive yet in this world, ' Shane thought, finally a smile crept up is lips.