Newton's Third Law says that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
Teachers loved the line because it sounded clean—like reality followed rules instead of habits, like the world was fair enough to balance itself.
But after watching that boy in the maintenance passage—watching him mirror my stance after taking a hit—I understood why the reader who designed his skill had chosen the name.
It wasn't flashy.
It wasn't loud.
It was… elegant.
[Action and Reaction {0}]
A skill that copied a technique only after receiving its blow.
Not the ability itself. Not rank. Not the "name."
Just movement and energy flow.
A predator's tool—if the user had the brain to match it.
He didn't.
He thought he was copying fire.
He wasn't.
Fire was the wrapper. The performance.
What he copied was my circulation pattern—the sequence, the rhythm, the timing. The way magic moved through the arm, not what it looked like when it finished.
Which meant something important.
He didn't understand his own mechanics yet.
Dangerous… but not deadly.
Not yet.
I exhaled slowly as I walked away from the back passage, the stolen manual tucked under my arm like contraband.
"That's comforting," I muttered. "At least he's not from Earth."
Petty.
But true.
In a world where the plot was already drifting, I needed every advantage I could keep.
If another transmigrator existed, they'd remember the same things I did—major events, hidden resources, the academy's habits, future villains, the places where the story snapped under pressure.
I couldn't afford someone else holding the map.
Not when I was barely surviving my first day.
And right now, I had one advantage no one else here could replicate:
I knew what mattered before it mattered.
The Triangle didn't reward morality.
It rewarded timing.
By the time I reached the dorm wing, the sun had dropped low enough to paint the windows in pale gold. Students moved through the corridors in layered currents—Class A drifting as if they owned the air, lower classes hugging walls with lowered heads and quick steps.
No one spoke to me.
Not directly.
But I felt eyes track the badge on my chest like a laser dot finding target.
Dreyden — 165,983 pts
Numbers were a language here.
And mine was a loud sentence.
I unlocked my room and stepped inside.
It wasn't a luxury suite. The Triangle didn't waste comfort on "potential."
A bed.
A desk.
A closet.
One narrow window.
Clean enough to feel sterile. Functional enough to feel temporary.
The room wasn't designed to be lived in.
It was designed to be used.
I didn't sit right away. Habit made me check corners—old paranoia, old survival reflex.
No obvious cameras.
No visible listening runes.
That didn't mean there weren't any. It just meant the Triangle didn't advertise when it watched.
I set the manual on the desk and stared at it.
Magic Control.
The key to increasing Magic Energy.
The key to not dying the first time someone stronger decided to "test" me.
I'd written Dreyden with a loophole skill, but I'd also written him fragile in all the places that mattered.
Strength: 12.
Toughness: 15.
Agility: 13.
If I fought like a brute, I'd break before I ever climbed.
If I grew my control fast enough…
I could make brute force irrelevant.
I opened the book carefully.
No ancient leather. No glow. No dramatic rune-work.
Just printed instruction and diagrams.
That was what made it terrifying.
Any idiot could've found this.
Which meant the reason it mattered wasn't rarity.
It was neglect.
Most people didn't want the boring foundation.
They wanted explosive skills and visible wins. They wanted to look strong.
I wanted to be strong.
I read the first line twice.
"Step one: establish an energy core. Position: right side of the chest, parallel to the heart."
My throat tightened.
I closed the book, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at my hands.
Calling Status had been easy. Energy surged automatically when the system responded.
But manipulating it?
That was different.
That was a language my body hadn't spoken yet.
"Fine," I whispered. "Let's learn."
I closed my eyes.
At first, there was nothing—just darkness, the soft hum of the dorm, distant footsteps, someone laughing too loudly in the hallway like they needed noise to prove they weren't afraid.
Then I felt it.
Not heat.
Not light.
Pressure.
Like invisible water trying to move through me.
In my mind's eye, thin sparks drifted—blue, inconsistent, flickering in and out like bad signal.
The manual said to gather them, not force them.
To guide, not squeeze.
I tried.
The sparks crawled toward the right side of my chest.
One.
Two.
Three.
They touched—
Pain detonated inside me.
White-hot and sharp, like something tearing through muscle that wasn't built to be torn. My teeth clenched hard enough to ache.
"Grr—!"
My hands curled into fists.
Instinct screamed at me to stop. To recoil. To break contact.
But the manual warned about that too.
Interrupting core formation midway could cause permanent instability.
In other words: if I panicked now, I could cripple myself forever.
So I didn't stop.
I breathed through it.
Slow. Measured.
Like I was trying to convince my body that suffering didn't mean death.
The sparks compressed tighter.
Pain flared again.
My vision shook. Sweat slid down my temple.
Then—like a switch flipping—the core formed.
A bright sphere pulsed faintly in my chest.
And the pain vanished instantly.
I dragged in air like I'd been drowning.
"…Damn."
My hands trembled.
Not from weakness.
From the aftershock of surviving something my brain had labeled lethal.
I opened the manual again with shaking fingers.
Step two: circulation.
This was where most people failed.
Core formation was violent.
Circulation was precision.
The manual described the core like a pump. You didn't just feed it energy—you created a loop so the body learned rhythm.
I focused.
Green sparks—ambient mana.
Blue sparks—my own.
They drifted toward the core, drawn like gravity had changed.
I guided them into the path outlined in the diagrams.
Slowly. Carefully.
Power moved through me like a winding river. If I pushed too hard, it surged and tore. If I moved too softly, it stagnated.
I found the middle.
A pulse.
A rhythm.
One circuit.
Then another.
Time blurred into repetition.
Breath in—guide.
Breath out—loop.
Somewhere in the middle of it, my body started to understand.
Not intellectually.
Muscle-deep.
Like learning to ride a bike in the dark without falling.
Two hours passed without me noticing.
My shirt clung to my back. My fingers were numb from tension. My chest felt warm—not painful, just alive.
I opened my eyes.
The room looked sharper, like a thin layer of haze had been scraped off reality.
"Status," I said.
The square appeared.
===== Status =====
Strength: 12
Toughness: 15
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 20
Perception: 17 (+7)
Magic Energy: 102 (+72)
===== Skills =====
Celestial Library {0}
Stored Volumes:
• Eyes of Truth {1}
• Fire Fists {7}
• Action and Reaction {0}
• None
My breath caught.
I stared at Magic Energy: 102 like it had to be a typo.
"…That's insane."
Seventy-two points.
In two hours.
Low-tier circulation manuals gave +1 per cycle. Mid-tier gave +2 or +3. Family-grade control could hit +5 if you were talented.
This one?
This one was a cheat code wearing plain clothes.
The Perception increase made sense too. Eyes of Truth wasn't just a lens—it was training wheels for awareness. Every time I used it, my brain learned to notice.
Potential.
That word echoed in my head.
Not raw power.
Not technique.
The kind of growth that made people uncomfortable.
Because growth like this didn't happen without a story behind it.
I pulled up my student ID next and checked my merits.
Name: Dreyden Stella
Class: A1
Score: 165,983
Balance: 1600 Merits
History:
+500 Merits (Entrance Reward)
+1000 Merits (Class A Admission)
+100 Merits (Mr. Lean's Reward)
Merits were the Triangle's leash.
Give students just enough currency to feel invested. Let them buy a level 1 skill. Make them believe the academy had "given" them their future.
I wasn't falling for it.
I slid the ID away and left my room.
If I stayed inside too long, I'd start feeling safe.
And safety in this place was how people died.
The hallways were wide and metallic, lit with institutional blue. The Triangle's architecture didn't try to inspire—it tried to contain.
I walked for twenty minutes, letting my senses catalog everything.
Where cameras would likely sit.
Which corners stayed blind anyway.
Where sound carried too far.
That's when I saw it.
A Class D boy pinned against the wall by another student.
The attacker wasn't strong—at least not compared to what I'd seen today.
But he was higher-ranked.
That was enough.
"Do you think you can bump into me and just apologize!?" he snarled, and drove his fist into the boy's face again.
The victim's knees buckled.
He didn't fight back.
Not because he couldn't.
Because he understood the rules.
Students passed by.
Some looked away.
Some slowed down like it was entertainment.
No one intervened.
Not because they were evil.
Because they were trained.
The Triangle didn't teach kindness.
It taught risk calculation.
I watched for three seconds.
That was all I needed.
This wasn't dominance.
It was cowardice dressed in hierarchy.
I walked past them—close enough to shoulder-check the attacker.
Hard.
He stumbled, catching himself with a curse.
"What the hell—!?"
He turned, anger already loaded—
Then his eyes hit the gold stripe on my uniform.
Class A.
His rage evaporated like it had never existed.
"C-Class A—"
Before he could finish, I drove my knee into his stomach.
WHAM.
He folded with a wet gasp, dropping to the floor, hands clawing at his gut like he could hold himself together by force.
I leaned down—not to threaten.
To make sure the words landed.
"Look at you," I said quietly. "Afraid of the strong. Bullying the weak. Typical."
His eyes watered.
Not from pain.
From humiliation.
Behind him, the Class D boy flinched when I stepped closer, throwing his arms up defensively.
"P-please don't hurt me—!"
I stopped.
Softened my posture by a fraction.
"You're fine," I said. "Go."
He blinked, frozen.
Then bolted down the hallway as if he didn't trust the miracle.
Good.
Trust got people killed too.
I straightened and slid my hands into my pockets.
Other students watched from a distance.
No one spoke.
No one challenged.
Because they weren't sure what I was.
And uncertainty was expensive.
"Tsk," I muttered. "Mood's ruined."
The Triangle's internal alarm chimed the next morning.
Not a phone.
Not an old-world device.
A clean tone embedded in the walls.
06:00.
I sat up with a groan, stomach twisting like it wanted revenge.
"…Should've eaten more."
I dressed and headed to the cafeteria.
It was massive—modern stations, long lines, trays clattering, conversations overlapping like layered static.
But what stood out wasn't the noise.
It was the structure.
Tables arranged by class rank.
Like a kingdom's seating chart.
Class D huddled far back.
Class C held the middle.
Class B lounged with casual confidence.
Class A sat near the top-center—no walls separating them…
Just distance made of fear.
Higher-ranked students cut lines whenever they wanted.
No one complained.
No one even looked offended.
It was normal here.
I grabbed my tray and walked toward Class A.
An empty table.
As expected.
No one wanted to sit with the unknown late-arrival A-Class with the high number and no visible allegiance.
Not Silvius. Not Dogers. Not the students with families powerful enough to ignore consequences.
I ate alone in silence.
Until—
"Hey. Can we sit here?"
A calm voice.
I looked up.
Lucas Væresberg stood there with a tray, red right eye quietly observing me like he'd already measured three different versions of this conversation.
Next to him was Arlo Stanford—Class B's strongest, grinning like he didn't experience danger the same way other people did.
Lucas smiled politely, like this wasn't an act of social warfare.
"You saved us a spot," he said. "Thanks."
Right on cue.
The protagonist had finally approached.
I leaned back slightly and nodded once.
"Make yourselves comfortable."
And just like that—
My life in the Triangle officially began.
Not with a fight.
Not with a speech.
With a table.
And the quiet understanding that every seat here was a decision.