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In the Kingdom of Mythos, magic was a birthright. You were either born with the Spark, or you were a Commoner. The Spark-born ruled, levitating in their ivory towers, while the Commoners tilled the fields.
Silas was a Commoner. But Silas had a brain, and he had chemistry.
"They call it magic," Silas told his secret gathering in the cellar. "I call it unstable energy manipulation. And anything that can be manipulated can be replicated."
He held up a flask. It glowed green. It wasn't a spell. It was phosphorus and Greek fire, stabilized with a solution he'd spent ten years perfecting.
The High Mage Vex challenged them the next day. "Disperse, rats!" Vex shouted, hovering above the market square on a carpet of wind. "Or be incinerated!"
Vex raised a hand, summoning a fireball. The crowd cowered.
Silas stepped forward. He didn't have a staff. He had a glass sphere.
"Newton's third law," Silas muttered. "For every action..."
He threw the sphere. It shattered at Vex's feet. It didn't explode. It created a vacuum. A rapid, violent consumption of oxygen.
Vex's fireball flickered and died, starved of air. The Mage gasped, clutching his throat as the air was sucked out of his immediate vicinity. He fell from his wind carpet, landing hard in the mud.
The crowd stared. A Commoner had grounded a High Mage.
"That wasn't magic!" Vex wheezed, struggling to stand.
"No," Silas said, lighting a match with a flick of his thumb. "It's science. And unlike your magic, it belongs to everyone."
The rebellion didn't start with a shout. It started with the scratching of formulas on slate. The age of Mysticism was ending. The age of Alchemy had begun.