“The Solution Book isn't for finding answers. It’s for understanding the cost of them.” The man stepped forward, and the concrete floor beneath his shoes turned into graph paper. The grid spread outward, swallowing the storage shelves, the globe, the moldy books. “I was the keeper. I used it to bypass the hardest problem of my life. I solved for ‘Success’ without earning it. And now I am trapped here, in the margins of problems I never truly understood.”

Now, potential.

The instructor reappeared, solid now, his chalk-dust face cracking. “The book lied to you,” he admitted. “The answer isn’t a number. The limit doesn’t exist. You can never fully eliminate fear. And potential is infinite. So E—your existence—is not a fixed value. It’s the process of the limit.”

Elias got in. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then: “Dad. I want to show you my math binder. Not the grades. The work.”