The sun had climbed halfway toward its zenith, turning the air thick and golden. Kael-Ankh left Merit's compound with an empty clay jar balanced on one shoulder and a quiet determination settling in his chest. Merit had tasked him with fetching water from the river—simple enough work, but it gave him space to think, to observe, to test the edges of this impossible new existence without watchful eyes on him.
The path to the Nile was well-trodden, worn into a shallow groove by generations of bare feet and donkey hooves. Date palms arched overhead, their fronds rustling like dry paper in the breeze. Small irrigation channels branched off the main river, feeding narrow green strips of barley and emmer that would soon be ready for harvest. Birds—ibises mostly, with their curved black beaks—waded in the shallows, stabbing at fish with precise, almost mechanical strikes.
Kael walked slowly, letting his senses map the world. The ground underfoot shifted from packed earth to softer, silt-enriched mud near the water's edge. The smell changed too: from dry dust and palm sweetness to the rich, fertile reek of river mud, decaying vegetation, and the clean metallic tang of moving water. Reeds towered along the banks, tall and green, their feathery heads nodding in unison like an audience waiting for a performance.
He reached a gentle slope where the bank flattened into a small landing used by villagers for washing clothes and drawing water. A few women were already there, laughing softly as they pounded linen against smooth stones. One glanced up, offered a quick nod of recognition—word of the "strange tall man" had spread overnight—then returned to her work.
Kael knelt at the water's edge. The Nile here was calm, its surface a shifting mosaic of green-brown reflections broken by occasional ripples from fish or drifting lotus leaves. He submerged the jar, watching bubbles rise and burst. As he lifted it, something caught the light in the disturbed mud—a small, dark shape half-buried, glinting blue.
He set the jar aside and reached down. His fingers closed around cool, smooth stone. He pulled it free: a scarab amulet, no larger than his thumb, carved from deep lapis lazuli with fine gold wire outlining the beetle's wings and legs. The underside bore tiny incised hieroglyphs—faded but legible: ḥpr (to become, to transform), flanked by a small sun disk and an ankh.
The moment his skin made full contact, heat bloomed in his palm—not burning, but alive, like holding a coal wrapped in silk. Blue light traced the gold lines, faint at first, then brighter, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. A voice—not audible, but intimate, pressing directly against the core of his awareness—whispered:
Protection. Renewal. Hold me and remember.
Images flooded his mind in rapid succession, vivid and layered like overlapping papyrus sheets:
• A dung beetle pushing a perfect sphere of earth toward the rising sun, symbol of Khepri, the dawn aspect of Ra.
• Hearts weighed on golden scales in the Hall of Judgment, scarabs guarding the chest where the soul resides.
• Mummies wrapped with amulets pressed to the flesh, ensuring rebirth in the Field of Reeds.
• A soul ascending as a shining scarab, wings spread, carrying the reborn Ka into eternity.
The flood ended as abruptly as it began. Kael gasped, nearly dropping the amulet into the water. His hand trembled, but the heat remained—comforting now, steady. He felt something shift inside his chest: a subtle expansion, like lungs filling after holding breath too long. His Ka—whatever that truly meant here—had stirred.
He turned the scarab over in his fingers. The lapis was flawless, the gold untarnished despite centuries (or millennia?) of burial in silt. How had it come to be here, half-exposed, waiting?
Doesn't matter, he thought. It's here. And it's responding to me.
He closed his eyes and focused, drawing on the fragments Ptahhotep had taught him the evening before: breath control, intent, spoken power. But he layered his own understanding atop it—modern, analytical.
Energy isn't magic; it's conserved, transformed. If this is a conduit for mythos, then belief is the catalyst, visualization the circuit.
He pictured a shield: not a flat wall, but a spherical envelope, thin and flexible, repelling force like a magnetic field deflecting charged particles. He spoke the simplest ward he knew, twisting it slightly:
"Ia netjer, kheper em khepri. Protect this form as the beetle guards the dawn."
Golden light flickered from his palm—not the raw flare of untrained power, but controlled, a shimmering translucent barrier no thicker than a soap bubble. It enveloped his hand like a glove of light, warm and tingling. When he flexed his fingers, the barrier flexed with them.
He tested it. Pressed a finger against a sharp reed stem nearby—the barrier dimpled but held, the reed sliding harmlessly aside. He increased pressure; still no pain.
Tier 0 → Nascent Ka. Basic protection unlocked.
A thrill ran through him—pure, electric wonder mixed with calculation. This wasn't just fantasy power; it obeyed rules. Rules he could learn, exploit, improve.
The women at the washing stones had paused, staring. One murmured something about "the stranger calling light from the beetle." Another made a quick gesture of blessing toward him.
Kael let the barrier fade. The scarab's glow dimmed to a soft inner luminescence. He tucked it securely into the fold of his kilt belt, against his skin where it could stay in contact.
As he lifted the water jar and started back toward the village, his mind raced ahead.
If one small amulet could grant this, what could a temple statue do? A named deity's blessing? A ritual combat victory?
And the voice—Hold me and remember—hadn't been random. It felt like recognition. As though the scarab had been waiting for someone who understood its deeper meaning: transformation, rebirth, the cycle unbroken.
He thought of his death: the truck, the torn scans fluttering away, the final academic regret about ink smearing. Then this—rebirth in flesh stronger than before, mind intact, carrying cheat codes from a world of science and skepticism.
Truck-kun strikes again, he thought wryly. But this time the isekai comes with actual magic system documentation.
By the time he reached Merit's gate, the jar heavy on his shoulder, the scarab's warmth had become a constant, gentle pulse against his hip—like a second heartbeat reminding him:
This world runs on mythos.
Absorb it.
Innovate with it.
Ascend through it.
He set the jar down and wiped sweat from his brow. Merit appeared in the doorway, hands on hips.
"Took you long enough. Did the crocodiles try to chat?"
Kael smiled—small, secret. "Something like that."
She eyed him curiously but didn't press. "Good. Now help me stretch this new warp. And tonight, after supper, Ptahhotep wants you at the shrine. Says your Ka 'burns too strangely' to ignore any longer."
Kael nodded, pulse quickening again.
Lessons. Training. More fragments.
He touched the hidden scarab once more.
Let's see how far this goes.