Chapter 232: Fixing The Formula With Chalk

I looked at the mahogany table.

Principal Miller leaned back in his leather chair. A satisfied, cruel smile played on his lips. Chairman Davis folded his hands, looking at his watch. Mr. Sterling stood by the board, radiating pure arrogance.

They knew.

They wrote a broken equation. They designed an unsolvable problem. If I attempted to solve it, I would fail to produce a final numerical value. I would run out of time. If I guessed a number, I would fail the accuracy standard.

They built a trap with zero exits. They meant to humiliate me in front of the entire senior class and the local press.

My breath hitched. The silence in the auditorium grew heavy, pressing against my eardrums. The air felt thick and unbreathable.

I looked past the stage. I found Chloe Vance in the front row. She leaned forward, anticipation bright in her eyes. She waited for my destruction. She waited for her unearned crown to return to her head.

I shifted my gaze to the back of the room.

Ryder stood near the heavy brass doors. He watched my face. He saw the hesitation. He saw the panic. He did not look away. He offered a firm, steady nod. He reminded me of the truth. He reminded me of the grit forged on the East Side.

I tightened my grip on the chewed pencil. The chipped paint and the faded blue eraser grounded me. The elite tried to dictate reality with their money and their influence. Now, they tried to dictate mathematics with a rigged test.

They forgot one crucial detail. Mathematics bows to no one. The rules of calculus do not change for billionaires or corrupt principals. The truth remains the truth.

I released the pencil. I pulled my hand out of my pocket.

I stopped attempting to solve the unsolvable volume. I focused on Mr. Sterling.

"The equation is invalid," I stated.

My voice cut through the tense air. The words echoed off the vaulted ceiling. A collective gasp rose from the velvet seats. Students shifted, whispering to each other.

Mr. Sterling stiffened. The smug expression faltered, replaced by immediate anger.

"Excuse me?" the calculus teacher demanded. He stepped toward my stool. "You dispute the premise of the problem?"

"I dispute the boundary conditions," I clarified. I kept my posture straight. I refused to cower. "You set an upper limit of integration for the variable as the natural logarithm of one minus secant squared theta. That expression evaluates to the natural logarithm of a non-positive number. The domain of a real-valued logarithmic function does not permit non-positive arguments."

The faculty table erupted in hushed murmurs. Mr. Harrison leaned forward, his eyes wide with realization.

Mr. Sterling crossed his arms over his crisp gray suit.

"You seek excuses, Miss Petrova," the teacher sneered. "The problem is complex. It requires advanced manipulation. If you lack the intellect to perform the integration, you must admit failure. Do not blame the exam for your own shortcomings."

"I do not lack the intellect," I countered. The fire in my chest burned hot and bright. "I possess the intellect to recognize a mathematical impossibility. You wrote a divergent, undefined bound. The volume does not exist in real space. The answer is undefined."

Principal Miller grabbed his microphone.

"Miss Petrova," Miller snapped, his voice sharp with irritation. "The board expects a numerical answer. You possess three minutes remaining. Solve the equation written on the board, or the tribunal ends."

They refused to concede. They expected me to surrender to their false authority. They expected the girl from the wrong side of the city to bow her head and accept the rigged failure.

I looked at the thick white piece of chalk resting on the wooden tray.

I did not need their permission to prove the truth. I did not need their validation.

I stood up from the solitary wooden stool.

The movement caused another ripple of shock through the audience. The faculty panel went silent. Chairman Davis narrowed his eyes.

"Return to your seat," Mr. Sterling ordered.

I ignored him. I walked across the polished floorboards. My footsteps sounded loud and firm in the quiet room. I closed the distance between the stool and the massive green slate.

I reached out and picked up the white chalk.

The dust coated my fingertips. The cylinder felt heavy and solid. I turned to face the faculty table. I looked directly at Principal Miller.

"A flawed premise produces a flawed result," I said, my voice projecting with undeniable authority. "I refuse to calculate a lie."

I turned back to the chalkboard. I lifted my hand. I pressed the chalk against the green slate. The screech echoed again, loud and piercing.

I crossed out the invalid boundary limit with a single, aggressive slash.

A murmur of disbelief swelled from the crowd. I heard Hugo let out a sharp breath. I heard Chloe Vance scoff in the front row.

I moved my hand. I replaced the impossible logarithmic function. I wrote a new limit, utilizing a standard trigonometric identity that stabilized the domain. I altered the variables to create a cohesive, solvable solid. I restructured the entire second half of the integration sequence.

White dust fell onto the floor. My hand moved with rapid precision. I rewrote the parameters, aligning them with the fundamental laws of calculus.

I finished the corrections. I stepped back.

The equation sat on the board, transformed from a rigged trap into a beautiful, complex, and valid multi-variable problem.

She takes the chalk and corrects the teacher's formula in front of the crowd.

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Author's Note:

Regarding Chapter 229 to 232, I'm not sure if you all will be interested in these details, but I didn't want to remove them because they are a part of the story. I hope you don't mind this chapter and the upcoming ones. I also hope everything I've written here is accurate!

— Rosehipstea