If you’ve ever wished you could step inside a fantasy world where science isn’t the enemy of wonder—where real chemistry concepts power real adventures—then you’re in for something special. Welcome to MarBryn, a breathtaking realm where civilization runs on elemental truth, and every spell, machine, and miracle begins with the one rule everyone learns early:
No Metal, No Magic.
In Selenice The Alchemical Wizard With Selenium Magic: Element 34 — Magical Elementals Chemistry Fantasy, the hero isn’t a wizard with a staff. It’s a dragon—calm, analytical, compassionate—whose magical abilities are rooted in one of the most essential elements on the periodic table:
Selenium (Element 34)
Because in MarBryn, the elements aren’t just background details—they’re the story itself.
When Chemistry Becomes Magic: Why “Selenice” Is the Fantasy Series Your STEM-Loving Reader Has Been Waiting For
Most fantasy magic systems borrow from the same well-worn elements: fire, water, earth, air, maybe a little shadow or light thrown in for flavor. Selenice the Alchemical Wizard With Selenium Magic, Book 34 in the Magical Elementals Chemistry Fantasy Series, does something far more interesting. It builds its entire magic system out of real chemistry — specifically, the strange and paradoxical properties of selenium, Element 34 on the periodic table.
If you’ve never thought of the periodic table as a source of epic fantasy inspiration, you’re about to.
A Wizard Built From Real Science
Selenice isn’t just another staff-wielding spellcaster with vaguely defined “light magic.” Every ability she has is rooted in something selenium actually does in the real world. She can absorb sunlight and convert it into raw magical power — a direct nod to selenium’s famous photoconductivity, the property that made it essential to early solar cells and photocopiers. She shifts between three distinct battle forms, mirroring selenium’s real allotropes: a volatile red state for explosive offense, a glassy black state for near-impenetrable defense, and a stable gray state that serves as her balanced default.
Perhaps most fascinating is her catalytic ability. In real chemistry, selenium compounds accelerate reactions without being consumed in the process. In Selenice’s hands, that becomes the power to amplify her companions’ magic — boosting a storm caller’s lightning or a healer’s restoration spell — without ever draining her own reserves. It’s a generous, support-oriented kind of power that you don’t see often in fantasy protagonists, and it makes her invaluable to everyone around her.
The Danger Hidden Inside the Cure
Here’s what makes Selenice genuinely compelling rather than just cleverly designed: selenium is essential to life in trace amounts and dangerous in excess. That razor-thin margin between healing and harm becomes her greatest internal conflict. She knows exactly how far she can push her magic before it turns toxic — to her enemies, and eventually to herself. When the story’s climax forces her to walk right up to that edge on purpose, knowing precisely what it will cost her, it lands with real weight. This isn’t a wizard who can’t be hurt by her own power. It’s one who chooses to risk it anyway.
A World Where Elements Are Civilization
The story takes place on MarBryn, a richly imagined fantasy world governed by a single guiding philosophy: No Metal, No Magic. Every ward, every flying machine, every spell cast across the world depends on the elements buried in its crust. It’s a simple creed on the surface, but the book uses it to ask a sharper question — having access to powerful elements isn’t the same as understanding how to wield them responsibly. The story’s antagonist, Magistrate Voss Threnody, believes in metal without restraint, forcing a dangerous reaction the world was never built to survive. Selenice represents the opposite: precision, patience, and respect for exactly what an element’s nature can and can’t do.
Adventure, Found Family, and a Battle Worth Reading
Beyond the science, this is a genuine adventure story — companions joining and parting ways, meals shared around a fire, a major battle with real stakes, and a found family of misfits (a tinkerer, a storm caller, a glass fox made of starlight, and a healer) who hold each other together through real danger.
For readers who love magic systems with actual internal logic, for STEM-curious kids who’d love to see chemistry turned into adventure, and for anyone tired of magic that means whatever the plot needs it to mean, Selenice the Alchemical Wizard With Selenium Magic offers something rare: a fantasy world where the magic makes sense, because the science already did.
Get it in Kindle, Paperback or Audio.
Links and Notes for Selenice’s chemistry inspired magical abilities:
Photoconductivity — Selenice’s Light Absorption & Projection Magic
Chemistry LibreTexts — Chemistry of Selenium (Z=34) https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/Supplemental_Modules_and_Websites_(Inorganic_Chemistry)/Descriptive_Chemistry/Elements_Organized_by_Block/2_p-Block_Elements/Group_16%3A_The_Oxygen_Family_(The_Chalcogens)/Z034_Chemistry_of_Selenium_(Z34) An accessible academic overview of selenium’s photoconductivity — how light increases electrical conduction — and its historical use in solar cells, photocopiers, and laser printers. The direct scientific basis for Selenice’s ability to absorb and weaponize sunlight.
Bristol Watch — Selenium Rectifiers and Solar Cells Overview https://www.bristolwatch.com/science/selenium.htm Explains exactly how selenium’s conductivity increases when photons strike it and generate free charge carriers. Covers its pioneering role in photovoltaic research and photoelectric applications.
arXiv — The Reemergence of Selenium Solar Cells https://arxiv.org/html/2604.10329 A detailed research paper tracing selenium’s photoconductive discovery in 1873 right through to modern tandem solar cell research — including the first-ever solid-state photovoltaic device made from selenium in 1876. Provides the deep historical science behind the magic.
News Medical — Selenium History https://www.news-medical.net/health/Selenium-History.aspx A concise history of selenium’s photoconductive uses across photography exposure meters, solar cells, optical printers, and photocopiers.
Allotropic Forms — Selenice’s Three Battle States
Aalto University — Allotropy of Selenium https://wiki.aalto.fi/spaces/SSC/pages/234042954/Allotropy+of+selenium The most thorough publicly available breakdown of all eight selenium allotropes, including the three main forms — red (amorphous, unstable), black (glassy, brittle), and gray (crystalline, stable) — which map directly to Selenice’s Red, Obsidian, and Crystalline battle states.
ChemTalk — The Sublime Element Selenium https://chemistrytalk.org/selenium-element/ Clearly explains that red and black selenium are insulators while gray selenium is a semiconductor, and that red is the most reactive form. Directly supports the story’s Red Form as volatile and explosive, Black as defensive, and Gray as stable and precise.
PMC — Allotrope-Dependent Physicochemical and Optical Properties of Red and Grey Selenium Nanoparticles https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13093878/ Peer-reviewed research demonstrating the real structural and electronic differences between red amorphous and gray crystalline selenium at the nanoscale level, with Raman spectroscopy data confirming their distinct properties.
Royal Society of Chemistry — The Chemistry of Selenium https://books.rsc.org/books/edited-volume/1109/chapter/925535/The-Chemistry-of-Selenium An authoritative scientific chapter from the RSC covering selenium’s multiple allotropic forms, their thermodynamic stability relationships, and how temperature drives conversion between them.
Catalytic Properties — Selenice’s Spell Amplification Magic
Stanford Advanced Materials — Selenium: Element Properties and Uses https://www.samaterials.com/blog/selenium-element-properties-and-uses.html Covers selenium’s multiple oxidation states and their role in both semiconductor and catalytic industrial processes, directly supporting Selenice’s ability to act as a magical catalyst.
ScienceDirect — Selenium Overview https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/selenium Academic overview confirming selenium’s catalytic role in xerography and photovoltaic applications, and explaining its semiconducting and photoconductive nature as an accelerant in chemical reactions.
Antioxidant Properties — Selenice’s Curse & Corruption Cleansing
NIH/PubMed — Selenium as an Antioxidant: Roles and Clinical Applications https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11939285/ A comprehensive clinical review of how selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase (GPx) neutralizes reactive oxygen species and free radicals in the body — the precise biological mechanism behind Selenice’s corruption-cleansing and purification magic.
Science.org — Selenium: Biochemical Role as a Component of Glutathione Peroxidase https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.179.4073.588 The landmark original research paper from Science establishing selenium’s essential role in glutathione peroxidase. The foundational scientific paper for the antioxidant magic in the story.
NIH/PubMed — The Selenoprotein Glutathione Peroxidase 4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9027222/ Detailed molecular research on how GPX4 eliminates lipid peroxides — harmful free radicals — using glutathione as a cofactor, explaining the precise biochemistry behind Selenice’s passive corruption-resistance aura.
Toxicity Duality — Selenice’s Healing That Can Harm
OAText — Selenium Nanoparticles: Pro-oxidant and Antioxidant Properties https://www.oatext.com/selenium-nanoparticles-an-insight-on-its-pro-oxidant-and-antioxidant-properties.php Directly addresses selenium’s narrow therapeutic window — the razor-thin margin between beneficial trace amounts and toxic excess — which is the core of Selenice’s greatest dramatic tension.
Chemistry Dictionary — Selenium: Uses, Properties and Interesting Facts https://chemistrydictionary.org/selenium/ Notes that selenium becomes severely toxic at doses as small as 500 micrograms, with effects similar to arsenic poisoning. Supports the story’s depiction of selenium toxicity as a real and serious physical threat.
NIH/PMC — Phenylselanyl Group Incorporation for GPx-Like Activity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7435675/ Research paper confirming that the therapeutic window for organoselenium compounds is very narrow, making precision dosing essential — the exact principle that governs Selenice’s careful metering of her own magic output.
Geological Scarcity — Why Selenium Magic Is Rare & Irreplicable
Britannica — Selenium https://www.britannica.com/science/selenium Confirms selenium composes only approximately 90 parts per billion of Earth’s crust and is almost always found as a byproduct of copper refining rather than in independent deposits, directly supporting the story’s worldbuilding around selenium’s rarity.
USGS — Selenium (Critical Mineral Resources of the United States) https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/pp1802Q The authoritative U.S. Geological Survey scientific report on selenium as a critical and scarce mineral resource, recovered almost entirely as a copper refining byproduct. The definitive government source for selenium’s geological scarcity.
Earth Magazine — Mineral Resource of the Month: Selenium https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/mineral-resource-month-selenium/ USGS-sourced article confirming selenium is too dispersed in the crust to justify mining independently — it must be extracted as a byproduct. Supports the story’s argument that selenium magic is nearly impossible to replicate because the raw material is so hard to source.
WebElements — Selenium Geological Information https://www.webelements.com/selenium/geology.html Concise periodic table reference confirming selenium minerals are rare and the element is normally only extractable as a copper byproduct, reinforcing the scarcity of Selenice’s specific magic.
Semiconducting Properties — Selenice’s Magic Redirection & Circuit Breaking
ScienceDirect — A Review on Selenium and Tellurium Thermoelectric Materials https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0254058425002172 Research covering selenium’s semiconductor behavior in thermoelectric and electronic applications, supporting Selenice’s ability to act as a magical circuit breaker redirecting energy flows.
RSC Publishing — Thermal Conductivity of Selenium Crystals https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/cp/d5cp02310f/unauth A 2025 study confirming selenium’s significant potential in thermoelectric applications through its lattice dynamics and thermal transport properties — the scientific basis for Selenice’s heat-conversion magic.
Thermoelectric Properties — Selenice’s Elemental Energy Harvesting
NIH/PMC — Synthesis and Thermoelectric Properties of Selenium Nanoparticles https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631964/ Peer-reviewed research on selenium’s thermoelectric power factor — its ability to convert thermal differentials into electrical energy — directly backing Selenice’s ability to harvest a dragon’s breath or a frost giant’s cold and convert it into usable magic.
AIP Publishing — Exploring the Thermoelectric Properties of Tin Selenide Nanostructures https://publishing.aip.org/publications/latest-content/exploring-the-thermoelectric-properties-of-tin-selenide-nanostructures/ Research confirming selenium-based compounds convert waste heat directly into electrical energy, the precise real-world mechanism behind Selenice’s thermal disruption zones in the story.
