Lencar left the ruins, his mind a silent, high-speed supercomputer. Yuno and Asta were already heading back to the church, their rivalry rekindled and louder than ever. Lencar, however, took the long way home, his path illuminated by the setting sun.
He needed to process.
He was currently in "Mage Mode." Yuno's massive mana pool felt like a heavy, weighted cloak, a resource so vast he could barely comprehend its limits. He could feel the other, smaller magical "signature" floating within it: the rigid, cold magic of Revchi's chains.
Then, just to test it again, he toggled.
He focused on the [ANTI-MAGIC] page in his mind.
Click.
The world went silent. The heavy cloak of mana vanished, leaving him feeling impossibly light, yet utterly powerless. His grimoire was no longer a wellspring of potential, but a dead, inert book. All that was left was his own Mana-Forged body, the dense muscle, the strong bones, and the disciplined mind of Kenji Tanaka.
Click.
He toggled it back. The tsunami of Yuno's mana flooded his system, the sudden return so jarring it made him stop and lean against a tree. The whiplash was dangerous. Switching from an ocean of power to a complete void was not a simple, natural act. It was a violation.
He now understood his path. He had two, and only two, modes of operation:
Mage Mode: Wielding copied, inflexible spells, backed by a prodigy's mana capacity.
Heretic Mode: Wielding Anti-Magic, backed by nothing but his own physical, non-magical body.
He finally reached his family's small farmhouse. He took a deep breath, calmed his racing thoughts, and focused on his grimoire's cover. The blank leather shimmered and settled on the image of a simple, unassuming, and perfectly average three-leaf clover. He tucked the grimoire under his arm and went inside.
His mother and father were at the table, their faces etched with anxiety.
"Lencar! You're back!" his mother exclaimed, rushing over. "The ceremony, how did it go? Did you... did you get one?"
Her eyes were so full of hope, and her own meager mana was fluttering nervously around her. Lencar gave her the small, calm smile he had perfected over the last fifteen years.
"I did," he said, holding up the grimoire.
His father came over, his eyes widening. "A three-leaf clover... Lencar, that's wonderful! Just like us!"
They gathered around him, touching the cover, their relief palpable. They weren't ambitious; they didn't dream of him becoming a captain. They just didn't want him to be an outcast. They didn't want him to be like Asta, the magicless boy they still pitied, even after Lencar's regular bread donations.
"We'll have a special stew tonight to celebrate," his mother said, her eyes tearing up with joy.
Lencar sat with them, eating the warm, simple food. He listened to them talk about the harvest. He felt a pang of guilt. This was the first, and biggest, lie he had ever told them. But it was a necessary one. If they knew what his grimoire really was—a blank, parasitic, heretical thing that could steal magic—they would be terrified.
He was protecting them. And in doing so, he was completely, utterly alone.
Later that night, Lencar sat at the small, wooden desk in his room. The farmhouse was silent. He laid the grimoire flat. Under the moonlight, the three-leaf clover disguise faded, returning the cover to its true, blank, unadorned state.
He opened it, the pages whispering.
Page 1: [Wind Magic: Towering TORNADO] (Capacity: Yuno)
Page 2: [Chain Magic: Magic-Sealing Chain], [Chain-Dance Slasher]
Page 3: [Fire Magic: Tiny Fireball] (Capacity: Lencar's Father)
Page 4: [Wind Magic: Gentle Breeze] (Capacity: Lencar's Mother)
Final Page (Conceptual): [ANTI-MAGIC: TOGGLE]
"Six months," he whispered to the empty room. Six months until the Magic Knights Entrance Exam.
Kenji Tanaka, the data analyst, took over. This wasn't a vague goal. This was a project with a hard deadline. He needed a training plan. He broke it down into variables.
Variable 1: The Body (Heretic Mode)
Problem: Anti-Magic requires a body that can function without mana enhancement, like Asta's. My "Mana-Forging" has been using my own small mana pool for resistance.
Solution: I now have Yuno's mana capacity. I will use all of it.
The New Regimen:
Phase A (Morning): "Mana-Forging 2.0." I will actively use Yuno's massive mana pool to resist my own body. Every push-up, every squat, every run will be a battle against the power of a four-leaf prodigy. I will force my muscles to grow by pitting them against a sea of magic.
Phase B (Noon): "The Drain." I will train until Yuno's entire mana pool is spent. This will likely take hours of continuous, high-intensity physical-magical exertion. The goal is to train my body to handle, process, and expel colossal amounts of magic, increasing my own recovery rate.
Phase C (Afternoon): "The Void." Once the mana is gone, I will toggle to Anti-Magic. In this state, with no magic at all, I will perform a full-body-weight routine. This trains me to fight when I am "empty," relying only on the muscle I built in Phase A.
Variable 2: The Grimoire (Mage Mode)
Problem: My spells are inflexible. I cannot create new spells or modify existing ones. My only path to versatility is coordination.
The New Regimen:
Phase D (Evening): "Dual-Casting." I must learn to use multiple spells at once. My right hand will practice firing [Magic-Sealing Chain] at a target. My left hand, simultaneously, will practice casting [Tiny Fireball] or [Gentle Breeze]. It's not about power; it's about splitting my focus. I will learn to be a one-man magic-corps, however clumsy.
Variable 3: The Switch (The Trump Card)
Problem: The "toggle" between modes is jarring and leaves me vulnerable.
The New Regimen:
Phase E (The Gauntlet): I must practice the switch. I will set up a training course. Run a hundred yards in "Mage Mode," dodge an obstacle with a [Gentle Breeze], then toggle to "Heretic Mode," physically vault a wall, toggle back to "Mage Mode" to fire a [Magic-Sealing Chain], and repeat.
Lencar looked at the mental framework he had built. It was brutal. It was methodical. It was, he thought, the perfect plan.
He stared at his blank grimoire. "Six months," he said again, a cold, analytical light in his eyes. "The captains and nobles think magic is a gift. I will prove to them that it's just a resource. And I am the ultimate resource manager."