Charmy lay unconscious on the floor, soft breaths leaving her lips. The chefs had long passed out from exhaustion, the room quiet except for distant explosions elsewhere in the capital.
Lencar placed his hand over Charmy's grimoire.
"Let's begin."
His own grimoire opened, pages glowing like an awakening beast.
[Absolute Replication]
A crimson-black circle spread beneath the two grimoires as Lencar murmured the ancient formula.
Charmy's grimoire shook violently.
Letters twisted. Pages fluttered. Magic poured toward Lencar like a stream reversing its flow.
Cotton Magic.
Food Magic.
Mana Reinforcement Magic.
The entirety of Charmy's unique hybrid dwarven-human magic poured into him.
His chest tightened as mana surged through his veins. His grimoire's pages burned with new inscriptions—cotton spells intertwined with food spells, gluttonous mana patterns fusing seamlessly with his vast array of attributes.
His mana throbbed painfully.
Charmy's grimoire dissolved into pure light—
—and was completely absorbed.
Lencar staggered.
"Too much mana—"
His knees buckled for a moment as a tidal wave rushed into his core.
His body trembled.
His breath grew heavy.
Cotton magic alone was strong.
Food magic was monstrous.
Charmy's hidden dwarven heritage had gifted her the mana pool of a small nation. And now Lencar had all of it.
He dug his fingers into the floor.
Mana overflowed out of him, cracking the tiles.
A spontaneous mana vortex formed around his body.
The air swirled.
The temperature rose.
Space rippled faintly.
"This… this is insane…"
His mana wasn't just increasing—
It was evolving.
His grimoire radiated with pitch-black brilliance.
He could feel it.
He was crossing another barrier.
A threshold only a rare few ever stepped into.
Arcane Stage 2.
His mana stabilized slightly, but only slightly.
He knew the truth:
If he didn't immediately temper this overflowing power…
He'd rupture his mana pathways.
Lencar's breathing slowed as he forced the mana down.
"I need… a Grand Magic Zone."
Preferably one with constant ambient mana pressure to counterbalance his surge.
He gazed downward at Charmy.
She looked peaceful. Innocent.
"Don't worry," he murmured softly. "You'll wake up with your grimoire back."
He flipped his grimoire, finding an empty page.
[Reverse Replication]
A perfect copy of Charmy's grimoire materialized in his hand—the same size, same spells, same mana signature.
He placed it gently beside her.
"Eat well when you wake up."
He rose to his feet, coat fluttering behind him as mana pulsed beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.
He stepped into the shadow and murmured:
[Composite Magic: Umbral Traversal]
The shadows swallowed him instantly.
He shot across the capital in a silent stream of darkness, reappearing atop a burning spire.
Far in the distance—
Mana storms swirled, wild and untamed.
A Grand Magic Zone.
Perfect.
He leapt off the tower, vanished into the horizon, and whispered:
"It's time to stabilize… Arcane Stage 2."
The next evolution of Lencar had begun.
The Grand Magic Zone swallowed him whole.
The moment Lencar stepped through the veil of shimmering distortions, the world transformed.
Wind howled like living beasts.
Lightning crawled across the sky in silver threads.
Mana storms spun slowly in the air, swirling like translucent oceans suspended above ground.
This place was untamed—
Violent—
Alive.
A perfect crucible for tempering an overflowing mana core.
Lencar landed on a floating slab of stone, letting the volatile air whip his cloak behind him. Arcane Stage 2 mana pulsed inside him like a second heart—an unstable one.
He inhaled.
"Alright. First step—stabilize."
His grimoire floated beside him as he sat cross-legged atop the floating rock. The Mana Zone pressure compressed around him immediately, but he didn't resist it.
He welcomed it.
His own mana pushed outward in powerful waves.
The world pushed back.
And thus the clash began.
The first pulse hit him like a hammer.
His ears rang. His breathing stuttered.
For ten seconds, the mana pressure inside and outside him slammed together violently—like two storms trying to dominate the same sky.
Lencar grit his teeth and held firm.
The mana in his veins thrashed like a wild beast. His skin tingled as spatial distortions brushed across his shoulders and sparks crackled at his fingertips.
Then came pulse two.
His vision blurred. The floating platform cracked beneath him as his mana surged involuntarily, carving lines of raw magic into the stone.
He forced his core to compress.
To settle.
To obey.
His anti-magic organs rejected the mana once, reflexive, instinctive—but he crushed that reaction immediately.
"Not now… not today."
Minute by minute, the chaos began to refine.
The storm outside resonated with the storm inside. Mana pressure began synchronizing. Lencar pulled in Grand Magic Zone mana in measured streams, using it like a hammer to beat his overflowing power into a tighter, more stable form.
Ten minutes passed.
The tremors eased.
Twelve minutes.
His breathing steadied. The aura around him thinned from a violent eruption to a dense, heavy glow.
Fifteen minutes.
Lencar opened his eyes.
His mana was still massive—but it no longer rampaged.
It obeyed.
"Arcane Stage 2… stabilized."