He flipped his grimoire open.
New pages glowed with Charmy's Food Magic—runes shaped like forks, wool, cooking flames, and the intrinsic dwarven symbols of consumption.
On another page, Catherine's Ash Magic lay inscribed—dark, corrosive, hungry.
Lencar stared at both sets of runes quietly.
"These two shouldn't synergize naturally."
Food Magic was about creation, consumption, nourishment, conversion.
Ash Magic was about decay, disintegration, draining, erosion.
Opposites.
Like life and death.
Growth and rot.
But opposites… were where composite magic thrived.
Lencar's eyes narrowed as ideas clicked rapidly.
Food Magic consumes.
Ash Magic corrodes.
Together…
"They can dissolve magic itself."
Not physically.
But conceptually.
A magic that devoured other magic—not simply negating it like Anti Magic, but absorbing it and turning its mana into usable energy—became possible.
He smirked.
"That would be useful."
He placed both palms onto his grimoire, closing his eyes, allowing symbols and runes to dance behind his eyelids. He visualized the structure:
A devouring field.
A conversion furnace.
A circulatory loop.
A mana reallocation circuit.
Half an hour passed.
The Grand Magic Zone around him trembled as elemental storms twisted toward him unconsciously—pulled in by the gravity of a new spell forming.
Finally—
A page glowed brilliantly.
Lencar opened his eyes.
And read the new title.
[Composite Magic: Ashen Gluttony Conversion]
A spell that combined:
Food Magic's Devouring Creation Runes
Ash Magic's Erosive Consumption Glyphs
His own Replication Lattice Structure
It formed a sealed mana field around Lencar that:
1. Devoured any magic attack that touched it
2. Corroded the spell's mana into raw energy
3. Converted that energy into Lencar's own attribute
4. Replenished his mana instantly
In short—
It made him a walking furnace.
A perpetual mana engine.
He lifted his hand, activating the spell lightly.
A swirling vortex of dark-white ash and shimmering cotton dust formed around his palm. Wind, fire, ice, lightning—ambient elemental particles from the zone brushed the vortex and were immediately sucked in, dissolved, and absorbed.
Lencar felt the mana flood back into him.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Full recovery.
He blinked.
"…I can fully recover my mana in under half a minute."
His body felt lighter. Stronger. His mana circulation aligned with Food Magic's regenerative loops and Ash Magic's corrosive spiral.
He felt a deep hum within his core.
A new passive effect.
"Passive… mana growth?"
It was slow—minute by minute, almost imperceptible—but it was real. Every moment in this state increased his total mana by a tiny amount.
This spell didn't just make him stronger.
It made him grow stronger continuously.
He couldn't help but smile.
"This is a monster of a spell."
He closed his grimoire—
then activated Umbral Traversal.
Shadow tore open, and Lencar stepped through space, emerging on the highest remaining rooftop of the Royal Capital.