After destroying Yuno's spell, Brian landed leisurely. Shortly after, Yuno also deactivated his equipment spell and touched down on the ground.
"Let's stop here for today," Brian said as he looked at Yuno, who had been defeated by him in a sense.
"Fine with me."
Yuno did not object, and the two of them later headed back to Hage village for dinner.
On a normal day, the two of them would continue to fight each other until both sides' mana was nearly exhausted. But today Brian had other plans, so he wanted to retain a sufficient amount of mana to do what he wanted to do.
The empty plot of land where Brian and Yuno practiced magic was not too far from Hage village; it only took ten minutes of travel using specialized spells for the two of them to return to the church.
Brian moved using an earth surfboard, while Yuno flew right beside him.
On the way back, Brian shared his plan with Yuno regarding why he had ended today's practice early.
"Yuno, do you want to come with me to see an interesting sight?"
"Hmm...?" Yuno turned to look at Brian while flying, "What do you want to show me?"
"Just follow me."
Brian did not rush to answer Yuno; he increased his speed, and his direction of movement changed from the Hage village church toward the skull of the giant demon.
Yuno did not know why Brian was acting this way, but he also sped up to follow his best friend.
Before long, both of them reached the giant demon's skull. As soon as Brian arrived, he deactivated his spell; Yuno also landed and walked with him inside the skull.
"What's in here?" Yuno asked Brian as the two approached a rock crevice, "You come here often, so you probably discovered something in here that I haven't."
"Yeah..."
Brian leaned over, fumbling with his hand inside the rock crevice. When his hand touched something inside, he finally flashed a satisfied smile and answered Yuno.
"Do you remember when we received our Grimoires? At that time, I received two Grimoires; one was a four-leaf clover like yours, and the second was a book with no cover that only had two single pages."
The image of the moment he and Brian received their Grimoires appeared in Yuno's mind; indeed, at that time Brian had received two strange additional pages.
Normally, a person can only receive one single Grimoire, but Brian had received two. This was not normal.
Yuno had been extremely astonished when Brian possessed two Grimoires at once, but the strange thing was that Brian's second Grimoire was only two pages.
Until now, Yuno had yet to see Brian use the spell recorded in his second Grimoire. Although he didn't know exactly what power it had, Yuno guessed it must be a very special type of spell.
"What does that have to do with this?"
Yuno wondered; he had thought of the possibility that what Brian was doing had something to do with those two pages of his.
And just as Yuno thought, Brian really had a plan for those two special pages.
"I intend to use the spell in my second Grimoire."
Hearing Brian say that, Yuno paid close attention to see what his best friend intended to do next.
From inside the rock crevice, Brian pulled out an old book, looking tattered as if it had been there for hundreds of years.
The cover of this book was no longer intact; the patterns and even the symbol on it could no longer be clearly seen. Though it didn't look pleasant, one could still recognize that this was a Grimoire.
"Is that thing a Grimoire?" Yuno blurted out, feeling a bit skeptical as he looked at the object Brian was holding in his hand.
"Yeah, it's a Grimoire," Brian replied while patting the cover of the old Grimoire a few times, "I discovered it lying in the rock crevice when I was a child. Now, I feel very lucky that I didn't just ignore it."
Yuno didn't understand what Brian intended to do, but in a brief moment afterward, Brian's second Grimoire automatically flew into the air from inside his shirt.
Seeing the two pages glowing, Yuno had partially guessed Brian's intention.
"You plan to use the spell on those two pages on this Grimoire?"
"Yeah, that's right," Brian couldn't hide his excitement as he answered Yuno, "I'm about to have a complete second Grimoire."
Before Yuno could ask another question, one of the two pages on Brian's coverless Grimoire automatically detached from the remaining page, starting to emit a dazzling light that lit up the entire space inside the giant demon's skull.
A powerful source of mana erupted; at the very center of that mana source, the tattered Grimoire in Brian's hand was slowly lifted into mid-air.
The glowing page slowly flew close to this Grimoire, and when the two touched, all the light was suddenly pulled back as if sucked into something with the center being the point where the two sides collided.
Under Yuno's astonished eyes and Brian's excited eyes, the old buildup on the Grimoire that Brian took out of the rock crevice began to peel off as if purified by the light, revealing its original appearance.
"No way..."
Yuno could not believe his eyes as he looked at the symbol on the Grimoire hovering in front of him.
As the light gradually dimmed, the tattered Grimoire Brian took from the rock crevice had become a beautiful, bright white Grimoire. Exquisite patterns were carved on both sides of the cover, and a four-leaf clover symbol appeared right on the front of the Grimoire.
Counting both Brian's and Yuno's Grimoires, there were now three four-leaf clover Grimoires inside the giant demon's skull.
The newly appeared four-leaf clover Grimoire slowly flew toward Brian, exactly like when he and Yuno received their Grimoires the previous week.
"That's truly wonderful."
Feeling his connection with the newly restored Grimoire, Brian remarked with satisfaction.
Brian's body was now overflowing with power; the amount of mana inside his body could be felt very clearly as it was slowly increasing.
The amount of mana that was already abundant and no less than Yuno's had now officially surpassed Yuno's.
Brian now felt as if he were surrounded by mana in nature—an indescribable, wonderful sense of intimacy when feeling the mana present in nature through his skin.
"What is going on, Brian?" Yuno asked in confusion, standing near Brian. He had witnessed everything that happened and also felt the massive amount of mana inside Brian's body.
"The two pages I received in the Grimoire tower that day..."
Brian could not hide his jubilant tone; his voice at this moment could make a listener feel like he was a madman trying to explain why he was laughing out loud in the middle of the street.
"Both pages are the same single type of spell. The effect of that spell is to allow me to seize everything that others possess, including: Grimoire, mana, and all the good qualities of that person. All of that person's most precious things will be taken by me, absorbed into my own soul and body through the act of seizing the unlucky person's Grimoire."
Yuno was speechless hearing Brian reveal the type of spell he had just used on the tattered Grimoire earlier, the thing that had made him become like this.
Deprivation Magic—this was Brian's second magic, one of the favors he received when reincarnating into the Black Clover world besides knowing the plot and characters of this world beforehand and possessing a special body (lots of mana, being able to possess multiple magics at once).
This magic allowed Brian the right to seize all the best things that others possessed, as explained. But to do that, Brian also had to endure strict restrictions regarding the conditions to use his over-powered type of magic.
There were a total of two conditions for Brian to be able to use Deprivation Magic; only when he met these two conditions could he seize someone else's power as he had just done with that old Grimoire.
The first condition was that the Grimoire of the person Brian was depriving must be a four-leaf clover Grimoire; this was the most important condition.
Even if it were a Grimoire recording all sorts of extremely powerful magic and knowledge spanning over a few thousand years, like the heirloom Grimoire of the Heart Kingdom, or Grimoires from other ordinary people from the four kingdoms—all of them were not among the targets affected by Deprivation Magic.
The second condition was that Brian was only allowed to seize someone else's Grimoire when the original owner of that Grimoire was no longer its possessor, or was agreed upon by the owner of another four-leaf clover Grimoire. Only then could he cast Deprivation Magic on the Grimoire he targeted.
This second condition depended on the first; compared to finding a four-leaf clover Grimoire, making the owner of a four-leaf clover Grimoire lose ownership of it, or persuading that person to yield the four-leaf clover Grimoire to him, seemed even more difficult.
When Brian learned the conditions for using Deprivation Magic, he didn't feel that its conditions were anything too difficult for him.
He had reincarnated into an era where, besides himself, there were four four-leaf clover Grimoires appearing at the same time.
This was no different from having a tray laid out for Brian to eat; he was favored by this world perhaps even more than Yuno.
If Brian still couldn't achieve his ambitions with that many favors, then he should probably just bang his head against a wall and die. It really was too much of a setup.