The weight of a four-leaf clover's mana wasn't like carrying a heavy backpack; it was like stepping out of a stuffy room into a gale.
As Lencar stepped out of the Grimoire Tower, the air of Hage Village felt thinner, sharper. His internal reservoir, which for a decade had been a shallow, carefully managed pond, now surged like a river breaking a dam. It wasn't infinite—he knew that even a prodigy like Yuno had limits—but the sheer volume was intoxicating. If his original mana was a 1.0 on a scale of potential, Yuno's was easily a 25.0. It was a massive leap, but one he could quantify.
His "Mana-Forged" muscles, cultivated through years of agonizing resistance training, were the only reason he wasn't collapsing. His body was a chassis built to handle high-performance fuel, even if he'd been running on fumes until twenty minutes ago.
Calibration needed, he thought, taking a deep breath to steady his racing heart. Yuno has roughly twenty-five times my baseline. The 'Towering Tornado' spell I copied takes up about 15% of that. It's powerful, but blunt. No flexibility.
He didn't head straight back to the farmhouse. He couldn't. He knew the story. He knew that in this world, destiny didn't just happen; it collided violently.
He moved through the tall, dry grass on the outskirts of the village, heading toward the giant demon skull. His movements were different now. With the higher mana capacity fueling his muscles, he could sustain his "Mana-Forging" indefinitely. He wasn't just walking; he was gliding, his legs pushing off the earth with a rhythmic precision that felt almost effortless.
Then, he felt it. A jarring, jagged spike in the local mana field. It wasn't the clean, sharp wind of Yuno or the non-existent void of Asta. It was something oily. Metallic.
Chain Magic. Revchi.
Lencar dropped into a crouch behind a cluster of jagged rocks. His heart hammered against his ribs—not from exertion, but from anticipation. This was it. The real start.
In the clearing below, the scene played out like a nightmare he'd watched a dozen times. Yuno was pinned against a crumbling stone wall, thick, purple-glowing chains wrapping around his torso and limbs. The legendary four-leaf grimoire lay in the dirt, its light dampened by the suppression magic.
Revchi stood there, his face twisted into a sneer of petty triumph. "A four-leaf clover... wasted on a peasant brat like you. I'll be taking this to the black market. It'll fetch a price that'll make me a king in the underworld."
"Give it... back..." Yuno's voice was strained, his usual cool composure cracking under the weight of the chains.
And then, there was Asta.
The boy with no magic was currently a bruised heap on the ground. He had tried to charge in with nothing but grit, and Revchi had swatted him aside like a nuisance.
"You're nothing," Revchi spat, looking down at Asta with genuine disgust. "In this world, magic is everything. Without it, you aren't even a human being. You're just a glitch in the system."
Lencar's grip on the rock tightened until his knuckles turned white. He didn't care about the morality of the situation—he had learned long ago that "good and evil" were just labels used by the winners—but he cared about the waste. Revchi was a bully who relied on a single trick: suppression.
If I jump in now, I risk Yuno figuring out my magic, Lencar thought, weighing the risks. But Revchi's Chain Magic... that suppression ability is invaluable. It's a defensive tool I can't afford to pass up.
He made his decision.
Lencar didn't use magic. Not yet. He used the physical momentum he had built up. He surged forward, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust. He was a blur of motion, his "Mana-Forged" body hitting a speed that no ordinary fifteen-year-old should possess.
Revchi heard the footfalls too late. He turned, his hand reaching for his grimoire to manifest a new set of chains, but Lencar was already there.
Lencar didn't punch. He didn't kick. He simply ran past at full tilt, his arm outstretched. As he passed Revchi, he slammed his blank-covered grimoire directly against the open pages of the rogue knight's book.
Contact.
Lencar skidded to a halt ten yards away, his boots carving deep furrows in the dirt. He flipped his book open, his breath catching in his throat.
A second page had filled with iron-grey ink.
[Attribute: Chain Magic]
[Spell: Magic-Sealing Chain]
"What?! Who are you?!" Revchi roared, his chains rattling with his anger. "Another brat from the village?"
Lencar looked up, a fierce grin touching his lips. "Just a guy testing out a new toy."
"I don't care who you are! Die!" Revchi flicked his wrist, and six chains erupted from the ground beneath Lencar's feet, their hooked ends aimed for his throat and ankles.
Fast, Lencar thought, his mind racing. Linear trajectory. High speed.
Lencar didn't just dodge; he moved into the attack. He twisted his body in mid-air, the chains whistling past his ears, and landed in a low crouch. He opened his grimoire to the first page.
"Wind Creation Magic: [Towering Tornado]."
He didn't scream it like Asta. He said it with focus, channeling every ounce of the borrowed power.
The output was staggering. Because he was using Yuno's immense mana capacity, the tornado that erupted from his palm wasn't a small gust. It was a localized disaster. A vertical tunnel of screaming air smashed into Revchi's chains, shattering the iron links and throwing the rogue knight backward into the dirt.
But Lencar felt the limitation immediately. He couldn't move the tornado. He couldn't make it smaller or wider. It was like firing a cannon; once the fuse was lit, the ball went where it was pointed.
"Tch. No control," Lencar muttered, frustrated.
Revchi scrambled to his feet, his face red with rage. "How can you use such a huge spell with a fresh grimoire—?!"
"Anything is possible," Lencar interrupted, turning the page.
But before he could follow up, the air changed.
Asta had finally stood up. He wasn't looking at Lencar, and he wasn't looking at Revchi. He was staring at the air in front of him, where a new grimoire was manifesting. It was black, filthy, and radiating a sensation that made the hair on Lencar's arms stand up.
It was a void. A zero in a world of numbers.
The Five-Leaf Clover.
Lencar watched, mesmerized, as Asta pulled the massive, rusted slab of iron from the book. The Demon-Slayer Sword.
The battle from that point was no longer a battle; it was a deletion. Asta charged, his feet pounding the earth with raw, unrefined strength. Every chain Revchi tried to throw dissolved upon contact with the black blade. With a final, primal scream, Asta swung the sword flat-side first, launching Revchi into the stone wall with enough force to crack the rock.
The rogue knight was out cold before he hit the ground.
Silence returned to the demon skull. Asta stood there, panting, the heavy sword resting on his shoulder. Yuno, finally free from the chains, stood up and dusted off his clothes, his eyes immediately going to Asta... and then to Lencar.
Lencar didn't say anything. He was staring at the black grimoire lying open on the grass.
The ultimate anomaly, Lencar thought. Anti-Magic. The power to negate the very system of magic I am trying to master. If I don't get this now, I might never get another chance.
He walked toward Asta, forcing his heartbeat to slow down. "That was... incredible, Asta. Seriously. Well done."
"Lencar! Did you see that?!" Asta cheered, his usual volume returning instantly. "I got a grimoire! And a huge sword! I can be the Wizard King now!"
"Yeah, I saw it. Can I... take a look?" Lencar asked, trying to sound casual.
"Sure!" Asta held the book out, his face beaming with pride.
Lencar reached out. He didn't just touch the book. He let his palm rest on the center of the five-leaf clover, and he pressed his own grimoire against it.
The reaction was violent.
It wasn't a flood of mana. It was a drain. Lencar felt the Wind Magic from Yuno get sucked into a vacuum. He felt the Chain Magic evaporate. He felt his own small, native mana pool get snuffed out. For a terrifying second, Lencar felt truly empty—not just low on energy, but fundamentally hollow.
He stumbled back, gasping for air.
He frantically opened his grimoire. All the pages he had just filled—the Wind Magic, the Chain Magic—were blank.
No, not blank. They were gone.
In their place, at the very back of the book, was a single page made of what looked like solidified shadow. It didn't have a spell name. It didn't have a description. It just had a single word in the center, written in a script that seemed to writhe when he wasn't looking directly at it.
[ANTI-MAGIC]
Lencar stared at it. He focused his mind on that word, and suddenly, the "shadow" retreated into a small corner of his mind. The Wind Magic flooded back. The Chain Magic reappeared. His mana capacity returned to the level of a prodigy.
I see, Lencar thought, wiping sweat from his forehead. The system can't process Anti-Magic and Magic at the same time. They cancel each other out. If I want the power of the void, I have to sacrifice the power of the light. But... I can switch.
He looked up. Yuno was watching him with a look of deep, quiet suspicion. Yuno was smart; he had seen the tornado. He knew something was up.
"Lencar," Yuno said, his voice tinged with confusion. "That tornado... Lencar, are you a wind mage too?"
Lencar closed his book. He feigned a tired smile. "Yeah. Looks like I am. Guess we have something in common after all."
It was a half-truth, the best kind of lie.
"We're going to the capital in six months," Yuno said, not looking away. "The Magic Knights Entrance Exam. Don't fall behind."
"I have no intention of falling behind," Lencar replied, his voice firm. "The exam is just the first step."
As he walked away from the demon skull, leaving the two rivals to their moment, Lencar looked down at his plain, brown grimoire. He had the mana of a genius, the chains of a criminal, and the anti-magic of a demon.
The game had barely started, and he was already stacking the deck.