The weight of a four-leaf clover's mana was not like a heavy backpack; it was like a change in atmospheric pressure.
As Lencar stepped out of the Grimoire Tower, the air of Hage Village felt thinner. His internal reservoir, which for a decade had been a shallow, carefully managed pond, now felt like a high-pressure tank. It wasn't an infinite ocean—he was a data analyst, and he knew that even a prodigy like Yuno had limits—but it was significant. If his original mana was a 1.0 on a scale of potential, Yuno's was perhaps a 25.0. It was a massive leap, but one he could quantify.
The "Mana-Forged" muscles he had cultivated through years of resistance training were the only reason his nervous system wasn't misfiring. His body was a chassis built to handle high-performance fuel, even if he'd been running on fumes until twenty minutes ago.
Calibration required, he thought, his eyes scanning the horizon. Subject B (Yuno) has a capacity roughly twenty-five times my baseline. The 'Towering Tornado' spell occupies approximately 15% of the book's current storage. Efficiency: High. Flexibility: Zero.
He didn't head straight back to the farmhouse. He knew the narrative. He knew that in this world, destiny didn't just happen; it collided.
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, he could sustain "Mana-Forging" indefinitely. He wasn't just walking; he was gliding, his legs pushing off the earth with a rhythmic, mechanical precision. Every stride was an exercise in optimization.
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 of the Iron Chain.
Lencar dropped into a crouch behind a cluster of jagged rocks. He didn't need to see the fight to know how it was going, but he needed the visual data to confirm the timing.
In the clearing below, the scene played out like a script. Yuno was pinned against a crumbling stone wall, thick, purple-glowing chains wrapping around his torso and limbs. The legendary four-leaf grimoire lay on the dirt, its light dampened by the suppression effect of the chains.
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 composure cracking under the weight of the suppression magic.
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. "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 eyes narrowed. He didn't care about the morality of the situation—he had outgrown "good and evil" in his first life—but he cared about the logic. Revchi was an inefficient variable. He was a bully who relied on a single trick: suppression.
If I intervene now, I risk exposing my 'Replica' ability to Yuno, Lencar calculated. However, the data shows that Revchi's Chain Magic is a high-utility asset. The ability to suppress others' mana is a defensive tool I cannot ignore.
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 calculated 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. Duration: 0.4 seconds. Success.
Lencar skidded to a halt ten yards away, his boots carving deep furrows in the dirt.
"What?! Who are you?!" Revchi roared, his chains rattling with his anger. "Another brat from the village?"
Lencar didn't look at him. He was looking at his book. A second page had filled with iron-grey ink.
[Attribute: Chain Magic]
[Spell: Magic-Sealing Chain]
"I'm just a data analyst performing a field test," Lencar said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"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.
Analysis: Trajectory is linear. Speed: High. Evasion: 92% probability.
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 chant it with passion like Asta or elegance like Yuno. He spoke it like a command line.
The output was staggering. Because he was using Yuno's 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 "glitch" immediately. He couldn't move the tornado. He couldn't make it smaller or wider. It was a static piece of code. It blew in exactly one direction until the mana he'd allocated to it ran out.
"Tch. Lack of control," Lencar muttered.
Revchi scrambled to his feet, his face red with rage. "How can you use such a huge magic spell with just your newly obtained grimoire___?"
"Anything is possible," Lencar interrupted. He turned the page.
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 Lencar's skin crawl.
It was a void. A zero in a world of integers.
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, unoptimized strength. Every chain Revchi tried to throw was 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 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 I am trying to master. If I don't have this in my database, my plan is fundamentally flawed.
He walked toward Asta. "That was... statistically improbable, Asta. Well done."
"Lencar! Did you see that?!" Asta cheered, his usual volume returning. "I got a grimoire! And a huge sword! I can be the Wizard King now!"
"Indeed. May I see it?" Lencar asked, his voice steady even as his heart hammered.
"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 pushed his 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 "empty"—not just low on energy, but truly, fundamentally hollow.
He stumbled back, his breath hitching.
He opened his grimoire. All the pages he had worked so hard to fill—, 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 move 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, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. The system cannot process Anti-Magic and Magic simultaneously. They are mutually exclusive datasets. If I want the power of the void, I have to sacrifice the power of the light. But... I can switch between them.
He looked up at the two protagonists. Yuno was watching him with a look of deep, quiet suspicion. Yuno was smart; he had seen Lencar use his own magic. He knew something was wrong.
"Lencar," Yuno said, his voice tinged with confusion. "That tornado... Lenacr are you also a wind mage lencar?"
Lencar closed his book. He feigned a tired smile. "Yes I am also a wind mage... "
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. "The exam is just another set of variables to be solved."
As he walked away from the demon skull, leaving the two rivals to their moment, Lencar looked 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 dataset was growing.