Lencar didn't know how much time had passed when he finally woke up. There was no sun to track in the Void Vault, no changing shadows, and no chirping birds to signal the morning. There was only the constant, eternal, shadowless white light.
He rolled over on his back, staring up at the blank white ceiling. He felt incredibly, fundamentally different. The bone-crushing exhaustion was completely gone, washed away by the restorative power of the Yggdrasil crystal. His muscles felt loose, relaxed, and thrumming with a vibrant, newly refined kinetic energy.
He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of his plant-and-crystal bed, and stretched his arms high over his head. His spine let out a highly satisfying, cascading series of pops that echoed loudly in the silent room.
He reached over to the small wooden table nearby and picked up his silver pocket watch, flipping the lid open.
"Eight hours," Lencar noted, raising an eyebrow in mild surprise. He had been asleep for an entire eight hours straight. It was the longest uninterrupted rest he had gotten in weeks.
As if perfectly cued by his waking mind, his stomach let out a loud, aggressive, rumbling growl that sounded like a dying beast.
Lencar winced, pressing a hand to his abdomen. The fight with Mars, the massive expenditure of anti-magic, and the subsequent expansion of his soul had burned through an astronomical amount of calories. High-tier mages possessed bodies that required high-tier fuel to maintain their density and output. A simple bowl of tavern stew wasn't going to cut it right now; he needed dense, mana-rich protein to truly solidify his recovery.
He stood up, leaving his damp cloak behind, and began to walk toward the absolute depths of the spatial dimension.
The Void Vault was expansive, and Lencar kept his most dangerous, unsavory items far away from his main living area. He walked past the shelves of stolen grimoires, past the glittering piles of gold coins, and past the bubbling alchemy station, until he reached the cold storage sector.
Here, resting on the white floor, were six massive, terrifyingly large blocks of solid, magically reinforced ice.
Encased perfectly within these icy tombs were the corpses of the six giant, highly venomous scorpions he had hunted and slaughtered during his grueling training arc in the Venom-Haze Badlands several nights ago. These beasts were apex predators of a Grand Magic Zone, their flesh saturated with dense, wild mana.
Lencar walked up to the nearest ice block and chose a scorpion at random. The creature was easily the size of a carriage, its dark, chitinous armor glinting menacingly even in death.
He didn't bother using a sword. He placed his hand against the ice and channeled a precise burst of thermal energy, carefully thawing only the specific sections he needed.
He was meticulous. These scorpions were incredibly toxic, and consuming the wrong part would result in a highly agonizing, foaming-at-the-mouth death for ordinary mages that not even the Yggdrasil crystal could outpace. The massive, segmented tails, heavily laden with lethal neurotoxins and the worst taste, were entirely off-limits.
Instead, Lencar focused his makeshift butchery on the muscular claws—the pedipalps—and the thick, meaty underbelly of the main torso. Using a combination of sharp wind blades and his bare, mana-reinforced hands, he expertly carved out several massive, prime cuts of dense, white, crab-like meat.
Once he had secured a portion large enough to feed a small family, Lencar immediately reapplied his freezing magic, encasing the rest of the massive scorpion corpse back into its pristine icy tomb to preserve it for future meals.
He carried the heavy slabs of meat back to his alchemy station. He didn't have a proper kitchen setup, so he improvised. He conjured a large, flat slab of earth magic to act as a skillet, and ignited a controlled, steady stream of fire magic beneath it to serve as a stovetop.
He tossed the scorpion meat onto the hot stone. It immediately began to sizzle loudly, filling the pristine white room with a rich, savory, slightly gamey aroma that made Lencar's mouth water uncontrollably. He didn't have any spices or salt, but he didn't care.
When the meat was seared on the outside and cooked through, he pulled it off the stone with his bare fingers, ignoring the heat, and tore into it.
The meat was incredibly tough, requiring him to use his mana-reinforced jaw muscles just to chew it, but it was absolutely bursting with rich, wild flavor. More importantly, as he swallowed, he could literally feel the dense, residual mana stored within the beast's flesh being broken down and absorbed by his own digestive system, fortifying his newly expanded meridians.
He ate like a starved wolf, polishing off the massive portion in less than ten minutes.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Lencar sat back against a crate of gold, feeling entirely satiated and incredibly powerful. His physical body was completely topped off. His mana pool was operating at 100% efficiency.
He looked at his pocket watch again. He had already spent roughly 20 hours since he first arrived at the Kiten Dungeon yesterday evening. Factoring in his stated vacation time, he still had nearly three entire days left before he had to casually stroll back into Nairn and pretend to be a normal cook.
"Three days," Lencar muttered, leaning his head back. "Plenty of time."
He took a moment to mentally summarize the absolutely absurd, game-changing gains he had acquired since stepping foot in that dungeon. It was a haul that would make any Magic Knight Captain violently jealous.
First, and most obviously, he had acquired High-Level Crystal Magic. It was an incredibly versatile, overwhelmingly dense offensive and defensive attribute that perfectly complimented his elusive Wind and heavy Earth magics.
Second, he had stolen the highly classified Chimera Rune blueprint directly from Mars's soul. While currently imperfect, it was the foundational secret to safely grafting multiple, opposing magical attributes into a single host. With enough study, it was a literal blueprint for godhood.
Third, he had acquired the precise layout and magical signature of the Diamond Kingdom's Memory Sealing Rune. It was a terrifying piece of psychological manipulation, but understanding how it worked meant he could potentially use it, or counter it, in the future.
Fourth, he had successfully planted a massive, festering seed of doubt and rebellion into the mind of a Diamond Kingdom General. Mars was now an unwitting sleeper agent, a ticking time bomb aimed directly at Morris and the scholars. Furthermore, the invisible tracker Lencar had placed on Mars would allow him to monitor the Diamond Kingdom's movements with unprecedented accuracy.
And finally, he had secured a major political favor. By manipulating Mars, the active Diamond Kingdom bounty on Dominante Code would be quietly, permanently cancelled in the next few days. Lencar had essentially bought the absolute, undying loyalty of one of the continent's greatest magic tool inventors, securing his own equipment supply line for the foreseeable future.
It was a flawless victory.
But Lencar Abarame was not a man prone to arrogant complacency. He knew his meta-knowledge and his unique magic made him incredibly dangerous, but he was not invincible. As he sat there in his pristine vault, digesting his monster meat, his highly analytical mind ruthlessly zeroed in on his greatest, most glaring weakness.
The Anti-Magic mode. The Heretic state.
During the fight with Mars, when he had inverted his mana flow and pulled the corrosive, void-like anti-magic residue to the surface of his skin, he had achieved absolute physical supremacy. He had shattered diamond constructs with bare fists.
But there was a terrifying, deeply insidious side effect.
The anti-magic wasn't just a tool; it carried a spiritual weight. It was born of deep, festering hatred and boundless despair. Lencar vividly remembered the terrifying, pulsing thrill of absolute, sadistic supremacy he had felt while breaking Mars's knee. He remembered looking at the abject terror in the Diamond General's eyes and feeling a dark, hungry satisfaction that was entirely foreign to his normally cold, calculating, and highly pragmatic mindset.
"The anti-magic mode makes me aggressive," Lencar stated aloud, diagnosing the problem. "It makes me bloodthirsty. It clouds my judgment and makes me enjoy the violence."
In a world governed by split-second decisions and complex magical interactions, losing his cold rationality and giving in to a berserker rage was a fatal flaw. If he lost control of himself in a fight against a truly powerful opponent—like Licht, or Dante Zogratis—he would be slaughtered. He needed an absolute, unbreakable iron grip over his own intent.
He needed a way to separate his conscious mind from the violent instincts of the anti-magic.
Lencar's mind immediately went to the only other person he knew who utilized anti-magic without losing his core personality: Asta. And what did Asta use to predict attacks, control his body, and sense the world around him?
"Ki," Lencar whispered, a spark of inspiration lighting up his eyes.
Ki. The natural life energy emitted by all living things, independent of mana. It was a technique mastered by Captain Yami Sukehiro and eventually passed down to Asta. It allowed the user to sense intent, read muscle movements before they happened, and maintain absolute, zen-like awareness of their own body and their surroundings.
If Lencar could learn to sense and control Ki, he could potentially use it as an emotional anchor. He could use the intense focus required for Ki sensing to constantly, actively ground his own mind, preventing the violent, bloodthirsty intent of the anti-magic from bleeding into his conscious decision-making process.
And even if Ki couldn't perfectly solve the anti-magic issue, it was still an incredibly overpowered, highly versatile sensory ability that would massively upgrade his close-quarters combat capabilities. It was a win-win scenario.
Lencar stood up, brushing the invisible crumbs off his trousers. He felt the heavy, thrumming power of his Stage 3 Peak mana, the cold certainty of his newly acquired Crystal magic, and the quiet, contained darkness of his anti-magic seed.
He had three full days left in this dimension. Three days of uninterrupted, absolute isolation in an environment saturated with hyper-refined life force. It was the perfect environment for a brutal, focused training montage.
"Alright then," Lencar said, a confident, slightly arrogant smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. He cracked his knuckles, the bruised skin protesting slightly. "Let's see if a guy from Tokyo can figure out how to read minds."