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The recovery acceleration was real.
Luke verified it across the next interval and confirmed the pattern. The Crystallization Technique, in addition to providing a stored mana buffer, had quietly improved his baseline regeneration rate. The improvement was small, perhaps a few percent, but it was permanent and stacked with everything else he had going.
"An unexpected bonus." He filed the discovery and returned to card design work.
The capacity test was still ongoing. Two crystals had absorbed comfortably. The third crystal would tell him where the current realm cap actually was.
Two hours later, when his mana pool had refilled, he activated the Crystallization Technique a third time.
Nothing happened.
He tried again. Same result. The card simply refused to engage. His mana stayed at full capacity, the existing two crystals stayed in place, and the technique itself produced no response of any kind.
"Two crystals at Commander Realm. That's the cap."
He tested a few more activation attempts to confirm the result was consistent rather than situational, then settled into the conclusion. Commander Realm permitted exactly two stored Mana Crystals. The actual scaling pattern, whether it was linear, geometric, or something else entirely, would only become observable once he advanced to Leader Realm and could compare data points.
"Counting the original mana pool plus two crystals, my total mana capacity is now triple what it was before," he calculated. "That's enough to handle sustained Dragon Knight Dark Magician Girl deployment without the timer flashing red like an Ultraman fight."
The Ultraman comparison made him laugh quietly. The classic three-minute timer of his previous life's tokusatsu shows had become a recurring visual metaphor for any Card Master pushing a high-tier card spirit beyond their mana support threshold. He'd nearly lived that exact failure scenario at the end of the Mist Relic fight.
Two crystals would prevent that from happening again, at least until he was fighting opponents who demanded longer engagements.
-----
A new question surfaced in his mind.
He summoned Mana with a thought. Her figure shimmered into existence in his living room, the Dark Magician Girl's familiar pink-and-blue robes catching the indoor lighting as she materialized.
"Master?" Mana tilted her head curiously. Her green eyes were already tracking the small luminous object Luke had drawn from his internal storage.
A Mana Crystal, summoned out of his chest into his palm. The opalescent light caught the room's lamps and refracted into a small rainbow of subtle color.
Mana's expression brightened slightly, instinctively drawn to the gleam.
The Skill Card description had specified that the Crystallization Technique itself worked only on Card Masters. But the description hadn't said anything about restrictions on the Mana Crystals it produced. The crystals were a derivative product, and their absorption rules might be entirely separate from the source card's restrictions.
Luke's working hypothesis: the crystals stored Card-Master-source mana, and Mana's existence depended on Luke's mana, so the energy was already same-source. Card spirits should, in theory, be able to absorb the crystals.
Worth testing.
"Mana, try absorbing this. See if it integrates the same way the Crystallization Technique integrates with me." He extended the crystal toward her and explained the basic mechanics: drained mana flows in, when fully empty it becomes a seed and refills from ambient mana, plus a slight regeneration boost as a side effect.
He decided not to test the same procedure with Red-Eyes Black Star Dragon or the Eye of Timaeus's projection. Summoning either of them indoors would put their heads through the ceiling and probably the second-floor ceiling on top of that.
"Yes, Master." Mana accepted the crystal with both hands, expression curious and slightly excited.
She brought the crystal to her chest, against the same heart-area Luke had used during his own absorption. For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the crystal began to dissolve into her, edges first, sinking through her clothing and skin and into the same internal mana circulation that Luke's body used.
"It feels really special," Mana murmured. Her cheeks had taken on a faint pink flush, and her voice carried a slightly dazed undercurrent. "I can feel Master's mana pouring into me."
The flush deepened. Her green eyes had gone slightly unfocused. The small dazed expression was, technically, the standard physiological response to a card spirit absorbing a sudden surge of compatible mana, but the way she'd phrased it, combined with her current expression, made the description sound considerably less technical than intended.
Luke choked on his own train of thought.
Mana, you absolutely cannot phrase it like that.
He kept his face composed.
Mana, after a beat, registered what she'd just said and how it had sounded. Her cheeks went from pink to red. She straightened up sharply and audibly cleared her throat.
"I mean," she said, articulating each word with sudden professional precision, "my internal mana storage capacity has increased. I now have a buffer reserve that allows me to maintain my form independently of Master's direct mana supply. As long as the crystal's contents aren't fully consumed, I can persist away from your active support."
The flush hadn't entirely faded. The recovery had been valiant, but Mana's small embarrassed expression betrayed her.
Luke considered the phrasing, considered the implications, and decided to take her professional clarification at face value rather than tease her about the original delivery.
"Independent action," he summarized. "You can operate detached from my mana for an extended duration as long as the crystal lasts."
"Yes, Master."
"That's incredibly useful."
"Yes, Master."
The implications were genuinely substantial. Card spirits typically had to remain within proximity of their Card Master, and continuous operation away from the Card Master burned through the Master's mana pool at an accelerated rate. With a Mana Crystal embedded in her, Mana could effectively patrol, scout, or operate in a separate engagement zone for extended durations without dragging Luke's main mana reserves down.
The tactical applications were many. He'd think through them in detail later.
-----
A different question surfaced.
If Mana now held one of the crystals he had previously held, did that free up a slot for him to forge a new one?
He activated the Crystallization Technique experimentally.
The technique engaged. His mana drained. A new Mana Crystal materialized in his chest.
"Worked. So the cap counts only what I'm personally holding, not the total in circulation."
He paused on the implication.
"Did I just glitch the system, or is this intended behavior?"
He couldn't be sure. Either way, the practical outcome was favorable. By offloading a crystal to Mana, he'd freed a slot to create another, expanding his effective combined capacity.
He continued the experiment. Created another crystal, transferred it to Mana, repeated. By the end of the cycle, Mana also had two crystals integrated into her body, and her face had acquired a permanent rosy flush from the cumulative mana saturation.
Mana's third absorption attempt failed. Same way Luke's third had failed earlier. Two crystals appeared to be the cap for her as well, mirroring his own current limit.
"So the card spirit's crystal cap matches the Card Master's cap," Luke concluded. "Which means as I advance and my own cap grows, hers will too."
His total operational mana pool, between his own reserves, his two crystals, and Mana's two crystals, had expanded to roughly five times his pre-Crystallization baseline. That wasn't just a buffer improvement. That was a strategic-tier upgrade to his combat sustainability.
He glanced at Mana, who was still slightly flushed and watching him with the attentive bright-eyed expression of someone who knew her master was about to thank her for cooperation. He suppressed a smile.
"Good work, Mana. Take a rest."
She dissolved back into her card form with a contented little nod.
-----
*A few days later. Morning.*
The walk back to Ashenvale Third High School felt almost foreign.
Luke entered the school grounds in the early light, school uniform crisp, schoolbag slung over one shoulder. The Capital trip and the post-Capital recovery period had eaten enough of his time that the campus's ordinary sights, the courtyard fountain, the front gate's crest, the gathered clusters of nervous students, all looked subtly unfamiliar.
Today was the entrance examination. The country-wide assessment that would determine which academy each high school graduate would attend, and through that, the trajectory of their next several years. For most of his classmates, this was the day they'd been preparing for since they'd started high school.
For Luke, it was the day he was going to take first place in the Eastern Region.
Since Victor Ashford's visit, Luke had stayed at home almost continuously. The time had been allocated efficiently. He'd finalized the Digimon evolution worldview's last ten percent of background design. He'd reorganized his materials inventory and selected the components he expected to use during the exam itself. He'd applied Rewrite and Reorganize to convert excess inventory into more relevant materials at the appropriate cost. The schedule had been compressed but everything was where it needed to be.
He joined the gathering students at the school's main entrance and let himself feel a small private thrill of anticipation.
Time to deliver.