The Thunder-Crag Peaks were not designed for human survival. They were a geologic mistake, a place where the natural laws of the Clover Kingdom frayed and snapped under the weight of excessive, chaotic mana.
Lencar Abarame materialized on a jagged shelf of black rock, the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure popping his ears like a gunshot.
He didn't stumble. He bent his knees, absorbing the gravity fluctuation that immediately tried to crush him into the stone. In this zone, gravity wasn't a constant; it was a variable that shifted with the wind, swinging between half-G lightness and double-G crushing weight in the span of a heartbeat.
The wind carried shards of ice sharp enough to cut skin. The lightning was a constant, prowling predator, striking the highest points with deafening cracks that shook the marrow of his bones.
"Home sweet home," Lencar whispered, his voice snatched away by the gale.
He stripped off his heavy cloak and tunic, folding them neatly and storing them in the [Void Vault] ring. He stood shirtless in the freezing storm, his skin instantly pricking with goosebumps that felt like needles.
He tapped the ring again. A set of heavy, dull-grey iron bands materialized. These were not magical artifacts; they were just incredibly dense weights he had commissioned from a blacksmith in the black market who usually forged anchors. He strapped them to his wrists and ankles.
"Four hours," he commanded himself. "Then sword practice. The body must break before it can be forged."
He began to run.
It wasn't a graceful sprint. It was a ugly, grinding lurch against the wind. Every step was a squat. Every breath was a labor, the thin, ozone-rich air burning his lungs.
"Mana-Forging: Compression."
He flooded his muscles with his Stage 4 mana capacity. But he didn't use it to reinforce himself against the elements. He commanded the mana to push inward. He turned his own power into a vice, compressing his muscle fibers, fighting his every movement. He was fighting the weights, the gravity, the storm, and his own magic all at once.
He found a flat plateau of obsidian and dropped into a plank position. The rock beneath his hands was freezing, leeching the heat from his blood.
"Five hundred," he grunted.
He began to do push-ups. Not fast, rhythmic ones. Slow. Agonizing.
Down... hold... hold... up.
The lightning struck a spire fifty yards away, the boom rattling his teeth. Lencar didn't flinch. He focused on the burn in his triceps. He focused on the micro-tears ripping through his chest muscles.
I need to be stronger, he thought, his face twisted in a grimace of effort. Mars has crystal magic that can crush diamond. Asta has a sword that cuts magic. Yuno has the wind spirit. I have... this body. I have to make it indestructible.
Two hours passed.
His arms were shaking so violently he could barely hold himself up. His skin was bruised purple from the hail. His mana reserves, used solely for the internal compression, were starting to flicker. His physical stamina was gone; he was running on fumes and stubbornness.
He collapsed onto the rock, gasping, his chest heaving like a dying fish.
"Failure," he wheezed. "Two hours. That's the limit of the biological chassis."
In a normal training cycle, he would have to stop. He would have to sleep for eight hours, eat a massive meal, and wait for his muscles to repair themselves naturally. It was inefficient. It was slow.
But Lencar Abarame was a cheater.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the violet storm clouds. He raised his right hand, the silver ring on his finger glinting in the lightning flashes.
"[Void Vault]: Access."
He didn't pull out a potion. He reached his mind into the pocket dimension and focused on the centerpiece of his hoard.
The Breath of Yggdrasil.
It was the rough, uncut green crystal he had harvested from the heart of the Kiten Dungeon treasury. It wasn't just a rock; it was an engine. For centuries, it had sat in the dungeon, filtering the chaotic mana of the earth and refining it into a pure, hyper-active life force.
Lencar didn't take it out of the vault—exposing it to the storm might damage its delicate matrix. Instead, he opened the "valve" of the ring.
"Connect."
The sensation was immediate and overwhelming.
WHOOSH.
It didn't feel like drinking water. It felt like being hooked up to a high-pressure firehose of liquid life.
The Refined Natural Mana stored within the crystal flooded his system. It rushed through his meridians, hot and green and vibrant. It didn't just refill his mana pool; it saturated his cells.
Lencar arched his back, a silent scream of intensity escaping his throat.
The fatigue vanished instantly. The lactic acid in his muscles was neutralized. The micro-tears in his fibers didn't just heal; they fused, knitting back together instantly, denser and stronger than before. The bruises on his skin faded, leaving behind fresh, unblemished flesh.
It was an infinite battery. A hyper-charger that allowed him to bypass the biological necessity of rest.
"Stage 4... refilled," Lencar gasped, sitting up. His body hummed with excess energy. He felt like he could punch the mountain in half.
"No breaks," he said, a manic grin stretching beneath his mask. "Round Two."
He stood up and began the routine again.
Another two hours. Another cycle of destruction. Another infusion from the Breath of Yggdrasil. He was compressing weeks of training into a single night, using the artifact to cheat the laws of physiology.
By the time he finished the physical conditioning, the storm had worsened. The wind was now strong enough to lift a normal man off his feet.
Lencar stood firm, rooted by his density.
"Phase Three: The Blade."
He reached into the [Void Vault]. He didn't pull out the Demon-Dweller Sword he had stolen from the dungeon. That sword was currently floating inside the vault, passively absorbing the refined mana mist to charge itself. He couldn't risk bringing it out here; if he dropped it, the gravity might lose it forever.
Instead, he pulled out a simple, heavy iron broadsword he had bought from a junk shop in Nairn. It wasn't balanced. It wasn't sharp. It was a slab of metal that mimicked the weight and awkwardness of Asta's anti-magic blades.
He held it in one hand. The weight dragged his arm down.
"Asta swings a sword heavier than this like it's a twig," Lencar reminded himself. "If I want to use the Demon-Dweller effectively... if I want to use its ability to borrow magic... I need the wrist strength to aim it."
He took a stance. He recalled the books he had read in the Hage Grimoire Tower—manuals on the old, brutal swordsmanship of the border guards.
The Falling Avalanche. The Sweeping Horizon.
"Swing," he ordered.
He swung the sword. It was clumsy. The momentum threw him off balance, and he stumbled.
"Again."
He swung again. Better.
He spent the next two hours swinging the iron slab at the invisible enemies in the storm. He visualized Mars in his diamond armor. He visualized Vetto the Despair.
He practiced Mana-Skin reinforcement on the blade itself, coating the iron in a thin layer of wind mana to increase the cutting edge—a technique Yami Sukehiro used with his darkness.
Slash. Slash. Thrust.
His hands blistered. The blisters popped and bled against the rough leather hilt. He didn't stop. He tapped the ring, let the Breath of Yggdrasil heal the skin, and kept swinging. He wasn't trying to be an artist; he was trying to build muscle memory. He wanted his arm to know exactly how much force was needed to cleave a man in half without hesitation.
By 04:00, his body was a wreck, held together only by the constant stream of healing mana. He was covered in sweat, dirt, and dried blood. But his eyes were clear.
"Recover," he whispered.
He opened the valve one last time. The green light of the Breath of Yggdrasil washed over him, scrubbing away the exhaustion. He felt fresh. Alert.
"Time to go."
He verified the coordinates of his room in Nairn.
"[Spatial Magic]: [Coordinate Shift]."
The storm vanished. The silence of the Scarlet household rushed in to fill the void.
Lencar stripped off his ruined trousers, hid the weights and the sword back in the vault, and collapsed into bed. He fell asleep instantly, his body shutting down to maximize the one hour of natural rest he had allotted himself. Even the Breath of Yggdrasil couldn't replace the need for REM sleep to sort his memories.
Beep. Beep.
The internal alarm woke him at 05:00.
Lencar opened his eyes. They felt like they were filled with sand. The healing magic repaired his muscles, but the mental fatigue of the Grand Magic Zone lingered like a fog.
"Get up," he whispered.
He forced himself out of bed. He washed his face with cold water. He put on his work clothes—the clean tunic, the apron.
By the time he walked into the kitchen, he had constructed the mask. He smiled at Rebecca as she stirred the porridge. He joked with Marco. He walked to the restaurant, the very picture of a diligent young employee.
But as he chopped vegetables that morning, his mind was already moving to the next objective on the board.
He looked at the calendar on the wall of the restaurant office.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow was the appointment. The meeting with Dominante Code.
Lencar paused, holding a heavy sack of potatoes.
Dominante. The Witch who had fled the Diamond Kingdom. The fiancée of Fanzell Kruger. And, most importantly, a genius regarding magical items and Magic Runes.
I need her, Lencar thought, setting the potatoes down. I have raw power. I have Stage 3 control. I have the artifacts. But I lack the syntax. I don't know how to write the code of the world.
He thought about the Mana Method of the Heart Kingdom. It relied on using natural mana to create arrays—runes that commanded the environment to do the work for you. If he could learn the basics of rune crafting from Dominante... if he could understand the logic behind her artifacts...
He could bridge the gap. He could stop relying on just pushing mana and start programming it.
I need a cooperative relationship, he analyzed, peeling a potato with terrifying speed. She's paranoid. She's hiding from the Diamond assassins. If I come at her as a threat, she'll run or fight. I need to come at her as a patron. A curious student with deep pockets.
He remembered the books Garrick was hunting for. He remembered the artifacts he had found in the dungeon.
I can trade, he realized. Knowledge for knowledge. Protection for tuition. I will offer to fix her wand—or buy her the materials to fix it—in exchange for lessons.
The day dragged on. Lencar functioned on autopilot, his body moving through the motions of the kitchen while his mind rehearsed the negotiation. He anticipated her suspicion. He planned his counter-arguments. He structured the conversation like a chess match.
When the shift finally ended, and the sun set on Nairn, Lencar felt a different kind of exhaustion. It wasn't physical; it was the weight of anticipation.
He went home. He played with the kids, though he was a little slower today, letting Marco catch him more often. He ate dinner. He told a story about a Witch who lived in a house of clocks and sold time to people who wasted theirs.
The house went quiet. Rebecca went to sleep.
Lencar stood in his room. He looked at his bed. He wanted to sleep. His body was screaming for it.
But the Thunder-Crag Peaks were waiting. And Mars wasn't going to defeat himself.
"Discipline," Lencar whispered to the empty room. "Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it."
He tapped the ring.
The portal opened. The storm roared.
Lencar Abarame stepped into the void, leaving the warmth behind once again to forge himself into something that could survive the cold.