Lencar didn't sleep. Not even for an hour.
By dawn, his room was a scattered field of parchment. Runes, diagrams, flow models, half-burned mana seals — everything he could find was covered in scribbles. His grimoire hovered beside him, its pages open to the newly created section: Reverse Replication, Prototype α.
He placed his hand over the diagram and whispered, "Let's see if theory bends before it breaks."
A faint hum filled the air as his mana began to circulate. Normally, replication drained energy outward — a one-way current from him into the object, imprinting the copied spell pattern.
But this time, he'd inverted the circuit.
The goal was simple in theory: create a stable loop.
In practice, he was about to test something no one else had ever attempted.
He pointed his finger toward a fragment of stone on the floor.
"[Replication Type-Ω: Invert Flow]."
A silver-white light surrounded the stone. Then — silence. No explosion, no shattering, no resonance. Just stillness.
Lencar frowned. "Feedback rate zero… mana reflection unstable."
He tapped the grimoire. "Initiate return pulse."
For an instant, the light pulsed backward — from the stone, back into his grimoire.
Then the entire room vibrated.
His chair shattered. The table cracked in two. The floor itself rippled like water as the mana loop oscillated between positive and negative flow.
"Too much inversion—cancel!"
He slammed his hand down on the grimoire, forcing the spell to disperse.
A gust of air burst outward, blowing every parchment across the room. When it was over, he stood silently in the middle of the wreckage, smoke curling from his fingertips.
"Stability time… six seconds," he muttered. "Failure, but successful return trace."
He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. "Not bad."
Downstairs, Rebecca nearly dropped a tray of bread when the ceiling trembled.
She rushed upstairs, banging on his door. "Lencar! What did you just do?!"
"Testing," he said through the door, voice calm.
"Testing what? You almost blew up the kitchen!"
He opened the door halfway. The air behind him shimmered faintly — residual mana distortion. "I'm improving the replication algorithm."
She stared at him. His hair was disheveled, his hands faintly burned, eyes brighter than usual.
"You look like you lost the experiment," she said flatly.
He gave the faintest hint of a smile. "Progress often looks like failure."
Rebecca sighed and rubbed her temples. "You're going to kill yourself one of these days."
"Unlikely," he replied.
"Do you even care if you do?"
That made him pause. His eyes flickered, something unreadable passing behind them. Then he said quietly, "If the research survives, it won't matter."
She frowned. "That's not how living works, Lencar."
He didn't answer. He just went back inside.
By midday, the house smelled faintly of ozone. Lencar had stabilized the core formula — partially. He discovered that using natural mana instead of personal mana reduced instability by 40%.
He wrote in the margins:
> Conclusion: natural mana harmonizes with reverse flow due to non-singular origin. Need natural rune assistance.
He thought back to Rebecca's correction — the inverted rune on the metal plate. That had triggered the entire breakthrough.
If her intuition could identify correct inversion patterns… perhaps she could help him balance the cycle.
But asking her meant involving her directly — and that risked exposure.
He turned his attention back to the small metallic cube he was now holding.
"Alright," he muttered, "Prototype Beta."
He traced the new runes on its surface: twin spirals intersecting in opposite flow directions.
"[Reverse Replication: Mana Link Test]."
The cube glowed.
A second, identical cube materialized beside it — faintly translucent.
Lencar stared. "Replication complete."
He snapped his fingers. The original cube pulsed. The duplicate pulsed exactly one second later — a perfect mirror delay.
"Response confirmed… transfer link intact."
He lifted the first cube — and the second floated upward on its own.
He rotated one — the other mirrored it perfectly.
"Synchronization 100%."
He smiled faintly. "It works."
Then, without warning, the mirrored cube flickered and vanished — dissolving into fine mana dust.
Lencar's eyes widened. "Feedback collapse?"
He turned to the remaining cube. It had changed — faintly darker now, its edges warped.
He ran his hand across it. "So the mirror doesn't vanish — it transfers entropy back."
That meant every reversed replication would eventually corrupt the original if the loop wasn't balanced.
"Symmetry without compensation is still destruction," he muttered. "I need an equilibrium core."
He leaned back, exhausted. "I need someone who can see rune flow better than I can…"
That evening, Rebecca's younger brother, Luka, peeked into Lencar's workroom. "Hey, mister Lencar?"
Lencar didn't look up. "What?"
Luka stepped inside, carrying a small basket of bread. "Sis said you forgot to eat again."
"Leave it on the table."
Luka set it down, but curiosity caught his eye — the glowing cube hovering in midair.
"Whoa… that's magic, right?"
Lencar finally looked up. "Yes."
"Can I touch it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it might erase your hand."
Luka blinked. "…Cool."
Lencar frowned faintly. "That's not the correct reaction."
Luka grinned. "You talk like a book. Do you even have fun?"
"Define fun."
"You know, laughing? Playing around?"
"I don't see the point."
Luka tilted his head. "Then why are you studying magic?"
Lencar hesitated. Then, in a rare flicker of honesty, he said, "Because I need control."
The boy nodded like he understood, even though he didn't. "That's kinda like Sis. She works too hard too."
Lencar's expression softened slightly. "She's strong."
"Yeah. But she gets lonely sometimes."
He didn't reply. The boy shrugged and ran back downstairs.
Lencar turned to the glowing cube again, whispering, "Loneliness isn't weakness… it's insulation."
Still, for a reason he couldn't explain, his pulse slowed when he heard Rebecca laugh faintly below.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, Lencar conducted the real test.
He placed the cube on a small rune circle etched into the floor — one that he'd built with the inverted rune Rebecca had unknowingly designed.
He activated the spell.
"[Reverse Replication: Dual Core Synchronization]."
This time, the light didn't explode. It folded inward — forming two cubes suspended in perfect balance, a faint current flowing between them.
The feedback graph in his grimoire stabilized.
Mana consumption dropped by 72%.
Loop time extended indefinitely.
It was perfect — or nearly.
He reached out to touch the first cube.
When he did, something strange happened.
The second cube flickered — then began to mimic his heartbeat.
Each pulse from his chest echoed as a faint shimmer in the duplicate. The link had gone beyond mana — it was now resonating with his life force.
"...That's impossible."
He pulled his hand back, but the shimmer persisted. His mana signature was now embedded in both cubes — connected through the feedback loop.
> Reverse Replication successful. Soul-link detected.
Lencar froze. "Soul-link?"
He had created not just a mirrored object, but a mirror bond — a mana link that connected him to his creation on a fundamental level.
He whispered, "I… built a living circuit."
The implications were staggering — and terrifying.
If he could link with a spell construct, what stopped that construct from linking back?
For the first time since arriving in this village, a shiver ran down his spine.
The cubes hovered in silence, perfect opposites pulsing in steady rhythm.
Lencar stared at them and whispered, "Balance demands equivalence."
He snapped his fingers — the first cube vanished.
The second remained — but its color shifted completely to black.
His grimoire vibrated violently, pages turning on their own.
> Error: Reverse equilibrium unstable. Compensation required.
He felt the drain instantly — mana bleeding from his core, pulled into the black cube.
"Stop—!"
The cube exploded in a silent flash of light, and Lencar was thrown back into the wall.
When the dust settled, the cube was gone — and a faint, dark mark had appeared on his wrist: two spirals crossing each other.
He examined it grimly. "So… that's the price."
Reverse Replication worked, but every successful link left a mark — a mana scar. Proof that he'd traded something intangible for balance.
He clenched his fist. "If that's what it takes… so be it."
The next morning, Rebecca noticed the faint burn on his wrist as he helped her knead dough.
"What happened?" she asked.
He didn't look up. "Experiment left a mark."
"That's not normal, you know."
"Neither am I."
She gave him a disapproving look. "You keep saying that like it's something to be proud of."
He didn't answer — just kept kneading. For a brief second, she thought she saw him wince as the dough pressed against his hand.
Rebecca sighed. "One day, you'll tell me what you're really doing, right?"
He paused, then said softly, "Maybe. When the loop is stable."
She frowned. "What loop?"
Lencar only looked at her — and smiled faintly.
"Everything."