The following weeks passed quietly — almost deceptively so.
After the Sosshi Village incident, Lencar kept a low profile, living off the wilderness near the edge of the Forsaken Realm. Every morning, he trained under minimal mana output, forcing his control to adapt to the fluctuating instability left behind by Heretic Mode.
His body wasn't made to devour grimoires in such numbers. But his mind — sharpened by the replication system — was built for pattern recognition and calibration.
> "If I want to evolve my capacity, I need diversity in mana.
Each attribute changes how my grimoire processes energy.
If I balance them all… I can push the limit of replication safely."
His grimoire hovered beside him, its pages now lined with strange, hybrid runes that shimmered with multiple hues — faint traces of each magic he had absorbed so far.
But to reach the threshold he desired, he needed seven distinct elemental patterns.
---
I. Wind
His first target was an abandoned camp northeast of Sosshi.
A dying mage — a former smuggler — lay slumped beside a ruined carriage. His wind grimoire floated weakly above him. When the man gasped out his final breath, the grimoire began to fade — and Lencar caught it with Chain Magic before it vanished.
He whispered quietly, almost respectfully, before devouring it.
> "Rest. Your magic won't disappear — it'll evolve."
A swirl of emerald energy burst into his own grimoire, etching delicate spiral patterns along its edges.
The air around him lightened — the first stage of Wind Magic entered his matrix.
---
II. Fire
The second came days later, in a small mountain settlement plagued by bandits.
Among them was a rogue Flame Mage — undisciplined but powerful. The battle was brief.
Lencar's water-imbued chains subdued him easily. When the man tried to incinerate his bindings, Lencar tightened the links — and the flames snuffed themselves out under Heretic interference.
The Fire Grimoire pulsed red as it dissolved into his own.
The temperature around him rose sharply, forcing him to kneel.
> "Fire's resonance is volatile… it doesn't like coexistence."
He focused on the Flow Equation rune — adjusting Fire's entry node to interlink with Wind. The two harmonized weakly — one feeding the other.
---
III. Chain
Chain Magic was his own earliest replication, but this was different — this time, he devoured a native Chain Grimoire to stabilize the architecture of the replicated one.
The process reinforced his mana pathways, smoothing the strain caused by his multi-attribute flow.
The moment it fused, he felt his physical fatigue lessen.
> "Chain stabilizes the link between different magics. It's the spine that keeps my structure intact."
His grimoire's pages became more organized — no longer chaotic but layered like a living schematic.
---
IV. Lightning
Lightning Magic came next — dangerous and unpredictable.
He tracked its user in the outskirts of Raquey — a bounty target from the Diamond Kingdom. Their duel was swift but violent. The man's lightning shattered trees and burned the air.
Lencar endured multiple shocks through his Iron Skin. Each pulse taught him the rhythm of lightning's flow — erratic, but consistent once patterned. When the man fell, the Lightning Grimoire burst like a thunderclap.
The absorption nearly tore Lencar's arm apart — his nervous system overloaded with unstable charge. He bit through the pain and forced a mana seal into place.
> "So that's what raw energy feels like… violent but pure.
If controlled, it can ignite replication efficiency."
---
V. Space
This one wasn't found — it was stolen.
A dying noble in the north possessed a rare Space Grimoire, capable of minor dimensional folding.
Lencar infiltrated the estate using Mist Magic, silently erasing his presence. He didn't kill the noble — instead, he waited until the man was on his deathbed, grimoire floating weakly by his side.
When he reached out, the noble whispered,
> "You… want the world itself to fold for you?"
> "No," Lencar replied. "Just enough of it to stay ahead."
The Space Magic fused into his own. The world around him distorted faintly, as if reality was acknowledging his expanded perception. He felt a new layer of depth to mana — a third-dimensional flexibility that would soon define his tactical dominance.
---
VI. Earth
The sixth was acquired naturally — through his earlier battle at Sosshi.
But it wasn't until later that he refined it properly. He experimented with earth compression, using replicated rune arrays to fuse soil and mana into solid stone constructs.
Each refinement improved his control, adding weight to his spells — a stabilizing counterbalance to the volatility of lightning and fire.
His new composite formula — Earthen Chain Bind — became his main field restraint technique.
---
VII. Water
The final element came from a wandering mercenary mage by the riverside near Nairn.
The man wielded graceful, wave-like movements — his magic gentle but adaptive. Lencar requested a duel under false pretenses — "testing control methods."
When he won, the man smiled faintly, sensing something deeper behind Lencar's calm.
> "You're collecting them, aren't you?
All seven… to become something greater."
Lencar didn't answer. He simply devoured the grimoire as the man left.
Blue light flooded his own, filling the remaining blank sections.
The moment the last rune settled, the grimoire floated higher than ever before, its aura shifting — no longer a patchwork of attributes, but a system.
Night fell. Lencar sat by the campfire, staring at his grimoire — now a full, glowing construct of seven elements intertwined in layered symmetry.
The wind rustled softly; the flames reflected in his eyes.
He extended his hand — the air rippled faintly. Space folded for a moment, and seven runic circles aligned over his palm.
He whispered:
> "So this… is Stage 4."
A pulse of energy rolled through the forest. Birds took flight. The ground hummed with resonance. His mana core stabilized completely for the first time — not through meditation or external guidance, but through raw, elemental integration.
He smiled faintly, exhausted but satisfied.
> "Seven magics. Seven data points. One replication system unified.
…Now I can start creating instead of copying."
He closed the grimoire. The pages sealed themselves with a quiet hum.
The next morning, he would head toward the quiet village where a red-haired girl named Rebecca would soon offer him a home — unaware that the man helping her fix her stall had already consumed the foundations of seven elements.