Lencar's eyes snapped open in the physical world.
He sat up, gasping for air. The bandit leader lay beneath him, his eyes rolled back, his body twitching as his soul tried to stabilize after the loss of its core. His sand-colored grimoire was no longer glowing; it looked like a piece of dead, grey stone.
Lencar felt three things immediately.
First, the process was dangerous. He had been unconscious for at least thirty seconds. If the other bandits hadn't been disoriented by the flash of golden light, they could have killed him.
Second, he felt... different. His soul felt "thicker." The mental fog that usually accompanied high-speed multitasking was gone. He could see the battlefield not just as a series of events, but as a map of potential outcomes.
Third, he looked at his mana pool.
Mana Pool: 100% (Refreshed).
"A total system refresh," Lencar breathed, standing up. "Every time I take a crystal, the reservoir is refilled by the target's mana."
He looked at his hands. He didn't need to open the book. He willed the sand to rise, and it flowed around his fingers like water. It was flexible. It was fast. It was perfect.
He didn't waste time. He moved to the Wind mage, who was trying to scramble away. Lencar didn't use a spell; he simply used his new, flexible Wind Magic to create a vacuum, pulling the man toward him.
He placed the grimoire. Absolute Replication.
Again, the blackout. Again, the soul realm. This time, he saw a Green Crystal. He watched it merge with his spirit, feeling his capacity for speed and atmospheric pressure triple.
He woke up, his soul feeling even stronger. He could now feel the wind as an extension of his own nervous system.
He moved to the Fire mage. Absolute Replication. The Red Crystal merged. The heat no longer felt like a foreign energy he was hosting; it felt like his own blood.
Finally, he stood over the Concealment mage, who was shivering in the shadows. Lencar didn't even need to look for him; his soul-senses were now so sharp he could "see" the displacement in the air.
Absolute Replication. The Purple Crystal—dark and shimmering—entered his spirit. The world of shadows opened up to him. He realized he could not only hide his body, but hide his very mana signature.
He woke up for the final time. The ravine was quiet, save for the crackling of the dying fire. The four bandits were alive, but they were hollow shells. Their grimoires had turned to gray ash in Lencar's hands, crumbling into the dirt. They were no longer mages. They were non-entities.
Lencar stood in the center of the camp, his body radiating a terrifying, multi-colored aura. He felt like he could process a thousand streams of data at once. His soul had become a cathedral of stolen power.
"I don't need the scripts anymore," Lencar said.
He looked at the four men. He couldn't leave them. If the guards found four magicless men and four piles of ash, the trail would eventually lead back to the "monster" in Hage.
He raised his hand. He didn't think of a spell name. He just thought of the result.
"Sand and Fire Magic: [Obsidian Glass Burial]."
He combined the heat of the red crystal with the density of the yellow. The sand beneath the bandits didn't just rise; it melted. In a second, it fused into a thick, black, volcanic glass. The bandits were encased in an instant, turned into silent, black statues that would never tell a secret.
Lencar turned and began the long walk back to Sosei.
Lencar reached the farmhouse just as the first line of gold appeared on the horizon. He slipped through the window, cleaned the blood from his tunic, and lay down. He didn't sleep; his soul was too energized for rest.
When the sun finally filled the room, he sat at his desk and opened his grimoire.
The book had changed. The leather was darker, and the pages were no longer plain. They were rimmed with the colors of the crystals he had consumed: Yellow, Green, Red, and Purple.
[Current Status - Absolute:]
* Sand Magic (Flexible)
* Wind Magic (Flexible)
* Fire Magic (Flexible)
* Concealment Magic (Flexible)
[Soul Integrity: Stage 1 - Reinforced]
* Effect: Multitasking capacity increased by 300%.
* Effect: Mana Recovery rate increased by 50%.
He did the calculation in his head.
"One month and fifteen days," Lencar whispered.
Forty-five days left until the Magic Knights Entrance Exam. He had four flexible attributes, a reinforced soul, and a mana pool that had nearly doubled in capacity.
He looked out the window at the distant, shimmering spires of the Royal Capital. He wasn't a commoner anymore. He wasn't even a "Prodigy of Method."
He was something the system hadn't accounted for. A predator who was about to walk into a room full of the kingdom's finest "Soul Crystals."
"The exam is going to be a very productive harvest," Lencar said, a thin, dangerous smile crossing his face.