Lencar didn't linger. He moved quickly through the winding streets of the capital, heading away from the noble district and toward the quieter, industrial sectors where the warehouses stood silent at night. He needed isolation. He needed to audit his new asset.
He found a secluded alleyway between two textile factories. It was dark, smelling of dye and damp wood, and completely dead to the world.
Lencar leaned against the brick wall and exhaled. He could feel the new magic settling into his core. It was different from the Wind or Earth magic he had copied from commoners. Spatial Magic was rare. It was complex. It required a different kind of mental processing.
"Let's see what I actually stole," Lencar murmured.
He analyzed the spell structure in his mind.
Finral's magic, Fallen Angel's Wingbeat, had a strict limitation: Finral could only open a portal to a place he had physically seen or visited. His magic relied on visual memory to anchor the exit point.
Lencar closed his eyes. He tried to replicate Finral's method. He tried to visualize the town of Hage. He tried to "see" the church.
The mana resisted. It felt slippery, unanchored.
Analysis: I am not Finral. My mind doesn't work on emotional memory or visual snapshots. My mind works on data. On grids. On coordinates.
Lencar opened his eyes. He looked at the cobblestones at his feet. He visualized the space not as a picture, but as a 3D graph. X-axis. Y-axis. Z-axis.
"If I treat the world as a dataset," Lencar reasoned, "I don't need to see the destination. I just need to know its position relative to mine."
He recalled the map of the Clover Kingdom he had memorized years ago. He calculated the distance to the other side of the alleyway—ten meters away.
Vector: North-North-East. Distance: 10.0 meters. Elevation: 0.
He channeled the stolen Spatial mana. He didn't try to "paint" a door like Finral did. He tried to punch a hole through the math.
[Spatial Magic: Coordinate Jump]
A small, unstable sphere of space warped in front of him. It wasn't the neat, oval door Finral made. It was a jagged tear in the air, vibrating with instability.
Lencar stepped through.
The sensation was nauseating—like being pulled through a straw while spinning.
POP.
He stumbled out the other side, landing exactly ten meters away.
Lencar steadied himself against the wall, fighting the urge to retch.
"Rough," he gasped. "Inefficient. But... functional."
He had done it. He had bypassed the "visited location" restriction. Because he understood the geometry of the world better than Finral, he could teleport blind, as long as he knew where he was going.
Limitation Audit:
Mana Cost: High. That ten-meter jump cost as much mana as fifty wind bullets. Without the Soul Crystals boosting his reserves, he would be drained after a few miles.
Combat Viability: Zero. It takes too long to calculate the coordinates. I can't use this to dodge attacks like Langris Vaude yet.
Range: Theoretically limitless, bounded only by mana capacity.
"I have a fast-travel system," Lencar concluded. "But I need a base of operations. I can't stay in the Capital. Yami is suspicious. The Wizard King is watching."
He couldn't go back to Hage. That was the first place people would look if they suspected him. He needed a place that was populated enough to hide in, but irrelevant enough to be ignored.
His mind flashed back to a memory from a few days ago. He had seen a Red haired girl at Nairn while traveling to the spatial mage to travel from Nairn to the capital. Taking care of a horde of younger siblings.
Rebecca Scarlet.
She was a canon character. A minor one. She lived in Nairn with her siblings. She was kind, hardworking, and most importantly, she lived in the Common Realm where the Magic Knights rarely patrolled unless necessary.
"Nairn," Lencar decided. "It's a trading hub. Good for information. And I can rent a room there without questions asked."
He pulled out his map. He triangulated the position of Nairn relative to the Royal Capital.
Distance: 45 kilometers Southwest.
Mana required: It would take about 40% of his current reserves.
He took a deep breath. He focused. He built the grid in his mind. He visualized the map, placing a pin on the town of Nairn. He drew the line connecting him to it.
"Coordinates locked."
Lencar raised his hand. This time, he poured more mana into the spell. The air groaned. The spatial tear opened wider, less jagged this time, stabilizing into a swirling gray vortex.
He didn't look back at the Royal Capital. He didn't look back at the arena where he had forged his path of mediocrity.
"Goodbye, Protagonists," Lencar whispered. "I'll see you when the Dungeon opens."
He stepped into the void.
The transition was longer this time. The gray nothingness pressed against his skin, cold and silent. For a few seconds, he was nowhere.
Then, the world snapped back into existence.
Lencar stumbled out of the rift, his boots hitting muddy ground. The smell of the capital—stone and ozone—was gone. Replaced by the smell of snow, pine wood, and cooking fires.
He looked up. He was standing in a narrow, snow-dusted alley behind a bakery. The sounds of a bustling town evening drifted from the main street.
He checked his surroundings. The architecture was rustic—wooden beams and slanted roofs.
"Nairn," Lencar confirmed. "Deviation from target coordinates: 15 meters. Acceptable."
He adjusted his cloak, hiding his face. He walked out of the alley and into the main street. The town was alive with people finishing their day.
He walked until he found a small, unassuming inn near the edge of the market district. It wasn't the place where Rebecca worked—he wouldn't approach her yet. He just needed a roof.
He paid the innkeeper with coin he had saved from his hunting. He entered the small, drafty room and sat on the bed.
He was tired. His mana was depleted. But his mind was racing.
He had Spatial Magic. He had a base. He had a plan.
Lencar pulled out his grimoire one last time. He ran his fingers over the page with the Spatial spell.
"Next step," he murmured, his eyes closing as exhaustion finally took hold. "Mars. The Diamond Kingdom. And the harvesting of a living weapon."
Outside the window, the snow began to fall, burying his tracks, hiding the heretic from the world once again.