Lencar folded his arms over his chest, his dark cloak settling around him. He had been waiting for them to notice.
"Your spatial awareness is incredibly sharp, Fanzell," Lencar praised lightly. "You are correct. If we were dealing strictly with physical geometry, this hall would be protruding out of both sides of the mountain."
"Then how?" Dominante demanded, stepping forward, the artificer in her practically vibrating with curiosity. "Did you hollow out the entire base of the mountain range?"
"No," Lencar replied calmly. "I used Spatial Magic to manipulate the interior dimensions. The base you are standing in has been spatially expanded to be exactly five times larger on the inside than it appears from the exterior physical footprint."
Dominante's jaw dropped. Fanzell stared at him in stunned silence. Mariella's grip tightened on the handles of the cases she was carrying.
"Spatial expansion?" Dominante squeaked, her voice an octave higher than usual. "Do you have any idea how unstable that is?! Folding physical space on a permanent, architectural scale without a localized mana singularity to anchor it usually results in catastrophic implosions! How are the walls not collapsing in on themselves?!"
"Because the structural integrity isn't just physical," Lencar explained, deciding to give them a brief glimpse into his methods to solidify their trust. He gestured toward the nearest glowing pink crystal pillar. "Walk over and look closely at the crystal, Dominante."
She practically sprinted to the pillar. Pressing her face close to the smooth, translucent surface, her eyes narrowed as she adjusted to the glow. Suddenly, she gasped.
"Runes," she whispered, tracing her fingers over the surface. Buried deep within the layers of the crystal, almost invisible to the naked eye, were thousands of microscopic, interlocking magical runes. "These are... stabilization matrices. Density bindings. And... by the gods, are these atmospheric anchors?"
"Exactly," Lencar nodded. "The entire framework of this base—the steel, the crystal, the stone—is heavily runed. I bound the spatial expansion directly to the ambient mana of the Grand Magic Zone outside. The more violent the mana storms rage against the mountain, the more power the runes draw to reinforce the spatial expansion inside. The structure feeds on the chaos outside to maintain perfect stability inside."
Dominante slowly turned to look at Lencar, her expression a mix of sheer awe and absolute terror. "This is... this is a masterpiece of magical engineering. The calculations required to balance the spatial fold with the external mana pressure of a Grand Magic Zone... it would take a team of Royal Scholars years just to draft the blueprints."
"I am glad you appreciate the craftsmanship," Lencar said smoothly, perfectly hiding the fact that he had improvised half of those runes on the fly based on his integrated knowledge. "But the main hall is merely the foyer. Allow me to show you the rest of the facility."
For the next half hour, Lencar led the trio on a comprehensive tour of the underground base. The 5x spatial expansion allowed for a ridiculous amount of luxury and space.
He showed them the living quarters—a series of spacious, beautifully carved stone rooms that were completely soundproofed and equipped with self-heating stone hearths. Mariella immediately claimed a room near the main entrance, her assassin instincts demanding she be the first line of defense.
Fanzell was nearly brought to tears when Lencar showed him the training hall. It was a massive, empty cavern with reinforced steel floors and shock-absorbing crystal walls. "I can actually use my high-tier wind spells in here without blowing the roof off the building," Fanzell marveled, running his hands over the smooth steel floorboards. "This is incredible. I haven't been able to truly swing my sword in three years."
But the true crown jewel of the tour was the sub-level workshop.
When Lencar opened the heavy double doors and revealed the laboratory he had designed specifically for Dominante, the orange-haired woman actually dropped to her knees.
It was a sprawling paradise of artifice. The massive, vibration-resistant marble workbenches gleamed under the magical lighting. The heavy forge at the center of the room burned with a clean, smokeless, self-sustaining magical flame. She saw the flowing aquifers of pure water for cooling her metals, and the thick, ice-coated vault for storing volatile ingredients.
"The ventilation shafts draw the heat and exhaust directly out of the mountain," Lencar explained, walking her through the setup. "The drafts are heavily warded and concealed with mist magic on the surface to prevent detection. The ambient mana in this specific room has been aggressively stabilized, so you will not experience any random magical fluctuations while carving delicate runes."
Dominante stood up slowly, walking over to the marble workbench and trailing her fingers reverently across the cool stone. She looked at the forge, feeling the steady, controlled heat radiating from it.
"I have worked in the grandest laboratories of the Diamond Kingdom's Royal Palace," Dominante whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "And none of them... absolutely none of them... compare to this. This is perfect. It's absolutely perfect."
She turned around, her eyes locking onto Lencar's masked face. The awe had settled, replaced by a sharp, highly analytical curiosity. She was a woman of science and engineering. She knew exactly what it took to move this much earth, forge this much steel, and carve this many runes.
"Lencar," Dominante said, using his name directly. "I need you to be honest with me. When Mariella found you in the Black Market, it was evening. You left us to 'make preparations' a few hours ago. You didn't have this base ready. I can smell the freshly scorched stone and the lingering ozone of active Spatial Magic. This place is brand new."
Fanzell and Mariella both turned to look at Lencar, their expressions sobering instantly. They too had realized the impossible timeline.
"How long did it actually take to build this base?" Dominante asked, her voice dropping to a serious, demanding pitch. "And more importantly, how did you do it?"
Lencar stood perfectly still. Beneath the wooden mask, his mind raced through a dozen different scenarios.
He could tell them the truth: I did it myself. I came here four hours ago, used Earth Magic to hollow the mountain, Spatial Magic to dump the rock in a volcano, Iron and Crystal Magic to build the pillars, Sand and Fire Magic to smooth the walls, and then I carved ten thousand runes by hand before taking a ten-minute break to heal my torn muscles. He immediately discarded the idea. If he told them that, they wouldn't see him as a powerful ally or a leader. They would see him as a monster. A localized god of destruction and creation. Fanzell would instinctively view him as a terrifying threat, and Dominante would be too intimidated to work comfortably. He needed them to respect him, not fear him to the point of paralysis.
So, Lencar crafted a lie. It was a very good, highly logical lie.
"It took approximately one month," Lencar replied, his voice entirely steady, projecting an aura of casual authority.
Dominante blinked, slightly confused. "A month? But you just brought us here tonight."
"The construction of this facility has been an ongoing project long before we ever crossed paths in Nairn," Lencar lied smoothly, weaving a narrative out of thin air. "I knew I would eventually require a secure location for my operations. The heavy excavation, the spatial folding, and the structural engineering were completed over the last thirty days."
"By who?" Fanzell pressed, his eyes narrowing slightly in tactical evaluation. "Even stretching the timeline to a month, hollowng out a Grand Magic Zone and setting up a spatial expansion of this magnitude... that isn't the work of one man. The mana exhaustion alone would kill multiple high level mages combined."
"You are correct, Fanzell," Lencar nodded, conceding the point gracefully. "I did not do this alone. It required the coordinated effort of twenty highly specialized, elite mages. Earth manipulators for the excavation, crystal weavers for the pillars, and spatial specialists to fold the interior dimensions. They worked in rotating shifts around the clock to ensure the project was completed quickly and quietly."