Chapter 4
Obi understood something simple about this world.
Power ruled everything.
Not titles. Not speeches. Not ideals.
Strength.
In the Clover Kingdom and beyond, influence followed overwhelming force.
If he intended to create something independent — something outside the
reach of Clover, Diamond, Heart, and Spade — then he needed to stand at
a level where even Magic Knight Captains would measure their words
carefully around him.
That required more than potential.
It required refinement under pressure.
The valley he had trained in before had sharpened his control, but it
was predictable. Stable. Safe.
Captain-level mages were forged in extreme environments.
So Obi sought out one.
Days of travel brought him toward a mountain range constantly veiled in
smoke. The air grew hotter with every mile. Ash drifted like gray snow
across the terrain. At night, the sky above the peaks glowed orange from
flowing magma.
A Volcano Grand Magic Zone.
Even from a distance, he could feel it — natural mana compressing
unnaturally, as if the land itself had its own heartbeat.
When he stepped past the invisible boundary, the pressure hit instantly.
The atmosphere thickened.
Fire-aspected mana saturated the air in violent waves. Heat pressed
against his lungs. The ground beneath his boots cracked with glowing
fractures, thin rivers of lava pulsing through black volcanic stone.
This was not calm, neutral mana.
It was dominant.
The environment attempted to override his internal mana flow the moment
he entered.
His dark magic reacted on instinct, flaring outward before he forcefully
compressed it back inward.
"No wasting energy," he muttered.
Instead of fighting the volcano, he focused on surviving it.
He opened his grimoire and began condensing his Dark Magic tighter than
ever before. Not as a blade. Not as a projectile.
As reinforcement.
He pressed the mana directly against his skin in thin layers, wrapping
it around his forearms first. The surrounding heat slammed into the
layer immediately.
It shattered.
He rebuilt it.
This time, he altered the structure. Instead of rigid resistance, he
allowed flexibility — absorbing and redistributing the external pressure
rather than opposing it head-on.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
The layer trembled but held.
Sweat rolled down his face as he expanded coverage to his shoulders,
then across his chest. The volcanic mana tried to invade through gaps in
his control, searing at his concentration.
His knees bent slightly under the weight.
Good.
If he collapsed here, he wasn't ready to lead anyone.
He stepped closer to a flowing magma stream, increasing the pressure
deliberately. Heat distorted his vision. The air shimmered violently.
His dark mana condensed further, growing denser, heavier, closer to his
skin.
This wasn't projection.
This was reinforcement.
Mana Skin.
Incomplete, but forming.
Hours passed.
He maintained the layer while performing movement drills — slow steps,
pivots, controlled bursts of speed. Every sudden motion threatened to
destabilize the coating around him. Each time it fractured, he rebuilt
it faster.
Control under motion.
Control under pain.
Control under dominance.
By nightfall, the layer around his body had grown visibly stable — a
thin, shadow-like armor hugging his frame. The volcanic mana no longer
crushed him outright. It pressed, but he stood firm.
He exhaled slowly.
Still not Captain level.
But now he could survive inside a Grand Magic Zone without being
overwhelmed.
That was a threshold most Vice Captains never crossed.
He looked up at the glowing sky above the volcano and allowed himself a
faint smirk.
"This is the foundation."
If he could move freely here, then ordinary battlefields would feel
light. If he could stabilize mana under environmental domination, then
controlling a battlefield would come next.
He closed his grimoire.
The dark layer faded gradually, but his posture remained steady.
The volcano had not broken him.
And tomorrow, he would push even deeper into its core.
Because foundation strength wasn't built in comfort.
It was carved out of pressure.