The transition from the stale, silent air of the Kiten Dungeon to the Vermillion Belt was like stepping out of a tomb and into a blast furnace.
This specific Grand Magic Zone, located in the lawless no-man's-land between the Clover and Diamond Kingdoms, was a graveyard for the unprepared. The natural mana here didn't just exist; it rioted. The sky was a bruising shade of violet, choked with storm clouds that rained boiling water. Jagged spires of obsidian rock jutted from the earth like the teeth of a subterranean beast, and rhythmic geysers of magma erupted from the ground, painting the landscape in flashes of violent orange.
Lencar stood on a precipice overlooking a valley of lava. The heat was physical, a pressing weight against his skin, but his Stage 4 Mana Skin hummed around him—a thin, oscillating barrier of invisible armor that filtered out the thermal lethality.
He wasn't just surviving here; he was hiding in plain sight. No Magic Knight patrol would dare enter this zone without a squad of healers. No Eye of the Midnight Sun spy would monitor a place where the weather itself tried to murder you every six seconds.
It was the perfect office for an audit.
Lencar found a relatively flat plateau of cooled volcanic rock, shielded from the worst of the magma rain by an overhanging cliff. He sat down, the stone warm beneath his boots. He took a deep breath, tasting sulfur and ozone.
"Alright," Lencar exhaled, his voice sounding small against the roar of the elements. "Let's see what I stole."
He raised his right hand. The silver ring he had looted from Silas—now enchanted with his own [Void Vault] spell—glowed with a deep, pulsating violet light.
[Spatial Creation Magic]: [Void Vault: Eject]
The air in front of him distorted, rippling like oil on water. The pocket dimension opened its maw.
First came the gold. Lencar didn't carefully extract it; he let it spill. A cascade of gold coins, ancient jewelry, and gemstones the size of apples poured out, clinking musically as they formed a glittering mound on the black rock. It was enough wealth to buy the entire town of Nairn three times over. It was enough to ensure his parents in Sosei never lifted a hoe again.
But Lencar pushed the gold aside with his boot. It was just currency. Useful, yes, but heavy and boring. He wasn't here for the payroll; he was here for the armory.
He reached into the void with his mind and began pulling out the artifacts he had sensed in the treasury—the items that radiated dangerous, concentrated mana. He laid them out in a neat row on the obsidian slab, treating them with the reverence of a bomb disposal technician.
There were six distinct items that stood out from the rest.
Lencar sat cross-legged before them. He felt a thrill that wasn't entirely Lencar, the survivor. It was Kenji Tanaka, the gamer, the analyst. This was the loot drop. This was the moment the character sheet updated.
He reached for the first item.
It was a rod, roughly two feet long, crafted from a material that looked like bleached bone but felt as smooth as polished marble. It was capped with a crimson crystal that wasn't static; the light inside it swirled and pulsed, mimicking a frantic heartbeat. Ancient runes, predating the modern Clover Kingdom script, spiraled down the handle.
Lencar gripped it.
Thrum.
A shockwave of heat traveled up his arm, bypassing his Mana Skin entirely. It wasn't painful, but it was aggressive. The artifact was waking up.
"You're a nasty one, aren't you?" Lencar whispered.
He closed his eyes and pushed a sliver of his own mana into the rod to analyze its circuitry. The structure inside was complex—a series of mana compression chambers leading to the crystal tip. It functioned like a capacitor. It didn't just cast a spell; it gathered mana, compressed it to the point of nuclear fusion, and then released it in a unidirectional beam.
Lencar's Output Analysis is that the discharge potential is terrifying. Based on the rune structure, a fully charged shot would release thermal energy equivalent to a Stage 1 Attack Spell. That's Captain-level firepower. It could vaporize a fortress gate, melt a golem, or turn a human being into a shadow on the wall.
Lenacr's Limitation Analysis is thar the crystal is fragile. After firing, the thermal stress would destabilize the matrix. It has five charges currently loaded. Once used, the natural ambient mana recharge rate is abysmal. It would take approximately ten months for the crystal to realign and recharge a single shot.
Lencar weighed the rod in his hand. It felt light physically, but metaphysically, it weighed a ton.
"Five shots," Lencar murmured. "Five chances to erase a problem that I can't solve with strategy."
This wasn't a weapon for a duel. This was a weapon for an execution. Or a siege break. If he ever faced Vetto the Despair, or a Spirit Guardian, this was his ace in the hole.
"I need a name for you," Lencar said, pointing the rod at a distant mountain peak. He imagined the beam of light, the instant destruction. "Something that fits your temperament."
He traced the crimson crystal with his thumb.
"[The Starfall Scepter]," Lencar decided. "Attribute: Light/Thermal Magic. Status: The Delete Button."
He set it down carefully on his left, keeping the crystal pointed away from him.
Next, he picked up a heavy, hexagonal amulet. It was made of a matte, dark grey metal that seemed to absorb the lightning flashes from the sky rather than reflect them. It was attached to a heavy chain that looked like it was forged for a giant.
Lencar draped it over his palm. As soon as the metal touched his skin, the gravity around him shifted. The dust swirling around his boots settled instantly. The wind that had been whipping his cloak died down within a two-meter radius.
Defensive Type.
Lencar probed it. The enchantment was absolute. It generated a localized, high-density gravity field that acted as a barrier. Unlike a shield that blocked attacks, this artifact crushed the kinetic energy of anything that entered its zone. A fireball would be flattened. A sword swing would be stopped dead in the air.
"It can withstand a Stage 1 Impact. It could probably tank a direct hit from Mereoleona Vermillion's fist without cracking."
"It's Limitation is its capacity. It had runic charges for ten activations. The recharge rate was faster than the scepter, but still slow—roughly five months for a full recharge."
Lencar clenched his fist around the amulet. He thought of the Red Clay Bandits. He thought of the moment Boran's earth fist had smashed into his ribs. If he had this then, he wouldn't have even felt the wind of the punch.
"This is insurance," Lencar thought. "Not just for me. But if I ever need to shield Rebecca... or my parents..."
It was a comforting weight. A wall he could carry in his pocket.
"[The Aegis of the Silent Mountain]," Lencar named it. "Attribute: Gravity/Force Magic. Status: The Panic Room."
He placed it next to the Scepter.
Then, his eyes fell on the third item. This one appealed to the mechanical side of his brain.
It looked like a round shield, about the size of a buckler, made of interlocking plates of bronze and steel. It was thick, heavy, and covered in gears and pistons that looked almost steampunk in design. There was a handle on the back, but also a port that looked like it was meant to interface with a mage's mana flow directly.
Lencar picked it up and strapped it to his left forearm. It felt balanced, a natural extension of his limb.
"Let's see what you do," Lencar muttered.
He channeled mana into the port.
CLANK-WHIRR-SNAP.
The sound was mechanical and satisfying. The bronze plates on the shield retracted and folded backward with lightning speed, while a massive, serrated steel blade shot out from the center, extending three feet past his knuckles.
In a split second, the defensive buckler had transformed into a wrist-mounted broadsword.
"A Hybrid," Lencar grinned beneath his mask. "Now this... this is fun."
He slashed at the air. The blade hummed.
Lencar thought "In Sword Mode, the blade is coated in a high-frequency vibration field, giving it a cutting power equivalent to a Stage 2 Attack (Vice-Captain level). It could shear through standard iron armor like paper. In Shield Mode, the plates expand and generate a Stage 3 Barrier."
" It's Special Feature is unlike the Scepter or the Aegis, this artifact didn't rely on slow, ambient recharge. It was a vampire. It fed directly off the user's mana. As long as Lencar had mana to pump into the port, the blade would stay sharp and the shield would hold."
"Reliable," Lencar noted, retracting the blade with a thought. CLANK. "Versatile. It solves the issue of carrying a separate weapon. And since I harvested the Iron-Eater Brothers, I can probably repair the internal gears myself using Steel Magic."
It was a worker's tool. A weapon for the grind.
"[The Switch-Gear Aspis]," Lencar nodded approvingly. "Attribute: Steel/Reinforcement Magic. Status: The Daily Driver."
He unstrapped it and laid it with the others.
He sat back for a moment, wiping sweat from his forehead. The heat of the Grand Magic Zone was intense, but the heat of his ambition was rising to match it. He had an ultimate offense, an ultimate defense, and a versatile melee weapon.
But a war wasn't won just by hitting things harder. A war was won with information, politics, and sustainability.
He looked at the remaining three items on the rock. The unassuming black spheres. The dark slate mirror. And the pulsing green crystal.
"Now," Lencar said, his eyes narrowing. "Let's look at the strategic assets."