The magma geysers in the distance erupted with a low, earth-shaking boom, sending a plume of ash into the violet sky. Lencar didn't flinch. His focus was entirely on the three small, black spheres sitting on the obsidian slab.
They looked innocuous. They were smooth, heavy, and about the size of an orange. To a layman, they might look like cannonballs or paperweights. But to Lencar's enhanced Mana Sensing—now layered with the sensory data of twenty harvested souls—they looked like unstable stars wrapped in a thin layer of glass.
He picked one up, moving with extreme, exaggerated caution.
"Explosives," Lencar deduced, feeling the violent swirling of mana trapped inside the shell.
These weren't simple firebombs. The runes etched faintly into the surface were containment seals. Inside, mana was compressed to a critical mass, constantly undergoing a fission-like reaction, held in check only by the seal.
Blast Radius Analysis: Based on the mana density... if the seal breaks, this thing detonates with a yield that would cover a 10-kilometer radius.
Lencar swallowed hard. 10 kilometers. That wasn't a tactical explosion. That was a city-killer. If he dropped this in the center of the Royal Capital, it would wipe out everything from the Common Realm to the Noble Realm.
"It's Power is of Stage 1 caliber with an Area of Effect explosion," Lencar whispered.
He realized the weight of what he was holding. These weren't tools for hunting bandits. These were political bargaining chips. These were the kind of weapons that started wars—or ended them before they began. If he threw one of these into the Diamond Kingdom's staging grounds, he could halt an invasion single-handedly. Or he could accidentally kill thousands of innocents.
"This is too dangerous to carry loosely," Lencar decided, gently placing it back into the padded box he had found it in. "I can never use these casually. These are for the endgame. For the Devils. For Zagred."
He closed the box and locked it with a localized spatial seal.
"[The Calamity Spheres]," Lencar named them, his voice grim. "Attribute: Explosion/Catastrophe Magic. Status: The Last Resort."
He pushed the box to the back of the pile. He hoped he would never have to open it again.
He turned his attention to the next item: a sleek, rectangular slate of polished obsidian, framed in silver. It looked like a black mirror, humming with a high-frequency vibration that tickled his fingertips.
He picked it up. As he poured a small stream of mana into the silver frame, the black surface rippled like water.
"Connect," Lencar projected his will, visualizing a specific location: his room in the Scarlet household in Nairn.
The mist on the slate cleared. Suddenly, a high-definition image appeared on the surface.
He was looking down into his own room from a high angle. He saw the dust motes floating in the moonlight. He saw the bed he had made that morning. He could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of the house settling. He shifted his focus slightly, pushing the "camera" through the wall—a feature of spatial scrying.
He saw Marco sleeping in the next room, one leg hanging off the bed, drooling onto his pillow.
Lencar couldn't help but smile.
"High-fidelity remote scrying and projection," Lencar analyzed, cutting the connection. The image faded back to black obsidian. "Far superior to the standard communication mirrors the Magic Knights use. Theirs are blurry, audio-focused, and easily jammed. This... this cuts through spatial interference."
In a world where information was as valuable as mana, this was his spy satellite. He could scout dungeons before entering. He could check on his parents in Sosei without leaving Nairn. He could monitor Jareth in the black market to ensure the rat wasn't selling him out.
"Intel is king," Lencar nodded. "You are [The Far-Speaker's Mirror]. Attribute: Spatial/Scrying Magic. Status: The All-Seeing Eye."
Finally, Lencar turned to the last item.
It sat apart from the weapons and the tools. It was a rough, uncut crystal the size of a melon. It wasn't clear like a diamond; it was cloudy, glowing with a soft, verdant green light that seemed to breathe.
Unlike the cold metal of the Aegis or the terrifying heat of the Scepter, this crystal felt... warm. It felt like standing in a sunbeam after a long winter.
Lencar scooted closer to it. He took a deep breath.
For a mage, mana recovery was the eternal bottleneck. The natural mana in the atmosphere—what the Clover Kingdom called "ambient mana"—was lazy. It was chaotic, unrefined, and resistant to being absorbed. A mage had to filter it through their skin, converting it into usable internal magic through meditation or sleep. It was a slow, grinding process.
It was the reason Lencar had almost died against Boran. He had run dry.
But this crystal...
It was emitting Refined Natural Mana. It was acting as a filter for the world, sucking in the chaotic energy of the Grand Magic Zone and pumping out pre-filtered, highly active, biocompatible mana.
Lencar placed his hand on the rough surface.
RUSH.
He gasped. He didn't have to pull. He didn't have to meditate. The energy rushed into him like water bursting through a dam. It flooded his mana channels, soothing the burn of the teleportation fatigue instantly. His reserves, which had been sitting at 60% after the jump, shot up to 100% in a matter of minutes.
"Incredible," Lencar breathed, his eyes wide behind his mask. "It's an infinite battery. A hyper-charger."
He laughed, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief. "As long as I hold this, my recovery speed is increased by a factor of... a hundred? No, maybe more. I could cast high-level spells continuously. I could maintain my Spatial Zone indefinitely."
This solved his biggest weakness. His [Absolute Replication] gave him versatility—ten attributes, hundreds of spells—but casting them drained him fast. He was a Ferrari with a small gas tank.
But with this crystal? He was a Ferrari hooked up to a mid-air refueling jet.
"You," Lencar whispered, stroking the warm crystal as if it were a pet. "You are the most valuable thing in this entire hoard. The weapons destroy, the shields protect... but you? You let me keep going."
He felt the mana coursing through him, vibrant and green. It felt like life itself.
"[The Breath of Yggdrasil]," Lencar named it reverently. "Attribute: Nature/Life Magic. Status: The Engine."
He sat back on the obsidian slab, surrounded by his named arsenal.
To his left, the Starfall Scepter and Calamity Spheres promised destruction.
To his right, the Aegis and Switch-Gear Aspis promised survival.
In his hand, the Far-Speaker's Mirror promised knowledge.
And at his core, the Breath of Yggdrasil promised endurance.