The inner world of a mage was usually an abstract concept—a feeling of a "pool" in the stomach or a "core" near the heart. It was a sensation, not a place. But for Lencar, whose magic was built on the architecture of other souls and whose mind was forged by the memories of a different life, his inner world was a tangible, constructed reality.
He stood in the metaphysical representation of his soul. It appeared as a vast, dimly lit library, but the shelves held no books. Instead, they held raw data—the stolen techniques, the muscle memory of swordsmanship, the recipes for stew.
Around him floated the Soul Gems he had harvested. They were no longer formless lights. They had solidified into distinct geological shapes, orbiting his consciousness like moons around a dark planet.
There was the Icy Blue Diamond of Heath Grice, radiating a fanatic's coldness.
There was the Muddy Granite Rock of Boran, heavy and stubborn.
There was the Jagged Steel Shard of Kael, sharp and aggressive.
And dozens of smaller, dimmer stones representing the bandits and rogues he had consumed.
But now, the geography of his soul had changed.
Floating in front of him, suspended in the center of the library, was a new structure born from the evolution of his grimoire. It looked like a spectral printing press—a complex mechanism of gears, pistons, and runic plates made of pure, golden light. It hummed with the same energy as the Breath of Yggdrasil, connecting his core to the orbiting Soul Gems.
Lencar approached it, his astral fingers grazing the light. He understood instantly how [Reverse Replication] worked. It wasn't just magic; it was engineering. It was terrifyingly elegant.
To use the spell in the physical world, Lencar had to physically tear a blank page from his own grimoire. This act of "self-harm" to the book created the raw material.
This page acted as a "blank slate," a piece of hardware with no operating system.
He would then channel one of the harvested Soul Gems through the spectral press. The machine would imprint the "blueprint" of the stolen soul onto the page. The page would then transform in the real world. It would expand, harden, bind itself in leather or stone, and reconfigure its pages, transforming into a perfect physical copy of the original grimoire he had destroyed.
If he handed this recreated grimoire to the original owner—or rather, the empty husk of the person he had drained—the magic would reactivate. Their body, remembering the flow of mana, would sync with the book.
But here was the catch—the beautiful, devious catch that made Lencar shiver with anticipation.
The recreated grimoire was not independent. It was a terminal.
The Soul Gem—the source of the power, the battery, the affinity, the very "truth" of the magic—remained inside Lencar. It never left him.
The recreated grimoire was just a conduit. It wirelessly drew power from Lencar's internal Soul Gem to fuel the spells. It was cloud computing applied to the soul.
"They are clients," Lencar realized, his voice echoing in the void of his mind, the logic of his past life merging with the magic of his current one. "And I am the Server."
This meant absolute control.
Because the magic was flowing from Lencar, through the anchor, to them, the laws of the connection were dictated by the Server. As he analyzed the flow, two distinct "Protocols" became clear to him.
Protocol 1: Friendly Fire Immunity.
Since the mana fueling the "Reverse Grimoire" came from Lencar's own soul, it possessed a fundamental recognition of "Self." If the puppet tried to cast a fireball at Lencar, the mana would refuse to ignite. The fire would simply dissipate into harmless steam upon touching Lencar's aura, because a soul cannot attack itself. He was immune to his own army.
Protocol 2: Remote Shutdown.
Lencar could cut the connection at will. Distance didn't matter; the link was metaphysical. With a single thought, he could sever the mana flow. The puppet's grimoire would revert to a useless, blank page instantly, leaving them powerless in the middle of a battle. He held the "Kill Switch" for every soldier he created.
"I can create sleepers," Lencar whispered, opening his physical eyes in the dark room.
The moonlight seemed colder now. The implications were staggering.
The Department of Forensic Research was looking for disappearances. They were looking for ash, for voids, for the silence where a mage used to be.
But with this... the game changed completely.
Lencar could defeat a bandit in a dark alley. He could use [Absolute Replication] to harvest their soul, gaining their power and adding it to his arsenal.
Then, he could tear out a page, create a "Reverse Grimoire," and shove it into the bandit's hands.
He could leave the bandit there, alive, with their magic "intact."
To the casual observer—to the investigators, to the Magic Knights—the bandit was unchanged. They still had their magic. They still had their grimoire. They were breathing. There was no murder to solve.
But in reality, the bandit was gone. The thing left behind was a hollow puppet, a "client" running on Lencar's battery, unknowingly serving the Heretic.
"I don't have to hide the bodies," Lencar murmured, a thrill running down his spine. "I can just reformat them."
His mind, now racing with the possibilities, turned toward the borders of the Kingdom. He thought of the Diamond Kingdom and their grotesque experiments.
He thought of Mars.
The Diamond Kingdom had tried to stitch two grimoires together physically. They stitched mage stones into children's bodies to create dual-attribute warriors. Most subjects died horribly because their bodies rejected the foreign mana. The immune system of the soul attacked the transplant.
"Inefficient," Lencar critiqued. "They were trying to force hardware compatibility."
But Lencar held the Soul Gems inside himself. His body—the Heretic's Body, forged by mana and modified by the Breath of Yggdrasil—was the perfect mixing pot. He was the universal adapter.
"I can make a Multi-Attribute Projection," he theorized.
If he tore out a page and linked it to two Soul Gems simultaneously... say, Fire and Steel... could he create a Reverse Grimoire that channeled both attributes?
He envisioned it. A bandit who could cast fireballs encased in metal. A spy who could use Mist magic to hide and Spatial magic to escape.
"The restriction is the user's body," Lencar analyzed, rubbing his chin. "If I give a Fire mage a Steel spell, their physical mana channels might not be forged to handle the density of Steel magic. The 'software' works, but the 'hardware' might melt."
If he pushed too hard... if he pumped too much foreign mana into a puppet...
"They explode," Lencar concluded.
He shuddered. It was a gruesome image—a human bomb detonating from magical overload. But to Lencar, it wasn't a tragedy; it was a data point. It was a calculated risk. It meant every puppet was also a potential suicide bomber if the situation required it.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of the power he now held. He wasn't just a dishwasher or a thief anymore. He wasn't just a copycat.
He was a Sovereign.
He had the power to grant magic. He had the power to take it away. He had the power to combine it. He was playing by the rules of a God or a Devil.
His thoughts drifted back to the Red Clay Bandits. He thought of Silas, the spatial mage he had killed in the mine.
"I wasted them," Lencar said, a note of genuine professional regret in his voice.
If he had this spell back then, he wouldn't have had to slaughter them all. He could have harvested Silas, given him a Reverse Grimoire, and said, "Go back to the mountains. Be my eyes. Keep robbing travelers, but report the interesting ones to me. If you betray me, I turn you off."
He could have harvested the Iron-Eater Brothers and sent them to infiltrate the Diamond border.
He could have built a spy network. He could have had eyes and ears in every criminal underbelly in the Kingdom, feeding him intel, gold, and magical artifacts, all while he peeled potatoes in Nairn.
"But I won't waste the next one," Lencar promised the darkness.
He stood up, clutching the warm, evolved grimoire to his chest. The golden light of the new spell had faded, but the potential burned brighter than ever.
The "forensic problem" was solved in the most twisted way possible. He wouldn't leave bodies. He wouldn't leave ash.
He would leave survivors.
Survivors who walked, talked, and cast spells. Survivors who would pass every inspection. Survivors who didn't even know that their soul was gone, sitting on a shelf in Lencar's mind, and that their life was now a subscription service that Lencar could cancel at any moment.
He walked to the window and looked out at the sleeping town of Nairn. The peaceful silence of the night felt different now. It didn't feel like safety. It felt like a canvas waiting to be painted.
Somewhere out there, in the dark alleys or the bandit camps, a mage was sleeping, unaware that they were about to become the first volunteer for Lencar's new army.
"Rebecca," Lencar whispered, his breath fogging the glass. A dark, complicated smile touched his lips. "You wanted to turn the tarts back into ingredients. You wanted to fix mistakes."
He placed his hand on the windowpane, looking at the reflection of his masked self.
"I did you one better. I learned how to bake the cake and eat it too. I learned how to own the bakery."
He put the grimoire away into his pouch. He extinguished the candle with a pinch of his fingers.
Tomorrow, the sun would rise. Lencar would put on his apron. He would peel potatoes. He would smile at Gorn. He would tell Marco a story about a hero who saved the world. He would be the boy next door.
But the next time he went hunting... he wouldn't be looking for a kill. He wouldn't be looking for loot.
He would be looking for a recruit.