Chapter 404: The First Grimoire of the World (P-2)

Mika crossed her arms with an academic expression, ready to present the work they had designed together.

"Actually, Your Majesty, that is exactly what we are about to find out with this practical test," Mika admitted honestly, though without losing the confidence in her tone. "I mean, the theory under which we built the internal conduits is that you project your magic directly into the central gem, accompanying it with a clear and defined intention. Whether it is to heal, enhance, or damage."

Runa took a step closer to Ryan and raised a thick finger, pointing at the grimoire he held in his hand, aiming right at the largest gem in the center.

"This is where my part of the work comes in," the dwarf intervened proudly. "When the pure intention of your skill transfers from your hand into the grimoire, the flow will first be stored in that large gem, which serves as a filter. Then, once stabilized, the energy will travel through the veins of the wood until it lodges in one of the six small gems."

Runa moved her finger toward the gelatinous pages peeking out from between the covers.

"As soon as the small gem is filled, one of the grimoire’s blank pages will react to the circuit and rewrite itself with the patterns of your technique. And then, if the calculations do not fail, anyone who takes the book afterward will be able to use that power simply by reading it and channeling a pinch of mana to activate it."

Ryan looked down again at the central setting, connecting the pieces of the mechanism with the programming logic he knew so well.

’I think I understand it quite well,’ he analyzed to himself, slightly turning the book to see the gleam of the minor stones. ’Instead of writing code from scratch on paper, the core records the direct effect. In reality, it would be exactly as if I were trying to heal or enhance the grimoire itself as if it were a living target, wouldn’t it?’

To his left, Iris observed the size of the embedded gems with a furrowed brow, measuring the technical difficulty of what they had just described.

"It sounds quite complicated in practice," Iris commented cautiously. "Transferring an entire skill into a crystal without the structure collapsing is no small feat. Doesn’t it require a tremendous amount of magical control to pack so much power in there and not shatter that gem into a thousand pieces?"

Iris’s doubt was completely well-founded. Any ordinary mage who tried to compress a high-rank spell inside a core that hadn’t been specially cut would end up causing an overload that would shatter the artifact right in their hands.

However, before Mika or Runa could answer, Alicia spoke up with absolute serenity.

"That is right; for a common user it would be almost impossible," Alicia nodded, looking at Ryan’s profile with unwavering faith. "But His Majesty will be able to achieve it without problems."

Ryan offered a slight half-smile upon hearing them. With a soft but firm clap, he closed the grimoire again, letting the rough wooden cover face upward in his hands, and stared fixedly at the large gem on the front.

"Alright, let’s not waste any more time. We are going to try it right now," Ryan said.

Before channeling the first drop of energy into the stone, he wanted to verify his exact numbers after the point distribution he had done minutes ago.

"Stat," he murmured quietly.

The translucent panel unfolded instantly before his retinas.

[ CHARACTER STATUS ]

? Name: [Ryan]

? Level: 165 — Rank: SSS

? Class: Transcendent Templar

? Title: Transcendent Sovereign of Dominion

? Strength: 50,000 | Magic: 25,233 | Agility: 38,949 | Psyche: 60,000 | Defense: 40,000 |

Available Points: [0]

His eyes scanned the row of attributes, stopping particularly at the difference between his sixty thousand Psyche points and the twenty-five thousand two hundred and thirty-three in his Magic section.

’If getting this prototype to properly record the technique on the first try depends directly on my magical capacity and control, it makes no sense to do it halfway,’ Ryan calculated coldly in front of the screen. ’I should boost my skills to the maximum right now; that way I will ensure the inscription comes out as perfectly as possible.’

With that thought in mind, Ryan took a slow breath and began to apply his own buffing spells on himself one after another.

"Almighty."

A first golden pulse ran through his body from his feet to the crown of his head.

"Magic Barrier."

A second dense and translucent layer settled over his skin, condensing the ambient mana around him.

"Magical Potency."

As soon as the third invocation left his lips, the weight of the air in the courtyard changed dramatically.

The stone floor beneath Ryan’s boots let out a dry crack, and an invisible torrent of magical pressure expanded in a circle from his back, kicking up loose snow and causing the cloaks and hair of the four women present to whip violently backward.

Iris took a half-step backward, her eyes widening as she felt the air become as thick as water when she tried to breathe.

"... So much power..." Iris whispered, bringing a hand to her chest as she felt the hum of mana vibrating directly against her eardrums.

Even Mika, who minutes earlier had boasted about being unfazed by the tremors in the workshop, lost her balance slightly and had to tense her legs to stand firm in her spot.

"Y-Your Majesty... have you stopped holding back to do this?" Mika asked, breathing heavily, feeling how the crystals of the grimoire itself were beginning to resonate just from the proximity of Ryan’s body.

Ryan glanced at them out of the corner of his eye from the center of that rising current of energy, holding the book firmly in his left hand.

"I am sorry, I need to fine-tune my pulse to the maximum," he replied with total calm. "You will have to endure the pressure for a bit."

The reality was that Ryan wasn’t even projecting all his power outward with offensive intent; he was containing the flow within his own circuit so as not to damage the courtyard again. Even so, the mere act of activating three high-rank buffs over his base stats and letting just the excess of his aura escape generated a physical pressure so suffocating that it was overwhelming for his companions present there.

The internal numbers more than explained that phenomenon.

With his Magic Barrier skill already evolved to the advanced tier, the spell not only protected him, but it now immediately granted him an additional forty-five percent to both magical power and magical defense.

Added to that was Almighty, which applied a direct twenty percent increase to all his general stats, causing his physical base, his Psyche, and his magical power to increase far more combined.

And lastly, the specific effect of Magical Potency gave him another thirty percent extra, focused exclusively on his magical power.

The combined effect of those three bonuses on his SSS-rank stats caused his actual attributes to rise to an absurd level.

[ CHARACTER STATUS ]

? Name: [Ryan]

? Level: 165 — Rank: SSS

? Class: Transcendent Templar

? Title: Transcendent Sovereign of Dominion

? Strength: 60,000 | Magic: 49,204 | Agility: 46,739 | Psyche: 72,000 | Defense: 48,000 |

Available Points: [0]

[ ACTIVE BUFFS ]

? Almighty — +20% all stats

? Magic Barrier (Advanced) — +45% Magic Power & Magic Defense

? Magical Potency — +30% Magic Power

Ryan carefully looked at the new table of his stats after buffing them, feeling the torrent of nearly fifty thousand Magic points and seventy-two thousand Psyche points circulating through his veins with absolute clarity.

Up until now, throughout his level ascension, he had always tried to raise his attributes relatively evenly, but giving practical priority to his hand-to-hand combat style: maintaining a high mana reserve through Psyche, good defense to withstand direct impacts, and a lot of brute force in his fists.

The fact that he hadn’t spent free points to manually increase his magical power stat was precisely because he already had his own support skills that vastly increased that capacity as soon as he activated them, leaving his base value much lower than the rest when at rest.

But now, with the three buffs on him, his entire panel was perfectly balanced at the peak.

He had the power of a supreme archmage and the mental control necessary to manage every particle without wasting a single ounce of strength. He was completely ready to put those skills into practice in the creation of his first grimoire.

Ryan rested the palm of his right hand directly on the large gem in the center of the cover, fixed the intention in his mind, and spoke with a firm voice:

"Recovery."