The hour had grown exceedingly late.

  A profound, almost suffocating darkness shrouded the entirety of the city block, swallowing the usual murmurs of the nocturnal streets.

  Yet, through the towering arches of the balcony, bright moonlight cascaded inward. It paved the cold marble floor of the living room with a pale, silvery velvet carpet, illuminating the slow dance of dust motes in the dead air.

  Pierce made no move to ignite the magical luminaries. He sat cross-legged on the floor near the open balcony, the chill of the stone seeping through his clothes. His eyes, burning with a feverish intensity, were locked entirely upon the mass of liquid metal writhing like a living entity in his cupped palm.

  After consuming six standard measures of the rare alchemical alloy, the Argent Star had finally been pushed to its absolute threshold. Eleven successive reinforcements had left the artifact thrumming with contained power, hovering on the precarious edge of a breakthrough.

  A single additional measure would serve as the catalyst, forcing its evolution into a true Tier 2 Arcane Artifact.

  Naturally, Pierce harbored no intention of taking that step tonight.

  Should the Argent Star ascend to the second tier, its arcane demands would far outstrip his current capacity. He would be rendered entirely incapable of wielding it until he officially crossed the threshold to become a Formal Wizard. To willingly relinquish his most devastating trump card while still embroiled in the current power struggles would be an act of profound foolishness.

  "Six standard measures... and over four thousand Magic Stones vanished into the crucible," Pierce murmured, the silence of the room swallowing his heavy sigh. The emotional weight of such an expenditure lingered in his chest.

  If the ascension from the first to the second tier demanded such extravagance, he could scarcely fathom the toll of breaching the third. The requisite abyssal iron and starmetal would likely demand a fortune measured in the hundreds of thousands.

  Yet, as he felt the rhythmic pulsing of the liquid metal, he knew the astronomical cost was justified.

  Pushed to its structural and magical limits, the Argent Star now boasted a peak destructive output exceeding two hundred degrees.

  Should a Tier 2 Legendary Knight, clad in full enchanted plate, attempt to weather a direct impact, their armor would be rendered to slag, leaving them pulverized, if not instantly annihilated.

  Of even greater tactical value was its endurance. The artifact's operational window had been stretched to a grueling fifteen minutes.

  Although it had not achieved the perpetual utility of a conventional steel weapon, it was a magnificent leap forward. In the bloody calculus of high-tier combat, even half that duration was more than sufficient to orchestrate a slaughter.

  "With this, the vulnerabilities of the Argent Star are resolved."

  "Next upon the agenda are the Elemental Runes, the Magic Tattoos, and the art of Silent Spellcasting."

  Pierce turned his gaze toward the small hill of sparkling, multifaceted gems resting on the floor beside him—the catalyst materials required for the Blink Sigil.

  With a subtle flicker of focus in his eyes, he swept his palm over the jewels.

  As the displacement of air caught the gems, they did not scatter. Instead, the solid facets melted instantly into a globule of crystal-clear, jelly-like fluid that pulsed with an ethereal, multicolored luminescence in the gloom.

  Guided by the invisible, precise traction of his mental power, the crystalline liquid floated upward, stretching and coalescing in the void until it formed a slender, razor-sharp needle of liquid light.

  At some point during his meditation, the heavy robes draping his shoulders had been cast aside, laying bare a torso sculpted by the rigorous, agonizing demands of knightly breathing techniques.

  He raised a hand. Moisture from the stifling night air rushed to his command, freezing into a pristine, full-length mirror of water that reflected his impassive expression.

  The floating needle drifted toward him, its impossibly sharp tip pressing against the skin of his chest. It began to move with a slow, deliberate cadence.

  As it carved its path, ancient, intricate runes bloomed across his flesh. With every arcane line drawn, the volume of the hovering needle diminished by a fraction.

  Pierce sank into a state of absolute focus, blind to the passage of the night.

  Unlike the crude ink tattoos of the mundane world, there was no sting of pierced flesh, no scent of blood. There was only a profound, creeping cold that radiated from his sternum, accompanied by a tingling numbness that washed over his ribs.

  When the final drop of the liquid light bled into his skin, an abstract, ghostly glyph settled over his torso. Its dark hue was subdued, yet it thrummed with latent spatial energy.

  "It is done."

  Pierce exhaled a long, ragged breath. A profound sense of accomplishment washed over him as he admired the completed magic tattoo.

  An instant later, the dark lines flared with sudden brilliance. The space around him warped, and he vanished from the room without a sound.

  A rush of displaced air swept through the street dozens of meters below.

  Pierce materialized on the cobblestones, the cool night breeze biting at his bare chest. He looked back up at the unlit balcony of his apartment, a satisfied smile touching his lips.

  Another flash of distorted light, and he stood once more upon the silvery velvet carpet of his living room.

  "Three consecutive activations within a narrow window. After the final charge is expended, the runes demand a full twenty-four hours to siphon ambient aether before they can be utilized again. The absolute limit of spatial displacement stands at roughly one hundred meters."

  Pierce nodded, analyzing the results.

  The Blink Sigil was never conceived for long-distance traversal. Its purpose was entirely tactical: evading a lethal strike or slipping past an enemy's guard to deliver a killing blow. A hundred meters was a vast distance in the confines of a battlefield.

  As for the limitations on its usage, they were acceptable.

  "Ultimately, it remains a Low-Grade Magic Tattoo. Were it to be elevated to a Medium or High-Grade matrix, its spatial reach and utility would skyrocket exponentially."

  In truth, with a physique that now rivaled a Legendary Knight, Pierce possessed the fortitude to withstand the brutal physical toll of a Medium-Grade tattoo.

  However, after meticulous calculation, he had discarded the idea.

  A Medium-Grade rune matrix demanded an exorbitant toll on the body's 'aetheric capacity.' At his current stage, he could likely only anchor a single medium-tier tattoo before risking cellular collapse. Conversely, he could comfortably sustain three Low-Grade matrices.

  Between one devastatingly powerful but rigid tool and three weaker but highly adaptable utilities, he favored versatility to survive the unknown.

  Furthermore, unraveling the geometric complexities of a Medium-Grade tattoo would consume months. Unless he abandoned his other magical pursuits, initiating the analysis now guaranteed he would enter the upcoming competition empty-handed.

  "Upgrading can wait until the competition concludes."

  Stretching his stiff spine, Pierce cast a final glance toward the starry expanse above the city. He did not seek his bed; instead, he settled down to enter a deep meditative trance, preparing to cycle his breathing technique once more.

  Though meditation no longer expanded the reservoir of his Mental Power, he rigidly maintained the discipline. His instincts whispered that this daily, agonizing repetition was slowly burning away the impurities within his mind.

  As for rest, long before breaching the Legendary threshold, his body had learned to survive on mere hours of sleep. With his constitution now drastically enhanced, enduring a waking cycle of four or five consecutive days was a trivial matter.

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  Astral Calendar Year 14523, March 14th.

  Five days had bled away since his ascension to Legendary Knight.

  Throughout this period, Pierce had anchored himself in the grueling routine of his breathing technique, surfacing only to visit the spell-testing chambers to calibrate his reflexes to his newfound physical supremacy.

  In mere days, his Constitution attribute had surged by nearly two full points.

  "The Omniscient Breathing Technique is undeniably an art forged for the Legendary tier; the bodily refinement is nothing short of miraculous."

  Finishing another brutal cycle, Pierce murmured to himself, a grim smile on his lips as dense white steam billowed from his overheated skin, carrying the scent of sweat and ozone.

  For a being with a Constitution exceeding 150 points, to tangibly feel the growth of muscle and marrow after a single session was an utter anomaly. Ordinary Legendary Knights would bleed and suffer for years to achieve a comparable fraction of progress.

  Only he possessed the means to sustain this terrifying momentum.

  Allowing his boiling blood to settle, Pierce commanded the ambient energy particles to scour the grime from his flesh. Cleaned, he retreated to the shadowed corner of the laboratory and sat down.

  The Elemental Rune Modification protocol required barely an hour to finalize. He chose to wait here, eager to measure the destructive yield of the altered geometry the moment it completed.

  Never one to squander time, he retrieved a heavy tome from his satchel and cracked it open beneath a glowing light crystal.

  Five faded gold words were stamped across the cracked leather cover: Studies of the Divine Planes.

  As the inevitable clash with Crimson Lotus City loomed on the horizon, whispers regarding the source of the conflict had begun to saturate the halls of Aurora City.

  The classified intelligence regarding the dispute—the sudden manifestation of an uncharted plane—had finally trickled down to the lower echelons of Wizard Apprentices.

  The newly discovered realm bore the name: Plane of Turin.

  What caused Pierce's heart to hammer against his ribs was the classification of this realm. It was a Divine Plane.

  In the vast, cynical lexicon of the Wizard World, a 'Divine Plane' denoted a realm governed by an established pantheon and steeped in religious civilization. To a Wizard, such realms were not holy lands; they were unexploited treasuries overflowing with faith-soaked resources, souls, and divine crystal.

  It was little wonder the two great wizarding cities were willing to bleed each other dry for the rights of conquest, dragging the region to the brink of total war.

  Driven by a cold pragmatism, Pierce had scoured the archives for any literature touching upon planar theology.

  Even among the divine realms, the hierarchy of power was absolute.

  Categorized by the volume and authority of the resident deities, the academic consensus divided them into Single-Deity Systems, Multi-Deity Systems, and the apex Pantheon Systems.

  A true Pantheon System demanded the existence of an organized divine court, ruled by entities holding the terrifying mantle of a Main God or Overgod. The sheer scale of power wielded by such realms dwarfed the alternatives.

  Comparing the martial might of Single and Multi-Deity systems required nuance. A singular plane lorded over by a High Deity, an entity whose power rivaled an Overgod, would effortlessly crush a sprawling Multi-Deity realm populated merely by a dozen disorganized Lesser Deities.

  Ultimately, the survival and threat level of a Divine Plane hinged entirely upon the pedigree and density of its gods.

  Even the apex predators of the Wizard World treaded with utmost caution when encroaching upon Pantheon territories.

  Fortunately, leaked reports indicated that the Plane of Turin was merely a Multi-Deity System.

  Moreover, it sat at the very bottom of the cosmic food chain, sustained by a meager trinity of Lesser Deities.

  "Yet, even the weakest of Lesser Deities possesses the divine mandate to rewrite reality. Only a Wizard who has grasped the fundamental Power of Rules can dare to stand before one without being erased."

  "And Wizards of such monstrous caliber... I doubt Aurora and Crimson Lotus could muster a handful between them."

  To the colossal Astral Coalition, a realm guarded by three Lesser Deities was an ant hill waiting to be crushed. But to isolated powers like Aurora and Crimson Lotus, it was a leviathan that could break their backs if mishandled.

  This grim reality was the sole reason the two rival cities had swallowed their animosity, forging a fragile pact to butcher the plane together.

  "Since Senior Sister Yuna has been drafted into the Vanguard Witch Hunt Squad, it is all but certain her unit will be deployed into the meat grinder of Turin."

  Pierce turned the parchment page, his expression hardening.

  Barring a catastrophic failure in his cultivation, the moment he ascended to Formal Wizard, he too would be hurled into the Planar Battlefield.

  Unless one was content to rot in a library as an academic coward, devoid of any ambition for higher power, the Planar Battlefield was an inescapable destiny. It was the only crucible where one could harvest the astronomical resources required to touch the higher mysteries of magic.

  Thus, Pierce read on, carving every detail of divine warfare into his memory.

  The chronometer ticked away the silence.

  Over half an hour later, Pierce's gaze snapped up from the pages.

  The Elemental Rune Modification had concluded.

  A deluge of intricate magical geometry, algorithmic data, and aetheric pathways flooded his consciousness.

  Pierce squeezed his eyes shut, enduring the intense mental pressure as his brain assimilated the alien knowledge. When his eyes opened, they gleamed with predatory delight.

  Raising his right hand, he carved a path through the empty air. A rune of deep azure, crackling with violent, thread-like arcs of lightning, materialized almost instantly.

  The casting time had been slashed by more than half!

  "The condensation sequence is drastically shortened, yet the elemental density has thickened considerably."

  Drawing his steel longsword, Pierce slammed his palm against the flat of the blade, driving the Lightning Rune into the metal. With a harsh shriek of discharging static, the steel was enveloped in a suffocating web of blue lightning.

  His body blurred, crossing the room to stand before a crystalline testing dummy. With a casual, one-handed flick of his wrist, he brought the blade down.

  A sharp crack echoed through the lab.

  [Category: Physical, Lightning] [Energy Output: 45.5 degrees]

  "Acceptable."

  Pierce nodded slowly.

  He had applied the exact same kinetic force as his previous benchmark, yet the destructive yield had climbed by fifty percent. The modified architecture of the rune was flawless.

  Stepping back, Pierce adjusted his grip. This time, he engaged his internal Lightning Elemental Power, pouring his mana into the strike.

  The air grew heavy with ozone. The arcs on the sword thickened into raging serpents of electricity. As he swung, the blade vanished in a blur of blinding speed, imitating the wrath of a true thunderbolt.

  —Lightning Elemental Power was feared across the continent, offering both terrifying velocity and absolute ruin.

  BOOM!

  The dummy shattered with an explosive roar, dense spiderwebs of cracks tearing through the crystal as shards rained against the stone walls.

  [Category: Physical, Elemental Power, Lightning] [Energy Output: 78.3 degrees]

  "Flawless. Nearly eighty degrees."

  "A strike of this magnitude would cleave a Tier 1 Legendary Knight in twain before they even realized their guard was broken."

  The grim satisfaction on Pierce's face deepened. He wiped a shard of crystal dust from his cheek and prepared for the final, most dangerous test.

  Beyond mere speed and raw damage, the modified runic matrix harbored a highly volatile Stacking Technique.

  Pierce raised his hand once more, his fingers dancing through the air. A Lightning Rune formed, but he did not stop. In a single, breathless sequence, he condensed a second, then a third rune, violently shoving all three into the trembling steel of his blade.

  Crackle!

  A chaotic storm of electricity engulfed the weapon, bleeding into a mesmerizing, flowing azure halo that illuminated the entire laboratory.

  Beneath the haunting beauty of the light, Pierce could feel the violent, screaming instability of the compressed energy.

  His eyes narrowed to slits. He brought the blade down upon the newly reformed crystal target.

  The dummy never stood a chance.

  BOOM!

  The upper third of the heavy crystal monolith detonated. A shockwave tore through the room, sending jagged shrapnel embedding deep into the reinforced stone floor and walls.

  [Category: Physical, Elemental Power, Lightning] [Energy Output: 102.1 degrees]

  "Madness..."

  Pierce inhaled sharply, the shock momentarily breaking his stoic facade.

  The devastation vastly outstripped his calculations. This sheer output of violence equated to almost half the maximum yield of the Argent Star!

  And the Argent Star was a legendary relic resting on the cusp of the second tier.

  To replicate half of its apocalyptic power with a mundane sword strike—if such a feat were made public, the resulting envy would see him assassinated by his peers before the week was out.

  "I severely underestimated the exponential reaction of stacking three Lightning Runes over an infused blade. This is an absolute triumph."

  Pierce marveled at the smoking ruin of the target. The reality of the technique eclipsed even the estimations of the Eye of Omniscience.

  Forcing his racing heart to calm, he prepared to push the boundaries, attempting to weave a fourth rune into the matrix.

  However, the instant the fourth symbol crashed into the blade, the metal shrieked in agony.

  Snap!

  A jagged fissure tore down the center of the sword, the edges glowing a furious, melting orange as the steel liquefied under the arcane burden.

  Pierce frowned, stepping back as the ruined weapon clattered to the floor.

  This sword was not cheap iron; it bore the enchantments of Black Steel and Sharpness, plundered from the corpse of a rival apprentice. Yet, even a weapon steeped in magical aura folded under the weight of four runes. He doubted even a mastercrafted Alchemical blade could survive three without severe degradation.

  "I wonder... what is the breaking point of an Arcane Artifact?"

  Without a second glance at the slag on the floor, Pierce summoned the Argent Star.

  The living metal flowed over his fist. This time, the fusion was seamless. The artifact drank in the four Lightning Runes without a whisper of strain.

  He unleashed the strike. The resulting collision of artifact and stacked runes registered an apocalyptic 274.3 degrees.

  A cold awe settled over Pierce. A blow of this magnitude would not merely kill a Tier 2 Legendary Knight; it would vaporize them, armor and all, leaving nothing but ash in the wind.

  Tempting fate, Pierce drew deep from his mental sea, forcing a fifth rune into the Argent Star.

  The backlash was immediate. The artifact let out a high-pitched, harmonic groan, vibrating violently in his grip, while Pierce’s mental reserves were drained at a terrifying velocity just to keep the unstable fusion from detonating in his hand.

  He estimated he had thirty seconds at most before his mind fractured from the strain and he suffered critical aetheric burn-out.

  Refusing to waste a second, he hurled the strike at the target.

  The resulting cataclysm breached the three-hundred-degree threshold, the sensory crystals screaming as they recorded a staggering 304.4 degrees.

  Pierce commanded the magic to dissipate, his chest heaving as he dropped to one knee, thoroughly exhausted but immensely satisfied.

  Five runes hovered dangerously close to the Argent Star's structural collapse limit, and he had no intention of permanently crippling his greatest asset.

  Regardless, the Stacking Technique had proven to be a revelation of violence.

  It granted him an entirely new vector of lethality.

  Specifically, marrying the stacked Lightning Runes with the Argent Star forged a weapon of absolute ruin.

  It was a trump card capable of obliterating the strongest of foes and instantly turning the tide of certain death.