In the anime, Baro secretly kidnapped children, stealing their mana to trade with the Eye of the Midnight Sun for money. He claimed to be "helping," but in reality, he was just working with Sally, that glasses-wearing woman.
Licht's group didn't need anyone else's mana.
The person Yuuki was after wasn't Baro himself, but his younger brother, Negg.
Baro wasn't particularly strong, so he wasn't worth Yuuki's attention. But Negg had extremely high mana potential, and his personality was timid and naive—Baro had always used him as a tool.
Negg's loneliness in childhood had left him craving a friend.
That made winning him over relatively easy.
"Hic! Don't support me—I'm not drunk."
"Who's drunk? I'm not drunk either. You should be holding me, not the other way around."
At that moment, two slurred, arguing voices came from outside the alley where Yuuki and the others were.
The Midnight Sun members kneeling before him stiffened.
"Master, you should go first," one of them whispered respectfully.
It was already midnight, and this hiding spot was especially secluded. They hadn't expected anyone to pass by.
"Huh? Why are—hic!—so many people here?"
"Am I seeing things?"
The drunken voices drew closer. Two tipsy middle-aged men stumbled into the alley, swaying as they looked at Yuuki and the group.
The instant they spoke, the alley seemed to drop several degrees in temperature.
"Master, I'll handle them," said one of the Eye of the Midnight Sun members, his expression cold as ice as he stared at the two men.
Hiding in the capital required extreme caution. No matter the reason, being seen was unacceptable—even if these two drunks were just passing by.
"You all leave. I'll deal with these two," Yuuki said calmly, waving his hand.
The Eye of the Midnight Sun members froze for a moment but didn't dare disobey. They quickly bowed.
"Yes, Master!"
In the next instant, all ten members sprinted toward the alley's entrance. As they passed the two drunken men, they leapt out of sight, disappearing into the night.
Yuuki, however, strolled deliberately toward the men.
At that moment, the two men were hit by a gust of cold wind from the alley. They immediately sobered up, cold sweat pouring down their faces.
Especially when they saw the black mask covering Yuuki's face—it was clear he wasn't someone to be trifled with.
"Run!"
The two men exchanged panicked glances and turned to flee.
But in the next instant, a black spatial portal appeared under their feet. Before they could react, they fell in.
Moments later, they were spat out of a second portal directly in front of Yuuki.
"I'm not someone who enjoys killing," Yuuki said in his low, even voice, watching the two terrified men. "But unfortunately, you two showed up at the wrong time in the wrong place."
A short while later, in Yuuki's room at Rebecca's restaurant, a black spatial portal suddenly appeared. Yuuki stepped out of it, returning from his mission in the capital.
A restless surge of mana radiated from Yuuki, making his aura slightly unstable.
Snap!
He casually removed the mask from his face, tossing it onto the bed, and quickly settled cross-legged on the floor to meditate.
After about ten minutes, the agitated mana surrounding him finally calmed.
"After replicating the mana sources of two people, it's still not as much as the mana from just one of Meath's sources… How much did it actually increase?" Yuuki thought to himself.
At that moment, the silver grimoire floated before him, pages flipping rapidly. What had been five pages had now grown to seven.
Magic:
Wind Magic — Tower of the TempestSpatial Magic — TeleportationSpatial Magic — Interdimensional SpaceChain Magic — Iron Shackles ArrayFire Magic — Scorching FlameFire MagicPlant Magic
Yuuki's gaze lingered on the two newly added fire magic pages, deep in thought.
These were the magic abilities he had acquired by absorbing the grimoires of the two middle-aged men. One was the familiar elemental Fire Magic. The other was Plant Magic, which required channeling mana into a seed and rapidly growing a controllable plant.
Aside from the slight inconvenience of needing seeds, this Plant Magic was excellent—though clearly better suited for someone with strong mana. In the hands of a weaker mage, it would barely be effective.
Still, Yuuki set aside developing that magic for now and focused on the fifth and sixth pages.
Both were fire magic—but fully independent.
While absorbing the men's grimoires, he had clearly seen two new mana sources manifest in his soul. These two Fire Magic sources occupied separate spaces, completely independent. Even though they were the same element, they showed no inclination to merge.
This surprised Yuuki.
For the first time, he realized that every mana source replicated through his ability remained fully independent—even sources of the same element.
His earlier idea—that replicating identical mana sources might merge them and create even greater power—was incorrect.
Additionally, he noticed that the increase in mana from these two middle-aged men's sources still didn't match the boost provided by a single source from Miaser.
Previously, he could cast Tower of the Tempest five times; now he could cast it seven times.
Yuuki thoughtfully committed the characteristics of his replication magic to memory:
Each replicated mana source is independent, with no possibility of merging, even if of the same type.Mana increase varies depending on the individual source.
Yuuki speculated that Meath, as a noble, was born with naturally greater mana than a commoner. Replicating his mana source would therefore boost Yuuki's mana more than replicating a commoner's source.
If Yuuki's total mana capacity were a container, each mana source essentially expanded the maximum volume of that container.
Thus, the greater the innate mana of the source, the more it could increase Yuuki's storage capacity.
That was why his mana had increased so significantly.
(End of Chapter)