Two weeks later, Tyler stood quietly at the edge of his territory, watching the scene unfold before him.

Small houses were being built at a surprising speed. Wooden frames rose steadily, smoke curled from newly lit cooking fires, and villagers moved back and forth carrying supplies. The once-empty area now showed clear signs of life.

Two weeks ago, when Volks and the others had come for trading, they had made a careful request.

They asked whether their village could move closer, temporarily.

In the forest, this was an unwritten but absolute rule. No village could enter or settle near another’s territory without permission. Ignoring it was an invitation to conflict, sometimes even war.

Tyler had listened quietly.

In the end, he had agreed.

But under one condition.

Now, that condition was being fulfilled.

Wei, the half–dark elf, approached Tyler with measured steps. His posture was respectful, his movements deliberate. When he reached Tyler, he bowed slightly and presented a small ring resting on his palm.

"This is our chief’s ring," Wei said seriously. "Inside are the formation discs you asked for, senior."

Tyler accepted the ring carefully, turning it in his fingers. He could feel a faint, steady pulse coming from within—organized, structured mana.

His condition had been simple.

He wanted to borrow the magic array formation discs.

Just for one day.

After that, he would return them untouched.

Wei then reached into his pack again and produced a small blue stone. It sparkled faintly, light refracting within it like a frozen flame.

"And this is a magic stone," Wei added. "Some call it a mana stone. We use it to power arrays. Other than gold and silver, Many people in the kingdom also use it as currency."

Tyler’s eyes lit up instantly.

The stone wasn’t ordinary matter. It was condensed mana, stabilized into physical form. These stones usually formed inside high-level monsters — like orcs, hobgoblins, and other powerful creatures. They could be also mined from mana stone veins deep underground.

Tyler nodded and accepted it. "Thank you. Please thank your chief for me as well."

Wei bowed again, clearly relieved.

Tyler turned toward the forest.

Then—

He jumped.

The leap was sudden and powerful. In a single bound, Tyler soared high above the ground, vanishing into the trees as if swallowed by the forest itself.

Wei stared at the empty space.

"...Still ridiculous," he muttered quietly.

Behind him, the villagers continued their work.

Deep within the forest, Tyler landed lightly and immediately opened the storage ring.

Formation discs.

Mana structures. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Knowledge from the tribes.

His heart beat faster.

"One day?" Tyler smirked, gripping the ring tightly, "One second is more than enough."

The moment Tyler returned home, he didn’t waste any time.

He stepped straight into Serena’s pocket-dimension pearl, the familiar shift in space washing over him as the outside world vanished. Inside, the vast personal storage space stretched endlessly in every direction—quiet, still, and entirely under his control.

Tyler exhaled and looked down at the small storage ring in his hand.

"This storage ring is so pitifully small," he muttered.

With a casual motion, he pulled out his copper pot and placed the ring inside it.

Then Tyler causally began to pull out more storage rings from the copper pot.

A moment later, he reached in and pulled five identical storage rings out of the copper pot.

If the Fruit Village chief had seen this scene, he would have coughed blood on the spot. That ring was his pride— something he constantly boasted about, claiming it was larger and more valuable than any other village chief’s storage ring.

And here Tyler was, duplicating it like spare tools.

Still, Tyler didn’t dismiss its value entirely.

"I’m glad I got this ring," he said thoughtfully. "With this, I can finally copy things larger than the copper pot itself."

Until now, size had always been a limitation because he was unable to bring his copper ladle to this trial. This solved that problem neatly.

Satisfied, Tyler turned his attention to the real objective.

The array formation discs.

He took them out one by one, floating them in front of him in midair. Each disc was etched with intricate patterns— runes layered upon runes, faintly glowing lines embedded in unfamiliar materials.

"Different structures... different materials..." Tyler murmured as he examined them. "Looks like studying these directly isn’t going to be easy without the basic theory."

He paused.

Then his lips curled into a grin.

"...Unless."

Without hesitation, Tyler snapped one of the discs in half.

The sound echoed softly through the pocket dimension.

Inside, the layers were exposed, compressed rune matrices stacked together, each layer slightly offset from the next. The craftsmanship was clever, though inefficient by his standards.

"They compressed different runes in multiple layers and fused them into a disc," Tyler said slowly. "In the Boundless World, I’d just use a small storage space to hold everything separately."

He nodded to himself.

"But that makes sense. Storage space must be extremely rare here."

As he continued examining them, Tyler broke more discs.

One after another.

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t flinch.

Fragments floated around him like broken gears, each piece revealing more information.

Dozens of discs were destroyed.

Tyler didn’t care.

Around him, multiple copies of the Fruit Village chief’s storage ring floated quietly, each one brimming with identical contents. Losing a few original discs meant nothing when he already had backups upon backups.

Eventually, Tyler tipped the copper pot and poured out the duplicated rings.

Then he picked up the mana stone.

He held it up, watching the condensed blue mana swirl gently within its crystalline form.

"So this is condensed mana..." he murmured.

Without ceremony, he dropped the mana stone into the copper pot.

One hour later—

Tyler stood quietly, staring at the result.

Floating before him was a literal mountain of mana stones. Blue light shimmered in waves as the stones piled high, filling a vast section of the pocket dimension.

Tyler smiled in satisfaction.

"These can recover MP," he said thoughtfully. "But the process is slow."

Still, quantity solved that problem easily.

By the time he exited the pocket dimension, the sun had begun to set.

That evening, Wei arrived at Tyler’s place as promised.

The moment he stepped inside, Chole was already waiting.

She handed him the village chief’s storage ring.

Wei accepted it carefully and immediately checked its contents. His shoulders relaxed visibly when he saw that everything was intact— nothing missing, nothing altered.

He let out a long breath of relief.

"Thank you," Wei said sincerely.

Chole tilted her head slightly, then spoke casually.

"Hm... by the way, if you’re raising chickens, could you bring us some next time, Moo?"

Wei froze.

He was just about to refuse politely —chickens were valuable livestock for wandering villages— when Chole calmly placed five mana stones into his hands.

Wei’s eyes widened.

"...Five?" he whispered.

That was an absurd price.

Mana stones like these were usually traded for far more valuable goods, usually they were used by Nobles as currencies. Exchanging them for chickens was not just generous— it was excessive.

Wei swallowed hard and nodded immediately.

"Yes. Of course. I’ll bring them," he said quickly.

He turned to leave, still slightly dazed.

As he walked away, embarrassment crept over him.

He had carefully explained mana stones to Mr. Tyler earlier, as if they were something rare or precious.

Now he realized—

Mr. Tyler already had far more mana stones than he could ever imagine.

And Wei couldn’t help but feel that this "hidden powerhouse" was operating on an entirely different scale than the rest of them.

---

Tyler took out the formation discs one by one and laid them carefully on the ground.

There were water-gathering formations that condensed moisture from the air, drawing water vapor from the surroundings and forming clean droplets that flowed naturally into collection channels. There were monster-detection arrays designed to sense hostile presence from a distance, surveillance arrays that expanded vision across wide areas, and protection arrays meant to reinforce territory and repel intruders.

Tyler had multiple copies of each formation disc.

Without hesitation, he began installing them.

He moved methodically, placing each array at carefully chosen locations. When one was set, faint lines of light spread through the soil before disappearing completely, as if the land itself had accepted the structure.

Kristina watched him work, her eyes wide with curiosity.

"Moe... don’t these arrays need a lot of mana stones?" she asked hesitantly.

Tyler turned to her and smiled.

Instead of answering directly, he reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a white storage ring. The ring’s outer surface was wrapped with thin spider silk, clearly marking it as different from the village chief’s ring.

He handed it to her.

"Go on," Tyler said.

Kristina carefully sent a trace of mana into the ring to check its contents.

She froze.

Inside was an overwhelming number of mana stones, stacked so densely that they filled the storage space completely.

Her ears stiffened, and her breath caught in her throat.

"...Moe..."

Tyler chuckled softly and patted her head.

"Make sure you ask me for more if you spend these."

Then he turned away, already focused on the next task.

Kristina stood there for a moment longer, still processing what she had seen, before clutching the ring tightly against her chest.

After finishing the array setup, Tyler took out several mana stones and crushed them with ease. Blue light scattered like dust as he sprinkled the fragments across specific spots in the fields.

As the crushed mana seeped into the soil, the plants reacted immediately. Leaves shimmered faintly, stems straightened, and the surrounding mana density increased noticeably.

Mana stones didn’t just power arrays— they enhanced growth of herbs.

Tyler watched the fields closely, eyes sharp and calculating.

Suddenly he turned around. He sensed something watching him from the forest. Something that felt malicious.