Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest - Chapter 1050 248.1 - Strange

It did happen once more.

Weeks ago. Back during the final exam period, when he was just walking around evening. It had been subtle, buried beneath the adrenaline of the fight—but his mana had flared then too. For no visible reason.

Was that Lunar Mana?

His body had reacted then the same way it had tonight.

Tense. Coiled. Defensive.

But not toward an enemy.

Toward a presence.

Which meant…

Astron’s eyes lowered to his tea, the steam curling faintly like memory.

Could it be that again?

His body wasn’t just housing Void and Shadow.

That much had always been obvious to him—at least, once he began understanding what he was.

What Astron Natusalune had become.

Because the very first time he accessed mana—truly used it, back when the merger had still been raw, when the instincts of the world clashed with the remnants of player knowledge—it hadn’t been elemental. It hadn’t been flame, or wind, or anything as simple as light or dark.

It had been Lunar.

Unmistakably so.

Soft. Fluid. Silent. But heavy. Like gravity folded into energy. Like memory carved into light.

And he remembered it vividly—the way it pulsed inside him. Not with heat. Not with power. But with rhythm. With inevitability. Like tides obeying a moon he couldn’t see.

That was the foundation.

There were five known types of mana structure, rooted in classical theory: Internal, Elemental, Spatial, Psionic, and Worldbound.

But Lunar Mana… didn’t fit cleanly into any of them.

It was a hybrid. A spectral synthesis. A thing that mimicked Worldbound structure—mana influenced by celestial bodies, like Sunfire or Starborn flows—but folded into the body like Internal mana. It cycled through him without needing a medium. It was the medium.

And Astron had grown used to it. Not just using it—but relying on it.

Whenever he switched to regular elemental flows or practiced restricted weapon forms with standard mana channels, he felt it immediately. A kind of dullness. Like a song without harmony.

Weaker.

That’s what he was without it.

The difference wasn’t dramatic—not enough for others to see. But he felt it. His flow rate slowed. His adaptability dipped. His reaction delay lengthened by milliseconds. Not much, but enough to notice. Enough to matter.

But what made all of that worse—

Was how rarely it reacted on its own.

His [Lunar Mana] didn’t flare randomly. It didn’t respond to environmental shifts, not unless those shifts were on a world-altering scale.

The last time it had happened?

When he acquired the Moonstone.

A minor artifact.

But the moment he touched it—

His dreams shifted.

The first night after bonding to it, he had seen that shadow that has been showing some combat arts under the moonlight.

Not a moon.

The moon.

He didn’t know how to explain it even now. It wasn’t like looking at a celestial body in the sky. It was like… remembering it. As if the light it shed wasn’t just illumination, but knowledge.

And during that night, his [Lunar Mana] had reacted.

It flared slightly. Not destructively. But enough to push him into trance. Enough to trigger a vision. Symbols. Echoes. Things he couldn’t translate.

Of course, the feeling he had gotten recently in the final exams….

He never forgot that feeling.

And tonight?

When Leonard entered?

It felt like that.

Same reaction.

Same internal flinch.

Not because Leonard had used mana.

But because the presence itself had pulled at something within Astron—something deep, something Lunar.

He didn’t understand it.

Not yet.

But his instinct whispered to him now, stronger than it had before.

This wasn’t random.

Leonard wasn’t just strong.

He wasn’t just unknown.

He was connected—to something Astron hadn’t yet grasped. A piece of the rewritten narrative? A fracture from the pre-existing order? Or a herald of something coming closer?

Astron lowered his cup slowly, fingers still steady.

The table’s atmosphere resumed its gentle rhythm, like a river smoothing after a dropped stone.

Layla was back to her playful prodding. Jasmine was regaling the others with some chaotic story involving a near-explosion in alchemy class. Even Irina had leaned slightly closer, sipping her second cup of water in that way she always did when she was interested but not engaging.

And Leonard?

He answered their questions with ease.

Polished, but never cold.

“Yes, we do use mana-integrated sightlines for long-range scouting,” he said in response to Irina’s earlier curiosity. “But only for missions that require low-visibility movement. The mana refracts too easily in corrupted zones, so we fall back on sound-dampening glyphs for infiltration.”

His voice was steady. Measured.

Layla asked about weaponry. Leonard shifted into a short explanation of modular rifle-sword hybrids and mana-reactive sheath systems. Jasmine asked how close he’d ever come to being torn apart by a mana beast, and he just gave her a dry look before describing a certain night near the Ebon Range.

Laughter rippled softly. Even Sylvie had started smiling again, the tension from earlier gradually bleeding away.

To any outside observer, this was just a meal between comrades—an evening where the weight of the world paused at the door.

But Astron’s eyes remained sharp.

He saw it.

The things no one else did.

Leonard’s concern for Sylvie was visible, yes—how he occasionally angled his shoulder slightly when she leaned forward too far, how his gaze flicked to her every time the laughter around the table reached a pitch that could overwhelm. The way he gave her room to speak, but also filled in any silence she might hesitate through.

It was… warm. Reassuring, even.

But beneath that, Astron saw more.

The tiniest flick of tension in Leonard’s left hand whenever someone asked about Sylvie’s combat experience. The momentary delay before he responded to Jasmine’s exaggerated praise of the team’s “insane synergy.” The way he took one full second longer to answer Irina’s question than he had Layla’s or Jasmine’s.

Not fear. Not deception.

Evaluation.

Leonard was assessing.

Not just listening.

Measuring.

And that was when Astron noticed it.

A thread of mana.

So thin, so perfectly integrated with Leonard’s natural aura that it was indistinguishable from his baseline output.

But Astron’s [Eyes] weren’t reading aura.

They were reading flow.

And Leonard’s mana was moving.

Not in waves. Not like a spell charge or aura reinforcement. It was gliding—threading invisibly into the air, brushing faintly across surfaces and bodies.

A pulse drifted over Layla. Another over Jasmine. One touched Irina’s chair—and it lingered for a breath longer before retracting.

It didn’t affect them. Didn’t manipulate, influence, or pressure. If anything, it was softer than a breeze. A whisper.

If I didn’t have the [Eyes], I wouldn’t see it, Astron realized. Even Irina hasn’t sensed it.

And that said everything.

Because if Irina—who would be the future Archmage—hadn’t noticed this?

Then Leonard wasn’t just careful.

He was exceptional.

And Astron knew exactly what he was doing.

He’s gauging us.

Not through words.

Through mana.

Every person at this table was being scanned—not probed, not violated, but measured. Like an artist pressing gently on the surface of the canvas before the first stroke. Leonard was mapping their flows, their stability, their unconscious control patterns.

Astron could almost see the logic.

He’s not evaluating for combat.

He’s evaluating for compatibility.

Formation structuring. Team adaptability. Mana field interaction.

As if this entire dinner was not just a reunion—

But a live assessment.

And still—still—there was no hostility.

No flicker of danger.

‘Still strange…’