Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest - Chapter 1052 248.3 - Strange

Leonard’s fingers tapped lightly against the rim of his emptied teacup—rhythmic, soundless. Not in boredom. In calculation.

He wasn’t eating anymore. Just observing. Quietly compiling everything he’d gathered.

Jasmine. Layla.

Their data aligned well with what he had scanned earlier. Both cadets showed combat flow readings that confirmed above-average mana compatibility. Neither of them had extreme output, but their internal circuits were efficient. Natural talents—likely undeveloped in formal technique, but adaptable and instinct-driven. Jasmine’s flow was jagged but fast, responsive. Layla’s was heavier, more tempered—like she’d trained under a physical-focused style that taught controlled releases. Not too many of those left these days.

He could already tell: given the right mentor, both of them could step into specialization by the end of the year.

Irina Emberheart.

Different story.

Leonard had barely brushed her with a mana thread. Once. A brief glide near her peripheral aura. But even that…

He had pulled back immediately.

The pressure she carried wasn’t aggressive. But it was layered. Dense. Subtle artifacts sat beneath her coat—at least three, maybe more—none flaring, but all suppressing her readings to a near-zero trace.

That was dangerous.

‘Smart girl,’ he thought. ‘Either she’s been trained to hide her output… or she’s been warned not to show it.’

It could be either. But considering the Emberheart name, Leonard leaned toward the second.

Still… he had estimated.

Just from aura pressure alone—without engaging or pressing her defenses—

“Her mana is at least an 8.”

That was absurd.

Not prodigy-level. Not gifted.

Unnatural.

Even top-tier graduates from national academies didn’t hit 8s before graduation. Most never did.

And Irina had it now.

At her age.

Without flaring.

‘Indeed, that might even be higher than that….Yeah, that definitely is, it feels like.’

Leonard didn’t show it, but the thought left a quiet burn at the base of his spine.

‘She’s the most dangerous one here,’ he concluded. ‘And she’s not even trying.’

But then came Astron.

And Astron… confused him.

Leonard had been cautious when observing him—more out of professional instinct than necessity. From a distance, Astron’s mana presence was minimal. Unassuming. He registered below average on passive scans. And that matched what he’d seen in the field.

No big mana bursts. No grand spell casting. No final strikes using overwhelming force.

And that alone made Leonard curious.

‘To think that his stats were this low… I had some doubts, but—’

He couldn’t deny what he’d seen.

In combat, Astron didn’t deliver fatal blows. He didn’t out-muscle or out-burn anyone.

He out-moved them.

Leonard had reviewed the battle recordings twice already—frame by frame.

Astron rarely acted first. But when he did move, he moved precisely. Not instinctively. Deliberately.

He avoided inefficient trades. Used his mana like bait—not force. Even in that last dungeon fight, when monsters pressed hard on formation, Astron disabled targets with terrain. With field awareness. With momentum breaks and placement traps.

Not power.

‘A controller type?’ Leonard wondered.

But that didn’t match either.

Controller classes usually left lingering mana. A trail of density. Astron didn’t. His readings were thin. Slippery.

‘He’s using other people’s mana pressure to control the battlefield,’ Leonard realized slowly. ‘Like wind channeled through a field of spears.’

It was brilliant.

Not flashy.

But brilliant.

A different kind of prodigy.

And one Leonard hadn’t expected to find here.

Still, his eyes narrowed slightly.

There were pieces missing.

Astron was good. Exceptionally good. But his low readings didn’t match some of his more seamless reactions. His spatial timing in the dungeon wasn’t just practiced—it was informed. The kind of clarity you didn’t get unless you saw more than what was visible.

Like he was reading the fight from the outside.

Almost like…

Leonard blinked once.

Filed the thought away.

Leonard’s gaze drifted, softening as it came to rest on his sister.

Sylvie was laughing quietly at something Layla had said—shoulders loose, fingers curled around her water glass, her voice quiet but steady. There was a steadiness to her now. A clarity that hadn’t been there earlier in the week.

When he’d first seen her again, her mana was bright but coiled. Hesitant in some parts, reactive in others. As if she hadn’t yet figured out where to place her strength, how to stand in it. It was there—undeniably so—but without shape. Like light pressed behind frosted glass.

But tonight?

Tonight it moved with her.

Flowed through her words, layered into the way she listened, even how she reacted to teasing. The resonance around her now was different. More confident. Rooted. As if something had begun unfolding inside her.

A shift.

A click of a lock.

‘She’s leveling up,’ Leonard thought. ‘Faster than she should be.’

Not just skill-wise. Not just confidence.

Her mana had thickened—just slightly. More refined. More responsive. The threads he’d traced earlier in the week wouldn’t behave the same now. He could feel it already, the difference in her field density. Her circuits were syncing tighter. Her spell delay, once almost half a second, had cut down. Her glyph compression rate had increased.

In a week.

Most cadets needed a full semester to get that kind of refinement.

But Sylvie? She was accelerating. Sharpening.

‘Considering what she is,’ Leonard mused, ‘that much makes sense.’

Because her condition wasn’t normal.

It wasn’t just about talent.

It was about resonance.

About the way her body responded to pressure, adapted to it. How her mana, tethered to a deeper authority—one she hadn’t yet fully tapped into—grew when pushed.

She wasn’t just reacting to challenges.

She was evolving through them.

And the more complex the battlefield became—the more life pressed her into hard corners—the more clearly her nature would begin to surface.

It was a trait shared only by those chosen under certain forgotten rites.

A gift that wasn’t taught.

Only inherited.

Leonard’s eyes dipped to his tea again, thoughtful.

He remembered the old texts in the Sanctum’s sealed archives. The ones that spoke of convergence-based talents—mana structures not born of human alignment, but of divine echo. The kind that reacted to context. Gained strength not from training, but from pattern recognition. Battle. Insight. Emotional stimuli.

Sylvie had that.

And now, after seven days of relentless dungeon cycles, after navigating monster formations, collapsing terrain, and coordinated assaults…

She was finally starting to bloom.

And that…

That was only the beginning.

‘They have no idea what she’ll become,’ he thought. ‘Not even her.’

His gaze returned to the table, where Jasmine was now arguing over dessert priorities, Layla dramatically backing her up, and Irina pretending not to listen while visibly forming a rebuttal in her mind.

Sylvie sat at the center of it—shoulders relaxed, eyes warm, and for the first time in years… grounded.

Leonard leaned back in his seat, the ghost of a smile curling against the rim of his cup.

She was in good hands.

And he would make sure those hands stayed steady.

*****

The meal came to a close with the warm hum of low laughter and the clink of polished cutlery. Plates were mostly empty, drinks mostly finished. The tension that had once curled beneath the surface had bled away, replaced by the low, satisfied rhythm of people who had earned their rest.

Sylvie glanced up as the restaurant’s ambient lights shifted—an automatic cue from the internal time-glyphs that curfew bells were approaching across Arcadia.

“Time to go,” she murmured.