Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest novel Chapter 1051

Still strange…

There was no hostility. That much was clear. Leonard's mana wasn't invasive. It didn't carry the weight of control or coercion. No spells were being prepared. No bindings, no reading glyphs. Just threads—delicate, ambient feelers that brushed and observed like wind passing through leaves.

But still…

Astron didn't trust it.

He's going too far.

This wasn't idle curiosity. Leonard wasn't just measuring combat capability or confirming what he already knew about Sylvie's teammates. He was conducting a full-scale, real-time assessment using sensory mana at a level so refined, it made most trained scouts look clumsy.

And when one of those threads reached him?

Astron felt it instantly.

A soft brush against the edge of his shoulder. Barely there. It didn't press inward. Didn't try to enter his body's natural flow. But the intent was obvious.

Leonard was testing.

Trying to prompt a reaction.

A mana reflex. A defensive ripple. Anything that could be used as a read.

Astron exhaled through his nose, calm and unhurried.

Still strange.

There was no hostility. No spike. No suppression.

Leonard's mana didn't push—it brushed. Like a thread passing through water. A whisper, never a press. But that subtlety wasn't comforting.

It was deliberate.

And that was its own kind of warning.

Astron remained still as the thread slid closer—unseen by the others, unfelt even by Irina, which was telling in itself. The pulse curved gently near his shoulder, lingered just beyond the edge of his aura—not enough to touch his core, but enough to test the reaction from the field.

He let it happen.

Almost.

Astron didn't respond with his real mana. No [Voidborne]. No trace of [Lunar]. Certainly not [Shadowborne].

Instead, he exhaled softly, his fingertips brushing the lip of his teacup—and in that motion, he released a thin strand of non-attributed mana. Neutral. Colorless. Inert.

Weak.

Purposely so.

It would register, at best, as a trainee-level mana output. Suppressed. Clean. Unremarkable.

Exactly the kind of signal someone cautious would want to give a stranger trying to size them up.

He didn't mind if Leonard thought him average.

In fact, he preferred it.

Because he didn't trust Leonard.

And not because of what he was doing now—no, the act of reading a room this way was, if anything, a sign of caution, maybe even care. A good scout should know who they're sitting with.

But there was something worse.

Subtle. Hidden.

Different.

Astron's [Eyes] tracked it the moment Leonard's threads moved across the table again. They passed Layla, Jasmine, Irina—each one the same: faint, drifting, a barely-there current of blue-tinted scouting mana. Standard scan behavior. Masked expertly. Purposeful.

But then—he reached Sylvie.

And Astron saw it.

The thread changed.

The color shifted. Not blue. Not even tinted the same way. This one was paler—faintly white, but with edges that shimmered at a higher frequency, like starlight reflected on frost.

It wasn't a stronger thread.

It was simply different.

Designed differently. Coded differently.

Not just a different spell structure—but a different approach entirely.

Not just observational.

Bypassing.

And Astron's mind, ever fast, ever structured, immediately answered the question that bloomed.

Why?

Because any standard mana-probing technique wouldn't work on Sylvie.

Not with her trait.

Not with the [First Lord's Authority].

He remembered it from the game—clear as a flashpoint. Any attempt to pry into Sylvie's mana flow without her awareness would fail. Worse, it would trigger her. Defensive instincts, subconscious spikes of radiant rejection. Even if she didn't consciously recognize the intrusion, her body would.

There were dozens of scenes tied to this.

Guild attempts to scan her mana output in stealth drills—failed.

Elder examiners trying to evaluate her soul-core during ascension trials—rebuffed.

Even high-level spying enchantments built into artifact venues cracked just from proximity to her mana.

It never worked.

Unless you knew.

Unless you prepared a workaround.

And Leonard…

He hadn't tried the standard thread on her first.

He hadn't failed, then adapted.

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