Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

The courtyard faded behind him as Astron stepped into the quieter walkways of Arcadia’s inner ring, the lanterns flickering above with their usual programmed serenity. The chill in the air hadn’t deepened, but it felt colder now. Cleaner. Like something had finally snapped back into place after being held too tightly for too long.

He didn’t head toward his dorm.

He turned left.

Past the exam towers. Past the sealed archives. Toward the reinforced stone structure buried just behind the eastern tower line—the private training hall.

Access glyphs scanned his passcode without delay. The gates parted silently.

And still… he said nothing.

Because his mind hadn’t stopped spinning.

Eleanor’s voice echoed back with unnatural clarity.

“Do you know Leonard?”

Her eyes hadn’t been angry. Not truly. But they were focused—sharper than most battlefield commanders. And the moment she said that name, her gaze had narrowed with a weight Astron could no longer ignore.

She knew something.

But what shook him more—what settled like ice between his ribs—was how his mana had reacted again. Not flared. Not spilled. But responded.

To her.

To her presence.

It had been subtle. A ripple. But not random.

When she reconstructed that pressure—that particular intent Leonard had laced into his aura—Astron had felt it. And his mana, again, moved of its own accord. Just for a fraction of a second. But enough for Eleanor to feel it.

He had seen it in her eyes.

Recognition.

Not just of the tremor. But of the way he’d snapped it back into control instantly, like the whole thing had never happened.

As if it had been trained into him.

He slowed his steps as the empty interior of the training hall spread before him. Empty combat rings. Meditation alcoves. Nullified casting zones that shimmered with faint blue grids. All of it dark, silent, untouched.

Perfect.

He stepped to the center of the floor and stood still.

There was no one else here. No eyes. No voices. No threat.

And yet… Astron’s breath felt heavy.

Because it wasn’t just Eleanor that disturbed him. It wasn’t even the way she had reconstructed Leonard’s presence with such precision, almost as if she had taken the shape of that killing intent and worn it like a second skin.

No.

It was the fact that she had done so intentionally.

And his mana had responded.

That should not have happened.

It wasn’t [Lunar Mana] that flared—but it was close. It was the structure of it. The configuration. That same deep resonance. The same instinctive pull that had nearly overtaken him beside Leonard.

Eleanor had mimicked it.

She had known.

‘No,’ Astron thought, his hands tightening slowly at his sides. ‘She didn’t know what it was. But she felt it. The weight. The gravity.’

And that was dangerous enough.

If Eleanor had pieced together even a fraction of that presence—if she had used it to verify him—then she was capable of far more than he had assumed. Her instincts had led her straight to him. And worse—

She had arrived right when Leonard was about to strike.

That wasn’t coincidence.

She’d felt something.

So had he.

Leonard’s observation threads. His posture. The way he had gauged each of them with practiced precision. But most of all…

The thread he sent to Sylvie.

It hadn’t been like the others. It wasn’t testing her strength. It was bypassing her defenses.

And Leonard had known how to do that. From the start.

Which meant he knew about Sylvie’s trait.

Astron exhaled—slow, controlled.

Leonard was not to be trusted.

That part was clear.

But the greater danger…

Was himself.

His mana had flared twice in one night. Once during Leonard’s pressure—and once during Eleanor’s simulation of it.

He hadn’t lost control completely.

But he’d come close.

Too close.

He stepped forward and entered the null-zone. The air here shimmered faintly—a perfect training environment that suppressed external mana influence. Even the academy’s passive field couldn’t reach in.

He closed his eyes.

And reached inward.

His mana responded—calmly now. Fluid. Ordered. But he could still feel the edge of it, like a blade beneath fabric. That pressure. That instinctive tension.

It was still there.

Waiting.

It had surfaced in response to threat. Or at least, something that felt familiar to a threat.

And that made it unacceptable.

If it can be triggered… then it can be used.

He would not allow that.

Astron didn’t need power that moved on its own.

He needed control.

Absolute control.

Because whatever this was—whatever part of his identity tied back to that weight, that flare, that resonance—he could no longer pretend it was dormant.

The world was changing.

Leonard had proven that.

Eleanor had confirmed it.

And Astron?

He was the anomaly caught in the middle of both.

But not for long.

He sat down in the center of the training floor. Cross-legged. Straight-backed. Hands folded at his knees. His breath slowed. His mind cleared.

And with deliberate, cold precision—

He pulled his mana inward.

Tonight, there would be no sleep.

Only silence.

Only training.

This would not happen again.

The room did not echo.

Not because of design—but because Astron didn’t let it.

His breathing was shallow now. Measured. Each exhale flattened into the air with a purpose that resisted fatigue.

Inside his mind, the memory rewound.

Leonard’s pressure—clean, silent, surgical.

That spell had not exploded. It had pierced. Like a truth meant for a single answer.

And Astron had responded.

Not in thought.

In essence.

He didn’t close his eyes.

He kept them open—focusing not on the training rings or the sigil-etched floor, but on the sensation behind his skin.

The memory of reaction.

The trace of movement.

Again.

He simulated the pressure.

The way Leonard’s mana had slid like silk beneath the conversation—how it brushed against Layla, Jasmine, Irina. How it lingered on Sylvie.

How it reached him.

His mind constructed the pattern again. Not the spell—but the shape of the approach. The intent behind it. What it sought, not what it executed.

And how it made his mana shift.

It was subtle, but clear.

A clashing frequency. Not violent, not invasive. Like the wrong resonance in a crystal chamber—that was what had caused his flare. It wasn’t resistance. It was reaction.

And Eleanor?

She had triggered that same response.

Not because she matched Leonard’s strength. She hadn’t.

But she had echoed his intent.

And his mana, for a fraction of a second, had moved as if to answer.

Astron’s jaw tightened.

He replayed it again.

The angle of pressure. The feeling in his diaphragm when it buckled. The pulse in his spine.

Again.

The twitch. The flare. The sharp inhale just before suppression kicked in.

Again.

This time, he tried to stop the memory earlier.

And failed.

The flare still happened.

Even when it was a memory, his instincts betrayed him. The mana responded—not because he allowed it, but because some part of him was still wired to answer.

That was dangerous.

And unacceptable.

Astron rose without a sound. Walked to the back wall of the chamber. Removed the limiter rods from the case and set them into the stabilization slots manually.

The weights activated—old-fashioned gravity resistors. No mana balancing. No smart rhythm detection. Just raw pull.

He took off his coat. Folded it neatly.

Then he started with the basics.

Push-ups.

Slow. Unbroken. Each one synchronized with his breath.

Then squats.

Then transitions between the two.

Then jumps, knees to chest, impact minimized.

And every time his muscles cried out—

he replayed it.

That moment again. And again.

He forced his memory of Leonard’s pressure into sharper detail. The flick of mana threads. The white-thread bypass to Sylvie. The lingering delay over Irina’s chair.

And how his own mana—his own essence—had betrayed his composure.

Again.

His knuckles met the floor again, skin grating against the anti-slip surface. He didn’t care. Blood would be cleaned later.

Sweat blurred his vision.

But he saw it still.

That instant. That sliver of lost control.

He would never allow it again.

There would be no next time for failure.

No sudden flare.

No involuntary pulse.

Not in the face of Leonard’s probes.

Not beneath Eleanor’s judgment.

Not in front of Sylvie.

And not from within himself.

He was Astron Natusalune.

And he would not be undone by a part of himself he had not mastered.

By the time the internal chronoglyphs pulsed again—three hours past midnight—the weights had slowed his limbs to a crawl.

But his mind was still running.

Still memorizing.

Still sharpening.

He wouldn’t stop until that moment—the moment he lost control—was no longer capable of existing.

There was no sleep tonight.

Only silence.

Only repetition.

Only refusal.