When Alex witnessed the death of one of his colleagues, it wasn't fear that froze him nor was it guilt at failing to save him but the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed him.
As a hunter in training to be the best version of himself, he had seen blood and gore several times over and while they were computer-generated, to him, it was all real.
But when the entity killed that student, it wasn't a student he saw, but his own helplessness at failing to stop the entity.
What if it had been one of his friends, his family? Would he have failed the way he just did? The thought made him shudder in cold dread.
And in that moment, everything turned silent as if nothing existed within his senses. Everything felt small and meaningless as he reconsidered why he was doing what he was doing.
Was he going to fall here or was he going to rise above the ashes and come out on top? He didn't know the answer and he didn't wish to leave it to luck either.
The truly powerful never rely on luck to protect what they deem important. What is luck turned against them at the most critical moment? Wouldn't he just be another nobody dancing on the whims of fate?
'I refuse!'
He raised his head and stared at the ongoing fight with a fierce and determined gaze that was filled with defiance.
He was still out of mana and there was no way mana could magically fall out of the sky. And yes, he had awakened a blaze of mana in critical moments before, but that could also fail to activate if the conditions weren't right.
He had himself and only himself. He clenched his spear as tight as his jaws and was about to bolt towards the entity when he noticed it move away from the students fighting it towards Ross, its long sword raised high to cut him down.
'Over my dead body!'
He snorted inwardly as his body moved like it never did before. There was not a shred of mana in his movements and neither was he employing some special technique. He didn't know what state he was in and neither did he care.
There was only one thing in his mind and that was to protect his important person.
He just wanted to move and that was exactly what took place. Everything around him seemed to move in slow motion as he arrived before the entity and struck it with a powerful sweep of his spear.
*BOOOM!*
The spear collided heavily with the being as it was sent hurtling back before skidding across the floor to an eventual stop.
"….."
The entire space grew quiet as everyone's gaze remained on Alex who stood tall with a colourless aura around his body.
"You alright?"
He asked Ross with a side glance. He could see the fear in his eyes as he came so close to death.
'Any later, and it would have been his head.'
"Y-yeah…" Ross muttered, loss for words at how to express his relief. His heart raced like never before and also felt angry at himself for zoning out in the midst of a battle.
'Never again.'
He learned of another weakness and vowed to never repeat it again. But his thoughts returned to Alex who had a colourless aura around his body.
"What is this..."
He echoed what the others wanted to know but Alex didn't have a reply to that at the moment. He returned his gaze to the entity that was now standing tall with its gaze on him.
"Don't know… But I'm not about to let that fucker kill us all."
Then his body moved in a fashion that left the others with wide eyes and opened jaws. Even they couldn't see him move.
...
'Alex… what the hell are you doing unleashing one surprise after the other?'
Zol could feel a headache come on just from the wanders Alex was pulling out. He detected the change in his body the moment he saw Alex remain quiet after witnessing the death of one of the students.
It was at that moment that he felt the air around Alex's body change and unlike the other times when he released his void aura and locked mana to bring out a greater degree of power, this time, it was only his mana.
Mason narrowed his eyes at Alex's body when his body began emitting dense levels of mana unlike before.
"What's the boy doing?"
He asked in curiosity as he had never seen anything like that before. Slowly he moved towards the pod and used his senses to detect the changes in Alex's body and that was when he noticed it.
His eyes widened in surprise and he wasn't the only one as Zol was equally surprised. He blinked to make sure he was seeing things.
"You can do that?!"
He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
Inside Alex's body was all the mana that was stored up glowed with an ethereal light as they seemed to connect cell-to-cell in a network of pathways that looked like a process to share their energy.
The waves of mana washed over his body, exciting his cells like electrons given sufficient energy to rise to a higher orbital. The mana did not move towards his mana pathways where they could be channelled to activate abilities, no, they flowed through the molecular structures that connected his cells together.
It was a sight to behold.
Both men didn't know how Alex pulled this off when his main body was asleep. He turned back to the screen and saw how the AI presented the change as a colourless aura abound his body.
Looking at what was happening in Alex's body and the explosive strength and speed Alex just displayed, Mason and Zol deduced that the phenomenon explosively increased his strength and speed to absurd levels.
*Gulp*
Mason swallowed at the implications of such discovery. What if he did what Alex was currently doing? Wouldn't that mean his physical strength alone would be more than enough to take down any being in the universe?
If the spectators could see what Hunter Zol and Mason were seeing right now, they would have been on their feet with their jaws on the floor.
There was so much about mana usage that they didn't know about and it seemed Alex was the one to lead the path forward.