(The Next Day – Near the Rodova Military Academy Notice Board)
If there was anyone more devastated than David to see Leo score 61/80 in Basics of Magic Theory—
It was Su Yang.
Standing before the massive notice board, his eyes darting between his own 9/80 and Leo’s 61/80, as he looked like a man who had just watched his best friend ascend to godhood while he remained a mere mortal, trapped in the cruel reality of academic failure.
His fingers trembled as he pointed at Leo’s name.
Then at his own.
Then back at Leo’s.
And then, with the tragic flair of a betrayed war hero, he clutched his chest as if he’d just been run through with a sword.
"Skyshard! You… you absolute traitor!" Su Yang gasped, turning on Leo with the raw betrayal of a man left to die on the battlefield.
Leo, who had been casually munching on an apple he had just picked on his way out of the mess hall, barely spared him a glance as he muttered, "Huh?"
Up until now, Leo had been lost in thought, wondering just how furious David must have been while grading his paper, completely forgetting about Su Yang’s impending academic meltdown.
"You passed?!" Su Yang demanded, grabbing Leo by the shoulders as if shaking him would somehow undo the horror he had just witnessed.
"Uh. Yeah?" Leo replied, unfazed.
"YOU PASSED?!" Su Yang repeated, shaking him even harder now, as if sheer disbelief alone could rewrite reality.
Leo narrowed his eyes. "…Is that a question or are you trying to exorcise me?"
"How—?" Su Yang staggered backward, his hands gripping at the air as if searching for something—anything—to hold onto for support.
"You… you lied to me!" he accused, his voice cracking with the weight of betrayal. "I thought we were in this together! We were supposed to fail together, Skyshard!"
Leo smirked. "I don’t remember signing that contract."
"You don’t need a contract for brotherhood!" Su Yang roared, drawing the attention of several confused students nearby.
"I was supposed to be grieving with you today! Drowning in misery! Burning this godforsaken academy to the ground! But no—YOU had to go and be an academic genius all of a sudden!"
Leo raised an eyebrow, barely suppressing his amusement. Then, in a conspiratorial whisper, he leaned in.
"…I cheated."
Silence.
Su Yang, mid-rant, froze. His brain took a solid second to process what he had just heard.
Then, narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he asked, "Did you actually?"
Leo shrugged, nonchalantly taking another bite of his apple. "Maybe."
As listening to that response, Su Yang gasped so dramatically that even the nearby students flinched.
"You son of a—"
Su Yang began, but before he could finish his sentence, Mu Shen, who had been silently enjoying the show from the sidelines, finally decided to intervene.
"Yang, buddy, you do realize your failure isn’t Leo’s fault, right?" Mu Shen said dryly, as Su Yang immediately whirled on him with the speed of a man personally wronged.
"EXCUSE ME?!"
Mu Shen sighed, rubbing his temples. "Maybe, just maybe, if you had spent more time studying instead of training at the combat arena, you wouldn’t be in this situation today."
"Blasphemy!" Su Yang snapped, dramatically pointing a finger at Mu Shen as if condemning him in a courtroom.
"I was preparing for the inevitable failure, Shen! I was making peace with my fate! Unlike some people—" he whipped back around to glare at Leo "—who decided to go behind my back and actually pass!"
Leo took another lazy bite of his apple. "Would it make you feel better if I said I barely passed?"
Su Yang narrowed his eyes.
Then, slowly, shook his head in bitter disappointment.
"No, because you still passed. And now… I must mourn alone."
With that, Su Yang collapsed onto a nearby bench, draping himself across it like a tragic hero who had lost everything, as Leo and Mu Shen exchanged humored glances.
"Think he’s gonna be okay?" Mu Shen asked, as Leo took another bite of his apple before replying smoothly, "Yeah, he’ll be fine. He just needs a few hours to accept that I’m superior."
"BETRAYAL!!!"
Su Yang’s anguished scream echoed through the academy grounds, causing several students to turn their heads—only for Leo and Mu Shen to burst into laughter.
In life, failing exams felt painful, however, failing exams when your best friend passed, felt even worse.
—------
(That Same Night – Leo’s Dorm Room)
The quiet hum of mana filled the dimly lit room as Leo sat cross-legged on the floor, his breathing slow and controlled, his mind sharper than ever.
Fresh out of meditation, his body felt lighter, his senses heightened, as he transitioned seamlessly into his nightly routine of pushing [Absolute Vision] towards perfection.
At first, tonight felt no different from the countless nights before.
But then—
Something shifted.
It wasn’t a dramatic burst of energy.
Nor was it a surge of power crashing through his veins.
It was something subtle—so subtle that Leo almost missed it.
A tiny, almost imperceptible refinement. A flicker of change that, at first, seemed insignificant.
Until he realized—
His cycle speed had dropped because of it, to just about 0.1 seconds.
’Holy shit… I’m on the cusp of a breakthrough—’ Leo realized, as on the very next attempt:-
0.09.
The cycle time dropped even more, causing Leo’s breath to still, as the realisation finally hit him.
He had done it.
After weeks of relentless training—of pushing his mind and body to their absolute limits, refining his mana circulation, and using the skill in countless high-pressure scenarios—[Absolute Vision] had finally reached perfection.
His heart pounded—not from excitement, but from realization.
This wasn’t just the result of mechanical repetition.
This was because of real, practical usage.
All those fights against Grandmasters.
All those battles where he had relied on split-second reactions.
All those times he had used it in combat, tracking movements, predicting attacks—and even the moments he had used it while cheating yesterday.
All of it had pushed the skill past its final threshold.
Leo exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders as he activated [Absolute Vision] once more—
And this time, it was different.
It didn’t feel like an activation.
It didn’t feel like a technique he had to consciously trigger anymore.
It was effortless.
Like flexing a muscle he had used a thousand times before.
There was no lag, no deliberate thought, no strain.
His surroundings sharpened automatically, his awareness expanding as naturally as breathing, as instinctively as blinking.
[Absolute Vision] was no longer just a skill he had to execute.
It was a part of him.
A seamless, subconscious ability—woven into his very instincts, ready to be called upon at any moment, as Leo finally seemed to have mastered 2 of the 5 skills he needed to become a Grandmaster!
"Ha—Haha"
Leo chuckled, allowing himself a moment of joy, before [Monarch’s Indifference] made him stable once again, as he smiled with his eyes closed.
Mastering [Absolute Vision] meant that he could now solely focus on improving his combat skills, as the three remaining skills for him to master were all practical combat skills that could only be improved on the battlefield.
"Tomorrow onwards, I shall be on the combat training grounds whenever I’m not in class or meditating—" Leo concluded, as he resolved to craft a new schedule for himself starting tomorrow, where his skill training time could be maximized.