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 asuring combat capability or confirming what he already knew about Sylvie's teammates. He was conducting a full-scale, real-ti assessnt 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 soone 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 sothing worse.
Subtle. Hidden.
Different.
Astron's [Eyes] tracked it the mont Leonard's threads moved across the table again. They passed Layla, Jasmine, Irina—each one the sa: 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 sa way. This one was paler—faintly white, but with edges that shimred 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, imdiately answered the question that blood.
Why?
Because any standard mana-probing technique wouldn't work on Sylvie.
Not with her trait.
Not with the [First Lord's Authority].
He rembered it from the ga—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 enchantnts 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.
He'd started with the bypass.
As if he knew from the start that she couldn't be read like the rest of them.
Astron's fingers tensed slightly—just once. A subtle curl around his cup.
That… that was worse than anything Leonard had done so far.
Because it ant one thing.
Leonard knew.
Not suspected. Not guessed. Knew.
Knew what Sylvie was.
Knew that she wasn't normal.
Knew that she couldn't be scanned like the others.
And prepared accordingly.
Which raised the question:
How?
That was the question burning at the center of Astron's thoughts. Sharpening with each breath.
Would Sylvie have ntioned this to Leonard?
He ran through every observation, every conversation fragnt, every behavioral tic she'd shown since Leonard arrived. The way she smiled at him—fond, yes, but guarded. How she flinched when her past was brought up. How she tried not to speak when the teasing turned toward her performance in the field.
If she had told him… if she had trusted Leonard enough to explain her powers—
Then why hide?
Why sneak?
She could have displayed her strength outright. Could've revealed her progression, her unusual mana structure. Especially if she believed Leonard wouldn't fear it, wouldn't report it. Especially if she trusted him.
But that hadn't happened.
Sylvie had not shown her full strength in front of Leonard. If anything, she'd been asured. Quiet. Restraining herself even more than usual. And for soone like her—who had only recently begun accepting the weight of her power—that ant sothing.
Sylvie was being careful.
She was trying to control what others knew.
Which ant…
Leonard wasn't supposed to know.
He hadn't been told.
That ruled out a clean explanation. This wasn't a brother responding to a shared secret.
This was sothing else.
He prepared in advance.
Astron's thoughts crystallized.
Either—
One: Sylvie partially explained sothing about her strength to Leonard. Sothing vague. A "be careful with my mana" sort of warning. And now Leonard was following up on that with quiet inspection.
But that didn't match the Sylvie he'd co to know recently. Not anymore. She had beco conscious of her boundaries, of her role, of her limitations. She had begun owning her control. She wouldn't give soone vague half-information and then pretend it didn't matter.
That… didn't feel right.
Or—
Two: Leonard already knew. Not because Sylvie told him. Not because she displayed it.
But because he ca in knowing.
And that…
That was far more concerning.
Because it ant that Leonard had access to knowledge that was ant to be hidden. Knowledge that, in the ga, only surfaced deep into the story. After trials. After awakenings. After the systems that governed divinity and corruption had begun to crack.
If Leonard bypassed that…
If he knew what Sylvie was from the start…
Then he wasn't just a brother.
He wasn't just a scout.
He was sothing else.
A piece of the narrative that had never existed. An outlier who carried information from nowhere. From outside.
Astron didn't move.
Didn't speak.
He let the warmth of the teacup seep through his fingers, keeping the tension sealed beneath the stillness of his breath.
But inside?
The flags were raised.
This wasn't chance. This wasn't intuition. Leonard ca prepared. And the only way he could've done that… is if he's part of sothing I haven't seen yet.
Not part of the ga.
Not part of the rewritten arcs he was trying to predict.
Sothing off-script.
Astron didn't jump to conclusions.
But he did update his file.
Leonard wasn't just unknown.
He was inford.
And that changed everything.
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