Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest novel Chapter 1021

Cadet Name: Darien Vale

Rank: 340

Division: Mid-Combat Track

Discipline: Mixed Weapon + Wind-Ether Conduction

Background: No known noble ties. Partial orphan record. Sponsorship through anonymous provincial benefactor.

Affinity: Listed as Wind-Type.

Mana Cycle: Clean. Consistent.

But—

Overlaying the glyph structure from his last recorded sparring exam revealed something curious.

His Wind Magic wasn't circulating traditionally.

It folded.

Recurred on itself.

Looped.

Almost like lunar-phase constructs.

Unconscious? Perhaps.

But real.

Leonard tapped his finger once against the slate, setting a soft marker. Not a guild recruitment tag—he didn't need any competing interest. This one was private.

Silent. Reserved. Watchlisted.

Then, with a second motion, he pulled up Darien's latest dungeon assignment.

Team Thirty-One. Lower fog zone rotation. Scheduled within the next hour.

Perfect.

Leonard stood, brushing down the front of his coat, slipping easily back into the bearing of a field scout. One among many. Just another contractor browsing talent.

But his mind was already turning over the next approach.

Observation would only get him so far now.

He needed proximity.

A closer interaction.

Words. Pressure. Presence.

The Kin of the Moon wouldn't reveal themselves to crystal screens and filtered glyph traces. Their awakening would coil inward—private. Veiled in instinct. Subconscious defenses.

He needed to provoke clarity.

And if this Darien Vale was truly one of the final candidates…

Then a conversation might be the key to unraveling everything.

*****

He didn't have time.

Not to wait. Not to circle back. Not to risk losing another lead to guild scouts who watched with pockets full of contracts and eyes full of hunger.

Darien Vale's resonance wasn't stable—it was veiled. And the longer it stayed buried, the harder it would be to trigger.

But Leonard knew the rules.

The Academy's neutrality was law here, old and unyielding.

No scout was permitted to approach cadets directly during private cooldown phases.

No observation beyond the designated sectors.

And no mana-marking—not without a sanctioned clearance rune.

That meant one thing.

He couldn't follow Darien directly.

Not here.

But…

He didn't need to.

As Leonard turned from the prep alcove, his fingers brushed the inside of his coat, tracing a hidden glyph sewn into the inner lining of his sleeve—an invocation seal, woven by the Church's Lightbearers, dormant until called upon.

He stepped into the shadow of one of the hall's arched corridors, head bowed slightly—a quiet, devout posture, unnoticed in the flow of instructors and logistics officers.

Then, in a breath that didn't stir the air, he whispered the chant.

"Lux sōlis oculum… Aperi et vigila."

A subtle heat bled into the air. Not burning. Not even warm.

But ancient.

For a moment, the dust motes in the corridor froze—as if the very particles of light hesitated to fall.

And then—

A flash.

Silent. Sudden.

The sunlight that filtered through the high-arched windows pulsed—not brighter, but purer.

Refined.

A single ray broke through the lattice of protective wards above and struck the ground before Leonard's feet, forming a glyph—a perfect ring, inscribed with sun-shaped radial arms, twelve in total, like the spokes of a celestial dial.

In that moment, Leonard's eyes flared softly—not gold, but amber-orange, shot through with radiant streaks, like sunlight refracted through stained glass.

Above him—far, far above—a single solar fragment bloomed in the sky, invisible to all but him.

A Heliowatch.

A divine projection tethered to a sliver of celestial mana—a scouting satellite given shape through sunlight itself.

It would see what he could not.

Follow what he must not.

And relay back what no one else could interpret.

The world shifted slightly as the spell completed. His sight split—not fully, but partially. A flicker of vision tethered to the skies, fed directly through the heliowatch's luminous arc.

He whispered again:

"Mark the cadence of wind. The gait of silence. The boy who walks like dusk."

The sun heard him.

And obeyed.

Far above, a shimmering trace—a thread of light-bonded resonance—anchored itself to Darien's form the moment he stepped out from the dungeon's exit platform and back into the campus recovery zone.

No one would see it.

No one would feel it.