The following morning, as the first rays of sunlight spilled across the vast territories of House Dainhart, Leo made his way directly toward the family's training grounds.
The training grounds were among the largest facilities within the Dainhart estate, a sprawling complex designed to accommodate nearly every form of combat practice imaginable.
There were designated areas for swordsmen, open spaces for magical exercises, reinforced platforms capable of enduring powerful spells, and countless other facilities intended to help the younger generation hone their abilities.
The training field itself stretched across a vast expanse.
Yet what caught Leo's attention most were the strange patterns carved into the stone beneath his feet.
At first glance, they resembled enormous magic circles.
Their intricate lines intertwined across the ground in complex geometric formations, ancient patterns designed to stabilize the flow of mana throughout the training grounds and maintain an environment suitable for prolonged cultivation and combat practice.
The moment Leo stepped inside, he stopped.
His gaze slowly swept across the enormous field.
He did not merely look at the surroundings.
He was measuring them.
The density of mana.
Its purity.
Its flow.
The subtle fluctuations drifting through the air.
After several moments, he finally nodded faintly.
"The mana density here... isn't bad."
For someone like Leo, it was hardly extraordinary.
He had experienced places where mana was far denser, places that ordinary magicians could only dream of entering.
But it was more than sufficient for what he intended to accomplish.
And that was what mattered.
Since returning to House Dainhart, Leo had very little time to waste.
He had a goal.
A clear one.
The Sixth Circle.
And he intended to reach it as quickly as possible.
Yet before he could even take his first step toward training—
A series of whispers reached his ears.
At first, they were barely audible.
Then they grew louder.
One after another.
"Look..."
"He really came back."
"Isn't that the idiot?"
"The one who couldn't learn magic or even master swordsmanship?"
"Didn't he get beaten badly enough last time?"
"He actually has the nerve to show his face here again."
Leo's footsteps stopped for the briefest moment.
His expression did not change.
He didn't even bother turning toward the people whispering about him.
But every word reached his ears with perfect clarity.
It was hardly surprising.
To the members of the family and the young trainees gathered here, the name Leo Dainhart had been synonymous with failure for years.
The youngest son of the main family.
A boy who had failed to walk the path of magic.
A boy who lacked enough talent to become even a proper swordsman.
Someone others had grown accustomed to looking down upon.
Someone whose very existence had become an easy target for ridicule.
But those gazes...
Those whispers...
No longer meant anything to Leo.
He was about to ignore them completely when one of the trainees stepped away from the group.
He was a broad-shouldered young man named Daisen.
With heavy steps, he approached Leo until he stood directly in his path.
There was no attempt to conceal the hostility on his face.
"You."
Leo stopped.
Daisen stared at him with open contempt.
"Didn't I tell you not to show your face here again?"
A mocking smile curled across his lips.
"Looks like you've already forgotten the lesson I taught you last time."
At those words, Leo searched through the memories left behind by the body he now inhabited.
"Hmm..."
"If I remember correctly, this is the one who beat the original Leo here before."
His gaze lingered on Daisen for a few seconds.
Then Leo sighed inwardly.
"What a nuisance."
He had only come here to train.
He had no interest in wasting time on insects that crawled out of nowhere merely to provoke him.
But perhaps...
This was actually a convenient opportunity.
"Maybe I should get rid of these annoying pests before I start training."
Leo considered it briefly.
"A Second Circle spell should be more than enough."
He didn't need anything more.
He calmly turned his attention toward Daisen.
The instant their eyes met—
Daisen's expression twisted with fury.
"How dare you look at me like that?!"
His arm rose.
Mana immediately surged around it.
The temperature in the surrounding air began to drop.
Tiny crystals of ice appeared one after another, forming in the space before his palm.
They gathered.
Condensed.
Then rapidly took the shape of a sharp, gleaming arrow.
"A First Circle spell..."
"Ice Arrow!"
The spell shot toward Leo.
Fast.
Fast enough that an ordinary person would have struggled to even follow its trajectory.
Yet Leo didn't move.
He didn't step backward.
He didn't raise his hand.
He simply watched the incoming spell.
And at the final moment, he thought coldly:
"Pathetic."
Then—
He activated the Eye of Destiny.
One second.
He needed only one second.
Just a single second.
But to Leo, that one second was enough.
The instant the Eye of Destiny opened, the entire structure of the spell unfolded before his perception.
The path of the mana.
The method by which the energy had been condensed.
The point where the spell's power was concentrated.
The tiny flaw responsible for maintaining the spell's stability.
Everything.
The spell that had been so impressive to Daisen was nothing more than an open book before Leo.
He understood it.
Analyzed it.
And then—
He canceled it.
The Ice Arrow vanished.
It did not explode.
It did not shatter.
It did not collide with anything.
It simply ceased to exist.
As if it had never been there in the first place.
Daisen froze.
His eyes widened.
His hand remained suspended in the air.
"No..."
"No, that's impossible!"
He stared at the empty space where his spell had disappeared.
Then his voice rose in confusion and disbelief.
"What happened to my spell?!"
The trainees surrounding them fell silent.
For a moment, none of them understood what they had just witnessed.
They had not seen Leo cast a spell.
They hadn't even sensed a significant fluctuation of mana from him.
One moment, Daisen's Ice Arrow had been flying toward Leo.
The next—
It was gone.
Leo finally raised his eyes toward him.
His expression remained completely indifferent.
"You're not supposed to execute an Ice Arrow like that."
Daisen's eyes widened.
"What?"
Leo continued calmly.
"Watch."
He raised one hand.
There was no dramatic gesture.
No unnecessary incantation.
No attempt to show off.
He simply gathered mana within his palm.
And what happened next caused the expressions of everyone watching to change.
The mana began to condense.
First came a thin layer of frost.
Then—
Ice began to form.
But this ice was completely different from the arrow Daisen had created moments ago.
It was larger.
Denser.
Harder.
And far more refined.
The temperature around Leo's hand plummeted.
The surrounding air itself seemed to freeze.
Mana gathered inside the forming spell with an astonishing degree of stability and efficiency.
Then, within moments—
A massive ice arrow appeared before Leo.
No.
Calling it an arrow seemed almost insulting.
It resembled a spear forged from pure, flawless ice.
Its tip was terrifyingly sharp, while streams of frigid energy coiled around its body like pale serpents.
The trainees who had been laughing at Leo only moments ago...
Stopped laughing.
Their expressions changed.
Their eyes widened.
Some instinctively took a step backward.
They could feel it.
Even if they didn't understand what Leo had done, they could feel the difference.
That was still a First Circle spell.
Yet its presence was nothing like Daisen's.
Leo looked at Daisen.
Then calmly said:
"This..."
"Is a true Ice Arrow."
His voice remained almost indifferent.
"When you recover..."
"Try to learn it."
Daisen stared at him.
His mind struggled to process what was happening.
But Leo gave him no time.
He didn't wait for a response.
He didn't give Daisen even a moment to comprehend the difference between their spells.
Leo simply raised his hand slightly.
And released the spell.
Whoosh!
The ice spear tore through the air.
The sound was sharp and violent.
It was no longer reminiscent of a spell cast by a First Circle magician.
It was more like a siege weapon had been fired directly at Daisen.
Daisen's face changed instantly.
"Wait—!"
He never finished the word.
The Ice Arrow slammed into his body.
BOOM!
The force of the impact sent him flying backward.
The spell's power erupted upon contact, leaving multiple wounds across his body as blood splattered through the air.
Daisen crashed heavily onto the ground.
His body rolled once.
Then twice.
And finally—
He went limp.
Unconscious.
Silence descended upon the training grounds.
Complete silence.
Every trainee stared at the scene before them.
Daisen...
The same Daisen who had been threatening Leo only moments ago.
The same Daisen who had stood proudly before everyone, convinced that Leo was still the useless weakling he remembered.
Was now lying unconscious on the ground.
Defeated.
And all it had taken was a single spell.
Leo looked at him for a moment.
Then said simply:
"I think that's enough."
And that was it.
He turned around.
Just like that.
As though nothing worth mentioning had happened.
As though knocking Daisen unconscious in front of everyone had been nothing more significant than brushing dust from his sleeve.
Leo walked toward a secluded corner of the training grounds, far away from the crowds.
It was quieter there.
Less crowded.
More suitable for uninterrupted training.
He sat down and began preparing himself.
And just as he expected—
No one approached him.
No one dared provoke him.
No one even dared throw another insult his way.
The atmosphere around Leo had changed.
Not completely.
Not yet.
But enough.
The trainees remained gathered in the distance, staring at him with expressions that were no longer filled solely with mockery.
Now there was something else.
Confusion.
Doubt.
Disbelief.
One of them finally whispered:
"How... did he defeat Daisen?"
Another immediately answered:
"He probably used a magical artifact."
"Or maybe he has some kind of hidden trick."
Another trainee shook his head.
"But we didn't see anything."
"I didn't even sense any mana fluctuations from a magical artifact."
The group fell silent.
They exchanged glances.
There had to be a reasonable explanation.
There had to be.
Because accepting the alternative was simply too difficult.
Leo Dainhart had been a failure for years.
Everyone knew it.
Everyone had seen it.
Everyone had laughed at it.
So how could someone like him suddenly become this strong?
In only a few months?
No.
That was impossible.
As the argument continued, one of them suddenly spoke hesitantly.
"What if..."
He stopped.
Everyone looked toward him.
He swallowed.
"What if he..."
"Actually became strong?"
Silence.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Then—
The entire group suddenly burst into laughter.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Became strong?!"
"Like this?!"
"In only a few months?!"
One of them wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes as he laughed.
"Who becomes this strong in just a few months?!"
Another laughed even harder.
"Hahaha! Be realistic!"
"It's Leo!"
"Leo Dainhart!"
"That failure who couldn't even master the basics of magic or swordsmanship!"
And so...
They simply dismissed the possibility.
It was easier to believe that Leo had used some kind of trick.
A magical artifact.
A hidden technique.
Some unknown method.
Anything.
Anything except the one possibility they refused to acknowledge.
That the boy they had mocked for years...
Might no longer be the same boy.
---
Meanwhile...
Leo had already settled himself within the secluded section of the training grounds.
He closed his eyes.
And began sensing the mana surrounding him.
He had no interest in what had happened with Daisen.
Nor did he care what the trainees thought of him.
Their opinions.
Their whispers.
Their disbelief.
All of it was nothing more than meaningless noise.
Noise that wasn't worth stealing even a single second of his time.
Leo calmly thought:
"It has been two days since I returned to House Dainhart."
He then reviewed everything he remembered about the upcoming academy selection.
"If my memory serves me correctly..."
"The selection will consist of individual matches between members of the family's direct and collateral branches."
"The matches will determine who deserves the right to represent House Dainhart at the academy."
His eyes opened slightly.
But his expression remained calm.
"Still..."
"The matches themselves aren't what interests me."
"What matters to me..."
"Is this place."
His gaze slowly traveled across the enormous training grounds.
The dense mana.
The ancient magic circles engraved into the stone.
The facilities.
The environment.
And most importantly—
Time.
He had twelve days.
Only twelve days remained before the selection began.
Leo quietly calculated the time in his mind.
"Twelve days."
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"Then I'll make every one of them count."
He closed his eyes once more.
The mana surrounding him began to stir.
Invisible streams of energy gathered around his body before slowly flowing inward.
His magical core pulsed with a steady rhythm.
The Fifth Circle within him rotated gradually, drawing in the surrounding mana, refining it, purifying it, and converting it into increasingly concentrated power.
Every breath.
Every moment.
Every pulse of mana.
Was another step toward his objective.
He had no time to rest.
No time to concern himself with the opinions of others.
No time to indulge in meaningless distractions.
He had only one goal.
To surpass his current limits.
To break through the barrier standing between him and the Sixth Circle.
Leo's thoughts became sharper.
More focused.
"Let's see..."
"Can I surpass myself within these twelve days?"
The corners of his lips rose slightly.
His eyes remained closed, but the determination within them seemed almost tangible.
"The Sixth Circle..."
"This time..."
"I'll reach it."