The next moment, the old Core completely collapsed, and intense pain spread through Leonis’s chest.
For a few seconds, if an ordinary person had been in his place, they would probably have lost consciousness.
But he did not even blink, and the broken pieces of the Core slowly began to gather together again.
More Mana was pulled from the surroundings toward his body, and the Mana pathways that had been narrow before expanded under the effect of the Elixir.
Time slowly passed.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Half an hour.
Finally... a wave of Mana burst out from his body, the air around him shook, and his clothes moved for a moment in the invisible wind... and then everything became calm again.
[Core reconstruction successfully completed.]
[Seed Core has been purified.]
[Core Purity: One Star → Ten Stars]
[Core Capacity: Increased by 430%.]
His level had not increased even by one, yet the feeling of his body was completely different.
If his previous Core had been a small container of water, the new Core was more like a large empty tank. He still had to fill it, but its capacity was on a completely different level.
More importantly, the Mana now moving through his Core was smoother and purer.
Leonis clenched his fist, a smile appeared on his lips. This was exactly what he wanted.
But he was still not finished, Deep Insight Mode was still active, and he had no intention of wasting even a single second of it.
The first thing he chose was Mana Control.
A skill that almost every Awakened had.
But the difference between someone who could only release Mana from their body and someone who could control it like a part of their own body was very large.
He opened his palm, and a strand of Mana appeared.
In the past, the flow of energy had an uneven thickness, and some of it was wasted before reaching his fingers.
Now he could see every single point where energy was being wasted.
"It’s too wide," Leonis muttered.
He made the path narrower, the strand of Mana became thinner, but instead of becoming weaker, it became more stable.
Again.
He found a mistake and fixed it, again, and this time it became better than before, then he repeated it dozens of times.
He did not stop, he wrapped the strand of Mana around his index finger, then his second finger, and then his entire hand, its movement no longer looked like a simple flow of raw energy.
It was more like a living thread that followed his will exactly.
[Mana Control understanding has increased.]
[Beginner → Professional]
Leonis took a calm breath.
From Beginner to Professional, in an amount of time that took some Awakened days or even weeks.
There was still a very long distance to absolute perfection, but this alone was enough for him to understand the value of his new Soul.
Next was Quick Step.
It was a simple skill that did not have anything special, it was simply a sudden injection of Mana into the legs to create explosive acceleration, that was all.
Leonis used the skill the same way its previous owner had used it.
Boom!
His body moved several meters forward, but at that moment, he noticed that almost half of the Mana he had used had been wasted.
The flow was too wide, some of the energy disappeared into the soles of his feet, and some of it remained in his muscles even after the movement.
"What a bad design," he said with a frown.
Of course, the problem was not with the skill, it was with the way the previous owner of the body had used it, he changed the flow of Mana, this time sending the energy into his calves only right before the muscles contracted.
Step.
His body jumped forward like a shadow, his speed was almost twenty percent higher, but his Mana consumption was nearly half.
He looked at where he had been standing before.
"This is better."
[Quick Step understanding has increased.]
[Beginner → Professional]
The last skill was more important.
Habsburg Swordsmanship.
This was not a simple skill, it was the combat legacy of one of the Seven Hero Families.
The previous Leonis had spent almost his entire life training it since childhood, despite his weak Talent, his understanding of this technique had reached the Master level.
And now all those years of training were available to him, he raised the sword and a memory appeared in his mind.
The father of this body, the same stone yard, and performing the same strike, repeated many times in his mind.
He moved one foot forward, his waist turned, his shoulder moved, and the sword came down.
Whoosh!
The sound of the air being cut spread through the room, but Leonis frowned, it was wrong.
Of course, not in appearance, to any ordinary person, the strike would look almost perfect.
But the Beginner Insight Soul saw other things, his left foot was half a finger too far apart, and his waist had turned one-tenth of a second too late.
The Mana had been released right before the impact, but the path through which it entered the blade was too wide.
Again.
Whoosh!
It was better, but still not enough, he did it again.
Whoosh!
Better, but still not enough!
He continued repeating it dozens of times, sweat ran down Leonis’s forehead and his palm had become red, but every movement was more complete than the one before it.
Finally, he stopped, lowered the sword beside his body, and breathed, his body was truly weak, fortunately, it was still better than most ordinary people’s bodies, and because of that, he had been able to continue for this long.
He took one step forward and made only one sword strike, simple, calm, and clean, and the blade stopped at an exact point.
For a moment, there was no sound.
Then... the sound of the air being cut spread through the room with a slight delay.
His eyes became calm.
[Habsburg Swordsmanship understanding has increased.]
But unfortunately, it was not enough to reach Small Perfection, increasing the skill from Master onward could take time and required more practice.
His hand tightened around the sword’s handle, he looked at the clock, several hours had passed.
His body was soaked in sweat. His training shirt had been bothering him for a long time because of the heat from his body, so he had already taken it off and thrown it aside.
His black hair was wet and messy on his forehead.
After rebuilding his Core and training for several hours, the lines of his muscles were also clearer than before, not in an exaggerated way, but like a body that had been trained for years and now finally had enough energy to show the results of that training.
Just when he was about to put the sword aside, the door of the room opened without warning.
"Leonis, you—" a familiar girl’s voice came from the entrance.
The sentence stopped halfway.
Rhea Valcrest was standing at the entrance.
Her long red hair was slightly messy, as if she had come here in a hurry.
Her small and very beautiful face had the same familiar frown that appeared in most of Leonis’s memories, but this time, the frown had been forgotten for a few seconds.
Her eyes had stopped directly on his shirtless body.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
A little too long.
Leonis raised an eyebrow.
"If you keep looking, I’ll probably have to charge you," he said with a faint smile.
Rhea’s eyes suddenly moved up, and a light red color quickly spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
"W-Who was looking?!" she answered in a louder voice than usual and immediately turned her gaze away.
He looked at his own body, then looked at her again.
"Not me, and besides, you entered here without permission," he replied with a completely serious expression.
"Shut up! What do you mean, without permission? Your master allowed me!" Rhea angrily picked up the cloth that had been placed on the chair near the door and threw it directly at his face.
Leonis caught it in the air, and his smile became a little deeper, now that he was truly looking at Rhea for the first time, there was a strange difference between her appearance and her personality.
She was slightly shorter than Leonis.
Her figure was full but well-proportioned, and the Academy uniform fit her body well, in fact, the only problem was those two breasts.
They were like two hanging watermelons, and he had no idea how the clothes had managed to contain them.
Damn, they did not even allow the girl to close all her buttons, and because of that, the top two buttons of her uniform were left open, allowing a brief look at that beautiful sight.
Rhea noticed the direction of his gaze and narrowed her eyes, she gave a mocking smile, but the next moment, she became even angrier.
"Now who is looking?" she asked sarcastically.
"Now we’re even, right?" Leonis said with a laugh as he went to get a new shirt.
At that moment, the System reacted.
[Target Detected.]
[Rhea Valcrest]
[Race: Noble Demon]
[Affection toward Host: 62]
[Hatred toward Host: 4]
[Destiny Copy: Available]
[Fundamental Fate Copy: Locked]
He stayed silent for a moment.
62?
His eyes moved toward the girl who, at that very moment, seemed to be choosing several different ways to kill him in her mind.
The System apparently had a very different opinion about Rhea’s feelings.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
But there was one problem... the girl’s race.
Rhea was still complaining.
"You almost died three days ago, you only got out of bed today, and the first thing you did was train for several hours? Is your brain also broken along with your Core?"
Leonis could barely hear her voice anymore, he calmly looked at the girl in front of him.
His body’s childhood friend, the girl who had lived in the same house with him for years.
The same family that had taken him in after the destruction of the Habsburg Family and allowed him to live under their roof.
And now the System was simply telling him that Rhea... was not human at all.
The corner of his lips slowly rose.
If this girl was a Demon... then what about her family...?
Did this mean that all this time, he had been living with the second greatest enemy of the human race?
So he was raised by demon?