And Lesedi was convinced that he was not a genius.

"You are as good as terminated..."She was about to beat the living daylights out of him for deceiving them, when Mackenzie stopped her fist just a few millimeters from his face. She then put a finger on Lesedi's mouth, shus.h.i.+ng her. After that she slowly indicated to her to pay attention to Mana.

It was then that Lesedi noticed something strange. Leon was not in fact gathering Mana, nor storing it in his body in anyway like someone with experience would do. It was in fact the opposite, Mana was just lingering around him on its own in a large quant.i.ty. That was not an effect of the artifact that she gave him, nor a magic rune circle that was drawn around Leon on the floor. It took Lesedi and Mackenzie a few seconds to finally realize what was happening.

"Mack, he..." Lesedi stammered for a second. Mackenzie used that chance too pull her away from Leon out in the hallway.

"He is completely denying Mana, it just surrounds him like that due to the artifact you gave him, without entering his body. Basically he is doing the exact opposite of what he is supposed to." Mackenzie completed her sentence.

"But how...? I mean, why...? He, he achieved such an incredible feat that... basically serves no purpose" Lesedi was still flabbergasted.

She used Mana every day and wanted, better yet, needed more of it gathered and ready for any sort of occasion. To her knowledge n.o.body could completely isolate themselves from Mana nor would they want to. But her comment provoked an unexpected reaction out of Mackenzie.

"That is not necessarily true Les, remember how we always got ambushed by the Demons in the Southern Forest? They tracked us down no matter what we did, until we figured out that they used our own Mana against us? Well what if you could combine what Leon is doing right now, with the stealth ability from the system store? You could..."

"You would achieve the Perfect Stealth!!!" Lesedi interrupted her, while feelings of excitement hastily appeared on her face. She then immediately continued to reveal her obvious conclusions:

"Mack, that would probably make him one of the best a.s.sa.s.sins of the Earth realm!" She exclaimed, causing Mackenzie to immediately facepalm:

"Provided that it is possible to deny access to Mana in an efficient way without meditating or whatever he is doing right now. You always jump to conclusions too early without thinking. You almost killed him a minute ago for crying out loud. Don't forget what happened last time you a.s.sumed stuff without thinking!" Mackenzie uttered, while expressing her seriousness with a frown.

"Sorry, Mack, I just thought that he was manipulating us and got mad for apparently no reason." Lesedi apologized and cautiously added:

"But just how is he doing that? How can he prevent Mana from entering his body, if he can't even feel it, just how does he distinguish what Mana is?"

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"That is exactly the thing that we need to figure out! And before we do, you can't tell him anything about the Perfect Stealth or he will end up terminated on some random battlefield" Mackenzie replied.

"I will keep my mouth shut, so lets just observe for now"

While Lesedi and Mackenzie were whispering in the kitchen, and later in the hallway, Leon was in a world of his own. After a few minutes of meditating he managed to calm himself down and isolate external distractions.

He did this countless of times back on Earth. He would cut off the world, clear his mind of any thoughts and live in the moment, completely focused on the breathing. Achieving that state of mind now only took a couple of minutes longer than usual due to the environment he was in.

But it was then that the new problems emerged.

He started feeling some warm pressure around himself. It was similar to the way he felt yesterday when that guy named Maxwell gave them a speech in the square by the Gate. And this pressure was growing, little by little. a.s.sociating it with a negative feeling from yesterday he struggled against it.

He never expected that Mana would appear like this so it hadn't even occurred to him that he was fighting to keep it at bay. He even changed his breathing technique and used the one taught to him by his Kendo teacher to alleviate the pain during a compet.i.tion, in order to reduce the pressure that he was feeling right now.

There were a few things that Leon didn't know.

First of all, Mana was an omnipresent concept. The magic runes that were drawn on the floor in a circular shape around him, had a purpose of letting Mana in, and, more or less, keep it from leaking. Combined with the magical artifact, a lot of Mana was supposed to surround him allowing him to feel it and in time learn to manipulate and store it, provided he received a proper guidance. Due to his enormous experience in meditation, Leon skipped a couple of steps and felt Mana after just a few minutes without even knowing it.

Second, after enough Mana was gathered from the vicinity by the artifact, it covered every nook and cranny of Leon's body. Since Leon resisted it, it just lingered around him causing the bluish glow that startled Lesedi and Mackenzie since it produced a similar effect that people displayed while gathering large amounts of Mana in order to use it for spells.

And finally, even though Leon switched his breathing technique allowing himself to resist the pressure longer, Mana continued to gather which produced another effect - it started to overheat. Right now he was sitting inside a barrier of circular magic runes with constant Mana inflow. It was as if he was trapped in an oven, basically being cooked by concentrated Mana.

So first he started to sweat excessively then his breath became heavier, and soon enough his skin began to redden. He was about to call it quits when he felt the first burning sensation on his skin and question Lesedi and Mackenzie about his circ.u.mstances, when a familiar ping snapped him out of his meditation, if you could still call it that:

-System notification

-Due to extreme conditions you have endured, your willpower has been increased by 1

New Value: Willpower: 8

He opened his eyes, only to be greeted by two blank faces staring at him expressionlessly.

The bluish glow caused by Mana, still lingered around him, the only difference was that the feeling of pressure and heat were completely gone even though he was still inside the magic rune circle.