Timeless Assassin

(Enroute to planet Nemo, Leo's POV)

En route to Planet Nemo, once Leo finally had some peace and quiet within the solitude of his private quarters aboard the ship, he turned his focus inward and began working once more on the Emperor's Suppression Manual, attempting to make progress with his aura training using the fragments of guidance Charles had given him over the past week.

Charles himself had admitted that he possessed no concrete knowledge of the next stage of aura training beyond the mastery of intent, as even he had never bothered to chase after such advanced concepts...

Concepts that Soron himself had only perfected after stepping into the Demi-God tier.

Still, years spent sparring with Soron had given Charles more than just battle scars.

Through those countless battles, he had gained faint glimpses of the Great God's methods, impressions of how his aura moved, how it crushed, how it bent the will of others without ever striking a blow.

And though Charles could not reproduce it himself, he offered Leo what insights he could, distilled from memory and instinct rather than formula.

And it was from those fragments, that Leo began to piece together the faintest outline of what he was meant to pursue, as he formed a working theory on what the manual text perhaps wanted to convey.

"When Soron extends his aura, it doesn't just fill the air, it presses into the physical world in a way you can't mistake.

I can't explain it to you in precise terms, because it isn't simply a technique, but something that feels like both a skill and more than a skill at once.

Imagine yourself standing upright, steady on your feet, and then suddenly it's as if gravity itself multiplies fivefold and drives you down, your knees buckling under a weight that is physically there, but not as intensely as you feel it.

Now, under normal circumstances, five times the pull of gravity isn't enough to hold you down.

You'd brace, strain, and stand again without much difficulty. But when Soron does it, it isn't only a force pressing against your body, but rather your very will that collapses.

Your body stops listening to your mind, your resolve crumbles in an instant, and unless you possess a will of iron, you can't resist his pressure and end up simply blacking out.

That's what makes it terrifying. It's not just physical, and it's not just mental, it is both at once.

A presence that crushes flesh and spirit together, leaving no part of you untouched.

So when your training manual tells you to extend your aura and snuff out a burning candle, I'd say take it literally. Treat it as your first real challenge and learn to reach out with nothing but the weight of your will, and snuff out a flame."

Charles explained, as that was the closest he could put Soron's technique into words.

As it was with that guidance echoing in his mind, that Leo decided his first trial in mastering the Emperor's Suppression Manual would be to snuff out a candle using aura alone.

However, this stage of the training proved far more complicated than he had imagined, because while on paper snuffing out a candle seemed like a simple exercise, in practice it pressed directly against the grain of who he was.

Just as the manual had warned, his very instincts as an assassin resisted the act.

Without him knowing, subconsciously, his aura as an Assassin had always been a cloak, something drawn tight around him, concealed and compressed, never radiating outward to touch the world, never allowed to betray his presence.

Years of discipline, years of moving like a shadow, had wired his body and mind to keep that aura clinging close, invisible and unobtrusive, and so when he now tried to extend it beyond himself, it was like trying to unlearn the rhythm of his own heartbeat.

Every attempt faltered before it began, his energy recoiling back into him before it could stretch far enough to influence the flame.

And so, before he could even think about pressing his will against that fragile light, he first had to strip away everything he had ever mastered as an assassin, abandoning the very instincts that had kept him alive for so long.

That was the real battle, the greatest hurdle standing between him and the next stage of his training.

"Man, this is hard…"

Leo muttered, for two hours into the exercise, with the second wax candle sputtering and dying on its own, he still could not so much as make it flicker through his aura alone.

His shoulders sagged as he leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing as he placed a fresh candle in the old one's spot, while shaking his head.

'Focus. Extend. Push.'

He told himself, but once more, his aura tightened instinctively around him, clinging to his skin like a second layer rather than reaching forward, as pushing it away felt next to impossible.

Hours dragged on, one candle after another melting into useless puddles, until he realized a bitter truth.

"This shit is gonna take me long to master….."

He muttered in resignation, as his mind turned back to what Charles had told him about Soron mastering the next stage of aura.

Apparently, even Soron needed a couple decades to learn how to influence the world around him using aura, and he was already a Demi-God by then.

Hence for Leo to expect results after a few hours of training was not realistic at all.

"Yeah… for this manual, breakthroughs won't come quick, they'll come after long droughts, when I've bled myself dry trying, and only then, maybe, something will click."

He allowed the admission to settle within him, not as defeat but as preparation, as he steeled himself for a long and arduous road ahead.

"But fuck it…. Even if it takes me a decade or two to master it…. I will not yield until I achieve it."

He assured himself, as no matter how long the journey, he was determined to reach his destination eventually.