Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

Chapter 773  Chapter 178.3 - Previous Undercurrents

The weight of the Gravity Room pressed against me as I moved through my routines, each motion deliberate, each strike precise. The augmented gravity pushed down relentlessly, every step requiring calculated effort, every movement forcing me to channel mana for reinforcement. Sweat rolled down my back, my breathing steady despite the strain. 
Then, a shift. 
At first, it was subtle—so faint it might have gone unnoticed. But I had trained my senses rigorously over the break, honing them to pick up on even the smallest irregularities. And this? This was unmistakable. 
The sound. Or rather, the absence of it. The faint hum of mana that normally coursed through the Gravity Room seemed muted, suppressed. The ambient energy of the training hall beyond the room's barrier felt distant, disconnected. 
My breath hitched slightly, though I kept my movements controlled. My eyes narrowed as I focused on the emptiness around me, the void where there should have been noise and motion. 
'Something is not right.' 
Without hesitation, I canceled the gravity magic weighing me down, lifting the barrier with a quick pulse of mana. The oppressive force vanished instantly, and I straightened, my body adjusting to the sudden lightness. My senses expanded outward, my focus sharpening as I probed the space around me. 
Four presences. 
They weren't in the room yet, but they were close—hovering just beyond the outer walls, their movements careful, deliberate. Not clumsy enough to be a freshman. No, these were more experienced. 
'Four men. Cadets, but not freshmen. Sophomores,' I assessed silently, my mind piecing together the picture. 
The erasure of presences, the lack of connection to the outside, and the sudden, coordinated movement of sophomores in the vicinity. It didn't take much to understand what was happening. 
'I see,' I thought, my eyes narrowing further. 'The isolation, the timing, the choice of location… So you've started to act.' 
They thought they were clever, that they could catch me off guard in a controll

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