Chapter 3: Yuno's Turning Point
The sky was dark and gloomy, as if shrouded by a thick layer of gray curtain. A cold wind howled, shaking the branches as though foretelling the arrival of a heavy snowfall. The air carried a damp chill.
After Leo and Yuno received the letter, they turned back to look at Asta. Leo said to him, "Come with us."
Asta immediately ran over in excitement.
Leo thought to himself, You can't stay behind this time.
By the time they arrived at the village chief's house, the sky had already darkened, and snow had begun to fall. After handing the letter directly to the chief, the three of them prepared to head home.
On the way, a drunk man walking toward the chief's house caught sight of Yuno's necklace. To him, it looked like something worth a few coins for alcohol. The drunk hid himself ahead at a street corner.
When the three of them passed the corner, the man suddenly stepped out and said, "Give me that necklace."
His eyes were like those of a starving wolf, filled with malice as he glared at Yuno. The timid Yuno was so frightened that he did not dare to move.
Asta was just about to speak when the drunk lunged forward and punched Yuno hard. Yuno bent backward like a prawn, and the man snatched the necklace from his neck with his other hand.
Asta immediately reacted, shouting, "Give it back!" and charged toward him. Leo quickly picked up a stone from nearby, preparing to circle around to the man's back. The opponent was a tall adult man; defeating him would require brains, not just strength.
After Asta rushed forward and grabbed the drunk, he was struck again and knocked to the ground. Still, he shouted repeatedly, "Give it back! That belongs to Yuno!" When Asta was knocked down for the second time, Leo had already reached the man's back.
He jumped up with all his strength, aiming the stone at the man's head. But his strength was too small, and his jump too short — the stone struck only the man's back.
The sudden pain made the drunk momentarily sober or perhaps even angrier. In his rage, he pulled out his grimoire, and the pages began to flip rapidly.
At that moment, Asta once again grabbed the drunk tightly from behind.
A deep sense of danger surged in Leo's heart. Even the weakest villager with a grimoire could easily kill them with a single spell.
The drunk pointed his hand toward Leo, as if ready to unleash a spell. Leo's mind went blank. Only one word remained — death.I'm going to die. I don't want to die such a foolish death.
Acting purely on instinct, he poured all the mana in his body into the stone and threw it with all his strength at the man's head.
The stone hit the man's chest instead. The fireball forming in his hand suddenly dissipated. The drunk's eyes widened in horror as he realized he could no longer sense his own mana.
Since the day he gained magic, this was the first time he had felt such helplessness. Terrified, he screamed, "A demon! A demon! This is a demon's power!"
He pushed Asta away, dropped the necklace, and ran off, shouting as he fled, "Demon! Demon!"
Because Leo had wrapped the stone completely in his mana, his energy was fully drained. He collapsed unconscious to the ground.
Yuno helped Asta up.
"I'm sorry," Yuno said.
Asta shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I told you, I'll always be by your side."
Asta paused. "Wait… something's missing."
Yuno turned to look. "Leo fainted."
"Can you manage on your own?" Yuno asked. "I'll carry Leo back." Before leaving, he picked up the necklace that the drunk had thrown away.
Asta nodded. "I'll be fine."
He staggered slightly but followed along as they walked home together.
When they returned to the church, Sister Lily immediately examined Leo's condition. She found that he had simply exhausted his mana, so she infused him with a small amount of her own. Gradually, Leo regained consciousness.
Yuno's black hair swayed slightly. He lifted his head and looked into the distance, as though seeing the countless hardships that awaited him in the future. But there was no fear in his eyes — only determination.
He knew that the road ahead would be full of suffering and challenges, but he vowed that no matter how difficult things became, he would never cry again. He would face everything with strength and courage.
From that day onward, Leo, Asta, and Yuno truly understood the importance of power. They began an arduous period of training.
Leo personally designed their training plan, emphasizing the importance of tempering the body.
Every day they did one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run — a method said to belong to "the strongest bald man" of another world.
Leo also created a four-phase cultivation theory for Yuno, allowing the advantage of his vast mana to be fully displayed.
Ten, Ren, Zetsu, and Hatsu.
Ten allows mana to coat the surface of the body, enhancing defensive ability. Since Yuno's magic attribute is wind, it also increases his speed when used.
Ren expands the mana outlet. Within the same time, the amount of mana drawn through Ren far exceeds normal flow, producing much stronger attacks.
Zetsu, however, is a skill Yuno rarely uses. Its purpose is to reduce mana consumption, and with Yuno's enormous mana capacity, such a function is hardly necessary.
Hatsu has been turned into a pure mana control exercise. Because Yuno can directly attack using mana, Hatsu serves only as training for precision and control.
For Asta, Leo devised a method to train his reaction speed. Judging from his natural growth, Asta was destined to become a physical powerhouse.
The training involved covering a wooden stick with a piece of cloth and thrusting it toward Asta, who had to block it barehanded.
This method came from a certain martial arts master famous for sharpening reflexes. Of course, Asta continued his daily muscle training on top of that.
As for Leo, it was after that day that he discovered his own mana attribute — Sealing.
How should he describe it? Its combat ability was… mediocre at best. There were only two ways to perform a seal.
The first method required direct contact — touching the opponent and linking mana to create a seal.
The second method used mana to envelop an object, which was then thrown at the enemy. The amount of mana infused determined the seal's duration.
Ordinary stones, however, lost most of their mana mid-flight. Leo still hadn't found a material capable of preserving mana effectively.
Worse yet, his total mana wasn't even one-tenth of Yuno's. He was a genuine low-class commoner. Every time he saw Yuno freely using magic, Leo's eyes nearly bulged with envy.
The sealing power could only suppress an opponent's mana, not their physical strength. At full effort and close range, Leo could seal Yuno's mana for about nine seconds — and that was only when Yuno didn't resist.
If Yuno released his power, he could break the seal instantly. In such a case, even one second of restraint was impossible.
Using the second method was even less reliable. He couldn't aim well enough to hit anyone with a thrown object, and for the first method, he couldn't even get close to his target. His current combat capability was too weak.
The thought made his head ache. If nothing works, I might have to use that technique.
Leo knew grimoires changed with their owner's will. That meant if his determination was strong enough, his grimoire would evolve accordingly, creating new forms of magic. With that belief, he began to imagine freely.
The first problem to solve was his lack of mana. In this world, a human body was like a cup — the cup's size could never change, and the water inside represented mana. The larger the cup, the greater one's magic. Since the cup couldn't grow, there were only two ways left.
The first was to make the water thicker and denser. That could be achieved through the Four Principles, but it required long and patient training — a slow process that couldn't be rushed.
The second was to create an additional cup outside the body. Leo named this technique the Yin Seal.
He called it that to pay tribute to a certain Hokage, borrowing the same theoretical foundation. The Yin Seal allowed him to store up to ten times his total mana. If the mana in his body counted as one unit, the seal could store ten.
Of course, the Yin Seal came with drawbacks. Once initiated, it required continuous mana infusion without interruption. Leo had to focus for more than ten hours straight, unable to eat, drink, or rest.
The second drawback appeared during release. When unsealed, the stored mana overflowed rapidly, exceeding his body's absorption rate. As a result, most of it dispersed. The overflow period lasted about three minutes — giving him only three minutes of near-limitless mana before it dissipated.
Having solved the problem of mana capacity, Leo turned to the issue of offense. His sealing magic possessed almost no attack power.
Since he couldn't attack directly, he began thinking of taking over others' spells. He theorized that by stealing another mage's grimoire and sealing its contents into his own, he could use their magic.
Theoretically it worked, but when tested — using a stone and a block of wood — the stone merely embedded itself halfway into the wood. The experiment ended there. The theory existed, but he decided to leave the rest to the grimoire's will.
Yet one issue remained unavoidable. Grimoires could only be used by their original owners. Once the owner died, the grimoire vanished. His idea was like grafting — attaching a foreign branch onto a fruit tree to make it bear fruit.
This led to his third concept — sealing a mage inside their own grimoire. In theory, this would let the grimoire exist independently after the mage's death.
To test it, Leo sealed a frog into a piece of wood. The result: fragments of the frog embedded within. Failure. Again, he left it to the grimoire to figure out.
Hypothesis One: Yin Seal — successful.
Hypothesis Two: Grimoire Sealing — failed.
Hypothesis Three: Sealing a Mage into a Grimoire — failed.
While becoming familiar with his new abilities, Leo also trained physically alongside Asta. Their secret base was inside the legendary skull of the Demon God.
They even visited the statue of the Wizard King. Asta and Yuno believed it was nothing more than a monument.
But Leo knew the truth — that it was a seal. One that would break one day, and when that time came, something powerful would awaken once again.