The students came out on the other side of the portal.

They saw Aiden in the same position as the day before.

’Does he ever get tired of staying like that?’ Azrael wondered.

"Welcome," Aiden said, landing on the floor softly.

"Today we are learning about aura."

As he spoke, he began walking toward Zephyr.

His hand rested on Zephyr’s shoulder.

Zephyr startled slightly at the suddenness.

Aiden had not given them time to settle. He simply started.

"You have a skill quite similar to aura," Aiden said to him.

Then he walked back to his original spot.

"Aura is the ability to read an enemy’s movements through their essence flow."

He looked at the students, eyes calm.

"Watch this."

His essence rolled out from his body, forming a transparent copy of himself.

The copy raised its arm slowly.

Then it punched to the side. Downward. An uppercut.

Every movement was deliberately slow, but the point was clear.

"Notice how the essence inside the body shifts toward the direction of each movement before the movement fully happens," Aiden said.

The copy dissolved.

He looked at them.

"But normal beings are not transparent. You cannot see their essence flow with your naked eye."

He let that settle for a moment.

"The ability to look past the outer layer and peer into the body itself. That is what aura is."

He exhaled lightly.

"This is aura."

At those words, his eyes lit up with condensed essence.

Then the essence from his eyes began to drift invisibly outward, landing on the students’ bodies like a second skin.

"By using your own essence as an anchor, you can see past the surface of any being."

The essence receded.

"You need two things. Your essence seeping into the target’s body, and your eyes connected to that essence."

He paused.

"Until you can do both simultaneously, that is all you will be practicing."

"What do we practice on?" Sirris asked, her voice cold and distant.

"Me," Aiden replied.

’This looks difficult,’ Azrael thought.

But he tried regardless.

His essence began to pour slowly into his eyes.

"One more thing," Aiden said. "The hardest part of using aura is reinforcing the eyes with essence, since you have to strengthen each nerve individually. Any mistake will burst your eyes."

No sooner had he finished the sentence than blood sprayed through the air.

Before it could spread, it vanished as if it had never existed.

Azrael’s vision went dark for a moment.

Then his regeneration skill moved to restore the damage.

No.

It was still activating when a brilliant green light washed over him.

His eyes grew back instantly, color flooding back into his sight.

"I will be handling any injuries as they occur," Aiden said, returning to his floating position, legs folded in a lotus form.

The students looked around before their eyes settled on Azrael.

None of them wanted to end up the same way.

Even though Aiden had healed it immediately, the pain would still have been there.

Or so they assumed, because looking at Azrael, who appeared completely unbothered by the fact that his eyes had just exploded, they could not help but wonder.

’Does his healing also nullify the pain?’

[Host, was the explosion not painful?]

The system asked.

Azrael blinked.

’Was it supposed to be?’

A facepalm emoji appeared on the screen.

’Maybe I have grown numb to pain,’ Azrael thought with a sigh.

The system’s screen flickered as if it wanted to say something, then went quiet.

Azrael shrugged it off and returned to the exercise.

This time he went slowly. One nerve at a time.

His entire body trembled from the concentration it required just to direct the essence precisely enough.

Then another explosion came from across the room.

Sirris.

As if that were a signal, nearly every other student’s eyes followed.

Azrael held on, barely keeping his focus intact.

Zephyr’s eyes swelled dangerously but did not rupture.

Zuriel was completely still.

As though the chain of explosions around him was not even worth acknowledging, he stood undisturbed.

"Interesting," Aiden murmured, a faint smile crossing his face.

His green energy had already spread outward, wrapping around the students who had lost their eyes.

’But this is a problem,’ he thought. ’If they keep breaking each other’s concentration, progress will be slow.’

His gaze drifted to Zuriel.

’Except for that one.’

He made his decision.

Separate bubbles of reality formed around each student, encasing them in their own isolated space.

The eyes still exploded. But now each person’s failures happened independently, no longer rippling outward to disturb the others.

’Why is this so hard?’ Azrael wondered as a fresh set of eyes replaced the ones he had just lost.

[Because you are doing it by force.]

The system said.

[Look at that other student. His eyes have not exploded once because he has been patient. You try to appear patient, but in reality you are already thinking about the next nerve before you have finished strengthening the current one.]

Azrael glanced toward Zuriel.

’He has always been good at staying calm,’ he admitted.

The system’s screen began to flash as if about to respond.

Boom.

Azrael’s eyes exploded again.

They regrew immediately, this time without Aiden’s assistance.

"I will just do it my way," he muttered.

His essence surged into his eyes like a breaking tide.

Every nerve went taut, heightened as far as they could go.

For the briefest moment, something clicked.

A glimpse of what it truly felt like to see with essence reinforced eyes.

Everything sharpened beyond description. Individual specks of dust hung suspended and visible in the air. The motes of essence drifting through the space became distinct, each one separate and traceable.

But that was not the biggest thing he saw.

In that same moment, his gaze pierced into Aiden’s body.

The essence inside was like a river.

No.

That comparison collapsed immediately under the reality of it.

It was closer to standing at the edge of a small planet, looking down at something vast and bottomless and only barely contained.

Then it was gone.

His eyes exploded into a mess of blood and tissue.