Leon tilted his head, a faint furrow forming between his brows as if he needed to confirm he'd heard her correctly, and at the same time something he rarely let slip surfaced in his eyes: genuine curiosity.
"Other methods?" he asked slowly, cautiously, like every word might rewrite the rules of a game he'd only just learned how to move in.
Valeria nodded without hurry, the motion so natural it was as if she were stating something obvious, something Leon simply hadn't had the right to know yet.
"Scrolls and killing enemies are just the crudest, most direct path," she said calmly. "Essence Record doesn't only react to death and essence. It reacts to who you are, what you do, and what experiences actually shape your existence. Skills, passive and active, can form naturally, as a consequence of living, not just fighting."
Leon looked at her, visibly thrown, like what she'd said didn't quite fit the brutal simplicity of everything he'd seen so far.
