[A fierce pain overcomes you. You have been afflicted with 'Stun'.]
[Your high 'Abnormal Resistance' mitigates the effect.]
[Status effect 'Stun' has been removed. You have developed resistance to pain.]
The system messages flashed before Sonny's eyes. He would have taken a moment to read them properly, but right now, he couldn't even think straight.
Agonizing pain coursed through his entire body. To be precise, he had been pierced by arrows.
Every breath felt like a luxury he couldn't afford.
Sonny froze, not from the stun effect, but from the shock of the unfamiliar, burning sensation.
He had been hurt before, of course. There were childhood scrapes from falling off a bicycle, and the occasional paper cut during part-time jobs. Once, he'd even dropped a box on his foot.
But none of that compared to this.
The pain was raw, overwhelming, and impossible to ignore. It screamed through every nerve, threatening to shatter his grip on reality.
He clenched his teeth and forced himself to stay conscious.
With trembling fingers, Sonny began to remove the arrows lodged in his body.
Puok!
Blood spurted as he yanked the first arrow free.
A sharp cry escaped his lips, but he bit it back, swallowing the scream before it could rise. The shaft had grazed bone. His vision trembled.
'Damnit, keep going.'
He braced himself and pulled the second arrow. This one came out easier, but the pain left a deep, searing heat in its wake. His hands were slick with blood now, making the last one harder to grip.
Puok! Thud!
Once the last arrow was pulled out successfully, Sonny retrieved a roll of bandages from the inner pocket of his jacket and quickly wrapped them around his wounds. At the same time, he took a moment to assess the damage. The injuries, while painful, weren't as life-threatening as he had feared.
'The arrows stuck my left shoulder, forearm, thigh and even reached deep into my side. But the injuries itself doesn't look severe. And the bleeding... stopped?'
Sonny tilted his head.
Upon closer inspection, he realized that his injuries had already healed, which left him confused. Logically, It didn't make any sense at all. While Awakened were known to recover from injuries at an accelerated rate, he had never heard of anyone healing within moments of being stabbed. Their self-recovery was fast, but it was not instantaneous.
If Awakened Hunters could recover instantly, then what purpose did Magicians serve?
And more importantly, how could such an unexplainable phenomenon occur in someone who had only just awakened as a Sleeper?
After a bit of thinking, Sonny soon remembered his abnormal resistance was SS ranked.
Thinking about it, the abnormal resistance parameter showed an Awakened's resistance to things like mind control, poison, hallucinations, and even certain environmental hazards. It was mostly considered an additional defensive stat and incredibly useful. Moreover, due to how difficult it was to raise compared to other attributes, most Awakened had relatively low abnormal resistance unless they were a Master or higher.
But now Sonny was starting to realize something.
He stared at the blood-soaked bandages wrapped haphazardly around his limbs, then at the puncture wounds that had already begun to close beneath them. Even the searing pain that had threatened to knock him unconscious was now a distant throb, like a memory fading too fast.
Was it possible that his resistance wasn't simply mitigating status effects… but actively overriding the damage and accelerating his recovery?
"How... interesting," Sonny muttered under his breath.
Before he could dwell further on the thought, a familiar voice echoed in his mind, pulling him back to reality.
[Master, I must advise you not to rely solely on your reflexes. We need a safer method of detecting traps.]
'No kidding. Got any bright ideas?'
[Actually... perhaps you could use a fragment of your Dreamweave to simulate a detection pulse? Even a weak sensory weave might be enough to scan the immediate area for anomalies.]
Sonny's eyes narrowed.
'That would cost at least 1 RP…'
[Correct.]
'Yeah, fuck that! Why do I have to waste reality points on something like this? Traps, of all things?! There has to be a better way, right?'
[Hmm...]
Warp fell silent, as if genuinely considering his words. A few seconds passed before she responded.
[Actually, there is one method you can try.]
His eyes lit up with hope.
'Seriously? What is it?'
[You can try using your spirit power. Theoretically, if you expand your spirit energy across the surrounding area, you should be able to detect everything nearby, including the traps. Think of it as sharpening all five of your senses.]
Sonny's face twisted.
'Wait, it's that simple? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?! I got hit for nothing!'
Warp didn't answer immediately. Instead, her voice came softer this time, almost amused.
[You never asked.]
"Tch…" Sonny clicked his tongue but said nothing more. He didn't have the strength to argue right now.
Instead, he closed his eyes and took a slow, shaky breath. The residual pain still lingered, but it was manageable enough not to hinder his movement. With a little bit of effort, he steadied his heartbeat and focused inward, reaching for the strange energy nestled deep within him.
Soul power.
He didn't fully understand it yet. All he knew was that it was an energy Awakened used to fuel their Origin Abilities and Skills.
But was that really all it could do?
Obtaining the Dawnslayer from the Guild Association had cracked open a door in his understanding. What if soul power could also be used for reinforcement—強化?
Now that he thought about it, wouldn't it be wasteful if such a mysterious energy was only used as fuel?
Surely, something as profound as soul power had other applications. Maybe… even magic.
With that thought, Sonny exhaled slowly and let his awareness sink beneath the surface of his skin, descending into the core of his being. A faint ripple stirred in his mind. If his body was the vessel, then his soul power would be called a "boundless sea." And to draw upon that sea, he reached inward, like dipping a hand into deep, untamed waters and waited.
Finally, it responded.
A soft, shimmering current, like threads of mist, moved just beyond the edges of his perception.
'Come on… expand.'
He willed the energy outward, pushing it beyond the confines of his body. At first, it resisted like a long-unused muscle but slowly, inch by inch, it extended.
Then, the moment it brushed against the world around him, Sonny's eyes widened a considerable degree.
He felt… everything.
The faint shifts in air pressure, the subtle outline of nearby terrain, even the hairline gaps in the ground where hidden mechanisms lay buried.
'It's working…!'
[Indeed. You're more compatible than I expected, Master.]
'Yeah, well, next time give me the cheat sheet before I get impaled.'
[Would you have listened?]
He didn't answer that. Instead, Sonny slowly raised his still aching body but supported by a newfound awareness. The pain had dulled into something he could endure, and the fear of unknown traps had begun to fade.
Sonny quietly closed his eyes and pushed his senses even further outward. This time, however, he only focused on his healing so he wouldn't be too overwhelmed by the sensation.
It wasn't hard to concentrate.
The real challenge was filtering through the dozens of tiny noises that cluttered the silence.
Plop!
Water droplets fell somewhere in the distance.
Tap! Tap!
He heard the skittering of insects, tiny legs climbing across the stone walls, and the organized march of ants.
Rattle! Clink!
Faint metallic clicks echoed from deeper within the passage. The sound of steel arrows being reloaded into traps.
Countless other noises filled the corridor, layering over one another in a chaotic symphony.
Still, Sonny kept his mind sharp, carefully isolating each sound one by one, searching.
Time passed. How long exactly, he couldn't tell.
Click!
'Found it!'
A squeaky, rusted creak reached his ears. It was definitely the telltale whine of a cogwheel.
In one fluid motion, Sonny opened his eyes, gripped Silverfang holstered at his side, raised the pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
Bang! Thud!
The bullet tore into the ceiling, striking a hidden mechanism. A moment later, broken gears and steel arrows rained to the floor with a sharp clatter.
'Yes. Hahaha! I finally found one of those damn traps!'
Sonny's smile widened.
A soft chuckle echoed inside his mind.
[Congratulations, Master. You've graduated from "Arrow Cushion" to "Competent Scout."]
'Damnit. What's up with those weird titles? You better not be thinking of any more weird things.'
[Too late.]
Sonny rolled his eyes and holstered Silverfang, though the grin never left his face.
With his spirit energy still spread thin across the corridor, Sonny moved through the passage carefully. Every shift in pressure, every distant echo or vibration, registered through his senses and mind. It was almost like walking blind with a sixth sense as his guide.
Could this be similar to the concept of a Third Eye?
[Left, fifteen meters. Pressure plate.]
Sonny adjusted his step just in time to avoid the nearly invisible plate set into the floor. If he'd stepped on it, he probably wouldn't be grinning anymore.
"Good catch," he muttered, continuing ahead.
Bit by bit, he weaved through the passage, disabling traps with precise gunshots or marking their locations to avoid them altogether. The further he progressed, the more confident he became in manipulating his spirit energy. It responded to his will with increasing ease, like a muscle learning new reflexes.
In such a situation, the young man didn't waste time and continued to progress the floor.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!
'Four!'
From top to bottom, each arrow aimed for his temple, heart, abdomen and knee.
Having already seen and calculated their path of flight, Sonny moved with the intent to protect his body.
He ducked the first arrow, felt the whisper of wind as it grazed his hair. Twisting to the side, he narrowly avoided the second aimed at his heart. The third, aimed at his abdomen, he swayed back just far enough for it to slice through the air in front of his coat. And the fourth, he dropped low, letting it pass above his knee as he rolled forward in one seamless motion.
Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!
Each arrow embedded itself into the wall behind him in perfect succession. A breath later, and he was on his feet again, not a scratch on him.
"What's this? A four-shot volley. How classic, predictable much. I wonder how long the average Hunter would take to clear this first floor."
Considering the traps weren't designed randomly, it should be possible for awakened Hunters to sense them if they had good senses.
Nevertheless, Sonny knew he was making steady progress.
Still crouched, he extended a thread of spirit energy ahead like a probing finger, sweeping for more traps. The corridor curved slightly to the left, and the feeling of danger tickled at the edge of his awareness.
[Two more pressure plates. One to trigger. One to fake.]
"Tch. What a bunch of smart bastards," he whispered, stepping around them both with care.
Moments later, Sonny paused as he heard a distinctive sound. Frowning, he focused on the noise.
A low hum.
It came from not the walls, nor from below but above!
His eyes snapped up just in time to see the mechanism: a narrow slit in the ceiling beginning to open.
"...!?"
And in that instant, Sonny instinctively dove to the side.
KRSHHH!
A spike the size of a javelin slammed into the ground where he had just been standing, cracking the stone tiles with explosive force.
Panting, Sonny looked back at the weapon embedded in the floor.
"... Hah... Hah... Ha ha! Yeah, that's definitely not boring."
Lingering for a minute, he soon snapped out of his daze and continued forth, ever deeper into the heart of the first floor.