'Divine? It says Divine?'
A little surprised, Sonny stared at the screen, frozen like a statue for several seconds. But instead of bursting with excitement, what appeared on his face was a look of confusion.
... Divine? Was there really a rank like that?
Confused by the unfamiliar term, Sonny silently tapped his phone screen, prompting the display to expand. Lines of text flooded his vision, detailing the abilities bound to him.
| Origin: [Fallen Seraph]
| Origin Rank: Divine (Ω)
| Origin Description: [Your soul bear the shard of a miraculous angel who was once powerful and filled with beauty. As such, you possess strange and incomprehensible powers. However, as a being cast down from grace, your abilities are bound by the shackles that imprison your soul. Only when these shackles are broken shall your wings be set free.]
| Innate Ability: [Nightweave]
| Ability Description: [You can manipulate portions of reality by flattening 'phases' to produce desired effects. However, this power can only be exercised through the SnapWarp app.]
'Wow. That's... certainly a lot to take in.'
Thinking that, Sonny felt his heart pounding as if it were trying to break free from his chest. Despite seeing it all laid out before him, his mind struggled to accept that his luck could really be this good. Somehow, against all odds, he had awakened a mysterious power that touched upon the realm of the divine!
In the Awakened world, there were seven established ranks for Origins, each corresponding to the Seven Tiers recognized by the Hunting Guild Association. They were, in order of increasing power: Dormant, Awakened, Fallen, Ascended, Great, Sacred, and Transcendent. Dormant matched Level 0, Awakened was Level 1, Fallen was Level 2, Ascended stood for Level 3, Great was Level 4, Sacred for Level 5, and Transcendent represented Level 6.
However, There was no rank named Divine. Because, officially, a level beyond 6 simply did not exist.
« Level 7 »
This was an illusory rank said to be purely theoretical. No one on record had ever awakened a Divine Origin, and no one had ever broken past the limits of Level Six, even the strongest Hunter wasn't an exception from this.
Anything beyond the Fallen rank was rare enough to spark a frenzied competition among Guilds. And of course, these powerful Guilds were led by powerhouses who possessed Great or Sacred Origins. More specifically, Level 4 and Level 5 Hunters.
Given the circumstances, it was only natural that anything bearing the 'divine' prefix remained extremely rare and existed mostly in a fantasy. After all, humanity had yet to reach such heights, even with the Tower standing for seventy years and the 71st floor only recently conquered.
Subsequently, Transcendents, or rather, Saints were powerful enough to annihilate entire armies of Awakened. But even they couldn't conquer the higher floors of the « Black Tower » on their own. That was why the Assault Squad, formed from elite High Hunters across different nations, came into existence, because no awakened human could face monsters ranked higher than themselves alone.
But what about someone who had just awakened a Divine Origin?
More importantly, what if the Innate Ability born from that mysterious Origin could bend reality?
He was nearly driven mad by the sheer notion of wielding a god's power. However, his jubilation was slightly tainted. After all, there was still the matter of his strange Innate Ability. More specifically, the fact he needed a smartphone to use it bothered him greatly.
In a battle to the death, every second mattered, especially in the Tower. One wrong move, and the next moment you were dead. How was he supposed to use a smartphone while surrounded by death and the hungry, malevolent gazes of his enemies?
But the more he thought about it, the less it seemed to matter.
How so? Well, there was a simple answer to it. First of all, If his Innate Ability was as powerful as he imagined, there would be no need to worry about the enemy's strength. If he could erase an opponent with a single command, did it really matter how strong they were? They would simply vanish, just like that.
Secondly, who said he needed to fight fair in the first place?
The corners of Sonny's mouth twitched upward in a way that made even him feel a little uneasy. The Tower was a place where strength ruled, yes... but more than that, it was a place where cunning thrived the most. Traps, ambushes, poison, sabotage, nothing was truly off-limits when your life was on the line.
So what if he needed a phone? He just had to make sure he had the time and space to use it. And if his ability truly bent reality, then creating that opportunity should be child's play.
His heart thumped louder.
Wouldn't he be just playing with an omnipotent smartphone?
The possibilities spiraled endlessly in his mind, turning more darker and intoxicating with each second.
Yes… if this power worked the way he hoped, then there was no enemy he couldn't defeat. There would be no obstacle he couldn't flatten.
Then,
"Huh?"
During his rising excitement, Sonny's eyes caught sight of a line beneath his Innate Ability description.
They were his Skill slots.
Skills, unlike Origin Abilities, were powers that could be acquired through various means.
From what he'd read online, when someone awakened and became a Sleeper, they typically received three empty Skill slots they could fill by acquiring Skills from tomes. In rare cases, however, some Sleepers awakened with a Skill right from the start. These were known as 'Personal Skills' or 'Exclusive Skills.'
Apparently, he was one of those rare cases.
But something about his Skill felt… off.
Narrowing his eyes, Sonny leaned in and examined the details more closely.
And then, a violent tremor erupted through his vision, shaking him to his core.
'W-What? This is…?!'
Frantically, he read the words again, hoping they would vanish, hoping it was some kind of glitch or illusion. But they remained, shining coldly on the screen, as if mocking his weakness.
| Exclusive Skill: [Shackles]
| Skill Rank: Authority
| Skill Description: [You cannot level up.]
Sonny stared at those four simple words, feeling as though someone had struck him with a fatal blow. His spirit plummeted into a bottomless abyss. There was no room for misunderstanding, loophole to twist, or comforting delusion to cling to. The words were simple yet absolute.
"You cannot level up."
If anyone else had seen those words, they would been crushed on the spot and devastated beyond measure. After all, in the world of Hunters, the concept of 'Leveling up' was everything.
To summarize, Hunters entered the « Black Tower » not only to collect Obsidian Shards but also to hunt Monsters and accumulate Exousia (ἐξουσία) — the authority and power to grow stronger. Gamers from online platforms like reddit simply called it 'experience points.'
Everything was pretty much self explanatory.
Just like in a video game, once a Hunter gathered enough Exousia, they could level up. But in reality, it wasn't that simple. The amount of Exousia required to advance was fundamentally and painfully high. Worse still, with each level gained, the required Exousia doubled.
Hypothetically, if a Level 0 Hunter needed 1,000 EP to reach Level 1, then leveling up again would require 2,000 EP. And from there, the number would only keep rising until they reach their limit.
But that didn't mean it was a fruitless endeavor.
The more Exousia an awakened human accumulated, the more they could manipulate the physical laws of the world at will. Because of this, High Rankers were always far stronger than ordinary Hunters as the exousia coursing through their bodies was vastly higher. (Hunters around the rank: Level 4 and above are referred to as 'High Rankers.')
Much to his misfortune, Sonny was anything but ordinary.
Because of his Exclusive Skill, he was unable to level up, most likely because he couldn't absorb Exousia at all.
Simply put, his fate as a Hunter had been sealed from the very start!
'Goddamn it! What kind of useless skill stops its own user from leveling up?! And it's an Authority too!'
Wasn't that what made it even more absolute?
As if that wasn't bad enough, the universe made sure to kick him while he was down. Unlike skills acquired from tomes, Exclusive Skills couldn't be discarded or swapped out as they were bound to the user, thus, unique and permanent.
In other words, he was utterly and thoroughly screwed!
Never in his life had he imagined he would come to dread the sight of an "Authority." In the realm of Skills, it would be of the EX-rank, rarer than even SSS Skills.
But that was beside the point.
The real problem was that he couldn't level up because of said Authority!
If he could, he would gladly trade away his so-called 'uniqueness' just to become ordinary and level up like everyone else. If not, his life as a Hunter would be over before it even started!
If other Inhumans could do it, why couldn't he?
Why did he have to be the exception?
What was the point of having a godlike ability if he couldn't even level up?
No matter how cleverly he would try to use it, he would be painfully shackled by his low level in the end. He might as well hand his head to the enemy himself. At least, he would go out with his grace and dignity still intact
"Oof...!"
Sonny was on the verge of losing his mind and screaming until something silently 'clicked' inside his head and he lost consciousness.
† †
When Sonny finally regained consciousness after suddenly blacking out and sleeping soundly for four straight hours, the first thing he did, in his half-confused state, was unlock his smartphone, open SnapWap, and then asked Wasp what had happened. Which leads to this:
[Ah, about that, Master. I noticed your stress levels were spiking, so I knocked you out. More specifically, I shut down your nervous system for a bit. You're welcome.]
Sonny blinked at the screen, his mind still foggy.
"...You what?"
[Relax, Master. There's no lasting damage whatsoever. Technically, you just had an emergency system reboot. Stress-induced collapse is bad for your heart, after all.]
"Well, I wasn't asking about that. I'm just surprised you can actually do that," muttered the bedridden young man, scratching his head.
[Of course, I'm capable of that. It's merely a trivial matter, really. As part of your Innate Ability, I'm linked directly to your mind. This allows me to accurately monitor and manage your stress levels, among other things, Master.]
'That's… honestly kind of terrifying.'
Sonny stared wordlessly at the cute chibi character floating on his smartphone screen. He still felt skeptical about the whole SnapWarp business, but the fact that this little thing had forcefully knocked him out proved that it wasn't just some ordinary app mascot.
It was real.
His heart, which had only just calmed, gave an anxious little flutter. He forced himself to sit up, ignoring the light-headedness that followed. And then, like a dam breaking, everything came rushing back; the Divine rank, the shackles, the cruel joke that was his 'SSS' Skill.
All of it crashed over him like a wave, drowning him all over again.
Feeling a little overwhelmed, Sonny took a deep breath to steady his breathing and simultaneously, control his chaotic heartbeat.
A few minutes later, as his mind calmed down, he obtained a new wave of clarity and straightened his posture.
"Wasp, pull up my Origin page again."
[Right away, Master.]
The familiar screen blinked back to life, the glowing letters crisp and mocking:
| Origin Rank: Divine
| Origin Description: [You bear the soul of a miraculous angel...]
| Innate Ability: [Nightweave]
| Exclusive Skill: [Shackles] — You cannot level up.
His eyes narrowed. The invisible weight of those words seemed to be pressing down on him.
But then, his eyes drifted to the line he'd glossed over in his initial panic. The description of his Innate Ability, "...manipulate portions of reality... flattening 'phrases'... through SnapWarp..."
The gears in his mind grinding painfully back to life.
'Flattening phrases... producing desired effects... bending reality...'
And then there was that word.
'Shackles!'
"...Wasp. Can I use Spellweaving on system text?"
For a beat, there was silence. Then, the reply came:
[No, that's not possible. I'm sorry, Master.]
Sonny didn't seem all that bothered. He just shrugged and spoke in a casual tone. "Well, I already expected as much, so it can't be helped."
Wasp gave him a sharp look.
[Are you really okay? Your words don't match your true feelings.]
"Ah, is that so? Maybe you're right about that."
He let out a dry chuckle.
"To be completely honest, it screws me up pretty bad. But what can I do?"
Those were his true feelings. But right now, they were being buried under a far stronger curiosity.
"But putting that aside," the bedridden boy said with an innocent smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "why don't you go ahead and explain how I can use SnapWarp?"
His smile was sweet. His intentions, not so much.