The blaring alarms and flashing red warning lights lasted throughout the facility. The chamber had erupted into chaos — scientists rushing for control, guards advancing with guns drawn.
Asher emerged from the shattered Awakening pod, panting. His whole body had felt different — stronger, sharper, as if every single cell had been cracked awake. His senses were almost overwhelming; he could hear the fast pounding of the guards' hearts, could feel the tension each brought through the air, could smell the stale metallic scent of the shredded machine.
But more than anything he felt something inside him throbbing.
Not mana. Not an Awakening ability.
Something entirely new.
Dr. Linara was the first to approach, her silvery eyes narrowing as she examined him. "Turn the alarms off," she said. "The source of this error is not a security breach. This is... something else."
A technician nearby hesitated before muffling the sounds of alarms. The guards didn't bring their weapons down, but they also didn't fire. Not yet.
Linara turned back to Asher. "Your test results were … unexpected," she said carefully. "That reaction was not something that should have been possible. Tell me — what does that feel like?"
Asher glanced at his hands. They felt the same, but when he curled his fingers, he could feel a dormant power running deep below his skin. It was neither mana, nor was it the paper-based Awakening that ruled the Hunters in this world.
"I felt..." He stopped, looking for words. "Like something was coming back to life inside me."
Linara looked him over for a moment, then faced a nearby console. "Your Awakening test read ERROR. It's never happened like that before.'"
She rapped on the flickering screen, her eyes bright. "The machine sensed a foreign energy signature. Not mana. Not systematic augmentation. Something beyond our categorization."
Asher remained silent. He wasn't going to volunteer his former life as a sorcerer. Not yet.
Linara turned back to him. "Your Awakening was unorthodox to say the least. But a reaction was still there." She huffed and tapped her fingers on her arm. "We won't register you as a Hunter until we verify your capabilities in combat."
She pointed to one of the guards. "Get his admission assessment ready. "He's putting him in a dungeon raid."
The guard blinked. "A live raid? But he just—"
"Standard procedure, if he's an unstable Awakening case," she interrupted. "If he survives, he's become a Hunter. If he doesn't..." She did not complete that sentence.
Asher smirked. "And so, I get my first dungeon right away?"
Linara arched an eyebrow. "That's one way to put it."
Entering the Dungeon
Asher was riding in a military-grade transport vehicle, hours later, surrounded by the real Hunters.
The group consisted of D and C-Rank operatives clad in streamlined combat armor and armed with everything from high-tech blades to mana-infused handguns. Before they signed up, they all had the guild insignia on their official gear.
Unlike Asher.
He alone was dressed in basic equipment — a reinforced vest and an ancient combat knife they had provided him at the last minute.
Another Hunter next to him, a tall man with cropped brown hair, tilted his head to the side. "So, you're the rookie?"
Asher nodded.
The man smirked. "No offense, but you're about to die."
Asher simply tilted his head. "No offense, but I doubt it."
The man chuckled. "I like your attitude. Name's Garret. C-Rank."
"Asher," he replied.
The vehicle stopped before the conversation could continue. A red light flashed in the cabin.
The intercom buzzed. "Approaching dungeon site. Category-2 Rift detected. All Hunters, get ready for deployment."
Asher looked through the reinforced glass. Far off, he spotted it—the gate to the dungeon.
It appeared to be just like the rifts he'd witnessed back in the city — a suspended tear in reality, active with unstable energy. But this one was bigger, blacker, more sinister.
"The time to go," Garret said, affixing his kit.
Asher let out a breath, opening the car door.
He was going to start his first dungeon raid in this world.
Inside the Rift
The transition was instant. Asher was beyond the dungeon gate and the world around him changed.
A strange and intensifying aura hung thick in the air. The ceiling of the sky was obliterated, replaced by a churning void of darkness and fiery embers.
They were at the mouth of a great ruin that lay underground — cracked stone pillars and collapsed archways and glowing symbols that had been carved into the stone walls.
Garret let out a low whistle. "A Ruin-type dungeon. Haven't been in this thing in a long time."
Linara's voice crackled in their earpieces. "Category-2: Moderate threat level. Also expect common aberrations, maybe a Lesser Boss at the end. Stay sharp."
The Hunters have fanned out into a formation. They were professionals. Trained, experienced, and well equipped.
And Asher?
He wielded no weapons, wore no armor, possessed no verified powers.
But it didn't mean he was powerless.
As they penetrated deeper, Asher's senses calibrated.
This place — *the density of energy here — *it felt familiar. Nearly like the dungeons of Eldoria.
Then, suddenly—
From the darkness came a shriek.
Shapes began to crawl out of the wreckage — twisted human forms, their rotting bodies smoking, their eyes blazing with strange blue fire.
"Creatures of the undead class," Garret cursed, tightening his palm around his weapon. "Let's clear them out."
The Hunters operated like a well-oiled machine.
Bullets tore through the air. Blades embedded with mana cut through the creatures with surgical precision. The Hunters battled with a combination of gunplay and system-augmented abilities, employing specialized tactics for each individual class.
Asher, for his part, watched from the edge.
Measuring.
His body felt different. Stronger. Faster. And there, deep inside him, the strange power pulsed, waiting to be unleashed.
He stepped forward.
A creature lunged at him. Fast. Hands with claws reaching for his throat.
Instinct took over.
Asher moved, the body moving on its own, no thought, no hesitation.
His fist screamed forward—neither imbued with mana, nor boosted by an exercise of the system itself.
But something else.
The instant his knuckles connected, a shockwave radiated outward, launching the creature across the air like a rag doll.
The other Hunters were frozen, mid-fight, looking over.
Even Garret raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What the hell was that?"
Asher flexed his fingers.
The energy within him was raw, volatile, but lethal. It wasn't magic. It wasn't an ability from Awakening.
No, it was something else altogether.
And he was barely beginning to process it.