At first glance, the talent known as Sensitive Reaction looked almost absurdly powerful.
The ability to respond to external stimuli at near-supersonic speeds sounded like something pulled straight from the realm of gods and monsters. In a world like this, where guns were common and assassinations happened in broad daylight, possessing such reaction time meant bullets could feel as harmless as toys.
Dodging gunfire would no longer be a desperate gamble—it would become instinct.
But as Dean read the detailed description more carefully, the hidden cost revealed itself, and it was steep.
"The longer the effect lasts, the greater the stamina consumption."
That single sentence changed everything.
It wasn't hard to imagine why. Granting a human nervous system reaction speeds far beyond natural limits would demand a terrifying amount of energy. Even if someone burned through every ounce of strength in their body, the effect might only last two or three seconds at most.
And that was assuming the body didn't collapse outright.
There was also a crucial distinction that many people failed to understand: reaction speed and movement speed were not the same thing.
Reaction speed meant the brain could perceive and process information faster. It allowed someone to notice danger earlier.
Movement speed, on the other hand, meant the body could physically move faster.
Even if Dean's reactions reached supersonic levels, his body would still be bound by human limits. He wouldn't suddenly become a blur or outrun explosions. He would simply have the awareness to respond before it was too late.
Seen from that angle, Sensitive Reaction no longer looked invincible. Its usefulness was narrow, its duration short, and its cost—two thousand Astonishment Points—was brutal.
For the Dean of yesterday, that price would have been unthinkable.
Even now, it represented nearly half of everything he had saved.
By any reasonable standard, it was a bad deal.
And yet—
After weighing every possibility, Dean still made the exchange without hesitation.
Because right now, Sensitive Reaction was the only ability that gave him even a slim chance of standing on equal footing with the monsters that ruled this era.
This was no longer just the age of criminals and police.
This was the age of metahumans.
Every day, news reports surfaced about new individuals with extraordinary powers. Most were weak, barely more dangerous than armed civilians—but exceptions always existed.
Even in Gotham, a city famously lacking in superpowered beings, there were still figures like monstrous sewer dwellers, reanimated corpses, plant-controlling women, and winged nightmares stalking the night sky.
And Gotham was only the beginning.
Dean knew he would not remain here forever.
One day, he would face enemies whose movements he couldn't even perceive—beings so fast that death would arrive before his brain could register danger.
At that point, skill, planning, and caution would mean nothing.
It would be no different from walking into a trap blindfolded.
Just thinking back to the recent incident made his spine run cold.
If the arsonist had not insisted on acting alone—if the forty-plus gunmen under Penguin's command had joined the ambush—Dean would have died on the spot.
No amount of crowd camouflage would have saved him.
Those men weren't bound by rules or public image. They weren't police officers restrained by law. They were killers who dared to open fire even in Gotham's most luxurious districts.
Against them, blending into a crowd was meaningless.
The only reason Dean survived was because his enemy made a mistake.
And luck, Dean knew, was not something he could rely on.
Some people liked to bring up Batman as an example—a man without powers who still stood at the top of Gotham's food chain.
But Dean wasn't naïve.
He hadn't read enough comics to believe Batman was truly invincible. From what he understood, Batman was powerful, yes—but not untouchable.
In public operations involving the Justice League, Batman rarely served as the front-line fighter. He was a planner, a commander, a tactician.
If there were stories where he single-handedly defeated gods, aliens, or entire leagues of heroes, that was narrative exaggeration—plot armor at its finest.
Dean had none of that.
He wasn't chosen. He wasn't special. He didn't have a halo protecting his life.
His current reaction speed—0.15 seconds—was already far beyond normal human standards. Very few people on Earth could match it.
Even so, dodging a single handgun bullet required absolute focus.
More than one bullet?
Impossible.
Dean understood his limitations better than anyone. If he didn't improve, one day someone would kill him before he even realized they had drawn a weapon.
There were better items in the System Shop. Stronger abilities. More versatile talents.
But anything that achieved similar results was either outrageously expensive or impractical for his current situation.
Dean didn't need to become a god for five seconds.
He just needed to be slightly faster than everyone else.
Fast enough to notice danger first.
Fast enough to move first.
Fast enough to live.
And there was another benefit—one that made him smile faintly.
With improved reaction speed, Dean could elevate his magic performances to a level no one else could reach.
Illusions that seemed impossible.
Tricks that defied logic.
In the end, the conclusion was clear.
Sensitive Reaction was the most suitable choice for him right now.
After completing the exchange, exhaustion washed over him like a tide.
Dean prepared for sleep.
He lay on the bed, perfectly still, mimicking the same position as the dummy he had used earlier for surveillance testing.
Just as he reached out to turn off the signal jammer, something caught his attention.
The burn mark on his right wrist—left behind by the arsonist's flames—had nearly vanished.
The injury itself had never been serious, but the healing speed was abnormal.
The explanation was obvious.
Resistant Skin (Low-Tier).
That talent, subtle as it was, had already begun proving its worth.
Dean exhaled slowly.
From now on, his approach to system exchanges was simple: survival first.
Whether it was resisting large-scale destructive attacks or reacting in time to sudden assassinations, the goal was always the same—stay alive.
As long as an item or talent achieved that, its form didn't matter.
Everything else could wait.
For now, it had to.
---
Meanwhile — Gotham City, Diamond District
The Iceberg Casino loomed over the district like a frozen monument to crime.
Inside, in a quiet office far from the noise of the gambling floor, Ogilvy sat alone behind his desk.
His fingers rested lightly on the armrest, unmoving.
His eyes, however, flickered with a cold, unreadable light.
He was thinking.
The door creaked open.
A thin man slipped inside, posture cautious, head lowered.
"Have… have Lark and Grayletard been dealt with?" Ogilvy asked calmly.
His tone was casual.
The words themselves were anything but.
They struck like thunder.
After the Pink Dream incident, both Lark and Grayletard had been arrested by the GCPD under suspicion of operating a large-scale underground money-laundering network.
At first, the evidence had been thin—insufficient for a guaranteed conviction.
But the investigation had progressed rapidly.
More and more proof surfaced.
Their imprisonment was no longer a question of if, but when.
What the police didn't know—and would never know—was that every single trail led only to those two men by design.
They were sacrifices.
Clues deliberately leaked.
Pawns offered up to protect the king.
By all logic, the matter should have ended there.
Lark and Grayletard were veterans. Old loyalists who had served Penguin for years. They understood the rules of the game.
They knew what to say.
They knew what to take to the grave.
Penguin had never intended to kill them.
And yet—
From Ogilvy's question alone, it was clear something had changed.
He wanted them dead.
Two elders of the Penguin faction were about to be erased.
The man standing before him swallowed hard.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Everything has been arranged."
Ogilvy nodded once.
No satisfaction showed on his face.
Only cold resolve.
Lark and Grayletard would not leave prison alive.
And with their deaths, another chapter in Gotham's endless underworld war would be written in blood.
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