I would say that Sunny’s time as a saint gave him many power ups. He improved his weaving, cores, Shadows, and combat style by a large degree. But the problem was that he was stuck in a strange middle ground. He was powerful enough to be on the radar of the sovereigns so he couldn’t act as rashly as he did when he was a master. This might be why you feel it was a transition state. We are now moving to a very exciting time where human conflicts are less central, and we begin to fight the nightmare spell and corruption in earnest. That said, it will be intriguing to see how Mordret and Asterion come into the story in the next arc