Solo Play
I snapped my fingers and snuffed out the flame.
The enhancement was fantastic, no question — but the problem was how to handle the way it kept sucking in mana even now.
It's fine for the moment, but if I leave it like this, my body is going to burn out first.
Right now my dantian was empty, so it didn't matter. But once it filled up and the mana kept pouring in, my body wouldn't hold. It would rupture.
Can I control this?
I closed my eyes and focused my consciousness. Feeling the current of mana being drawn in, I forced that flow shut.
I slowly condensed the energy that had been roaring like a furnace down into a single point.
"…Hup!"
With a short breath, I gathered the pulse of my spirit root deep inside. As if by magic, the vibration that had been gorging on the ambient mana subsided. I could feel the mana particles drifting in the air lose their path and scatter.
"Hah… hah…"
Success.
When I needed it, I would open the spirit root and replenish mana in a violent surge. The rest of the time, I'd keep it locked down like this and spare my body the overload.
At this rate, do I even need the Yin-Yang Dual Cultivation Scripture?
Not that I planned to stop using it. The ability to control pregnancy alone had made the Yin-Yang Dual Cultivation Scripture inseparable from me.
I stood up and checked my phone again. I'd forgotten about it while concentrating on controlling the spirit root, but reality's problems were still breathing down my neck.
"I've got power now. Trying it out right away is only natural."
I grabbed my gear and left the house.
I arrived at Zone 3 in Seongnam, where the dungeons were packed together.
Gates ranging from E-rank to C-rank lined the area, their danger levels sorted by the color density of the portals. In front of them, hunters thronged with their own agendas, the whole place buzzing with activity.
"Alright, heading into a C-rank dungeon! Looking for one more tanker and two dealers! Split's two-to-one, no equipment repair support!"
"Need a porter! Three hundred fifty thousand won a day!"
A familiar scene.
I pulled my hoodie low over my face and slipped into the crowd, then made for the entrance of a green-tinged E-rank dungeon.
Normally this was the kind of place I'd only scrape into after scraping together a party. Not anymore. With body reinforcement and mana both under my belt, I figured I could clear it solo without much trouble.
I submitted a solo entry form at the gate management office. The clerk checked my hunter license and lightly furrowed his brow.
"Solo entry? No party?"
"Yeah."
"…You understand you're proceeding at your own risk?"
"I know."
The clerk shook his head like he'd heard something absurd and stepped aside. No point talking a man out of walking to his own funeral.
The moment I passed through the green membrane, the noise of reality cut out, and a vast blue grassland stretched before me.
It looked peaceful enough — but this was an E-rank dungeon that hosted an orc settlement.
Among E-rank dungeons, this one ranked on the tougher end. Not because any individual monster was overwhelming, but because of their pack tactics and sheer aggression, which made party-based clears the standard approach. They were weak compared to the elite orc warriors that showed up in D-rank and above, but for E-rank hunters they were still a nightmare.
"Wonder where the orcs are clustered."
I set off looking for them right away. Moving out in the open, it wasn't long before the grass stirred and a rough, heavy breathing reached my ears.
Chik, chik.
Harsh breathing carried from beyond the grass. A foul, fishy stench hit my nose, and hulking figures with green hide stepped into view.
Not just one or two. In an instant, half a dozen orcs had raised crude maces and axes and closed in around me.
"Chwik! Fresh meat!"
The old me would have fallen back at once, opened the distance, and waited for an opening. But the mana swirling in my dantian was goading me to enjoy this instead.
Rather than run, I slowly loosened my hold on the mana.
Fwaaah—!
The suppressed pulse of mana flooded through my entire body. Ambient mana swirled around me and poured in.
"Holy shit — the mana density in here makes the outside world look like nothing."
I snapped my fingers and conjured that same black flame from before.
Like a black hole devouring even the surrounding light, pitch-black fire coiled up my wrist and burned.
The corner of my mouth lifted on its own.
"Alright. Let's put this to the test."
The black flame flickering at my fingertips began to radiate heat dense as the core of a sun.
One orc bellowed and charged, mace raised high.
I focused mana into my right hand, and the flame swelled in an instant, thrashing violently — on the verge of exploding.
Then I threw it at the orc. Or rather, I tried to. It didn't fly. It just sat there stuck to my hand.
"Figured as much!"
I rolled across the ground and dodged the orc's mace.
Thinking about it, it was obvious. I had a top-tier engine and fuel — but no way to fire the damn thing.
The orc's mace smashed the spot where I'd been standing and kicked up a cloud of dirt.
"Chwik! Human stupid!"
I'd just been called an idiot by an orc.
I pulled a sword from storage and gripped it. Then something unexpected happened.
The black flame wavering in my palm raced up the blade in an instant. It wasn't mere ignition. The blade drank in the pitch-black fire, and dark flame coiled along the edge like a snake, pouring out vicious heat.
Can't shoot it — but I can coat with it, huh.
Even better. I'd always been more comfortable fighting up close. Five years of surviving on nothing but a sword, no skills to my name. I adjusted my grip and swept my gaze over the orc pack.
Six of them.
I dropped low and drove straight at the nearest one. Body Reinforcement Lv.2 and a mana-reinforced body exploded into acceleration like I was leaping through space itself. Before the orc could even react, I was already in its blind spot.
Sssk—.
The flame-wreathed edge whispered across the orc's waist.
Thick hide and muscle parted like paper. No — "parted" wasn't right. Along the path of the blade, the flesh simply evaporated.
"Chwik?!"
The orc flailed, still not realizing its lower half was gone, then toppled with a dull thud. Not a single drop of blood spilled from the cut. The black flame had seared the wound shut in an instant.
"One."
I didn't stop. The footwork I'd learned in the Red Blood Sect carved across the ground toward the next target. Over the head of an orc swinging its mace in panic, I brought the sword down in a vertical cut.
KWAANG!
The mace split clean in two with a single stroke. A monster weapon that should have been harder than steel crumbled before the black flame like an overbaked cookie.
One hour.
That was how long it took to find and kill every orc in the dungeon short of the boss.
"Ha. Unbelievable."
Orc corpses with burned-out heads littered the ground at my feet, and the surroundings were blackened with the scorch marks of sweeping black flame.
Before, even staking my life and coordinating with party members, this much would have taken days. With a reinforced body and mana working together, orc hide was softer than tofu, and their speed might as well have been standing still.
"This is my real skill now?"
In a daze, I checked the blade. With the black fire settled, the edge was smooth and clean — not a drop of orc blood on it.
I gathered the hefty mana stones scattered across the ground and swallowed a hollow laugh.
"At this rate, there's no point wasting time in E-ranks."
My dantian was still packed heavy with mana, and far from tired, my body was itching to cut loose even more.
I thought about diving straight into a D-rank dungeon — then reined myself in.
Proper mana control first.
Hunting the orcs had driven the lesson home. My output was supercar-grade, but the guy behind the wheel was still an unlicensed beginner.
Wrapping mana around a sword had worked. Firing it outward or fine-tuning it was still at the crawling stage.
From D-rank up, the monsters got incomparably stronger than anything in E-rank. I had to be careful.
I've only got one life in the real world.
I collected the orc ears and mana stones strewn across the ground and shoveled them into my pack. In a single hour, the bag had gone heavy.
Stepping through the portal back outside, I found the place still crawling with people like a nest of ants.
Around the gate, beyond the government-certified settlement offices, private buyers from various companies had set up shop in rows.
I picked a decent-looking one and headed over.
"Welcome! Golden Scales here!"
I upended my pack over the counter without ceremony. Mana stones and loot poured out, and the clerk's eyes nearly popped from his head at the volume.
Clink, clink!
Dozens of unrefined mana stones and orc teeth piled into a small mountain. You didn't get a haul like this without stripping an entire E-rank dungeon clean.
"Y-you did all this alone…?"
The clerk stared at me in shock.
"Cash me out. All of it."
I added flatly, setting my hunter ID on the terminal.
Before long, a number appeared on the screen.
₩39,400,000.
I'd basically massacred nearly every orc in the dungeon short of the boss, and the total still came in lighter than I'd hoped.
Guess that's E-rank mana stones for you — unit price is garbage. Even flooding them with volume has a hard ceiling.
Lower-rank dungeon stones had fixed fair-trade rates; no matter how many you brought, you couldn't expect a windfall. Compared to the pocket change I'd scraped as a porter it was a fortune, but for someone who'd just awakened real power, it didn't quite satisfy.
Still, not bad.
In a single hour, solo, I'd earned what a whole party would grind days for. More importantly, it was enough to put out the immediate fires and stake a minimum base for the next step.
"Deposit… complete. Um, if you happen to have more goods next time, please consider our—"
"Thanks for the help."
I cut him off and left the shop. The deposit alert buzzing through my phone sounded sweeter than any music.
I walked out of the gate district in a good mood. Checking the number in my account made it finally feel real.
Alright. I can breathe a little now.
Loan interest, living expenses, Mansang Realm food costs.
All of it covered, with room to spare.
At this pace, a few runs a month would do it.
If one E-rank paid this much, I could already run the numbers on a D-rank. The risk scaled up with it, sure — but once I got a handle on mana control, it was more than doable.
Walking along, I pulled out my phone and typed D-rank dungeon strategy guides into the search bar.
If I'm running D-ranks solo, I need to know what monsters I'll be dealing with.
Preparation was best done early.