Hunter Association Headquarters, Basement Level 3. The special training facility reserved for Hunters.
An empty space enclosed by superalloy shielding walls said to withstand even nuclear explosions.
I plopped down on the floor.
I unzipped the crossbody bag I'd brought and pulled out two items.
I set them side by side on the floor.
One was an ordinary low-grade Mana Stone, the kind you could easily buy anywhere.
The other was the red orb I'd picked up after incinerating the Bulgasari in the ashes of China.
"Comparative analysis."
I muttered briefly and picked up the Mana Stone first.
Its surface was rough and irregular.
A murky, violent wavelength pricked my fingertips.
Three years since the Gate Shock.
Mana Stones had become the perfect alternative energy source for modern society.
The gold of the 21st century, replacing oil and nuclear power.
Mana Stones processed through refinement facilities powered generators, drove the engines of cutting-edge automobiles, and grotesquely boosted battery efficiency.
But the drawback was clear.
You could only extract energy from them by passing them through mechanical processing devices and converters.
In the early days three years ago, when the Awakened were just beginning to appear.
Countless civilians fell into the vain delusion of becoming superhumans.
They obtained low-grade Mana Stones from the black market, ground them up in blenders to drink, or powdered them to inject into their veins.
The results were disastrous.
Far from Awakening, they merely ended up in emergency rooms with acute heavy metal poisoning, perforated stomachs, and vascular necrosis.
The human body cannot absorb the energy from Mana Stones.
Mana Stones aren't nourishment for living beings—they're simply next-generation energy sources for running machines.
I gripped the Mana Stone tightly for the experiment.
I injected my body's mana and tried to forcibly draw the energy inside the stone into my bloodstream.
Tick.
No response.
It felt like sticking a straw into a completely sealed iron canteen and sucking only vacuum.
The wavelengths completely misaligned and the energy bounced away.
Direct absorption into the human body was indeed impossible.
"Useless rock."
I tossed the Mana Stone into a corner of the training facility.
I turned my gaze to stare at the red orb on the floor.
Its surface was mirror-smooth and perfectly spherical.
Qualitatively different from the murky Mana Stone.
Inside the orb, red liquid rippled as if breathing.
Just looking at it made my mana resonate and stir faintly.
I picked up the orb.
It was warm.
The moment it touched my palm, I felt not foreignness but intense familiarity.
'Inner Core'
The crystallization of bio-energy that spiritual creatures in martial arts novels supposedly condense over hundreds of years.
Western fantasy-based Gates drop mineral-form Mana Stones.
Then this, dropped from the Bulgasari—an Eastern legendary monster—should properly be called an Inner Core, not a Mana Stone.
I injected a tiny amount of mana into the orb with my fingertip.
The reaction was completely different from the Mana Stone earlier.
The red energy inside the orb absorbed my mana like a sponge.
Zero repulsive force.
It synchronized perfectly with a living being's energy.
"Absorption is possible."
Intuition flashed through my mind.
This was a pure elixir for living beings that didn't need to go through machines.
If Mana Stones were fuel for cars, this orb was like a highly concentrated supplement humans could directly chew and swallow.
I steeled myself.
Directly ingesting an unidentified otherworldly byproduct into my body carried risks.
But my body was a mana-optimized physique manifested by the System.
Whether I swallowed poison or poured in lava, as long as it was in pure energy form, I had the durability to perfectly digest and decompose it.
I crossed my legs and adjusted my posture.
I gripped the red orb tightly in my right hand.
I closed my eyes.
I opened my entire body's mana circuits to their limit.
I exhaled one long breath and strongly pulled the energy concentrated in my grip into my bloodstream.
—Shwooooosh—!
Intense heat burst from my palm.
The ping-pong-ball-sized red orb that had maintained physical form crumbled into pure light, like melting snow.
High-density energy poured in through the pores of my palm.
An overwhelming sensation like pouring lava directly into my veins.
Boiling red energy climbed up my right arm and headed straight for my heart.
—Thump! Thump!
My heart pounded madly.
The energy that passed through my heart cascaded like a waterfall through my entire body's mana circuits.
Hot, but not painful.
Rather, an intense pleasure as if deep-seated fatigue clinging to my bones was melting away.
My consciousness gradually blurred.
External sounds and sensations were perfectly blocked out.
I only traced the trajectory of the red energy circulating through my body.
The otherworldly energy mixed with my original blue mana, endlessly circling, compressing, and refining.
A state of selflessness where the flow of time vanished.
"Phew."
How much time had passed?
I exhaled the stale breath that had filled my lungs.
White vapor puffed out between my lips.
I slowly lifted my closed eyelids.
An alien gleam flashed once inside my red pupils before fading.
I opened my right hand.
The red orb had vanished without a trace.
It had been perfectly absorbed into my body without leaving even a speck of dust.
I quietly looked inward and checked my condition.
Confirming total mana capacity.
"...It increased slightly."
The energy contained in the Bulgasari's Inner Core had been absurdly massive.
Larger than the combined mana of dozens of ordinary A-Rank Hunters.
But once it entered my body, even that enormous energy was reduced to just a bucketful of water in a giant tub.
Because the total amount of mana I originally possessed was ocean-scale, like the Pacific.
Pouring one bucket of water into the ocean doesn't noticeably raise the water level.
The quantitative growth was less than even 1%.
But the real change wasn't in quantity—it was qualitative.
I drew up a point of mana to my right index fingertip.
Smoothly.
Simultaneously with the thought—no, before the thought—mana formed at my fingertip.
The density of the blue mana had become much clearer and more transparent than before.
"Mana operation is smoother."
The friction of mana flowing through my veins had decreased to near zero.
Like slathering top-grade lubricant on gears.
Previously, when compressing mana massively, I needed conscious control and calculation, but now it emerged naturally in an optimized state, like breathing.
The output efficiency itself had evolved.
"Hmm. Not bad."
A satisfying result.
The risk I took to absorb it was worthwhile.
I lightly loosened my neck and stood up.
I kicked the Mana Stone rolling on the floor roughly into the trash.
I grabbed the jacket I'd tossed in a corner of the training facility and turned on my smartphone screen.
My brow furrowed sharply at the number displayed.
11:45 PM.
I'd definitely entered the training facility around 2 PM.
"Crazy. I sat there for nine hours."
I hadn't realized refining the energy would consume this much time.
Intense fatigue washed over me.
I slung the crossbody bag over my shoulder and left the training facility.
I crossed the night sky wrapped in a Mana Field.
I landed silently on the penthouse balcony.
The living room was pitch dark.
My family was already deep asleep.
Perfect silence with no one to disturb me.
Nice and quiet.
I headed straight to the bathroom and turned on the hot water.
I washed away the faint heat clinging to my body without hesitation.
I roughly toweled off my hair and sat at my desk.
I turned on my laptop to access the secure folder.
I finished the warm shower.
I washed away all the faint heat remaining on my body.
I roughly toweled my hair and sat at my desk.
I powered on the security-locked laptop.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
I typed on the keyboard, creating a new document.
To record the data organized in my head as text.
[Document Title: Magical Beast (Classification: Bulgasari) Loot Analysis Report]
Drop Item: Not an ordinary Mana Stone. Inner Core form from martial arts novel concepts.
Differences from Mana Stones
Mana Stone: External power source. Repels human bio-energy, absolutely impossible to absorb. Mechanical processing required.
Inner Core: Internal consumable. Perfectly resonates with bio-energy (mana). Direct absorption possible without mechanical processing.
Absorption Effect: Massive energy accumulation. Reduced friction coefficient in mana circuits and maximized output efficiency.
I stopped typing and stared at the monitor.
This was serious.
If the ecosystems beyond the Gates included not just Western fantasy settings but also Eastern Murim-like environments.
And if the monsters emerging from there carried these Inner Cores instead of Mana Stones.
This was a detonator that could flip the world's power balance.
Until now, Hunters entered Gates to mine Mana Stones for money.
But if the existence of Inner Cores became known to the world, the story would change.
Not for money, but purely to increase their own martial power and evolution, they'd hunt monsters and covet each other's Inner Cores—an era of survival of the fittest would dawn.
"That'll be exhausting."
I leaned back deeply into the chair.
I didn't care about the balance of power between nations or the world's chaos.
However, I absolutely refused to let this information leak and cause sparks to fly into my peaceful penthouse recuperation life.
I detested my surroundings becoming noisy.
I shoved the document I'd created into an encrypted folder.
Save complete.
For the time being, it was better to take this information to the grave alone.
In the email to the Association President, I'd just make up some excuse about how no loot remained, only ashes.
I closed the laptop screen.
Silence descended on the room.
Today's tasks were truly finished.
I crawled onto the bed and pulled the fluffy blanket over my head.
Tomorrow for lunch, I absolutely had to order two whole chickens.
It was a night where tomorrow's lunch menu mattered more than the fate of the world or the collapse of Hunter society.
The moment I closed my eyes, I fell into deep sleep.
