The handle of the pickaxe cut through the air and struck with a heavy sound.
THWACK!
With a short scream, one goblin slammed into the earthen wall and went limp.
Cheol-woo breathed roughly and set the pickaxe down on the ground.
"This area is more or less cleared."
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and swept his gaze around.
In one corner of the narrow forked path, four goblins already lay sprawled in grotesque shapes.
Facing several of them at once in an open clearing was too much for him as an E-rank hunter.
So he had deliberately lured them out one or two at a time toward the narrow passage and defeated them individually.
It was a survival trick he had learned with his body after more than six years of rolling around at the bottom as a porter.
Cheol-woo took a short knife from his pocket and skillfully cut open the goblins’ chests.
His hands, removing the low-grade mana stones in a single motion without any wasted movement, were as precise as a machine.
"One, two, three, four. Good. I have earned enough for the day."
After roughly wiping the bloodstained mana stones with a towel, he shoved them into the bag at his waist.
Now that the monsters had been dealt with, it was naturally time to mine.
He gripped the old pickaxe again and moved along while tapping the wall.
CLANG, CLANG.
When he concentrated on digging into the rock wall where the sound rang clear, fist-sized lumps of iron ore soon fell to the floor in a rush.
Even as he spread open his sack and gathered the iron ore, Cheol-woo’s gaze kept turning toward the transparent management window floating in the air.
Each time he killed a fully regenerated common goblin or mined ore, he could see his accumulated dungeon mana steadily rising by one or two points.
"Just a little more. Exactly one more lump."
He licked his dry lips and stuffed the last piece of iron ore into the sack.
It was the moment when he had exactly filled the daily harvesting quota he had written down in his ledger.
If he mined enough minerals to make the bag burst and took them out, the employees at the Hunter Association purchasing office would immediately give him sharp looks.
An appropriate limit that he could excuse as something a lucky porter-hunter had scraped together after working hard for a few days.
That was the safety rule Cheol-woo had set for himself.
Just as he was tying the sack’s cord into a firm knot.
The management window floating before his eyes trembled lightly, and the letters began changing rapidly.
[Accumulated dungeon mana has reached the increase threshold.]
[Owned Dungeon: Goblin’s Abandoned Mine (F-rank) Management Level will increase from 1 to 2.]
[Dungeon management authority has expanded.]
"Huh?"
Cheol-woo threw the half-tied sack onto the floor and straightened his back at once.
He narrowed his eyes and stared hard at the status window.
It was being proven right before his eyes that the dungeon’s authority itself grew as he continued operating it, not merely that he could harvest resources inside.
The new messages that soon poured out made his mouth fall open.
[New functions have been unlocked.]
-Resource Amplification: Improves the regeneration speed and quality of a designated resource.
-Monster Population Adjustment: Adjusts the monster spawn rate and species in a specific area.
-Internal Area Restoration: Restores collapsed mineshafts or damaged environments.
-Temporary Outsider Entry Pass: Grants limited entry permission to someone other than the owner.
"Insane. What is this now?"
With a blank face, Cheol-woo read the words in the air.
Until now, he had thought of the dungeon only as something like a field, where monsters crawled out and ores formed at fixed times.
But once the management level rose, functions that allowed him to manipulate the dungeon itself to his taste appeared.
They were authorities far beyond the level of secretly farming an abandoned mine.
"Resource amplification and population control? Does that mean I can set up a monster farm however I want?"
A hollow laugh escaped him.
He swallowed dryly and carefully pressed the function list with his finger.
For each function, the mana consumption required for operation was displayed in detail.
[Internal Area Restoration: Minimum 100 mana consumed]
[Monster Population Adjustment: 30 mana consumed]
[Temporary Outsider Entry Pass: No mana consumed upon issuance]
After checking the numbers, Cheol-woo’s brow narrowed slightly.
He still had some dungeon mana left even after the level-up, but not enough to play around by pressing every option.
If he carelessly increased the monster population and could not handle it, his farming route would only become more tangled.
However, temporarily opening the Collapsed Mineshaft leading to the Azure Mana Iron vein every time at a cost of 150 mana was wasteful.
‘I should properly restore the inner passage first.’
Leaving his luggage behind, Cheol-woo walked to the front of the Collapsed Mineshaft.
He designated the target with the [Internal Area Restoration] function and pressed the confirmation button.
[100 dungeon mana will be consumed.]
[Restoring Collapsed Mineshaft.]
RUMBLE!
The rock wall pushed aside to both ends, revealing the familiar narrow passage.
Unlike before, no red time limit appeared.
After confirming that the passage was not closing again, Cheol-woo headed toward the Azure Mana Iron vein inside.
When he reached the end of the dark passage, a faint blue light leaked out.
He could see the thin, transparent Azure Mana Iron crystals growing from the wall.
[Harvestable Amount: 99.9%]
[Regeneration Time: 9 days 8 hours (based on current state)]
After checking the numbers displayed in the status window, Cheol-woo selected the newly opened [Resource Amplification] function.
When he designated the Azure Mana Iron vein as the target, a window appeared for setting the amount of mana to invest.
"Since I am running low on mana, let us put in only the minimum for now."
Cheol-woo entered the lowest allowed amount of mana and pressed the confirmation button without hesitation.
[Dungeon mana will be consumed.]
[Accelerating regeneration of the designated target.]
Swoosh.
The air around the vein trembled faintly, and a pale glow of mana lingered there.
There was no dramatic change, such as the crystals visibly swelling at once.
However, the number in the status window showed exactly the result Cheol-woo wanted.
[Regeneration Time: 8 days 14 hours (shortened)]
"Wow. It really decreased."
Cheol-woo slapped his knee.
The time had not been reduced by a shocking amount, but the result itself was important: by his own choice, he could change the production cycle of an expensive resource.
It meant that if he later accumulated mana to the point of overflowing, he might be able to pull a regeneration time of several days forward overnight.
It was like attaching an acceleration motor to a perpetual motion pump.
"At this rate, once I have enough mana later, I really will be able to rake in money while sitting still."
Unable to hold back the laughter leaking out of him, he clenched his fist.
He pressed the other functions one by one, only reading their mana costs and detailed conditions before backing out.
It was to reduce unnecessary waste and preserve the remaining mana intact.
Then his gaze stopped on the final item.
[Temporary Outsider Entry Pass]
This abandoned mine was an exclusive zone Cheol-woo had to devour alone.
He had not the slightest intention of letting someone else in to share the secret of Azure Mana Iron or divide the pie.
When he carefully read the function description, it stated that unless he issued an entry pass, the restriction would remain the same as before: only Cheol-woo, the owner, could pass through the exclusive entrance.
"Then there is no reason to use it right now. Why would I be insane enough to let another bastard into my front yard?"
Just as he muttered that and was about to close the window, a thought flashed through Cheol-woo’s mind.
Right now, it was only an F-rank abandoned mine, so he could handle it alone, but if he later made the dungeon larger and safer, that would be different.
What if he had a proper management range and firm safety rules?
‘That means I could open only part of my dungeon to other hunters and collect entry fees or rent from them.’
He could take entrance fees in cash, or have them gather troublesome byproducts in his place and skim off a commission.
People said landlords ranked above even the Creator, and he would become a dungeon landlord.
Of course, it was not something he could execute immediately.
Before letting anyone in, he first needed a pretext that could not be nitpicked and enough control to firmly suppress the other party.
"Let us save it for now. It is not a bad card."
Cheol-woo rummaged through the pocket of his work clothes and took out his worn notebook and ballpoint pen.
Leaning against the wall, he pressed down firmly with the pen and densely wrote down what he had confirmed today.
[Goblin’s Abandoned Mine has reached Level 2. Authority expansion confirmed.]
[Mana can be invested to shorten Azure Mana Iron regeneration time. Efficiency test complete.]
[Entry Pass function. If not issued, entry remains restricted as before. Possible rental business in the future.]
Cheol-woo’s writing hand paused for a moment.
Even with just Goblin’s Abandoned Mine, he could manipulate this many things and earn decent profits.
Then what about other dungeons?
Inside them, there might be not ordinary mana stones and iron ore, but rarer herbs or special minerals lying everywhere.
Now that one abandoned mine had become more than a simple farming spot and turned into an asset he could grow and operate, he had to increase the number of dungeons he managed.
Assets had to be expanded when they could be put to work.
Cheol-woo placed the tip of his pen on the final line of the notebook and wrote with force.
[Next Objective: Secure a second owned dungeon.]
Only after drawing two firm lines beneath the words did he close the notebook in satisfaction.
Slinging the sack he had set down on the floor back over his shoulder, Cheol-woo hummed as he walked out through the gate.
A few days later.
The narrow rented room was filled with the bluish light leaking from the laptop screen.
Cheol-woo widened his eyes as he scrolled the mouse wheel through the Hunter Association’s public database window.
It was not high-grade information that ordinary hunters could not see even if they paid for it.
It was a list of ugly-duckling bastard dungeons, free for anyone to view but ignored by everyone.
"Let us see. Cheap, tasteless, and filthy unpopular."
The conditions coming out of his mouth were things that would make others recoil in shock if they heard them.
Popular dungeons with generous rewards and easy monsters were naturally swept up by major guilds or famous parties.
There was no room for an E-rank like Cheol-woo to join, and even if he entered some mediocre party as a porter, he could not achieve 100 percent raid contribution, so he would not obtain ownership either.
That was why he was aiming only for places that had been thoroughly abandoned and ignored.
Places where everyone had given up because the costs did not balance with the rewards, or garbage dumps that had been neglected after only the boss was killed, causing monsters to gather again.
For Cheol-woo, those places were pearls buried in mud and bonanzas without competition.
"This one is avoided because the stench is too severe. This one says the terrain is so rough that porters pack up and run away."
Cheol-woo copied and pasted the dungeon names into a notepad he had opened on one side of the monitor.
He needed a plausible excuse for why he could go in alone and struggle there for several days without anyone suspecting him.
Places where he could easily claim he had gone in to clear remnants because porter work had been slow lately.
At that moment, one particularly eye-catching name stopped Cheol-woo’s mouse.
[Sleeping Waterway (F-rank)]
[Notes: Severe moisture and stench. Low monster population. Lowest expected rewards.]
It was an infamous dungeon where, in the past, a ragtag party had gone in once, rolled around in mud, emerged reeking of filth, and then stopped visiting entirely.
On top of that, a warning was written in red letters, stating that the internal structure was twisted and it was easy to get lost.
"Lowest rewards? Only in other people’s eyes."
Cheol-woo raised the corners of his mouth.
To others, Goblin’s Abandoned Mine had also been a common garbage dungeon.
But who could have known that a perpetual Azure Mana Iron vein was hidden in the inner mineshaft?
The fact that the structure was complex and unpopular also meant there was a high chance resources no one had discovered were sleeping deep inside.
"Good. You are my second target."
There was no hesitation in Cheol-woo’s hand as he clicked the mouse.
He quickly memorized the dungeon’s location, entry route, and information on appearing monsters while smacking his lips.
All he had to prepare now was a meticulous equipment check and a mask strong enough to withstand the stench.
He felt an exhilarating vitality stirring in the daily life as a porter that had once been dull and harsh.
Cheol-woo stretched and rose from his chair.
He opened the zipper of the old backpack lying in the corner of the room, packed his equipment one item at a time, and set it beside the front door.
After setting an alarm on his smartphone, Cheol-woo tapped the backpack.
"Tomorrow morning, let us go sign the contract for Branch No. 2."