Sage didn't rush to his feet. He remained on the cold stone floor, his back pressed against it, as he caught his breath. His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, the last echoes of battle slowly fading from his weary muscles.

The cavern felt different now that the Dungeon Core had been claimed; the oppressive weight that once bore down like invisible hands had lifted into something almost breathable.

Steam curled lazily above the glowing mana river where the boss's corpse had disintegrated into shimmering fragments, rising like pale spirits freed from confinement.

The torchlight flickering along the cavern walls burned steadier than before, as if acknowledging a new master and no longer feeling threatened.

Pain was a constant companion. His ribs throbbed with each breath, his leg burned from a claw wound, and dried blood made his forearm feel stiff. Yet beneath this exhaustion and injury, something else stirred, something warm, sharp, and quietly intoxicating.

Greed.

Sage's gaze drifted inevitably toward the glowing river. Up close, the mana liquid was unlike any water he'd ever seen. It didn't ripple or reflect light in a typical way.

Instead, it pulsed in slow waves, thick and luminous, with threads of light weaving through it like veins in a living body. The surface shimmered with layered colors, pale blues, deep violets, and faint golds, each hue shifting as if responding to unseen currents below.

Just standing near it made the air feel dense with power. Even without activating perception techniques, Sage could sense its raw essence: condensed mana beyond vapor or mist, a state most warriors would never experience in their lifetimes.

A low breath escaped him; it was almost a laugh.

"Liquid mana…" he murmured hoarsely. "So this is what a real dungeon looks like."

In this world, mana was ubiquitous but never manifested in such a form. Warriors cultivated it through breathing techniques and rigorous training that expanded their Mana Veins bit by bit. They absorbed it from mana stones or Magical Beast cores.

But liquid mana was something entirely different, it was raw and unfiltered, a direct manifestation of condensed energy yet to be refined into crystals or cores or dispersed into the atmosphere.

For Warriors like Sage, this wasn't just treasure; it represented evolution.

Drinking it or soaking in it could violently expand one's capacity for mana, wash away blockages, repair internal damage, and sometimes even force breakthroughs that would typically require years of accumulation through life-and-death struggles.

This substance was hoarded by noble families; they diluted it into elixirs worth more than estates and started wars over mere rumors of its existence.

And here it flowed, a river of pure potential.

With effort, Sage pushed himself up despite his protesting muscles and limped closer until the glow of the mana river painted his face in shifting hues.

The heat of desire in his eyes was no longer subtle; it was raw, honest, almost reverent.

"System," he said, struggling to keep the urgency out of his voice. "I need containers. Big ones."

There was a brief pause.

[Define 'big.']

Sage's lips twitched into a smirk. "The kind that would make your definition of 'reasonable inventory management' cry."

[…]

[Clarification: this system is not a mobile warehouse.]

Sage snorted softly. "Yet."

The system had created the Guild's facilities from nothing. Summoning a few bottles to hold the foundation of his future power seemed a trivial request by comparison.

After a long pause, longer this time, heavy with the silence that suggested reluctant recalculation.

[Request noted. Summoning temporary high-density storage vessels.]

The air beside him shimmered, and one by one, enormous glass bottles appeared, each taller than his torso, thick-walled and reinforced with faintly glowing containment runes etched around their necks and bases.

They thudded into existence on the stone floor in a half-circle around him, their empty interiors catching the mana light like massive lenses.

Sage stared for a moment before bursting into laughter, not the quiet chuckle of survival but a low, delighted sound brimming with pure satisfaction.

He went to work immediately. Using a smaller magic circle to redirect flow, he guided the mana liquid from the river into the first bottle.

The substance poured not like water but like molten light, thick streams of glowing energy sliding into the glass with a faint humming sound that vibrated through the cavern.

As the first container filled, the runes around its surface brightened, stabilizing its volatile contents. Sage moved on to fill the second bottle, then the third, and so forth.

Bottle after bottle filled as minutes stretched into an hour. The cavern transformed as he worked; what had once been a broad river shrank in size, its flow weakening and glow dimming slightly as more of its essence transferred into towering vessels.

Sage didn't rush nor waste a single drop. He directed and adjusted with precision, his focus that of a craftsman rather than a looter, because instinct told him something this valuable deserved more than clumsy excitement.

When he sealed off the tenth bottle, he exhaled deeply and wiped sweat from his brow before glancing at what remained of the river.

Still not empty… "You're really generous," he murmured to himself.

"System. A few more."

[Excessive acquisition will destabilize local mana ecology.]

Sage eyed what was left, a glowing basin rather than a flowing river now. "Relax. I'm not stripping it dry."

More bottles appeared at his command as he continued filling them until finally only a small glowing pool remained.

Sage stepped back and rested his hands on his knees while studying what was left. After contemplating for a moment, he straightened up.

"That's enough," he said quietly. "Let this be the reward for whoever earns their way down here."

He had already estimated the river's total volume. Taking eighty percent would cripple it, sixty would weaken it for a decade. He stopped at fifty. A king's ransom and a seed left to regrow.

The bottles disappeared one by one, absorbed into the system's storage with faint flickers of light.

Silence settled in. Sage crouched beside the remaining pool and dipped two fingers into the liquid.

The sensation was immediate. A profound heat surged up his arm like liquid fire, startling him enough to instinctively withdraw his hand. After a moment, he carefully scooped a small amount and brought it to his lips.

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