Mana was the ingredient. The mind was the furnace, and the soul was the mold.

Tonight, Sage had been forging nonstop, shaping flames, winds, and lightning while monsters clawed at him relentlessly.

The mana liquid could refill his reserves, but it couldn't instantly restore the mental sharpness he had exhausted. His thoughts felt sluggish now, as if they were wading through thick syrup.

A faint throb pulsed behind his temples. His spirit felt strained and stretched thin, like a rope that had been pulled too hard for too long. This was the hidden cost of being a mage.

A knight could collapse from physical exhaustion; a mage could crumble under mental fatigue. When the mind broke mid-cast, death wasn't just possible, it became likely.

Sage gazed up at the sky.

Three moons hung over the forest in different phases, their pale light washing over the leaves in silver hues. He watched them quietly for a moment, allowing the calm of night to settle within him before speaking softly to himself.

"System. How many hours until dawn?"

The system responded promptly, its tone surprisingly neutral this time, as if it sensed that this wasn't a moment for smugness.

[Approximately eight hours remain until sunrise.]

Sage blinked in disbelief.

"Eight…?" He let out a short breath, half incredulity, half bitter amusement. "You're telling me I've been fighting for that long?"

[Your perception of time distorts under repeated high-focus spellcasting and life-threatening stress.]

He wanted to argue but lacked the energy. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and projected a map into his vision. The third dungeon coordinate pulsed faintly in the distance like a star only he could see.

It wasn't far from Greyvale City in theory, but tonight, with fatigue gnawing at him and his mind screaming for rest, it might as well have been on another continent.

Sage stared at the mark as his brows furrowed together.

"The first dungeon had ten floors," he murmured aloud. "The second had fifteen."

His expression darkened. "That means the third…" He paused, already sensing what his instincts were trying to hammer into him: "More floors mean stronger monsters and an even tougher boss."

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as calculations whirled through his mind like spinning gears.

He wasn't naïve anymore; he had nearly lost his life battling a Tier 3 Elite-Class boss while pushing himself to his absolute limits. If this third dungeon boasted twenty floors, as his gut suggested, the boss would likely be beyond him, not just difficult but insurmountable.

Sage exhaled slowly and forced himself to confront reality: "I can't fight everything," he muttered wearily. "Not tonight."

His eyes remained fixed on the coordinate. "All I need is the core," he said, his voice low and cold. "I don't need to clear every monster or be a hero. I just need to reach the last floor and touch the dungeon core. That's it."

But then, memories of the boss fight, the vines, the teeth, the pain, brought forth another truth: "But I'll still have to deal with the boss." He clenched his jaw. "That boss will be much stronger than me."

For a brief moment, doubt flickered in his eyes. He could turn back now. He could return to Greyvale with two claimed dungeons, already light-years ahead of everyone else.

Two dungeons weren't scraps; they were a foundation, enough to start transforming the Guild into something that nobility would take seriously. He could leave the third dungeon unclaimed, let it be discovered later, allow nobles to fight over it while he solidified his own position. It was a rational move.

Yet greed didn't care about rationality. Greed spoke in a different tongue, the language of "almost," of "one more," of a hand that had already reached into fire and decided that getting burned was acceptable if it meant holding onto something valuable afterward.

Sage stared at the coordinate again, feeling tension tighten in his mouth. His spell arsenal was limited; he had only four spells and a handful of Level 1 spells that were practically useless in combat alongside.

If the system hadn't granted him any spells at all to learn in the first place, he would have been nothing more than a mage in name, a blank book with no words written inside; a man with mana but no means to shape it. And tonight had shown him that method mattered far more than raw potential.

Against dungeon monsters, knowledge equated to survival.

He rubbed his face and dragged his hand down slowly as he exhaled. "I'm under-equipped," he admitted through gritted teeth. "And I'm still going through with this."

His gaze shifted back to the moons above him; in their pale light flickered an unusual glow behind his pupils, something sharp and calculating that resembled less fear and more like a man weighing how to outsmart fate.

"At least…" he murmured almost to himself, "…I still have my last card."

He didn't fully acknowledge what it was because it felt like both power and fragility intertwined within him. A trump card wasn't comforting; it was sharp as a blade, if used correctly, you survived; if you missed your mark, you died.

Worse yet, if you used it and failed to resolve your problem instantly, you might find yourself too drained for any further fights.

Sage's lips twisted into a bitter smile. "My last card only matters if I don't miss."

His instincts screamed at him again, louder this time, more urgent. Leave it; two is enough.

For several long seconds, he pondered the situation, not as a greedy schemer or a Guildmaster eager for more territory, but as a man who didn't want to die alone in a forest, his body left to rot.

Two dungeons were sufficient to start with, enough to survive and build upon. He could easily rationalize it; he could even label it as strategy. But the truth was harsher, he craved that third dungeon.

He wanted it so desperately that it felt like claws were raking at his heart from the inside, each thought of leaving it behind for nobles to claim sending fresh pangs of longing through him. It wasn't logical. It wasn't safe. It wasn't even necessary.

It was greed.

And greed, as he had learned in his previous life, was the most honest sin humanity carried. Sage chuckled softly, shaking his head.

"Greed really is an original sin," he murmured wearily. "No one escapes it, not the purest soul nor the most righteous saint. If there's something valuable in front of you…"

He glanced back at the portal behind him, its green glow pulsing like a heartbeat. "…your hands start reaching before your mind even finishes processing."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled deeply. "It doesn't matter." His voice took on a steely edge. "I've come this far; I'm seeing this through."

Slowly rising despite protesting joints, he looked down at himself.

His clothes were a mess, tattered and smeared with dried blood. His coat hung unevenly, torn along one sleeve, while sweat and blood clung to him in patches where fabric met skin. In the moonlight, he resembled less a Guildmaster and more a beggar who had crawled out of a massacre.

Sage lingered on that image for just another moment before an odd memory surfaced, the moment he had transmigrated into this world: coldness, pain, confusion.

He let out a soft laugh, a weary sound. "Funny how things turn out," he muttered nostalgically. "When I first arrived here, I looked just like this: covered in blood and torn clothes, lost."

His smile faded slightly as something sharper took its place. "I never imagined I'd find myself in such a predicament again just months later."

Shaking his head to dispel those thoughts, he reminded himself that this time was different, this time he wasn't lost or helpless; even if he looked like a beggar now, his hands held wealth and authority, and a future that nobles would kill for.

He lifted his gaze toward the direction of the third coordinate and took a deep breath.

Without a moment's pause, Sage stepped off the glowing green platform and ventured into the night once again. His tattered clothes danced in the wind like a flag of unyielding determination.

Despite his fatigue, his footsteps were steady, and his eyes held a cold, hungry glint as he followed the path laid out by the system toward the last emerging dungeon.

It was a journey that would either turn his greed into his greatest asset or lead him to his doom.

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