I walk down the narrow spiral stairs into the mana-shielded basement but decide not to close the hatch above me.

With my most recent boost in mana control, I'm able to get a better reading of this A-Grade Mana Shielding. With all of my skills and mana control on full blast, I'm sure I could see through it now, but it's not worth the trouble.

Leaving an opening allows me to use enemy detection and my all-seeing eye on a vast area around the town without having to stress my senses.

Once I make it down to the bottom, the middle wall is up, making it feel like an empty white-walled room. I press the tablet setting to open the wall to reveal what's on the other side.

The center table where the green and red armored gang leaders used to sit lies empty in the center of the rectangular half of the room. On the far wall, there are dozens of High C-Grade and some B-Grade items and materials lined up, and their stats noted down on sheets of paper.

Beside these, I see piles of gold, silver, and bronze coins are sorted in large crates.

Then lastly, in a pile of its own is the fractured black armor of the Dark Guards I fought earlier today, none of them give off any mana readings, they just look like black shattered junk metal. However, in a neat pile in front of the shredded up armor is a small bowl with 5 glowing orbs inside that show up with [Wraith's Essence Stone][Hidden Passive Ability] reading with various Mental strength buffs between 170 and 210% on each of them.

Next to the damaged goods and black cores from the hearts of the wraiths, there's a suit fully intact, and it's the one that was worn by the 7th ranked Dark Guard. Even after death, the only readings I manage to see on this armor set say [??? Access Denied].

Ember peruses the other items and closely inspects the mana shielding walls while I walk over to these artifacts.

The closer I examine the armor set that's still intact, the more curious I get. Even using my craftsmanship skill to try and examine portions of the armor, or imbue it with skills of my own, the set doesn't give any extra readings other than [??? Access Denied].

I try to push my perception skill further, but all it shows me once maxed out is that it's a normal piece of metal.

My best guess is the armor is similar to a blood-bonded weapon with a concealment perk. Once crafted and bonded with a user, it's worthless to everyone else that tries to manipulate it or put it on.

However, I'm still optimistic that I can get some kind of data from it at a later date. So, I open up my item storage portal and let the entire armor set fall inside. For the sake of it, I let the trashed sets of the lower level wraiths fall into my storage too but leave their cores for further use.

I use telekinesis to lift the 5 dark orbs into the air above my hand, and activate my craftsmanship skill to get a better look at my options.

The last Wraith Essence I merged with my cloak significantly raised its stats and added a hidden ability to it, so I see no better place to put the remainder of these cores as well. As I ponder this fact, the 5 cores that slowly spin around each other push me toward a new option on my craftsmanship window called [Merge].

Usually, items have maxed out in receiving new merging ingredients and imbued skills at around 3 to 4 power-up imbuements per craft. Some with higher material ratings can take more, and some with lower ratings take less.

I already gave my cloak a few upgrades, and I'm not sure how many more it can take before it hits its max. However, with this [Merge] setting and the fact that they're all the same or similar base item gives me the idea that I may be able to bypass this limit.

I press [Merge] and the 5 orbs of energy fall toward each other in a flash of white light. The result floats in my hand and looks like a massive dark orb of mana but gives off an impressive reading that makes me grin.

[Greater Wraith's Essence Stone][+260% Mental Strength][Hidden Passive Ability]

"Might as well blood bond it while I'm at it." I whisper under my breath while opening up a gash in my wrist and pouring out blood into an empty glass bottle from one of the nearby piles of C-Grade items.

Then, I merge the new Essence stone along with 8oz of my blood with my cloak to give it another massive upgrade.

---

Cloak of Total Darkness[+179% Mental Strength][+155% Agility][+75% Perception][Hidden Passive Ability][Concealment Attribute]

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

—>

Cloak of Total Darkness[+270% Mental Strength][+198% Agility][+130% Perception][Blood Bonded][Hidden Passive Ability][Concealment Attribute]

---

While instantly regenerating and healing the lost blood, I scroll through my newly upgraded status and see that in ranking up, I've gained access to 3 more item slots.

I join Ember in appraising and sifting through the newly looted gear, but nothing strikes my fancy just yet.

What comes to mind is the Colossal clear stone in my inventory and the potential loot that may fall from the lightning wolf in my storage once I let it fully dissolve. These are two legitimate A-Grade items that will make for worthy new gear to fill these slots. I just need to find sturdy enough A-Grade materials that can handle the imbuement.

I'm sure I'll discover some soon.

With the interesting loot out of the way, and Ember beginning to lose interest in the bunker, I create a body double and turn to the crimson-haired form of the fire dragon.

"Getting bored already?"

He smiles and nods in response.

"Yes, meeting your friend Arie was quite entertaining. However right now, I feel my time is better spent sleeping, training, or fighting. I know you enjoy playing with these trinkets but it doesn't give me the same rush."

My double walks over to him, and I open my storage to transfer over my remaining black fire stones as well as the isolation pod I've been charging up all this time. Then, I speak up.

"Well, how about you and this double go check on my other double farming in the labyrinth. Take the fire stones it farms and search out another rogue dungeon in the desert to store more energy into this pod and collapse the dungeon when you're done."

Ember's grin and interest return, so I continue and motion for them to exit together and have their fun.

"I need a few more hours to work on a special crafting and construction project here, so get your fill of mana and dungeon destruction all you want. Even test your new skills out on the 39th floor if you please. Just be sure to come back in less than 4 or 5 hours. That's when the arena event should be finishing up in Valor City. If my double and teammates aren't back by then, we're going to have to go and get them ourselves."

The two of them agree to my point and walk toward the exit. Ember conceals his mana presence entirely, and my double uses stealth to cover its overwhelming mana control aura.

Then a moment later, I'm left in the empty silence of the underground bunker.

My vision turns to the piles of gold , silver, and bronze coins. I get to work and begin counting them with my all-seeing eye and mana manipulation. By letting raw mana seep into each of the crates and imbuing each coin with a small amount of energy, I can feel each individual one and get an instant tally.

I find 318 gold coins, 2,905 silver coins, and 13,449 bronze coins.

All in all, it's a hidden fortune, but after my haul of over 65 platinum bars from the arena back in Valor City, I've become quite desensitized to these riches. All of the crates of coins here don't even amount to a fraction of what I managed to earn in just a few days of fighting.

However, it's more than enough to begin my plan.

I pull out a massive pile of mana crystals from my farming earlier today to use as fuel for these crafts and one by one use small amounts of fire magic, earth magic, and mana manipulation to reshape the front and back marking on many of these coins.

On one side, I craft the simple emblem of fire, and on the other side, the silhouette of a dragon.

After each molten craft is complete, I imbue each coin with my body hardening skill, making the coins as unbreakable as my legendary grade body hardening backed by the mana control of a level 1000 hunter. They look exactly the same, gold, silver, or bronze, but cannot be broken, damaged, or manipulated unless whoever is doing so has higher mana control than my own.

To make sure no replicas can be made, I add a special item name to each one: [Bronze Flame Emperor's Coin], [Silver Flame Emperor's Coin], and [Gold Flame Emperor's Coin].

In the hidden crafter's notes of each coin, I leave a simple two-letter signature: "FE".

Unless a hunter with the mythic grade craftsmanship skill goes in and edits my notes, I'll be the only one able to see this.

So, if by chance someone manages to create a similar coin with a similar name, it still has a hidden level of security beneath it.

The process of imbuing and marking each coin goes by faster than I'd first planned. With careful precision and accuracy of my perception and movement speed skills, I'm capable of doing many coins at a time, and many crafts per second.

It takes just over 3 hours to finish up making 300 gold coins, 2,500 silver coins, and 10,000 bronze coins. There are 3,872 miscellaneous leftover coins remaining, but I place them aside in an unused pile. I want a clean number to start with to make sure I can keep track of things easier in the future.

Once this task is complete, I sit back on one of the chairs at the table looking at my work with a satisfied sigh, carefully placing piles of the shimmering newly branded coins all into my item storage for safekeeping, along with the old miscellaneous coins too.

My gaze hovers over all the C and B-grade gear for a few moments, then, I sense the presence of 20 grunts approaching the guildhall.

"Looks like it's time for their re-up."

I grab a small crate of Mind Control Elixir and activate my concealment disguise to cover my body in black flames in the shape of a suit, then walk up the spiral stairs to meet with my new unpaid workers.

As I close the hatch to the bunker and walk out the front door to see all 20 men mindlessly stare forward at me in a single file line, yet another odd feeling comes over me.

The sensation of being watched hits my subconscious.

Immediately I use my enemy detection skill along with a large burst of my all-seeing eye throughout the entire town to pinpoint where it's coming from.

In my mind's eye, I get the picture of bright light blue glowing eyes staring at me from over half a kilometer away from the rooftop of one of the safehouses crafted to house the recovering innocent workers.

I see the face of the young woman that was being controlled by Finn, the grunt with the [Bind] ability.

Her level and skill pop up from my appraisal skill showing [Lv. 267] and [Moonlight's Gaze], confirming she's definitely the same woman as before when I first showed up in this town.

Then, just as I finish my scan and turn to the direction she's watching me from, her eyes stop glowing blue and she ducks down behind a pile of building materials on the rooftop.