The ceiling continues to crumble, and my red aura extends further into the endless forest around us. Past the decimated area of woodlands that were disintegrated by the divine energy waves, and deep into the thick trees in all directions.

It drains the air, ground, trees, rocks, and every living thing that comes in contact with this crimson mist.

The abandoned forest stretches thousands of kilometers in diameter, extending even further to the west.

Its landmass is even larger than the 8 Great Regions, though the pure mana here is slightly less abundant.

In my previous use of my plunderer skill, there was an extremely high concentration of mana in the hundreds of dungeons, high-grade shielding, city technology, vaults full of mana crystals, and tens of thousands of hunters with full MP bars to pull from.

That was just 100 kilometers, and I was able to gain roughly 40 quadrillion MP in mere minutes.

However, that Region won't be recovering anytime soon.

While it doesn't affect the average citizen, and neither does it any hunter below the B-Class rating, there are no dungeons left in the Vice Region that hold monsters above level 500, and the labyrinth has been decimated as well.

The only other Region with mana that dense is the Apex Region. It has a labyrinth with enough mana to instantly heal Raven right now, along with thousands of dungeons and hundreds of thousands of citizens to drain from, but I have other plans for that energy.

I'm going to fully rely on the mana from this abandoned Region I'm in and not touch any more of my new Nation's valuable energy reserves.

My eyes shut as I put my full conscious effort into expanding my tendrils of pure red plunderer energy out as far into the depths of this region as I can.

I summon a new body double to fly over my area of red mist, and it details and logs all of the small villages within the Region to reimburse them after the red mist fades.

In over 2000 kilometers on all sides, reaching over 4000 kilometers in total diameter, I only sense 19,544 total natives to this land and 172 dungeons.

Most of the small villages near the lakes seem to be situated near small E-Class dungeons, so I don't fully drain their only source of mana crystals and loot. I don't know the culture of the civilizations out here, but if I want to assimilate them into my growing kingdom in the near future, it's best I make a good first impression.

The only dungeons I drain completely and fully collapse, plundering 100% of their mana, are the ones far from human reach in deep canyons, abandoned forests, and underground caves.

My aura permeates as far as it can reach, nearing the border of the 8 Great Regions and far off into the west, deeper into the forest until my senses hit the border of a new region.

Icy mountains meet the forest region, coming down from the north and creating a natural land barrier near the edges of my senses. I stop trying to expand my aura when I meet this landmark, as I don't know who occupies this territory, and I need to inspect it myself in a stealthier manner.

The red glow sinks into the ground and floats high into the sky, and slowly but surely, nearly 90% of the Region's ambient mana is channeled through me into Raven's hibernation skill inside my control panel.

Over 1 hour passes.

I watch the mode name change, and the time remaining tick down as trillions of MP are siphoned into the skill.

The 550 days remaining quickly fall below triple digits, and after a few dozen D grade and a handful of C grade dungeons, the time remaining falls below 5 days, surpassing the time needed for the express mode option.

Far off in the outer edges of my aura, there are a few more pockets of C grade dungeons, and even two high-strength B grade dungeons.

According to my calculations, in this entire Region, there is less than 50 quadrillion MP total to pull from, not enough to trigger the near-instant emergency heal, but it should be enough to bring my wait time down to something I can handle.

It takes a bit longer than the others to fully drain these, but once it's done, I finally let my aura begin to retract and stare down at the control panel before me.

[Use Hibernation] [Mythic Grade]

[Accelerated Mode]

[Time Remaining] 0.4 Days

[Add Mana To Accelerate]

"Just under 10 hours? That's more manageable." I whisper to myself while grinning, and pull my hands away from Raven's body, wiping sweat off my forehead.

The white glow around Raven's body becomes much brighter. I watch the particles of white marble evaporate, and her flesh regrows at a microscopic level in real-time.

My aura finally fully retracts back into my body, and my double that was hovering above this new forest region flies back to the dark continent to get supplies to reimburse the villages that were just drained of all their resources.

A long sigh escapes my mouth as my footsteps echo throughout the empty mansion.

"That was not easy... but I wasn't expecting it to be, after all..."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

I can't help but laugh to myself in the middle of an abandoned region as I can finally relax and think straight, appreciating the new boost in power I received from killing another True Core.

Dozens of statues still fill this entrance hall.

Some of them are broken to pieces from the fallen portions of the ceiling, and others have managed to survive with luck.

I scan the entire eerie building and float back up to the top floor to see the marble orb now split in two below the petrified dragon angrily frozen in time with its set of claws reaching to defend its master.

As I touch down on what's left of the cracked flooring on the upper level, and peer into the blackened, charred inside of the orb, I see the body of the frail, lanky old man inside, and an odd intuitive feeling rushes through me.

At the same time, a blue notification pops up over the pile of ash.

[Use Superior Mana Manipulation]

Superior Perk: [Eternal Minion]

Enter Desired Level: 0-9620

[YES] [NO]

My hand raises to press yes and enter the maximum level out of curiosity...

I remember when my mana manipulation skill reached the advanced grade a long time ago, when I first ventured out into the dark continent. It granted a perk called [Temporary Minion], but the only monsters it worked on were certain types of golems when they dropped their cores as loot because it was a physical item I could take out of the dungeon.

All other monsters I tried to turn into my minions would only stay visible and fight for me for a few minutes at most, because they would disappear and be absorbed back into the dungeons.

While I think about this, the instinctual activation of my new True Core's ability activates at the same time as my newly upgraded skill.

Mana, and a silky yellow and white stream of divine energy, leaves my fingertips and revives the pile of ash on the floor of the mansion, bringing the pile of bones to life, into the form he was in before he was killed...

With shiny white shoes, long pants, and a well-fitted suit. The short-haired, sunken-eyed madman stands before me as nothing but a statue of stone.

My divine energy flows into him and settles right in the center of his chest, forming a pseudo True Core before my eyes.

There is no interface for commands or modes like my Dark Magic's summoning technique; all I have is an intuitive feeling to rely on.

I move all ten of my fingers as if I'm playing with a puppet, and as my mind thinks about the lanky man's movements, it plays out in reality before my eyes.

If I wasn't the one moving him to my will, I wouldn't even know that he was being controlled.

The fluid movement of mana intertwined with pure divine energy is so smooth; I've never been able to move pure divine energy with such accuracy before...

I make the man step out from the cracked orb and dance around the destroyed floor, even floating into the air, mana stepping with ease; but I finally set him back on the ground when a few ideas hit me.

Once I think about letting him go, every drop of mana and divine energy leaves his body and floods back into mine.

All that's left is a lifeless white statue frozen for eternity.

It gets me thinking about an explanation for this True Core ability. Clearly, the man was not much of a hands-on fighter when he was alive. Before he awakened his True Core, my guess is he used fallen monsters and possibly allies to do his bidding, as one's True Core ability mimics what they've done before in life...

So it goes hand in hand with his only skill, mana manipulation, allowing him to make soldiers at will and imbue them with all of the power at his fingertips. Or, display them as art in his case.

However, as I walk further down the hall, toward the various doors at the back wall behind the orb and the dragon, I explore this new ability further.

Activating it with my superior mana manipulation skill, I allow pure mana and divine threads to seep out from my fingertips and form balls of pure energy above my palms.

It takes a lot of mental power, and the floors and remaining walls and ceiling around me shake as I shape these orbs of energy into sharp daggers, then into arrows, and eventually a sword. It takes 3 full minutes to do so, and my full body and mind fill with fatigue as I try to manipulate it away from what the True Core's ability is meant to be used for.

I smile as I find there is another use for this ability. It has given me far greater control over divine energy itself... I need to practice, but this is another very intriguing addition to my repertoire.

While deactivating this test, the back wall of the mansion rumbles, and a series of large boxes, crates, containment items, and item boxes all reveal themselves in all of the private rooms at the end of the hall.

I continue walking forward to explore this eerie mansion, finding more statues in some of the rooms of less-clothed men and women hunters, numerous paintings, and all kinds of magical items locked away in the madman's private studies.

There is a large food supply, HP and MP potions to last centuries, and various seemingly random collections of gear ranging from 10% stat boosts up to over 300%, but nothing priceless or usable. The majority of the gear is just unique in other ways, like coloring or shape.

The longer I look through these storage boxes, the more twisted this man's tastes in art and hobbies become.

That is... until I find three item boxes in the lower drawer of a desk that has been buried by the rubble of a fallen ceiling from the escapades earlier.

I'm not expecting anything significant, after rummaging through junk for over half an hour, but when I plunge my hand into the first box and my hand senses thousands of red divine fragments, my eyes widen and my heart rate spikes.

"No way... There has to be at least ten thousand in here..."

I instantly plunge my hand into the second, and there's about two thousand orange fragments this time.

I drop both of these into my storage, and shove my hand into the third and final item box to find over 800 pristine yellow divine fragments.

I pull one out just to look at it, and the reflection of the beautiful glowing stone shimmers in my eyes.

The final item box drops into my item storage, and I use my new True Core's ability to cover the one stone that was in my hand in a thick layer of mana and pure silky divine energy.

In seconds, the stone dissolves, and all of its energy is streamlined directly into my core.

It doesn't feel like much, as draining an entire True Core is far more efficient. If I absorbed every single fragment in that box, I would feel slightly stronger, maybe a ten or twenty percent gain, but my teammates back in the Dark Continent would benefit from these fragments far more than me.

For the next hour as I continue to rummage through all of the containment cases and item boxes in this entire mansion, I'm not upset at the fact that there aren't any other interesting items to take with me.

I've managed to snag more than enough from this unexpected encounter.

Smiling, I walk past the old petrified man next to the white dragon, and hop down to the bottom floor.

Then, I take a seat on the cold hard marble next to Raven.

A large portion of the white stone on her body has completely vanished, and her bare skin and blood-bonded armor have repaired themselves in place. Her core is growing brighter as well.

My body double has come back and visited all of the nearby villages and left to continue working with Bri and Rodrigo to schedule a perfect time with the other Regional Directors and higher grade hunters, relaying that I won't be back until my business is done here.

The sun slowly moves in the sky overhead, falling toward the horizon as I take a short rest and wait for the hibernation clock to tick down before my questions will be answered.

–

Far away, at the heart of Sector 1, in Valor City: an old man with a long white beard, and two disciples beside him touch down in front of Monk's black pyramid.

A bright yellow core cycles in his chest, and the two men decades younger than him to his sides both hold orange cores.

No mana is present in their bodies, only Qi, and dense barriers of the white energy contains their immense divine auras to make sure no weaker humans are hurt by the pressure.