Ilsung filled a large bowl with meat stew, he piled an equally large portion of omurice on his plate. After grabbing a couple of juice packs, he sat down in a corner of the hall, which was empty.

He stuffed spoonfuls of omurice into his mouth, devouring the food like there was no tomorrow. When he finished the rice on his plate, he chased it with the juice packs, emptying it with large gulps.

When Ilsung was about to start with the meat stew, people started pouring into the hall. Mr. X, Yongsun, and Ji arrived in the hall, after grabbing their lunch, they saw Ilsung and hurried toward him.

"Dude where were you? We thought you might have left the Academy" Mr. X asked curiously.

"Oh, I graduated already. You should call me senior from now on" Ilsung grinned.

"What!" Yongsun and Ji exclaimed at the same time.

After Ilsung narrated the story, they were first shocked, and when they recovered, they nodded like it made sense.

Cheon Ji nodded "One of the instructors said that there's an extremely strong student who might even graduate early. So it was..."

Ban Yongsun cut her off "How was the dungeon? Once we get better, do you think we could solo the dungeon as well"

Ilsung shook his head, "Hard to say, but it'll be extremely difficult. The best way to clear a dungeon would be as a group, and with assigned roles and strategies."

Mr. X, who had his dreams of being the star of this generation destroyed, looked gloomy.

Ilsung grinned "Don't be disappointed, you may even get better than me in the coming months"

Before the words could put a smile on Mr.X's face, Ilsung doused his joy.

"But until then, you should call me senior. I'll even guide you along the right path."

Mr. X frowned again.

Ilsung laughed "I'm just kidding, by the way, what's your name? I can't keep calling you Mr. X, that sounds too much like the screen name of a pornstar"

"I'm Seo Hyunwoo"

Ilsung looked at Hyunwoo for a minute. "Are you related to Seo Sangwoo, Seoul's new Mayor? You have a faint resemblance with him."

"Yes... that's why I don't introduce myself by my real name"

Cheon Ji looked a bit surprised, but Ban Yongsun nodded, indicating he was aware of it.

Ilsung smiled "You didn't want to reveal your name, and the best you could come up with was Mr. X..."

"Hey, enough about me. Tell us what you plan to do next."

Ilsung finished his meat stew as he was talking to the group. "I have a few things to do here, after that I'll probably leave, I haven't thought much further than that."

Ban Yongsun took out his phone, "We haven't exchanged our contact info yet, what app do you use?"

Ilsung shared his Line ID and email with the group.

"Alright, I might not see you guys again while you're in the Academy. But feel free to contact me otherwise" Ilsung bid farewell and returned to his room.

~~

Ilsung turned on his laptop and started to browse the forums, wanting to see the response for his website. The moment Ilsung hit the search button, all he could see were viral stories and news videos, all of which linked to his site.

After seeing the positive comments on the forums, Ilsung started to grin. He opened his site admin page and found out about the extreme amount of traffic it received over the past few days.

After chatting with the customer rep of the hosting service he used, Ilsung upgraded his website to an expensive custom plan, that included a ton of bandwidth and scalable capacity.

After he was satisfied with the new state of his website, Ilsung connected the GoPro to his laptop, transferred the dungeon video, and began editing.

He removed the idle parts and the parts with instructor Park. He trimmed the sections of the video that was just him running in the dungeon. He added Doom OST as the background music for the fights. The final cut was around 16 minutes of pure adrenaline and mayhem.

Ilsung transferred both the edited and unedited videos to his phone and headed to the Academy building.

He didn't know where Park's office was, so he went up to the front desk and asked for Instructor Park.

When Ilsung told his name, the woman at the desk stood in attention and personally guided him to Park's office on the 3rd Floor.

Ilsung sent the woman away and just as he knocked on the door, he noticed the nameplate on the door 'Park Hojun : Chief of the Academy'

Park opened the door. "I was eagerly waiting for you. But since you said it would be a week, I didn't want to disturb you before that"

Ilsung nodded.

They both sat down in their chairs.

"So, I have the video with me, I'm sure it will be quite useful for training and for devising a strategy to defeat the monsters. I also have the remains of the monsters, I'm sure it'll all be very useful."

Stolen novel; please report.

Park nodded, he knew there would likely be some negotiation involved. Neither the defense department nor he wanted to force Ilsung to hand over the stuff. They wanted to be on good terms with him, and possibly even recruit him.

"What do you want in return?"

"Nothing much, just exclusive permission to use it online."

The request was reasonable. Park nodded. "Sure. But what do you want to do with it? Sell it to the media?"

Ilsung laughed "Why would I do that... I'm going to post it on my website"

Park was surprised "You have a website?". He opened the browser on his laptop. "What's the address?"

Ilsung grinned "Moonlight-Guild.com, there's a hyphen in the middle."

"Motherfucker, I knew It was you..." Park burst out laughing.

"After witnessing you in the dungeon, and reading the section of the page that explained about Mana, my instincts told me it was probably you."

Ilsung laughed, "I wanted to be the first one to set up such a private organization. I was afraid someone else would do it before me, so I created the website on a whim"

"Well thanks to you, they're now looking into registering private organizations and guilds. They plan to create a special license for it."

"What about freelancers or people who don't join a guild? Would they be able to enter the dungeons?"

"If the need arises, they would be allowed to enter after getting certified. We are also planning to launch an independent certification bureau to rank, classify and manage the people that intend to fight in the dungeons. People who didn't attend the Academies would also be able to get tested and certified."

"Didn't you test a majority of the young population?"

"Yes, but a lot of them that had suitable aptitude chose not to attend the Academy, they take dungeons to be a trivial matter. Those that didn't show any aptitude might do so in the future, we plan to design a system that would continuously supplement manpower, without needing to go through a long and arduous curriculum at the Academy."

Ilsung was impressed, the thought and planning that went into developing such a plan was something to be admired.

"That's a great plan! Seems like the defense department knows what to do"

Park nodded.

"Should I call you instructor Park or Chief Park? I just saw the board when coming in, I didn't know you were the chief."

"No need for any descriptives, you can call me Park. Where are the dead monsters you collected?"

"They're with me, where do you want them placed."

"We have a large research facility down below, as you have seen the other day, we can place them there. You can talk with the head of the research department to figure out what to do with it."

Ilsung nodded, "Sure.'

Park spoke solemnly, "I have a request on behalf of the government. They wanted to recruit you, which I know is unlikely to happen, if you couldn't be recruited, they had a request."

"What is it?" Ilsung leaned on the table.

"The government wants priority purchase rights to the monster remains you recover. They also want priority access to any and all intel you uncover, whether it's about a monster's weakness, mana, or anything else. Of course, you would be paid handsomely depending on the information."

"Do you guys intend to resell the information to other nations?"

"Yes."

Ilsung thought for a while, "I can't agree to that. I intend to sell intel through an open sale. After some time, the information would be made available to the public for free. I plan to sell Items, weapons, and monster's remains through an auction..."

Ilsung paused for a minute, "...But I can guarantee that Korea would get much better pricing, and if the information is time-sensitive or very critical, I wouldn't resort to blackmail and it will be made available to the government immediately. That's my offer, what do you think."

Park looked intently at Ilsung. He's definitely not a pushover, this might be the most we could get out of him.

"Ok. You can register your organization, and the government will issue a license immediately. Once the situation surrounding the dungeons becomes clear, you'll receive additional benefits. We are yet to decide how the dungeons will be assigned, but once we figure it out you'll have priority."

Ilsung smiled, "Cool. By the way, what do you plan to call the people who fight in the dungeons? You'll have to make them feel special, you know."

Park smiled, "What do you recommend?"

"Call them 'Hunters', that's what they're called in the novels. It'll be a nice tongue-in-cheek reference"

Park laughed, "I'll remember to share your opinion."

After Ilsung transferred the video of the dungeon raid to Park's laptop, they left the room.

~~

Park and Ilsung arrived at one of the empty research rooms on the 2nd underground floor. Ilsung focused his mind and with a thought, white silhouettes appeared in the room, and a second later the two monster remains appeared in the room.

"That's a really neat trick. We wanted to bring some of the remains with us on previous raids, but we'd have had to drag these around, so we dropped the plan."

Ilsung nodded, "Where's the head of research?"

"I'll go get him"

Park left the room and returned after a few minutes along with a stout bald man.

"I'm Jim, I run the research department here. What do you have for us?"

Jim's gaze fell onto the large body of the Minotaur and the remains of the Gorgon. He hurriedly inspected the remains before nodding with a satisfied smile.

"They're in really good shape. We'll just have to figure out what they could be used for"

"I'll save you the trouble, The skin and scales of the Gorgon are durable and resistant to fire, you can use the scales to make armor, and the skin can be used to make outfits. They would come in handy when facing a monster with fire-type attacks."

Ilsung opened the mouth of the Gorgon.

"These fangs are extremely tough and sharp, they'd make for good daggers or knives. The Minotaur could be used to make leather, its skin is tough. The tendons and guts could be used to make bowstrings."

"The most important part though is the meat and bones, I could sense that they contain a lot of mana, they can be eaten to absorb the mana in it."

Jim was taken aback, "Eaten? Are you sure it's even edible and not poisonous?"

Ilsung grinned, "We'll find out tonight."

Park and Jim looked at each other, confused.

~~

Ilsung spent close to an hour flaying the Minotaur, separating its hide from the body. He neatly carved the large body into steaks, removed the remaining meat from the bones, and cut them into chunks.

Park who was watching along with Jim, couldn't help but ask.

"Are you a butcher by profession?"

Ilsung laughed at the remark, not caring to reply. He trimmed the pieces of fat and sinew from the steaks, and when he was done, a large mound of meat was piled up on the table.

"We'll have a feast tonight, we can invite all the instructors and researchers working here. Do you have a kitchen here?"

"We have one at the end of this floor, I'll have the cooks do it. How should we cook it?" Park asked.

"Like any normal beef. But it's a bit leaner, so it's best to grill it till it's rare or medium-rare. The meat chunks could be used for fired rice, bulgogi, and stew. The bones could be used to make broth or soup."

Ilsung looked at the nervous expression on Jim's face.

"Why don't you take a sample over and analyze it? You can check for any foreign microbes or toxins. But I'll spoil the answer, you won't find anything, animals and monsters with such high Mana levels are usually free from microbes and toxins."

Jim was unconvinced and after taking a sample from different tissues, he left the room.

"How do you know this stuff? It's not common knowledge, this is probably the 1st time anyone has ever seen these monsters, how can you be so sure about microbes and toxins and Mana."

"It's part of the info I unlocked as a reward for clearing the dungeon, along with the system upgrade."

"Oh...that's how you know this stuff. Why didn't you say it earlier?"

"I was trying to be mysterious..." Ilsung gestured with a flipped ok sign, "...And I wanted some cash for the info" Ilsung grinned,

Park chuckled. "I'll make sure you get paid, this info is indeed pretty valuable."

"Also ask them not to publish or resell this information. I have some plans of my own, and I'll need the government's help with it, it'll be beneficial for you guys too"

Park sighed, "Sure."

"Alright, I'll leave it to you. I'll have to go publish the video. See you tonight Chief Park"

Park smiled.

~~

END OF CHAPTER 17