The silence in Jack's mind was a profound relief, but it was accompanied by a new, jarring sensation: weakness. It was a deep, cellular fragility he hadn't felt in years. A ghostly timer in the upper corner of his vision pulsed with a faint white light, [00:59:17], but the more pressing concern was the state of his own body.
He tried to draw on his mana, the simple act of feeling his own power, and found the well almost dry. The deep reservoir he had felt moments after Awakening was gone, replaced by a shallow puddle. He was Level 1. The System had reset his progress within the F-rank as payment, a brutal but fair transaction. He had gained a factory, but he had paid for it with his own strength. A cold sweat prickled on his skin. In this state, a single one of the Giant Rats he now technically owned could probably kill him. The thought was irritatingly ironic.
The timer ticked down. [00:58:45]. This weakness was temporary. The collapse of his dungeon core would be permanent. He pushed the feeling of fragility aside. It was data, nothing more. A new variable to be managed. He slipped out of the storage basement, his movements quiet and deliberate, melting back into the orphanage's neglected corridors. He needed a location. Not just any location, but the perfect one.
His mind worked like a search algorithm, sifting through a mental map of the state-run property and its surroundings. The first option, hiding it somewhere within the orphanage itself, was discarded instantly. Too many variables, too many proctors and other orphans. An accidental discovery was inevitable. He needed a place that was both hidden and, paradoxically, accessible.
He thought about the stories Mike and the other boys told, the hushed rumors of the Awakener world that trickled down to the uninitiated. He recalled hearing about how veteran guilds sometimes lost ownership of their preserved dungeons, and how other parties would stumble upon these "lost" gates in abandoned warehouses or deep within forgotten subway tunnels. The world was accustomed to dungeons appearing in strange, out-of-the-way places. He wouldn't be creating an anomaly; he would be creating a discovery. He simply had to choose who would do the discovering.
[00:47:12].
His feet carried him towards the outer perimeter of the orphanage grounds, near the crumbling brick wall that separated their drab world from the city beyond. He remembered a place. A collapsed drainage culvert, half-swallowed by overgrown weeds and dirt. It was a dead space, a piece of civic failure that no one ever looked at twice. The entrance was a dark, intimidating maw of concrete and rusted rebar that kids sometimes dared each other to approach but never enter. It was secluded enough to avoid official notice, but known enough to be a potential lure. It was perfect.
He slid down the muddy embankment, the damp earth soaking into the knees of his threadbare trousers. He stood before the dark opening. The air smelled of wet stone and decay. He reached out and pressed his palm flat against the cold, graffiti-scarred concrete.
A familiar white window, visible only to him, flickered in his vision.
[Confirm Dungeon Placement? Y/N]
He mentally selected 'Y'.
The countdown vanished. A profound, deep thrum vibrated from the concrete, a bass note felt in his bones rather than his ears. For a moment, the shadows within the culvert seemed to twist and writhe, coiling in on themselves. Faint, ethereal runes, glowing with the same blue light as the Awakening Seal, carved themselves across the inner surface of the tunnel before fading, leaving the stone looking exactly as it had before. The anchor was set. The factory had its foundation.
A small, almost imperceptible smile touched Jack's lips. "Clean," he murmured to himself. "Efficient. Even the paperwork is done for me."
Curiosity, cold and sharp, drove him forward. He stepped through the opening. The world did not change instantly. He walked ten paces into the darkness, and only then did the air shift. The smell of decay was replaced by the scent of damp earth and something else, something vaguely metallic and alive. He had passed through the gate.
He was in a crude, F-rank cave. Water dripped from stalactites onto a muddy floor. The path split into two narrow corridors. In the faint, ambient light that all dungeons seemed to possess, he could see the lumbering shape of a Goblin. It was one of his. It saw him, let out a guttural snarl, and took a step forward. Jack instinctively took a step back. In his current state, he knew a fight would be a foolish risk.
He didn't need to fight it. He just needed to understand. He opened the dungeon interface in his mind. He saw the layout, a simple branching path leading to a larger cavern. He saw the monster population, currently at three Goblins, two Giant Rats, and one Slime. And he saw the two passive abilities tied to his talent.
[Experience Tithe]. [Essence Absorption].
And in that moment, seeing the pieces laid out before him, the entire grand design clicked into place with the force of a divine revelation. He had been thinking like a hunter. He needed to think like a farmer.
The level reset was a crippling weakness, but the Experience Tithe was the solution. He didn't need to risk his life fighting monsters to level up. He could let other Awakeners do it for him. He would design this dungeon to be a perfectly balanced, low-risk, F-rank farm. He would lure in the desperate, the poor, and the foolish. They would come in, kill his monsters, and for every ten experience points they earned, one would flow silently to him. He could sit in his dorm room, reading a book, and grow stronger off their labor. They were his tenants, paying a tax they didn't even know existed.
But some tenants fail to pay rent. Some would be careless. Some would die. And that was where the second ability came in. Essence Absorption. For every Awakener that died in his dungeon, he would gain a permanent stat point. That was the true harvest.
The monsters were not the product. The monsters are just scaffolding. He thought, a cold, sharp clarity cutting through his mind. The real harvest begins when the sheep wander in.
He now had a two-track system. A "safe" dungeon for the tenants, and a future "trap" dungeon for the harvest. He would grow his level and his stats simultaneously, a perfectly closed, predatory economic loop.
He backed out of the dungeon, the mundane world reasserting itself. He committed the location to memory and scrambled back up the embankment. He needed to get back before his absence was noted.
He slipped back into the dorm, his heart beating with a calm, steady rhythm. The plan was no longer a vague ambition. It was a blueprint.
"There you are," a voice said. It was Mike, looking relieved. "I was wondering where you went."
"Bathroom," Jack said, the lie smooth and effortless.
"Oh. Well, hurry up and get your gear ready," Mike said, his voice a mixture of excitement and raw terror. "The proctors just made an announcement. We're all being sent on a mandatory raid tomorrow morning. A real F-rank dungeon just outside the city walls. It's our first combat assessment."