System and Shava weren’t the only ones attracted by the tempting scent of the dragon rib’s bone marrow. Even Aura, who never ate food and only occasionally used his proboscis to drink water, was stunned.

  “What’s that smell?” Aura asked System in a mental message. Without waiting for an answer, he inserted his proboscis into the rge crack in the dragon skeleton’s rib bone and started sucking out the marrow.

  System didn’t mind Aura sucking out the bone marrow, but he felt a little strange when he saw the butterfly, who usually survived exclusively on energy, suddenly start eating.

  “It’s the bone marrow of a dragon. Judging by how it smells, it should taste pretty good.”

  System walked over to the crack in the rib and stood next to Aura. He used his [Morph] ability to make his tentacles thinner, then stretched them into the crack to scoop out some marrow.

  However, just as System’s tentacles stretched into the crack, Aura suddenly lost his grip on the dragon’s rib and plummeted to the ground, nding ft on his back. System could sense emotions of extreme happiness and satisfaction pouring out of the fallen butterfly.

  Aura seemed to be drunk. System didn’t know if Aura was doing it intentionally, but the drunken butterfly’s legs reached out and grabbed onto System’s tentacles. Aura then tried to wrap the tentacles around himself.

  After sucking out the dragon’s bone marrow, Aura seemed to have lost control of himself a bit.

  System guessed that the dragon’s bone marrow might be a little too nutritious, which caused it to pce too much of a burden on Aura’s butterfly body.

  System used his tentacles to drag the drunken butterfly off to the side so that Aura wouldn’t unconsciously grab onto his tentacles again, then reached back into the dragon rib for some marrow.

  This dragon’s skeleton had been stored for a long time. System estimated that it had been lying among the bones in the storage room for at least a hundred years. Even then, the marrow inside the dragon skeleton’s rib bone seemed very fresh and showed no signs of drying up.

  It had to be said that dragons were worthy of being called extraordinary life forms.

  The bone marrow was kind of sticky, and its texture was simir to the jarred honey that System had processed in his previous life. It was a creamy yellow color, and its fragrance was extremely wonderful.

  Just as System was finally about to get his first taste of the dragon rib’s bone marrow, he suddenly noticed that Shava was staring intensely at the marrow that his tentacle had scooped out. After thinking for a moment, he decided to go ahead and prepare some bone marrow for her before eating any himself.

  After all, there was already the precedent set by Aura, who had fallen to the ground drunk after eating only a tiny amount of bone marrow. If System ended up passing out the same way that Aura had, Shava wouldn’t be able to access the bone marrow on her own.

  System wasn’t stingy. He quickly found a bottle in the warehouse, then filled it to the brim with bone marrow and handed it over to the delighted Shava.

  After wrapping up the st of his preparations, it was time for System to get his first taste of the dragon’s delicious-looking bone marrow.

  He thought that he'd prepared himself mentally, but when the time finally arrived, he discovered that he'd still set his expectations for the deliciousness of this dragon rib’s bone marrow too low.

  The marrow’s intense sweetness and rich milky fvor seemed very strong at first, but in reality, they were actually quite mild. Before System had a chance to savor the taste carefully, he seemed to arrive in a peaceful wondernd where all of his worries and sorrows faded away. He could also hear beautiful music pying, which filled him a sense of rexation and comfort...

  When System returned to his senses, he discovered that three minutes had passed without him noticing.

  He looked over and saw that Shava had already drunkenly colpsed into the pile of bones just like Aura.

  Because System hadn’t eaten much of the dragon’s bone marrow, he was only slightly dizzy.

  However, when he observed his experience bar, he found that even the small amount of bone marrow that he'd just eaten was enough to increase his experience bar by thirty percent. As long as he ate a bit more marrow, he would break through his experience bar’s upper limit and reach level 16.

  System quickly used a few of his tentacles to collect more bone marrow into a bottle, then swallowed the entire bottle of bone marrow all at once.

  He felt as if he'd swallowed a warm and mellow fme. While savoring the delicious taste in his mouth, he felt as if his body was soaking in a hot spring, and he once again appeared in that imaginary wondernd.

  System felt extremely comfortable, as if every pore in his entire body had opened up, and he felt a strong desire to take a nap. He seemed to be drunk...

  ...

  By the time System woke up again, three days had passed. It seemed that he'd eaten far too much of the dragon’s bone marrow at once that second time. As he groggily looked around, he saw that Shava and Aura seemed to have woken up earlier than him.

  Shava was currently chopping on another of the dragon skeleton’s ribs, while Aura was no longer in the storage room. System presumed that the greedy butterfly had gone back to the treasure room to take another swim through the mountain of gold.

  It seemed like even this dragon’s delicious bone marrow wasn’t as attractive to Aura as gold coins.

  After waking up, System stretched a bit while looking through his personal information in his [Tools Menu].

  After he ate the bottle of bone marrow, System’s level had directly increased by two. He was now eighty percent of the way to reaching level 18.

  After the upgrade, his body had grown to sixty centimeters in length. If he counted his tentacles, which were now nearly ninety centimeters long, his total length had reached almost one and a half meters.

  In addition, although eating the dragon’s bone marrow hadn’t granted him any special abilities, he found that the brown scales that had grown on his abdomen after his third pupation had turned bck and shiny. The exoskeleton on the other parts of his body had also become more durable. He estimated that his exoskeleton was nearly fifty percent stronger now.

  His combat power had increased from 81 to 87. The difference between the two numbers didn’t seem very rge, but he knew that his [Pgue Mucus] alone accounted for 60 points of his combat power.

  After eating the dragon’s bone marrow, his body’s normal combat power had increased from 21 to 27, which was roughly an increase of one quarter.

  ...

  However, while System was pleased with the various benefits that eating the dragon’s bone marrow had given him, he discovered something incredibly annoying—the bone marrow’s evaporation speed was much too fast.

  Three days ago, when he'd passed out from eating the bottle of bone marrow, half of the dragon rib’s bone marrow was still left. However, when he'd checked again after waking up, he discovered that the bone marrow had completely dried up. All that remained inside the rib was a small amount of powder-like impurities.

  While the impurities still tasted great and were actually the most delicious food that System had ever eaten aside from the dragon’s bone marrow itself, the bone marrow provided over ten times more experience than the impurities.

  Fortunately, System had only wasted half of a single dragon rib. There were still many simir bones left on the dragon skeleton.

  ...

  Just like that, while they waited for the Shadow Key ring to charge, System and Shava kept collecting the dragon’s bone marrow in bottles and jars.

  Shava’s exoskeleton had also become stronger after she ate the bone marrow. System checked her data with [Probe and Analyze] and saw that her combat power had increased from 5-6 to 7-8. Her [King’s Knight] ability should also give her a rger increase in combat power now.

  Shava started cracking open the dragon bones much faster after her combat power increased. Even without Aura’s help, it only took her six or seven hours to ssh a rge enough crack into a dragon bone that its marrow could be extracted.

  ...

  Over the course of roughly ten days, System successfully collected thirteen bottles of the dragon skeleton’s bone marrow. During those days, he frequently snacked on tiny amounts of marrow, which resulted in his level rising all the way to 20.

  His body had grown to nearly seventy centimeters long, and his exoskeleton was twice as strong as when he'd just finished pupating. His combat power had also increased to 94.

  And on this day, System, Aura, and Shava were finally able to return to their nest from this Temple of Shadows...