Bone china was a special type of ceramic fired using biological bone ash.
Compared with ordinary ceramics, bone china was somewhat more complicated to manufacture.
However, its advantage was that even without high-quality raw materials, one could still fire utensils of relatively high quality.
There was naturally no ready-made fine clay in this dungeon for Carl to fire into ceramics, so she had to turn her attention to substitutes.
She roasted each of the lizard's various bones on the stone slab, sprinkling them with a little salt water for seasoning.
The meat clinging tightly to the bones was tender and springy because, during roasting, some of the collagen in the bones seeped out and replaced the moisture lost from the meat.
The stone slab, heated to around 160 degrees, caused a Maillard reaction on the surface of the meat and bones. This special method of protein maturation brought out the food's natural aroma to the fullest.
Even seasoned with nothing but salt water, the aroma was still irresistible.
"Crack!"
Whenever Carl finished roasting a meaty bone, she would take the cleaned hand axe and split the bone open crosswise down the middle.
The marrow inside the bone was exposed to the air.
As soon as this fat-rich food was revealed, it gave off an enticing aroma.
The idiom "having tasted the marrow, one knows its flavor" reflected the special place bone marrow held in the hearts of people in ancient times.
It aptly described how those who had sucked out bone marrow felt about the food—once they had tasted it, they knew how delicious it was.
Carl handed half of the split bone to Hopp and held the other half herself. While roasting the next bone, she began gnawing on it.
Every now and then, she would bring her mouth close to the broken end of the bone and suck several times at the hollow interior.
Generally speaking, women during their periods were not well suited to eating such fatty food.
But as a Tiefling Barbarian, Hopp's constitution was even stronger than Carl's. She had more than enough physical reserves to rapidly absorb the nutrients and replenish herself.
After eating around ten meaty bones, Hopp felt that her body was no longer quite so weak.
But before she could go help Carl, Carl had already used rainwater to lower the stone slab's temperature a little.
"Put it beneath your butt. Your condition should improve."
By then, the stone slab had used up all its magical energy, and after being doused with rainwater, its remaining temperature had fallen to around seventy or eighty degrees.
"Huh? Are you making me finish the sauce over high heat?"
Looking at the stone slab Carl sent over with Mage Hand, Hopp instinctively resisted a little.
"Don't be so fussy. This is a special treatment method from my hometown. Just listen to me!"
In her previous life, many girls suffering from menstrual cramps would sit on stone stools that had been baking in the sun all afternoon to ease their pain.
Carl did not know the principle behind it, but all the people online who had tried it said it really worked.
Seeing Hopp, who had previously been so fierce, now lying listlessly on the recliner, Carl had no choice but to use this folk remedy to treat her.
Hopp watched Carl suspiciously, then moved aside hesitantly and let the stone slab fall onto the recliner's seat.
Afterward, she sat on the stone slab with a somewhat grimacing expression.
The still-scalding stone slab made Hopp flinch, but the innate fire resistance of Tieflings allowed her to adapt quickly.
Gradually, Hopp stopped holding her body rigid and simply let gravity take its course, sitting completely on the stone slab.
"Phew~ It really seems to be working. No wonder it's Eldren!"
Feeling the warm current beneath her gradually ease the pain, Hopp praised the Eldeen Reaches in every way she could, much like those public intellectuals Carl had seen online in her previous life.
Carl did not correct this misunderstanding.
In fact, few people elsewhere on the continent liked the Eldeen Reaches.
Most people even considered it a backward place.
Because of the Druid profession's natural inclination to pursue nature, many Druids in other parts of the continent were radical environmentalists.
They destroyed farms, wrecked factories, and even forcibly killed cattle and sheep in ranches.
This barbaric conduct, spread through the newspapers of various nations, gave some people a poor impression of Druids.
In addition, the natural energy Druids used meant that they did not wear exquisite iron armor or wield refined iron weapons, so anything associated with Druids was often equated with being "backward."
Of course, no one dared publicly denigrate the Eldeen Reaches at an official level.
The world's strongest Druid and the spiritual leader of the Eldeen Reaches, Ao'Lian, was rumored to possess the terrifying power of level forty.
The Eldeen Reaches also single-handedly shouldered the task of continuously fighting the Demon Wastes to the northwest of the Continent of Khorvaire.
More importantly, the Eldeen Reaches provided every nation in the world with high-quality, inexpensive food and various agricultural products.
If someone cursed the cook after filling their belly, the Eldeen Reaches would stop trading food with that country.
Although the various nations still retained a certain amount of farmland, it was nowhere near enough compared with the Eldeen Reaches' high-quality goods at stable prices.
Carl and Hopp's lives were gradually flourishing, while the Dire Goblin group still trudged miserably onward through the torrential rain.
All the food the group carried had been completely soaked by the rain, and some people began suffering from diarrhea after eating it.
As of today, five Dire Goblins had already fallen behind the group.
"Chief! We need to hunt some giant lizards for food. The provisions we're carrying can't be eaten anymore!"
Seeing the group grow smaller and smaller, a Dire Goblin grabbed the Dire Goblin leader, who wanted to keep moving forward, and voiced his opinion.
After some simple consideration, the not particularly bright Dire Goblin chief accepted his subordinate's advice. He had them find a cave nearby, then took a group of Dire Goblins in better condition out to hunt giant lizards and other animals.
In fact, the dry rations this Dire Goblin group carried were jerky made from giant lizard meat.
They already possessed the technology to raise giant lizards, and their production of giant lizard meat could even satisfy the dietary needs of the entire tribe.
Of course, how could ordinary goblins possibly be qualified to share giant lizard meat with Dire Goblins and Hobgoblins?
Thus, the ordinary goblins left behind in the tribe could only eat the not-very-tasty bioluminescent mushrooms and the trash previously left behind by the Dire Goblins to fill their stomachs.
After traveling north from the cave for a while, the Dire Goblin group soon spotted a group of wild giant lizards frolicking in the rain.
The lead Dire Goblin removed a finely crafted great axe from his back, then charged toward the giant lizard herd.
The other Dire Goblins followed suit and drew their own weapons. Surprisingly, although these fellows acted like uncivilized savages from a primitive tribe, every one of their weapons was finely forged iron.
As the weapons swung, magical patterns occasionally lit up. These were all magical weapons, capable of automatically repairing some ordinary wear and resisting the corrosion brought by the passage of time.
Weapons like these should never have belonged to a group of goblins like them.