"What do you do after slaying a dragon?"
The Dwarf magician, Talhand,
stroked his expensive Staff, a gleam in his eyes.
He recited an old saying passed down among Adventurers.
"Why, you... strip its hide and pull out its sinews."
"Take apart its bones and burn them for firewood!"
Everyone shared a knowing smile.
The tense atmosphere eased considerably.
Indeed, after slaying a dragon, the next step was naturally to loot its corpse.
After all, dragons?
They were worth a fortune.
The corpse of that adult Red Dragon,
an Emperor-level Red Dragon King, no less,
was, to any smith or alchemist,
a treasure trove whose worth could not be measured in money.
Under the direction of the Dwarf Talhand, their resident "professional,"
who was also an alchemist,
everyone had a clearly defined task.
Rujierd and Alice used their sharp weapons
to slice open the iron-hard dragon hide
and sever the enormous dragon bones.
The dragon scales were carefully peeled off one by one.
Each was enough to make a top-quality shield or suit of armor.
The dragon's teeth and claws were removed intact, excellent materials for crafting weapons.
Cui Ciyou, meanwhile, handled his task personally.
With exquisitely precise Sword Energy, he cut open the dragon's chest.
From its still faintly beating heart,
he extracted a fist-sized crystal, red throughout.
Within that red crystal, something seemed to flow like magma.
That red crystal was the Dragon Core.
The Dragon Core held the essence of the Red Dragon's power.
For a Red Dragon worth a hundred Asura Gold Coins,
its Dragon Core alone was worth at least fifty gold coins.
Only after stripping the Red Dragon of every valuable material
did Cui Ciyou and his companions resume their journey.
They had to hurry.
The Red Dragon colony would be here soon.
At