It was a rare magical fruit that the Golden Sail Merchant Guild had shipped in at great expense via its southern trade route.
It looked like a slightly smaller pineapple, but its skin was far more orderly, resembling tightly interlocking, overlapping dark red dragon scales.
The fruit's unique fibrous structure, waxy skin with its high water content, and faint traces of fire energy within gave it astonishing resistance to flames.
In its native region, indigenous tribes used its shell directly as cookware.
In war, they even riveted dragon-scale fruit skins onto wooden shields to defend against fire spells.
Some battles grew so intense that even the rivets melted, yet the dragon-scale fruit skins never caught fire.
Veylin's goal was simple. Through [Transcendent Grafting], he intended to graft the [thorn-crowned dragon-scale fruit]'s naturally fireproof skin into the [Bloodsucking Vine]'s bloodline.
He wanted to create the ultimate war plant, one that could bind and restrain like a giant python while remaining impervious to burning flames.
A nemesis tailor-made to counter the [Lord of the Gray Swamp]'s Sulfur Breath.
The experiment began. First, Veylin put on gloves made from tanned dragonhide and picked up a scalpel.
With precise, steady movements, he cut a length of offshoot from the parent Bloodsucking Vine.
The cut was as smooth as a mirror. Inky green sap slowly seeped out, carrying a rich aura of life.
He then made a perfectly matching wedge-shaped incision at the crown of the dragon-scale fruit branch.
The grafting began.
Veylin inserted the Bloodsucking Vine offshoot into the incision in the dragon-scale fruit, fitting the two snugly together.
Then he took out a bottle of Alchemical Potion he had prepared beforehand-a viscous mixture of Animated Treant sap, Earth Dragon saliva, and a small amount of primordial blood crystal powder-and applied it to the