Recovery

He lowered his head and looked at his hands. After so long soaking in seawater, his skin had turned pale and wrinkled, like old tree bark.

He was working hard to move his fingers and arms, trying to regain feeling and strength.

Just then, King Ghidorah, who had been silently guarding him all along, clearly noticed that he was awake.

Its enormous body jolted, and all three heads swung toward him almost simultaneously in excitement. Then the entire dragon lunged at him!

The three heads were so excited they nearly crowded into one another, each racing to reach Redd first, sniffing and nuzzling him, their long tongues stretching out,

licking wildly at his face and arms and leaving wet, sticky trails of saliva.

"Cough, cough! Stop! King Ghidorah, hold on!" Caught off guard by this sudden "enthusiasm," Redd instantly had its saliva all over his face, looking both ridiculous and bedraggled.

He hurriedly flailed his still-uncooperative hands in front of him, trying to stop King Ghidorah's overly enthusiastic welcome.

He did not know whether to laugh or cry. This big fellow must have taken him for a "family member" who had just rejoined the group, but this welcome was a little too "terrifying."

The licking made Redd itch all over. The cold, wet dragon tongues swept over him with powerful suction,

raking across his face and arms, and with sticky saliva smeared all over his face,

he felt every hair on his body stand on end. Forget enthusiasm-he wanted to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.

How was this a welcome? This was practically a "biological attack"!

Three tongues, each more than a size larger than his face, taking turns-who could stand that?

Only after an immense struggle did Redd finally seize one of King Ghidorah's heads,

pushing it away with his somewhat feeble strength, while the other two heads were gently pinned down by the Black Dragon Ehm and the Red Dragon Aegon.

Taking advantage of the opening, he hurriedly dipped his hands into the seawater beside him and hastily washed the saliva off his face.

The warm seawater brought a little clarity. Only then did he steady himself, stand up, and stretch his still somewhat numb body.

He carefully checked himself over. Apart from his skin having turned pale and wrinkled from soaking in seawater for so long,

and some lingering numbness and stiffness, he did not seem to feel any actual internal injuries.

This relieved him, but he also looked in puzzlement at King Ghidorah beside him, who seemed to have accepted its "punishment" and was watching him "bounce around" with a somewhat aggrieved yet curious gaze.

We went through the same thing, soaked in and battered by the same scalding seawater. Why was I unconscious for so long, and why was my body still so weak?

Yet King Ghidorah seemed completely unharmed, apart from perhaps being a little tired?

Was it simply because I passed out and had less resistance?

Redd shook his head. He could not figure it out right now, so he let it go. There was plenty of time ahead anyway. As long as he survived, he would understand eventually.

Once he had regained a little freedom of movement, Redd immediately turned his attention to the other two dragons.

He first walked over to the Black Dragon Ehm and examined it carefully.

Ehm's enormous body was covered in wounds, and in some places, its scales had even curled back,

while the edges of the enormous holes in its wings remained charred black, despite King Ghidorah's rough attempts to patch them up temporarily. Clearly, the injuries were serious.

What alarmed Redd even more was Ehm's heavy, uneven breathing. Clearly, it had also suffered internal trauma and damage.

He then turned to the Red Dragon Aegon, whose condition was much the same. His blue-black scales were covered in abrasions from the intense heat and impacts,

and he looked similarly listless, his eyes lacking their usual sharpness.

At the sight of the two dragons in this state, Redd's heart sank.

As it turned out, the system had only repaired him, while his companions had to bear the wounds left by this disaster on their own.

He patted Ehm's neck and asked gravely, "Ehm, Aegon, how are you doing? Can you hold on?"

The two dragons seemed to understand him. Each gave a low, pained rumble, yet an unyielding will shone in their eyes.

Redd knew that, from here on, they would not only have to face the unknown dangers of the Smoking Sea, but also care for these two severely wounded companions.

The road ahead remained perilous.

Redd knew he was utterly incapable of resolving their current predicament alone-two severely injured dragons and an environment still fraught with danger.

Their only hope lay with the newly updated system.

He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and began carefully examining the new system interface in his mind.

Sure enough, the words "version 1.0" had been added as a suffix to the system interface's name, and beside them, it had even "thoughtfully" added a note:

Ten years until the next update.

Ten years...

To him, it was both distant and imminent.

The first thing he saw when he opened the system was his personal panel information.

There, plainly displayed, "evolution points" had become "energy points,"

and the total had plummeted from several thousand, even nearly ten thousand, to a mere three thousand and change.

Redd's face instantly darkened. He had not expected his condition while unconscious to have been so severe. Healing him alone had consumed more than half his energy points!

His heart lurched, and he silently counted himself lucky that the system had not forcibly drained him dry. Compared with the hospital bills in his previous life, which could easily run into the hundreds of thousands,

he suddenly felt that the system was actually quite fair. At least it had left him a chance to turn things around.

Suppressing his displeasure, he opened the newly added medical repair function.

Following the system's instructions, he walked over to the Black Dragon Ehm and pressed his hand against its rough, scarred scales.

Almost instantly, it felt as though an enormous database had been forcibly crammed into his mind, scrolling furiously as it unfurled a huge stack of detailed examination reports.

Every page described the Black Dragon Ehm's injuries in exhaustive detail, complete with text and illustrations:

Which vertebrae were dislocated, what percentage of the left foreleg's tendons were torn, how much scalding steam had been inhaled into the lungs and caused tissue burns, how many scales needed replacing...

The sheer volume of information was suffocating.

Redd's face darkened further. He felt less like he was administering treatment and more like he was reading an incredibly complicated, headache-inducing repair checklist!

How was I supposed to have the energy to analyze this outrageously technical data one entry at a time?

He just wanted to heal Ehm as quickly as possible!

Irritated, he clicked "skip" almost reflexively, jumping straight to the treatment options screen.

All he wanted now was to get this over with quickly and make Ehm better.

When Redd saw the final checkout screen and its cost of 1,100 energy points, the corners of his mouth could not help twitching twice.

That was more than a third of his current energy reserves!