Corner of the Dark Forest.
A thin, small figure cautiously pokes its head out from the dense forest.
Suddenly, a large gray rabbit prepares to leap across the grassland in front of it.
The sound of air being pierced resounds, a poorly polished small wooden javelin fiercely stabs into the gray rabbit's eye, penetrating its skull and pinning its body to the black earth.
A deadly strike!
Once the signs of life disappear from the gray rabbit, the skinny, small black-scaled figure steps forward to retrieve both the rabbit and the wooden javelin.
The damp forest causes a droplet to slowly condense from a leaf and drop, briefly illuminating the black-scaled figure's face in a flash of refracted light.
Fragmented black scales, a pair of black horns flowing backward from the forehead, dark and profound pupils.
It is Shiji, the Kobold!
Comparing to the time when Udi first captured him, Shiji's appearance has greatly changed.
The body remains thin and small, but compared to the initial figure, which was less than a meter high and resembled a bamboo pole.
Now Shiji stands at a height of 1.4 meters, with seemingly dry scales hiding robust and strong muscle power beneath, his gaze carrying a faint ferocity borne from frequent killing and combat.
Silently, Shiji extracts the rabbit's corpse from the wooden javelin, then opens his mouth and bites down with sharp teeth.
Gulp gulp ~ Shiji gobbles down the warm blood of the gray rabbit.
After guzzling down the blood, Shiji's sharp teeth bite and tear off a piece of flesh from the gray rabbit.
Chewing several times, savoring the fresh and delicious taste of the exploding blood and meat in his mouth, Shiji squints his little eyes in satisfaction.
Under such savage biting and swallowing, a large rabbit weighing over ten pounds quickly becomes just a few scraps of bloody fur.
Sigh~
Shiji licks his lips, stained with congealed blood, feeling within him the Dragon Vein Power bestowed by the great True Dragon Master being activated and operated.
The rabbit's flesh is digested at an extraordinarily swift pace.
As the flesh gets digested, streams of power flow through Shiji's entire body, slowly yet steadily fortifying his physical strength.
Half an hour passes.
Shiji slowly opens his eyes, a glint flashing in the depth of his black and profound pupils.
"Thirty sunrises and sunsets have passed..." muttered Shiji, the Kobold, softly to himself.
It has been exactly thirty days since the great True Dragon Master bestowed upon him the Dragon Vein Power.
During this period, Shiji faithfully adhered to the master's commands.
Surviving and hunting in the nearby area, developing the freshly acquired Dragon Vein Power within him, enhancing his own strength, and eventually waiting until he is strong enough to journey westward to 'expand territories' for the master....
In just this short month, relying on the mysterious Dragon Vein Power bestowed by the master, Shiji's body has undergone dramatic transformations.
His body has become stronger and taller than those powerful Kobold Warriors from the homeland tribe.
His wrist strength is enough to easily crush a stone.
The hardness of his scales is strong enough to withstand the bites of regular wild beasts.
He... Shiji, has undergone a complete metamorphosis within a month!
Whenever he spots his reflection in the forest pools these days, Shiji finds his eyes filled with tears.
"All of this is bestowed upon Shiji by the master..... Shiji must become stronger and bolder!"
A gust of hot air exhales from his mouth and nose, freezing into bursts of white mist under the forest's low temperature.
The season has already entered early winter, with each passing day causing the temperature to drop a bit.
During such times, ordinary, weak Kobold like Shiji had to accept the tribe's tasks, carrying baskets into the forest to gather firewood, collect edible plant roots....
Sometimes during this process, many unlucky ones encounter beasts going out to hunt to prepare winter fat reserves, or even powerful demons.
Out of over a hundred Kobolds venturing out, only seventy or eighty might return.
The rest would forever fall somewhere in the Dark Forest, possibly with their remains appearing in a pile of dung after a few days.
The rabbit's flesh inside him gradually finishes digesting.
Shiji begins to feel hungry.
Since receiving the Dragon Vein Power from the master, Shiji eats increasingly more, but also gets hungry faster.
Throughout this process, Shiji's physical strength, power, agility continues to grow stronger.
If Udi were to know, his expression would surely be strange.
This almost seems like a watered-down version of the Feast Talent.
"Need to continue hunting."
Shiji rises from the ground and slowly walks out from the cave.
In his hand he grasps a wooden javelin, and in the homemade beast hide bag on his back are five or six wooden javelins.
Almost every javelin has been stained dark red by blood, a faint bloody smell enveloping Shiji's surroundings.
Facing the chill of early winter, Shiji's Kobold figure slowly disappears.
The hunger and belief in becoming stronger drive Shiji, the Kobold, to constantly engage in killing and combat.
.....
Rotting Swamp, hundred meters deep, inside the Dragon Nest.
Udi exhales, watching the hot air condense into visible mist that eventually disperses.
"Winter is almost here, I wonder if it will snow here..." Udi muses while squinting.
He changes his position and lays down again.
Checking his panel data.
[Udi: Biological Level 4, Professional Level None.] (Body length 4.98m)
[Life Force: 7.46]
[Current Banquet Level: 7 layers]
[Banquet Cooldown Time: Twenty-nine days]
A month has passed, just two days ago the Banquet cooldown was up, and Udi devoured the accumulated prey, bringing the Banquet Level to seven layers.
The Biological Level is still Level 4.
His body length is just a little short of five meters.
As for the wingspan, it's just now comfortably breaking through ten meters.
"Recently, Black Dragon Maiden is finding me more and more unpleasant...."
Closing the panel, Udi recollects the past month, falling into contemplation.
From initially throwing prey before Udi, to prioritizing prey for the Dragon Brother and Dragon Sister while leaving Udi with leftovers, as of recently, the Black Dragon Maiden has been even more unreasonable.
The hunting... no, the prey brought back from the follower tribe isn't given to Udi at all.
Udi has been completely self-sufficient for over a month.
If it continues this way, being kicked out by Black Dragon Maiden might not be far off.
"I'm still just a little Dragonling of less than a year old...." Udi shakes his head helplessly.
To be precise, it should be six months, zero point five years old.
Is this intentionally increasing difficulty for this rogue dragon?
"So boring.... well, I'll pass the time by watching the 'documentary'." Udi closes his eyes, letting his mind immerse into the faint spiritual connection thread in his mind.
The documentary Udi refers to is his way of peeping into Shiji's daily life through the spiritual connection.