Chapter 150: level up

Olmo approached them, his boots crunching against the forest floor as he surveyed the scene before him. The three dabba corpses lay scattered across the clearing, their massive forms still and silent in the fading light. He was clearly impressed by how they had done, his usual stoic expression softening just slightly at the corners of his eyes.

“Nice job, you two,” Olmo said, his voice carrying a note of genuine approval that neither Jelo nor Mira heard very often. He folded his arms across his chest, nodding slowly as he took in the evidence of their battle—the scorched earth, the claw marks gouged into tree trunks, the way the dabbas had clearly put up a serious fight before going down.

“Now onto you, Jelo,” Olmo continued, gesturing toward the nearest dabba carcass. “Go ahead and take the heart. You need it.”

Jelo nodded, already feeling the familiar pull of exhaustion tugging at every fiber of his being. His legs felt like lead, and there was a persistent tremor in his hands that he couldn’t quite control. But he stayed standing, stayed focused.

Mira tilted her head, studying Jelo with an analytical gaze that made him slightly uncomfortable. “I’m surprised by how composed you are this time around,” she said, her tone genuinely curious rather than mocking. “Whenever your energy reserves are low, you usually behave differently.”

Jelo let out a weak laugh, running his hand through his hair as he tried to find the right words to explain. “Well, the thing is, when I’m low on energy reserves, I usually have this crazy splitting headache,” he began, his voice a bit strained. “And it usually seems like it would drive me crazy—like someone’s taken a hammer to the inside of my skull and they’re just pounding away without mercy.”

He paused, grimacing as another wave of pain washed through his temples, sharp and insistent. “To be honest, I feel like my brain is gonna burst out of my head any moment from now,” Jelo explained, his honesty cutting through the casual tone he was trying to maintain. “But having experienced this a couple of times, I’ve gotten used to it a bit. Not that it hurts any less—I’ve just learned how to function through it, I guess.”

He shrugged, as if what he’d just described was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, then headed toward the nearest dabba with determination in his stride despite the obvious toll the battle had taken on him.

“How are you gonna remove the heart?” Mira asked, following a few steps behind him. There was practical concern in her voice—after all, dabba flesh was notoriously tough, almost armor-like in its density.

“Well, this time around I came prepared,” Jelo said, a smile spreading across his face like he had just done something genius. There was a hint of pride in his expression, the look of someone who’d learned from past mistakes and actually remembered the lesson.

He dipped his hands in his pocket with an almost theatrical flourish and brought out a little case, compact and metallic, glinting dully in the scattered light that filtered through the canopy above.

“What’s that?” Mira asked, looking a bit curious as she leaned forward to get a better look at the mysterious object in Jelo’s hand.

Jelo didn’t reply. Instead, he let his actions speak for him, opening the case with a soft click that seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet aftermath of battle. From within the padded interior, he brought out a little knife—compact but wickedly sharp, its blade catching the light with a predatory gleam.

“Ohh,” Mira said, actually impressed that Jelo had thought that far ahead. It wasn’t often that he showed this kind of foresight, and she found herself reassessing him just slightly. Maybe he was learning after all.

Jelo squatted right beside one of the dabbas, positioning himself carefully to get the best angle. The creature’s body was still warm, its scales rough beneath his free hand as he steadied himself. He took a breath, steeling himself for what came next, then dipped the knife into its flesh.

The blade slid in with more resistance than he’d anticipated, and he had to put real force behind it, sawing through layers of muscle and tissue that seemed designed specifically to protect what lay beneath. It was messy work, and more than once he had to stop and wipe dabba blood from his hands onto his pants just so he could maintain his grip on the knife’s handle.

After what seemed like an eternity—though it was probably only ten or fifteen minutes of careful, methodical cutting—he finally got to the heart. He could feel it before he saw it, the residual warmth of the organ that had, until recently, been pumping life through this massive creature.

Without wasting any more time, he set the knife aside and dipped his hands directly into the cavity he’d created, his fingers closing around the slippery, dense mass of the dabba’s heart. He ripped it out with a wet, sucking sound that made even Olmo grimace slightly, though the older man said nothing.

Jelo stood up, the heart clutched in both hands, dripping dark blood that pattered onto the ground at his feet. He stared at Mira, then at Olmo, and for a moment there was just silence—an acknowledgment of what he was about to do, what he had to do.

And then he suddenly started eating.

He ate as fast as he could, tearing into the heart with an urgency born of genuine need. He couldn’t wait any longer—every second that passed felt like the headache was intensifying, like his body was consuming itself from the inside out in its desperate search for energy. The heart was tough and gamey, nothing like normal food, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t about taste. It was about survival.

The raw flesh slid down his throat, and he could feel something fundamental shifting inside him with each swallow, like his body was recognizing what it needed and gratefully accepting the offering.

After eating the heart completely, every last scrap of it consumed, he fell to the ground and lay on his back, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing. The cool earth beneath him was a welcome relief, grounding him as his body processed what he’d just consumed.

“That feels better,” he said, gasping the words out between deep breaths. His voice was hoarse, raw, but there was unmistakable relief in it.

After about one minute of lying there, feeling the energy slowly spreading through his system like warmth returning to frozen limbs, the system started flickering in his face, the familiar translucent interface materializing in his vision.

DABBA HEART CONSUMED

ENERGY RESERVES REPLENISHED

THREE OPPONENTS DEFEATED: +120 ESS

LEVEL UP

Then his stats showed, updating in real-time as the system recalculated his parameters:

Name: Jelo Milton

Rank: Level 5

Species: Dragon

Speed: 42

Strength: 42

Stamina: 42

Draconic Essence (Ess): 120/1000

Health: 80/100

Flaw: Draconic Hoard

“Ohh, that’s good,” Jelo said, sighing in relief as he studied the numbers. The headache was already receding, fading to a dull background throb instead of the skull-splitting agony it had been moments before. “I should be able to level up again soon, right?” Jelo asked the system, his tone hopeful.

YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED WHEN YOU CAN LEVEL UP, the system replied, its text appearing in his vision with that same neutral, almost bureaucratic tone it always used.

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