The pillar was a masterpiece of ancient engineering. And embedded directly within the impenetrable white stone of the structure, glowing with a soft, pulsing light, were 7 cores.
But not any normal cores. Dragon hearts.
Ren reached into his shadow space and withdrew the big, hyper-dense core of the 100 years Fire Dragon he had slaughtered just a few hours ago. He held it up, bathing the dark room in a warm, crimson glow, and compared it to the ancient hearts embedded in the pillar.
The structural similarity was undeniable.
These were not the crude energy batteries found inside standard beasts from Platinum 3 downward. Common cores depleted rapidly after death and pushed their energy into the ambient ether once their host died. But a true dragon's heart had fundamentally transcended the purely physical realm. It was a crystalline structure capable of actively interacting with the world's primordial ether and permanently storing vast amounts of raw data within its system lines.
