Because every single one of these tricks took days to finish. You had to leave the meat soaking in massive pots for days just to get a slight softening effect.

The effect was pretty minimal on regular meat, which meant that it wasn’t really viable for monster meat at all.

’This is useless.’ Adrian thought. ’Skip the regular cooking methods and find me a potion that physically breaks down tough tissue without using magical ingredients.’

He added the non-magical restriction on purpose since he needed this solution to be cheap. If he had to use rare magical flowers to soften a single steak, the profit margin would instantly vanish.

The system processed the new filter.

[Results Found: 2]

Two highly aggressive, acidic potion recipes popped up on the screen. They used completely standard, cheap weeds and roots.

Adrian read through the information and in simple words, the potions were basically super effective tenderising liquids. They were definitely faster and stronger than a basic salt brine, but as he looked at the projected results, he shook his head. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

It still wasn’t enough, at least not for monster meat.

’Why?’ Adrian demanded, genuinely annoyed now. ’System, why is this meat so ridiculously hard? Why can’t a regular potion break down the muscles to the point where these meats resemble normal animal meat?’

[Notice: Biological composition of Monster entities differs entirely from standard fauna.]

[Explanation: Non-magical compounds cannot fully penetrate or tenderize monster tissue. While purification removes the active toxins, the physical density of the muscle is directly reinforced by ambient Mana stored within the cellular walls.]

[The Mana acts as a binding agent, hardening the flesh, muscles, and hide to artificially increase the entity’s defensive capabilities and physical strength. To fully break down the muscle fibers, the embedded Mana must be forcefully extracted or dissolved using counter-active magical ingredients.]

Adrian stared at the screen and then, he leaned back in his chair and let out a long, heavy breath.

’So... that’s the issue.’

It wasn’t just dense muscle. The problem was literally just the mana which couldn’t really be fought against using regular ingredients.

You could strip the poison out with normal herbs. but the mana stayed behind. And because the mana stayed behind, the meat remained tough.

’If I want it tender, I have to pull the mana out.’ Adrian summarized in his head. ’And to pull the mana out, I need magical ingredients.’

Magical ingredients were not cheap. They required highly specific, extreme environments to grow. If he wanted to mass-produce a magical tenderizing potion, he would have to use his dungeon to artificially spawn those rare herbs.

And spawning magical herbs cost a massive amount of his stored dungeon mana.

If he spent 500 mana points just to spawn a handful of magical ingredients, and those roots only made enough potion to tenderize one single Red-Horned Boar carcass... the return on investment was absolute garbage.

He would literally be burning his most valuable resource just to make a tough steak slightly easier to chew.

It completely defeated the entire purpose of the project. Draven wanted to use monster meat to save money on his food budget. If Adrian handed him a solution that cost multiple times more, it wasn’t a solution. It was just a worse method, a new problem.

It was infinitely cheaper to just buy a regular cow from a normal farmer.

’Fuck the taste.’ Adrian cursed, giving up on it entirely and changed his mindset to make himself feel better.

He wasn’t running a five star luxury restaurant here. This was a military ration thing, and Adrian just couldn’t find an optimal way to make their experience better. They would get food, but it won’t be that great.

’It purifies the flesh, so it fulfills my end of the deal. His guys are tough soldiers with strong jaws, so they should be able to manage.’

He threw the whole tenderizing idea out the window. The Marquis could just invent his own marinades.

But Adrian sat there silently in his study, and a stupid little ADHD brain just couldn’t let go of the idea.

He really could not let it go, he just couldn’t. His hyper-fixation just latched onto it like a koala.

He looked back at the system screen and stared at it in silence.

’The Mana acts as a binding agent, hardening the flesh... wait.’ Adrian narrowed his eyes. ’Why does the mana bind to the flesh in the first place? Oi system! Answer me.’

[Answer: It is a biological survival mechanism. Monsters absorb ambient mana from their environment. The body naturally distributes this mana into the flesh and hide to increase survivability and other traits.]

Adrian stared at the words.

’So this is basically just an evolutionary process.’ Adrian concluded. ’The monster evolves to push mana into its muscles so it can enhance it’s physical stats to keep up with the other monters.’

[Affirmative.]

The system replied instantly, and Adrian grinned as an absolutely insane idea just came to life in his brain out of nowhere.

Because if this was nothing but a natural evolutionary trait, then someone could easily manipulate it. And he could definitely do it using his dungeon as long as he got a few additional abilities.

If a monster automatically pumped mana into its own meat to survive, what happens when you force that energy somewhere else?

What if you literally hijack the creature’s DNA?

Adrian shoved his heavy chair back so hard it that it tumbled backwards and fell. He grabbed a blank stack of parchment at the side of the table along with a charcoal pencil.

Then, he just started scribbling like a madman.

He outlined a rough, messy sketch of a Red-Horned Boar. He added thick arrows pointing right into the dense muscle tissues. Then he violently scratched those arrows out with dark lines.

’If I can just isolate the mana pathways...’ Adrian mumbled as he stared at the ugly drawing. ’If I can pull the ambient mana completely away from the meat and force it all into the hide, or the bones or horns...’