Amunet poured the last of the premium wine into their cups while the aromatic smoke continued to drift over the quiet street. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the wooden table to maintain a serious posture. The initial negotiations had concluded and the jade slip rested safely inside Li Yu’s spatial ring. It was time to discuss the actual threat looming over the sandstone town of Redcliff. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Voss is a tyrant but he is not a fool," Amunet explained while tracing the rim of her cup. "He runs a very tight ledger regarding his hidden forces. Based on the revenue generated by his territory and the current rates for mercenaries in the Mosaic Realm, he cannot afford to hire anyone too powerful. Securing the services of someone too powerful would drain his treasury for a century and those experts have no reason to bother with a remote outpost like ours."

"Your assessment makes a lot of sense," Li Yu agreed while taking a slow sip of the wine. "Wealth dictates loyalty in the mercenary world. If he is spending his own resources, he is likely looking at someone stronger than himself but not too much stronger."

"Exactly," the Ignari ruler continued with a firm nod. "I am expecting him to bring in someone at the Paragon realm or the Karma Severing realm to act as his hidden blade. Anything higher is highly unlikely to intervene in a local dispute. While Redcliff generates good income through our brothels and the stone gambling dens, our total worth would not interest people of that caliber."

Li Yu set his cup down and offered a reassuring smile. "If that is the limit of his purchasing power, then you have nothing to worry about. I am currently in the Karma Severing realm myself."

Amunet stopped moving and her amber eyes widened in shock. She stared at the young man sitting across from her as her composed demeanor fractured for a brief moment. Her eyes darted up again and then back down.

"You are only in the Karma Severing realm?" She asked with a voice thick with disbelief.

"I am," Li Yu confirmed while raising an eyebrow at her intense reaction. "Were you expecting someone stronger?"

"Yes, honestly I was," Amunet admitted while shaking her head slowly. She muttered a few quiet words to herself under her breath, complaining that the information did not make any sense and that something must be broken.

However, she quickly gathered her scattered thoughts and refocused on the conversation. "It does not matter what I expected. I believe in your abilities and I trust my instincts. If you say you can hold the line, I will trust you to hold it."

"I will not let you down," Li Yu promised while resting his hands on the table. "If they indeed bring experts up to the Karma Severing realm, I am very confident I can handle the situation. If they somehow manage to hire someone resting at the Tribulation Realm, I still might be able to handle things. However, if it's Origin Awakening realm or beyond, I will evaluate the threat at that time. I will not throw my life away for a culinary manual if the odds are impossible."

"I would never ask you to do that," Amunet agreed with a soft laugh. "It would not make sense to force an expert to risk their life against impossible odds. We have a deal."

Li Yu waited for her to produce a glowing parchment or summon a drop of blood to formalize the contract but the winged woman simply raised her cup in a toast. They had reached a simple verbal agreement without utilizing any binding soul oaths or restrictive heavenly laws.

"You are not going to ask for a formal oath?" Li Yu asked while clinking his cup against hers.

"I told you before that I trust your character," she replied while taking a drink. Her eyes darted upward to the empty space hovering above his head again for a fraction of a second before locking back onto his face. "A man of honor needs no oath at all."

Li Yu chuckled and decided to push his luck just a little bit. He found her mysterious insights fascinating and he wanted to see how she would react to a direct question.

"Since we are working together now, can you reveal how you know so much about me?" He asked with a polite but probing tone. "You knew my strength, my lack of faction ties and my preferences for rare meats and drinks."

Amunet smiled and set her empty cup down. "You would have to make a soul oath to become my loyal servant for the rest of your life if you want me to reveal my deepest trade secrets."

Li Yu smiled back and nodded his head. He understood he was being too rude by asking a cultivator to expose her hidden advantages. Every cultivator possessed secrets that kept them alive and he had no right to demand hers just because they shared a meal.

"I will be fully prepared in three days," Li Yu stated while changing the subject back to the impending duel. "Just focus on your own fight, make sure you win and leave the shadows to me."

Amunet signaled her guards to approach and instructed her captain to escort their new guest to the finest accommodations available in Redcliff. Li Yu followed the crimson armored warriors through the winding streets until they reached a luxurious courtyard located near the center of the town. The private residence featured a lush garden, a bubbling hot spring and several quiet meditation rooms built from sturdy oak.

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Once the guards departed and closed the heavy wooden gates, Li Yu stood alone in the tranquil garden. He swept his divine sense over the perimeter to ensure there were no hidden spying formations or listening devices planted in the walls. Finding the area secure, he set out his own portable arrays and walked into the main meditation room. Li Yu finally sat down on a woven silk cushion and was in a hurry to learn more.

He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out the jade slip Amunet had given him. The self proclaimed Culinary Sovereign's legacy pulsed with a warm orange light that resonated with his desire to cook and eat.

Li Yu closed his eyes and pushed his consciousness past the introductory barrier he had encountered at the food stall. The mental floodgates opened and a vast ocean of culinary knowledge washed over his mind.

The teachings did not begin with specific recipes or ingredient lists. Instead, the Culinary Sovereign dedicated the entire first section of her manual to a philosophical discussion regarding the nature of fire and flesh. She wrote that most cultivators viewed cooking as a mundane chore that many cultivators did not even partake in. That it was more common for mortals to cook while cultivators took pills for their needs, disregarding favor.

That when they had to cook, they treated raw ingredients with disrespect by simply tossing them over open campfires without seasonings or eating only dried foods. This careless approach burned away the natural juices and destroyed the delicate spiritual energy trapped within the muscle fibers.

‘Fire was a tool of ultimate destruction,’ the Sovereign explained through the glowing text. ‘However, true cooking was the art of enacting controlled creation within that very destruction.’

Li Yu felt a deep connection to these words, he possessed a powerful natal flame that he had acquired recently but he struggled to apply it to his daily meals, merely using it to start fires that he cooked on. His fire was a bit too fierce and too wild. He often ended up scorching his food on the outside while leaving the inside raw.

The jade slip detailed a foundational concept that the Sovereign called the Radiant Crust technique. She explained that applying a sudden burst of intense heat to the exterior of a cut of meat caused a rapid transformation. The natural sugars and the spiritual proteins fused together under the extreme temperature to create a hardened and deeply flavorful shell.

This crust was not just for taste. It acted as a physical and spiritual barrier. Once the exterior was properly sealed by the sudden flash of heat, the internal juices and the ambient Qi of the beast could no longer escape into the open air.

The manual then shifted into the complex mechanics of heat gradients. The Sovereign instructed her reader to stop viewing a piece of meat as a solid block of dead matter. A spiritual beast possessed intricate meridians, tough blood vessels and delicate layers of fat. To cook it perfectly, a cultivator needed to use their divine sense to map the internal structure of the ingredient before applying any fire.

Instead of bathing the entire cut in a blanket of external heat, the Sovereign taught a method of channeling flames directly into the natural energy pathways of the meat. By pushing a thin thread of fire through the internal meridians, a chef could cook the food from the inside out as well while simultaneously rendering down the tough connective tissues.

The text provided specific examples to anchor the theory. If a cultivator was preparing the flesh of a water aligned beast, they needed to use a gentle and simmering internal flame. Pushing too much heat into a water type ingredient would cause the delicate spiritual energy to shatter and turn the meat sour. Conversely, if one was cooking an earth aligned beast known for its dense armor and thick muscles, the chef needed to unleash a fierce and blazing fire to break down the stubborn fibers and soften the texture.

Li Yu absorbed this information with eager enthusiasm. He had spent years fighting different types of beasts across the Myriad Realms but he had never considered applying his combat knowledge of elemental affinities to his cooking pot. It was a brilliant integration of martial theory and culinary arts.

The final core concept of the first volume focused heavily on the resting period. The Culinary Sovereign noted that this was the most common and tragic mistake made by impatient warriors.

When a piece of meat was subjected to the intense heat of a flame, the internal juices began to boil and the spiritual energy entered a state of chaotic agitation. The moisture rushed away from the heat source and gathered in the center of the cut. If a person sliced into the meat immediately after removing it from the fire, those boiling juices and the frantic Qi would spill out onto the cutting board in a wasted puddle, leaving the meal dry and devoid of flavor.

The Sovereign commanded that one must practice patience. The food needed to rest in a warm and Qi rich environment for a specific duration of time. During this resting phase, the ambient temperature would slowly drop and the agitated muscle fibers would begin to relax. This relaxation allowed the internal juices to redistribute evenly throughout the entire cut of meat while the spiritual energy settled into a calm and stable state.

Li Yu let out a long breath and opened his eyes. The glowing jade slip rested quietly in his palm but his mind raced with endless possibilities. The teachings provided by the mysterious Culinary Sovereign bridged the gap between power and refined control.

He realized that mastering these culinary techniques would not only improve the quality of his meals but it would also serve as a unique method for training his new orange flame. The precise control required to seal a crust without burning it or channel heat through microscopic meridians without destroying them demanded an incredible level of spiritual focus. Cooking was no longer just a hobby to pass the time during his travels.

He spent the remainder of the night sitting in the quiet meditation room while reading through the subsequent chapters. The manual contained detailed accounts of the Sovereign roasting massive sea serpents over volcanic vents and slow cooking ancient tortoises using subterranean thermal arrays. Every single story was packed with practical advice and insights.

As the morning sun began to filter through the paper windows of his courtyard, Li Yu carefully stored the jade slip back. He felt incredibly inspired by the teachings and he was eager to put the theories into actual practice. He had three days to wait before the Bandit King faced off against the tyrant Voss, which gave him plenty of time to experiment with his fire and explore the bustling markets of Redcliff for fresh ingredients.

Li Yu stood up from his silk cushion and stretched his arms over his head. The tension of the expedition felt far away as he walked out into the lush garden to begin a new day of culinary training.