The stall owner arrived a few moments later and carefully placed a wide iron platter onto the wooden table between them. The different meats sizzled loudly while a rich and savory aroma drifted upward into the cool evening air. The chef had arranged generous portions of spiced boar and tender fowl over a bed of steamed roots. Amunet poured two cups of premium wine from the ceramic jug and slid one across the table toward her guest.

Li Yu picked up his wooden chopsticks and sampled a piece of the roasted boar. He chewed slowly and appreciated the heavy blend of local spices while the Ignari ruler watched him with a calm expression. The two of them engaged in some small talk as they ate. Talking about things such as the weather or how the meat was prepared. Amunet had yet to reveal her true intentions and Li Yu was not rushing her. The bustling noise of the distant gambling district faded into the background while the guards maintained their vigilant perimeter around the quiet street.

Amunet set her chopsticks down on the edge of her plate and folded her hands together. The time for polite small talk had officially concluded.

"I can tell you are much stronger than me." She stated with a steady and serious tone. "You are far stronger than anyone else currently residing in this town."

Li Yu stopped chewing and felt a wave of surprise wash over his mind. He swallowed his food and set his own chopsticks down while analyzing the winged woman sitting across from him. His internal aura was exceptionally well contained since he possessed the control of a Karma Severing expert.

He had refined his disguise techniques and only cultivators resting at the Origin Awakening realm or higher should possess the spiritual depth required to pierce his veil. A Law Seed cultivator like Amunet had no business being able to tell that he was stronger.

"That is a very bold claim." He replied while keeping his voice smooth and relaxed. "How exactly could you tell?"

"My race is highly sensitive to powerful souls." Amunet explained while maintaining eye contact. "The Ignari possess a natural affinity for reading the spiritual weight of others. A more powerful soul usually means the person possesses a much stronger cultivation base. Your soul feels like a deep ocean compared to the shallow ponds of my own."

Li Yu listened to her explanation but his mind rejected the premise immediately. He possessed five distinct Nascent Souls residing within his inner world and they have even begun to resonate together in a bit of harmony. His soul strength was the most refined and protected aspect of his entire being.

If his physical Qi happened to leak out he might believe her story but his soul was shielded behind layers that even his parents and grandfather could not understand. It was the absolute last thing a weaker cultivator would ever be able to detect.

He nodded his head slowly while acknowledging her words. She was clearly lying to him or hiding the true method she used to gather her information but he remained very curious about her motives.

"I appreciate the compliment regarding my soul." He admitted with a casual shrug. "Yes, I am stronger than you. I am simply passing through this territory to experience the local culture and sample the food. I have no intentions of trying to claim this town or subjugate its people as my own."

"That is not my worry." She countered while reaching for her cup of wine. "Someone of your power would not be interested in ruling a dusty outpost like Redcliff. You seek broader horizons."

Li Yu noticed a very peculiar movement as she took a sip of her wine. Her amber eyes drifted upward for a brief second and stared at the empty air hovering just above his head again. She blinked rapidly and forced her gaze back down to meet his eyes. She was trying her best to conceal the action but her eyes kept betraying her focus.

He was not quite sure what she was doing and just to be sure he cast a discrete wave of his divine sense upward but found nothing but empty air. This was the second time she was looking at something there.

"If you are not worried about me taking your territory, then please get to the true reason you invited me here." He prompted while leaning back against his wooden bench. "It cannot be as simple as treating a wandering traveler to a nice meal."

"I need your help in the battle to come." She answered directly while setting her cup down.

"You want me to interfere in a duel of single combat?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "If you are not confident in your own abilities to defeat Voss, then why did you agree to the terms in the first place?"

"I am not asking you to fight my duel." She clarified quickly while shaking her head. "I am confident I can win the one on one engagement against Voss. He relies on brute force and fear while I rely on speed and precision. I am confident I can beat him. My fear revolves around what happens after the formal fight is over. They have someone waiting in the shadows that they are relying on to sweep the board once I secure my victory."

Li Yu listened intently as the local politics unfolded before him.

"I will be exhausted after the fight concludes." She continued while tracing the rim of her cup with her index finger. "My Qi reserves will be drained and elite guards will be of no help to whatever it is that they have. Whatever hidden ace card Voss has prepared will surely beat me and my people while we are vulnerable. That is why I am talking with you right now. You have no ties with any other organizations operating here so you can be trusted to help me."

Li Yu felt his curiosity spike once again.

"How could you possibly know my affiliation status?" He pressed while narrowing his eyes. "I arrived in Redcliff only a few hours ago and I have spoken to no one besides the food vendors."

Amunet leaned back and looked slightly taken aback. A brief flash of panic crossed her elegant features as if she realized she had revealed too much information, far too quickly in her rush and desperation. She recovered her composure a moment later and offered a dismissive wave of her hand.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I have a vast network of informants watching the gates and beyond it." She glossed over the question with a practiced smile. "We pay close attention to powerful strangers who walk into our territory without flying a faction banner. In any case, I would like you to help me secure the aftermath of the duel and hold the line against whatever treachery Voss has planned. That is it, help us during that time and you can leave afterwards."

She did not wait for him to ask about his compensation. She reached into her leather tunic and pulled out a silver storage ring before sliding it across the wooden table.

"Of course I would not ask an expert to work for free." She stated while gesturing toward the jewelry. "This is a token of my sincerity."

Li Yu sent a thin thread of his divine sense into the silver ring and his eyes widened slightly. The spatial storage was packed with a staggering amount of spirit stones. They were not the cloudy low grade stones traded in the gambling district but pristine high quality stones radiating dense and pure energy. The volume of wealth contained within the ring rivaled the treasury of a strong sect.

He was genuinely surprised she could be so rich. A bandit group running a sandstone town should not possess this level of concentrated wealth. The economics of her offer did not seem normal at all which made things a bit more suspicious.

"You are a very trusting ruler." He noted while tapping his finger against the silver band. "I could simply kill you right now. I could slaughter you, your guards and take this ring before running away into the wilderness. No one in this town could stop me."

"I trust in your character." She replied with a confident smile.

Her amber eyes flicked upward to the empty space above his head once again before quickly darting back down to his face. She seemed to find some sort of reassurance in whatever it was that was there.

"This negotiation is moving a bit too fast for my liking." Li Yu said while pushing the silver ring back across the table. "You seem to know quite a bit about me but if you truly knew all these things, you made a critical mistake. That amount of spirit stones does not move my heart. I am not looking to get into a violent conflict with local tyrants over simple currency."

Amunet did not look disappointed by his rejection. She simply smiled wider and let out a soft laugh that carried a hint of genuine amusement.

"That was merely the opening offer." She countered while storing the first ring away.

She produced a second storage ring made of polished jade and slid it across the table to replace the first one.

Li Yu pushed his divine sense into the jade ring and found a vast collection of culinary treasures. The space was filled with various kinds of exotic meats harvested from spiritual beasts. Every single cut of meat was carefully wrapped and labeled with detailed notes describing the origin of the beast and the optimal cooking methods to preserve its tenderness.

Beside the towering stacks of meat sat hundreds of sealed clay jars containing rare and fragrant drinks. Many of the beverages were brews he had never seen or heard of before and they all carried meticulous labels detailing their flavor profiles and brewing origins. The collection was incredibly tempting and spoke directly to his heart.

"I am offering both rings for your help." She stated while giving him a knowing look. "The wealth to fund your travels and the ingredients to satisfy your palate."

Li Yu sat back and crossed his arms while staring at the winged woman. She knew way too much about him. His love for cooking and rare ingredients was not a closely guarded secret back on the iron continent but it was certainly not public knowledge in this distant and newly discovered realm.

For her to know his exact preferences when he just arrived in town was highly unusual. The cultivation world was full of strange and wondrous abilities but this level of targeted insight felt distinctively different from standard divination.

He wondered if she possessed some sort of ancient treasure that allowed her to extract this information. He theorized it might be the very same artifact that allowed her to identify his superior strength and his lack of faction ties. The mystery surrounding her methods made the situation very interesting to him. He was incredibly curious to see how deep her invisible well of knowledge truly went.

"The second ring moves me far more than the first one." He admitted honestly while sliding the jade ring back to her side of the table. "But I must turn you down once again. Rare meats and good wine are excellent gifts but they are not worth stepping into the middle of a blood feud."

Amunet sighed softly but her eyes sparkled with a triumphant light. She seemed to anticipate his second rejection just as easily as the first.

"You are a very difficult man to bargain with." She said while shaking her head in mock defeat. "This next item is the absolute most I can offer you. If this does not secure your blade then I will fight Voss and his hidden shadows alone."

She reached into her tunic one final time and produced a third storage ring forged from dark iron. She slid it across the table and waited quietly while resting her chin on her hands.

Li Yu sent his senses into the dark iron ring and found a single item resting in the empty space. It was a pristine jade slip glowing with a soft orange light. The introductory text etched into the surface of the jade revealed it was authored by someone who called themselves the Culinary Sovereign.

The brief history contained within the introduction described a terrifying cultivator who used an intense external flame she acquired through a fateful but chance encounter. She wielded this supreme fire to become a feared conqueror who burned her enemies to ash and reduced rival empires to the ground. However, she seemed to care very little for her martial conquests. What she was most proud of was her cooking abilities using that exact same destructive flame.

The jade slip was not a martial technique or a cultivation manual. It was a comprehensive record of her culinary accounts. It detailed her unique philosophy on cooking and her thoughts on roasting each specific type of spiritual meat.

The text promised to reveal her methods for balancing extreme heat against the delicate tenderness of the ingredients. Her ultimate goal was to use her supreme flame to cook anything and everything while flawlessly locking in the rich flavor, the natural juices and the ambient Qi of the beast so nothing was lost to the fire.

Li Yu was stunned upon finding this treasure. The concepts described in the introduction aligned perfectly with his own while preparing meals. With his newly acquired natal flame, he had looked for flame techniques or cooking techniques but found none that resonated with him.

Li Yu tried to probe deeper into the jade slip to read the first chapter because he simply could not help himself but his divine sense met a solid barrier. There was nothing more available to read beyond the tantalizing description.

He withdrew his senses from the dark iron ring and looked up at the Ignari ruler sitting across from him. The bait was flawless and the hook was set deep.

"You got me." He told her while letting out a long breath of surrender. "Give me that jade slip quickly."

Amunet smiled brightly and the tension in her shoulders melted away. She took out the two other rings and a jade slip that had the full teachings and placed it directly into his outstretched hand.

"We have a deal." She declared with a triumphant tone. "Enjoy the food traveler. We have three days to prepare for the storm."