Chương 54: Chapter 42 - Of Tasty Food And Useful Powers

I extend my hand, slowly and with completely unnecessary drama. Unstructured astral energy seeps into my fingertips. My fingers curl. They meet resistance. Good. I pull.

"And because I can," I murmur lightly,"Arcana: Garden of Eternal Midnight." The veil tears open without protest. Inky darkness spills outward, swallowing the violet glow of the moons and replacing it with a silent ocean of stars. Vines erupt as the ground quietly remembers it was never meant to be stone, black dahlias blooming in silent constellations as their petals unfurl with patient inevitability. I nod. Scientifically. Very aesthetically pleasing. Ten out of ten. I check my stamina. No loss.

Not even a flicker. So the Garden is free to deploy and maintain. Highly abusable. Excellent. I glance around more critically. It's… weak. The dahlias are sparse, scattered rather than sovereign. Regeneration must have been slow while I was asleep after the dragon collapsed it. Tragic. At this pace, it will likely take several days to return to full density. Possibly a week. Oh well. The only remaining threat in the Tutorial is the final boss, and that won't spawn for another twenty-five days.

And frankly, I do not have high expectations. The dragon was the true final boss in my personal canon. I lift a hand again, purely for effect. The vines respond instantly—lashing, twisting, braiding together in elaborate spirals before assembling into an aggressively kaleidoscopic interpretation of the Eiffel Tower. I nod again. Control is excellent. Precision is excellent. Range is excellent. Within the boundaries of common sense, I can make them do almost anything.

Unfortunately, there is no viable method of stress-testing the gravitational bias or regeneration speed without an active opponent. Those are filed neatly under Future Testing. Which leaves starlight. I condense it in front of me. A second Lyn steps into existence. She is almost perfect. Almost. Up close, the flaws are obvious—edges slightly too clean, light refracting unnaturally along her outline, a faint shimmer that betrays her as construct rather than flesh. But at a glance? Convincing.

Far superior to anything I managed with standard manipulation. I poke her. My finger passes through. Naturally. I draw back, and raise my hands. She mirrors my posture perfectly.

"Rock, paper, scissors," I declare. I choose rock. I win. Of course I do. I am, after all, controlling both sides. She looks mildly aggrieved. Then dissolves into drifting particles of starlight. I cross my arms thoughtfully. Internal Garden testing complete. Conclusion: functions exactly as advertised. I absolutely did not just want an excuse to activate it again. My Garden folds neatly back into the veil, and the moons reclaim their sky. Good. Now for the interesting part.

The Garden is built from unstructured Astral Energy, which raises an obvious question—can I use that energy directly without committing to a full activation? I gather it again in my fingertips, deliberately avoiding the veil this time. No tearing. No overwrite. Just focus. Compress. Shape. After several seconds of sustained concentration, a single starlight vine punches cleanly through the stone beneath my feet. I crouch and poke it. Solid. Sharp. Durable. Identical to the ones inside the Garden.

The only difference is environmental. Instead of converting the ground into soil, it simply forces its way through whatever exists. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Efficient. My tail sways in approval. So I can deploy individual components without invoking the entire domain. No anchors, no gravitational bias, just a vine prepared to obey. Very good. This means I can theoretically retrieve a beverage while remaining seated. The pinnacle of power.

I gather Astral Energy again, this time shaping it more deliberately. Two vines emerge—one from my palm, forming instantly as energy weaves into structure faster than my enhanced Dexterity can meaningfully register, and another from my shadow. The shadow vine appears quickly, but not quite as fast. Interesting. Delay correlates to obstruction. The first vine earlier had to tunnel through solid stone. The shadow vine… apparently had less to breach. Which raises a more concerning question.

Why does my shadow count as a valid origin point? I tilt my head. Conceptual alignment? Proximity? Ownership? No immediate way to test. Conclusion: magic. I push more Astral Energy into the construct. The stone beneath me begins to soften, texture shifting as it partially yields toward soil. Vines break through far more easily now. I stop before the veil begins to strain. Any further escalation would trigger a full domain tear, which seems excessive for sidewalk landscaping. I check my stamina.

This time, there is a noticeable loss. So. Full activation consumes nothing. Localized projection does. That is profoundly illogical. I sigh—loudly, and with intent. Whatever. My resource pool is steadily expanding. A moderate expenditure for convenient, reality-defying vine access is acceptable. Testing complete. Conclusion: three operational states. Full domain overwrite. Localized Arcana projection. Simple vine manifestation. Very balanced. Completely fair.

I lose several effects when I don't deploy the full Arcana, but most situations won't require personal dominion over reality anyway. That sounds less impressive than it should. Still. Feature. Not a bug. Which means there are only two more tests to conclude Arcana experimentation. Both are critically important. I raise my hand and project the Garden locally once more. Stone softens into soil beneath my feet as vines burst outward, spreading and overlapping in dramatic, entirely unnecessary waves. They wiggle.

They undulate. They perform. I lift my chin toward the sky.

"Behold! The sovereign of vines, daughter of the night!" The stars' background chatter cuts off mid-sentence. Then— They explode into laughter. Loud. Teasing. Familiar. My tail sways in deep satisfaction. Good. The earlier tension is gone, replaced with the usual chaos and commentary. A few of them still glance—subtly—at my legs, but the difference is palpable. This feels correct. I smile, bright and entirely genuine. Yes. This fits them far better. And now the final, most important test.

The thorns vanish from my vines. One stretches up— And begins patting my head. Another curls around, scratching behind my ears. Yes. This is very good. Extremely good. I lean into the vines slightly, eyes drifting closed as the scratching continues. Another vine reaches back and begins petting my tail. And I practically melt on the spot. This. This is the ultimate power. On-demand petting. The stars start laughing. Louder. A small chirp slips out of my mouth. I freeze. My eyes snap open. Heat creeps up my cheeks. …

That did not just happen. Mental note: never do that with an audience. Ever. My dignity would never recover. The stars are laughing even harder now. I ignore them and turn my attention elsewhere, my tail swishing in a way that distinctly does not signify embarrassment. There is one final question that must be answered. I glance toward the dragon's remains. My ears perk. What does dragon taste like? My vines fade into motes of light.

I skip across the rubble—because walking is for emotionally well-adjusted individuals—and conjure a small starlight blade in my hand. Efficient. Precise. Then I kneel beside what remains of the former apex predator and begin carving. Some might argue that consuming the remains of someone who was, until recently, human is ethically questionable. Unfortunately for him, my moral compass functions more like a roulette wheel. And it has landed firmly on "culinary experimentation." The meat itself resembles beef.

A comparison the dragon would almost certainly object to. Which means I will be treating it exactly like beef. I carve it into neat, bite-sized cubes and thread them onto a starlight skewer of my own design. Efficient. Elegant. Slightly glowing. I lick the blood off of my fingers before glancing around for a suitable cooking surface. There. A flat slab of stone—neither too thin nor too thick. Perfect. I relocate it and prop it up using a few simple constructs, forming something vaguely stove-shaped.

Then I apply starfire carefully to the underside. Carefully being the key word. My flames are far too hot in their natural state. One careless flare and I would convert dinner into a culinary war crime. The underside of the rock begins to glow and bubble, molten spots popping along its base, but the upper surface holds steady—heated, not liquefied. Acceptable. I lower the skewer just above the surface and begin cooking. Primitive. Unseasoned. Deeply questionable by professional standards. It works anyway.

Fat begins to render. Juices bead along the edges. The air fills with a rich, savory aroma that makes the ruined city feel significantly more hospitable. After several minutes, the cubes are evenly browned. I give them a brief, highly controlled wash of starfire—an ultra-efficient finishing sear. Perfect. The exterior crisps. The scent intensifies. My mouth waters. I give it a quick sniff just in case. Then— I take a bite. And ascend. Juicy. Tender. Slightly gamey, but in an elite way.

The fat melts immediately, flooding my mouth with heat and richness. As expected of a genius of my caliber. My moment of culinary enlightenment is interrupted by a System window rudely asserting itself into existence. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Initial Consumption of Tier 1 True Dragon Meat Confirmed All base stats increased by +100 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I blink. Then I blink again...? On top of a ten percent universal buff, eating him grants flat base stat increases? I slowly lower the skewer.

No wonder dragons are absurdly powerful. They are not apex predators. They are treasure chests with wings. If dragons were any less overpowered, they would have been hunted into extinction by the first moderately ambitious adventurer who discovered how delicious they are. Which raises a more practical question. I turn my gaze back to the corpse. What else is valuable? The scales, for example. Those were… inconveniently durable. My grin sharpens. I finish the remainder of my skewer in three efficient bites.

Then—naturally—I begin emptying my storage ring. Common-tier potions. Miscellaneous starlight constructs. Assorted tutorial clutter. All promptly deposited onto the stone floor in an increasingly chaotic pile. I discard the uncommon mana potions as well. They are decorative at best. Then I return to the body. Using my knife, I carefully pry several intact scales free, storing them in my ring. Only a few—they are large, thick, and occupy unreasonable space. And I have priorities. Namely— Meat.

I begin carving with renewed efficiency. Skewer-sized cubes. Thick, marbled steaks. Strips for drying. Ground portions to fill the inconvenient gaps between larger cuts. Optimization is key. Within minutes, my storage ring hits full capacity. Eighty-five percent of it is now dedicated entirely to dragon meat. As it should be. Because while scales are durable— They do not appear particularly edible. And that is what truly matters. Obviously. Now then. Everything has been inspected. My Arcana has been tested.

My stomach is full. A clean leap carries me to the rooftop of the nearest building, and from there I accelerate toward the distant palace. —Wow. I am absurdly fast now. If not for Slipstream bleeding the shockwaves away, I would be reducing the remaining windows of this ruined city to decorative gravel as I passed. Today's stat gains have been… excessive. Acceptable. I reach the palace in short order. A brief bout of gremlin parkour carries me upward, and I crest the highest spire before turning my gaze outward.

The wasteland stretches endlessly beneath me. The dragon's forest fire appears to have extinguished itself with his death. I am uncertain why. Mine, however, continues its righteous crusade. Far off in the distance, flames consume the forest with steady, enthusiastic dedication. Notifications still trickle in—undead unfortunate enough to be caught in the blaze, generously donating experience and points to my ever-expanding reserves. Efficient. From my vantage point, I begin mapping distances. Fog wall to the right?

Roughly fifty kilometers. To the left? Similar. Forward—the wall leading to the fourth zone? Thousands at minimum. I nod slowly. So my suspicion was correct. The Tutorial is not an open world. It is a corridor. Long, constrained, predictable. Convenient. Because this amount of space… Is laughably insufficient for my speed investment. Which means I can clear it. Thoroughly. My tail sways, arrogant and entirely unsubtle. The remaining users will likely dwindle tonight.

The nightly horde will not be kind, especially now that top points have multiplied sevenfold. Speaking of— It is nearly midnight. I settle atop the palace roof with deliberate grace and fold my hands in my lap. And I wait. For the undead to rise. Like a queen awaiting her court.