Felix Vance rummaged through the bottom drawer of his small kitchen sideboard.
He moved aside a box of dried tea leaves, an extra pair of bamboo chopsticks, and an old sharpening stone before his fingers found what he was looking for.
He pulled out his standard iron kitchen cleaver.
The blade was six inches long, slightly dull around the tip, and had a faded wooden handle secured by two brass rivets.
Back on Earth, it had cost about twelve dollars at a discount supermarket.
Felix grabbed a wide wooden compost bucket by its rope handle and tucked a five-gallon glazed ceramic pickling crock under his other arm.
He pushed open the screen door and walked out onto the cedar porch.
Beside the door, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood motionless on his brass perch, his polished copper tip held tight within the black rubber stopper in his beak.
His amber crystal lenses glowed with a faint, sleepy light, his brass chest emitting that familiar cadence: *tick... tick... tick...*
On the low cedar tea table, Grandmaster Vivienne’s purple Sovereign Heart Seal held the short table leg perfectly rigid against the floor.
Beside it, the glowing Soul-Pearl pinned down Felix’s morning delivery receipts without a flutter.
Felix took a quick sip from his Infinite Cozy Teacup, enjoying the nutty mountain brew at its eternal 68.5-degree temperature.
Down in the clover meadow, the Thunder Gryphon gave a muffled snort beneath its custom leather eye goggles, puffing a tiny ring of violet ozone toward the sunny sky.
Near the stone pathway, the five-star Sun-Lotus Cabbage radiated its soothing sixty-nine-degree heat across the lawn.
Felix stepped down the wooden stairs in his straw slippers, heading straight for the center of the newly expanded three-square-mile field.
Lord Nether-Bane and his eighty spectral corsairs were still kneeling in the black loam in their bleached hemp aprons.
When the Ghost King saw Felix approaching with a bare blade, the ancient skeleton's soulfire flared in terrified awe.
"The Supreme Patriarch approaches with a celestial cleaving blade!" the Ghost King whispered in a trembling voice, clutching his brass hoe. "Look at the dark, unreflective iron of that artifact! It bears no mortal luster because it swallows the very light of the void!"
Felix ignored the chattering skeletons, stepping right up to the carriage-sized golden radish.
The vegetable sat half-buried in the warm black loam, glowing like a miniature sun fallen from the heavens.
Felix hopped up onto a bulging shoulder of the root, balancing easily on the thick rind in his straw slippers.
He leaned over, squinted at the outer skin, and pressed his thumb against the glowing surface.
"Man, this rind is ridiculously thick," Felix grumbled, shaking his head. "It feels like peeling a basketball covered in hardened leather. If you don't strip this off, your pickles taste like salted cardboard."
He set his wooden scrap bucket down in the soft black dirt right beside the root.
Then, Felix raised his iron cleaver and brought it down.
To Felix, he was simply shaving the peel off an oversized garden turnip using normal kitchen mechanics.
To the fabric of reality, however, Felix possessed a 1.0-Earth-Mass Sol-Class stellar core nestled in his chest.
His casual forearm motion carried the effortless physical inertia of a colliding moon.
*Shhhk!*
The dull iron cleaver sliced through the three-inch-thick golden rind as if it were soft butter.
A brilliant spray of white-gold solar vapor hissed from the incision, filling the air with the crisp, peppery aroma of fresh radish and sweet morning dew.
Felix flicked his wrist with practiced ease.
*Shhhk! Shhhk! Shhhk!*
With long, rhythmic strokes, Felix shaved off massive, curling ribbons of glowing golden skin.
Each ribbon was six feet long, three inches thick, and translucent ivory layered with shimmering veins of liquid sunlight.
The natural veining across the peel formed intricate, glowing geometric lattices that hummed with deep celestial resonance.
Felix didn't even look at them.
As each six-foot ribbon peeled free from the crisp white flesh underneath, Felix casually flicked his blade, tossing the radiant golden peels over his shoulder.
*Plop. Thwip. Plop.*
The ribbons tumbled through the air and landed with messy thuds straight into the wooden compost bucket.
They landed right on top of yesterday's discarded cabbage cores, brown onion skins, and cold coffee grounds.
"Total waste of inventory weight," Felix complained under his breath, wiping a smudge of golden sap from his forearm. "Why do these farming simulators always generate so much fibrous byproduct? Just give me the clean white interior. Nobody wants to chew on tough outer bark."
Lyra Ashford had just walked down the porch steps carrying a silver tray, intending to offer Felix a bowl of fresh spring water.
When she saw the six-foot golden ribbons tumbling through the air into the compost bucket, the silver tray slipped from her hands.
The tray landed in the soft clover with a muffled clatter, spilling water across the grass.
Lyra stood frozen, her eyes wide with unadulterated shock.
Her jaw dropped open.
Beside the wooden bucket, the Ghost King and ten corsairs were trembling so hard that several of their finger joints snapped off and fell into the loam.
"He... he is peeling it..." the Ghost King choked out, his voice cracking like dry kindling. "The Golden Scripture of the Sun-Ginseng... he is skinning it alive!"
Lyra rushed forward, her silver rapier clanking against her belt as she dropped to her knees beside the wooden compost bucket.
Her breath came in ragged, terrified gasps.
She leaned over the rough wooden rim and looked inside.
Resting on top of the old coffee grounds were four massive strips of glowing golden peel.
The radiant veins running through the rind were not mere plant fibers.
They were unbroken, pristine celestial runes of the First Epoch.
Each ribbon displayed complete verses of the Primordial Solar Scripture—divine cultivation methods capable of allowing a mortal to forge a Golden Core in a single day, or granting a Sovereign the power to command the solar winds!
Any one of these golden ribbons would cause the three great empires of the Southern Heavens to launch a continent-spanning war just to claim an inch of its sacred text!
And Senior Brother had tossed four of them into a trash bucket next to rotten cabbage leaves.
Lyra’s hands began to shake uncontrollably.
She reached out with trembling fingers, her palms hovering an inch above the glowing peels.
The radiant warmth emanating from the golden bark immediately cleared her spiritual pathways, sending a rush of pure celestial clarity through her soul.
*He tossed it away...* Lyra thought, her mind spinning in wild, dizzying circles of profound revelation.
*Why would Senior Brother discard the sacred scriptures of Heaven into a bucket of rot?!*
*Because to him, the scriptures are meaningless!*
*The outer skin is dazzling, majestic, and blinding to mortal eyes. Fools look at the golden bark and worship the power, the radiance, the divine writing!*
*Yet Senior Brother knows the absolute truth of the Dao: the outer vessel is merely dust!*
*The true essence of creation does not lie in flashy runes or arrogant golden displays. It lies in the pure, quiet, humble interior! The clean, unblemished white flesh that nourishes life!*
Tears of profound, overwhelming clarity welled up in Lyra’s eyes, spilling down her porcelain cheeks.
*He is teaching me the ultimate lesson of detachment,* Lyra whispered in her heart, pressing her hand over her racing pulse. *He is showing me that all the glory, titles, and scriptures of the mortal realm are nothing more than vegetable peelings to be returned to the soil!*
"Lord Nether-Bane!" Lyra whispered urgently, her voice trembling with solemn reverence. "Bring the sacred imperial silks from the carriage trunks! Quickly, before the cosmic essence disperses into the air!"
The Ghost King scrambled on all fours, his hemp apron flapping wildly.
"At once, Lady Lyra!" the Ghost King rasped, his skeletal fingers digging frantically into a nearby wooden chest.
He produced several bolts of pristine, enchanted white silk.
With surgical, worshipful care, Lyra and the Ghost King lifted each six-foot golden ribbon from the compost bucket.
They wrapped the glowing bark in the fine silk, folding them like holy scriptures and placing them into an ironbound sandalwood relic chest.
Up on top of the giant root, Felix had no idea an ancient religious ritual was occurring behind his back.
He had successfully stripped off a ten-foot section of the golden rind, exposing the gleaming, snow-white heart of the overgrown radish.
The interior flesh was translucent, intensely crisp, and weeping droplets of pure, sweet liquid that sparkled like diamonds in the morning light.
Felix tapped the vegetable with the flat of his cleaver.
*Snap!*
A clean, satisfying chunk of crisp white radish broke free in his hand.
Felix popped a small sliver into his mouth and chewed.
*CRUNCH.*
The sound was as loud and sharp as a breaking icicle.
A burst of refreshingly cool, peppery, and intensely sweet juice exploded across his tongue, followed by a warm, soothing wave that rolled down his throat and settled into his chest.
Felix’s eyes lit up with genuine delight.
"Oh, wow," Felix said, chewing happily. "That's fantastic. Perfect crunch. Just enough pepper to wake you up, but sweet enough that you don't even need sugar in the brine."
He tapped the screen of his AetherDeck to verify the recipe details:
【Target: Pickled Sun-Radish Cubes (In Progress)】 【Quality: Divine Crisp】 【Flavor Rating: S-Rank Side Dish】 【Inspector Note: Freshly cubed radish soaking in spicy vinegar brine. Contains enough raw solar vitality to cure forty terminal illnesses, but Felix is just making it so his morning congee doesn't taste boring.】
Felix sat down on the edge of the root, humming a cheerful tune as his iron cleaver worked with rhythmic speed.
*Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop.*
Uniform, one-inch cubes of snow-white radish tumbled by the hundreds into his five-gallon pickling crock.
He reached into his inventory bag, pulling out a sack of coarse sea salt, two jugs of cloudy rice vinegar, and a handful of fiery red dried chili peppers.
He dumped the salt over the crisp white cubes, sloshed the vinegar into the crock until it covered the radish, and tossed the chili flakes across the top.
The brine immediately began to bubble with tiny, effervescent golden pearls, giving off a mouthwatering aroma of tangy vinegar, savory salt, and spicy heat.
Felix wiped the blade of his cleaver against his hemp apron and slid it back into his belt.
He lifted the heavy five-gallon crock onto his shoulder with one arm, climbing down from the giant radish with an easy leap.
He looked over at Lyra and the Ghost King, who were kneeling near the fence beside a closed sandalwood chest wrapped in golden silk ribbons.
"Hey, Lyra," Felix said, gesturing with his free hand toward the pickling crock on his shoulder. "I'm putting this in the cool shade under the porch eaves. Give it about twelve hours to ferment. Tomorrow morning, we're having pickled radish cubes with breakfast congee."
Lyra bowed her head deeply, her voice choked with emotion.
"This student shall guard the sacred vessel with her life, Senior Brother," Lyra replied softly.
Felix blinked at her, slightly confused.
"You don't need to guard it with your life," Felix said with a small chuckle. "Just don't let the gryphon stick its beak in there. If it drinks the vinegar, it'll sneeze for three hours."
Felix strolled back toward the porch, completely relaxed, whistling a jaunty melody as his straw slippers scuffed through the clover.
Behind him, Lyra slowly stood up and looked at the sandalwood chest containing the discarded golden peels.
She turned to the Ghost King, her eyes shining with quiet resolve.
"The Senior Brother has given us the outer scriptures to study," Lyra whispered. "We must transcribe every single rune before the mortal dawn arrives. The world is not ready to witness what was discarded in this yard today."
The Ghost King nodded vigorously, his hollow eye sockets glowing with fanatical devotion as he hoisted the relic chest with trembling bone arms.
Up on the porch, Felix slid the heavy ceramic crock into the shady space beneath the low cedar tea table, right beside Grandmaster Vivienne's purple Sovereign Heart Seal.
He gave the jar a satisfied pat, picked up his Infinite Cozy Teacup, and sank happily back into his woven recliner.
"Pickles are brewing," Felix murmured, pulling his straw hat down over his eyes. "Time for another quick twenty-minute nap."