The morning breeze rustled the golden clover across Solitude Spire, carrying the rich, buttery fragrance of the Solar Omelet across the entire summit.
On the cedar porch, Felix Vance stood by the railing, holding his wide ceramic plate.
Beside the fluffy, golden-rainbow folded omelet rested two thick slices of toasted sourdough bread, crisped to a warm golden brown.
The steam rising from the plate danced with tiny rainbow sparkles, releasing the intoxicating aroma of sun-kissed butter, fresh alpine herbs, and sweet cream.
Down at the bottom of the porch steps, Grand Inquisitor Drake finally dragged his iron-clad knees out of the grass.
The eighty-year-old inquisitor gripped the cedar handrail with trembling, mud-caked gauntlets, pulling himself upright.
His polished white ermine cape was stained with dirt and grass juice.
His gilded breastplate was crooked.
His face was streaked with red lines where scalding tears had washed through eighty years of road grime and dried sweat.
Behind him, fifty yards away at the bridgehead, the four elite imperial guards were still sprawled face-down in the clover, weeping softly in a daze of spiritual euphoria beside the gilded grocery cart.
Drake looked up toward the porch, his vision swimming with tears of divine awe.
"S-Supreme Sovereign..." Drake rasped, his voice cracking with unbearable reverence. "The... the Sol-Aethel Empire has arrived with the weekly mortal tribute! Twelve smoked wild hams from the royal smokehouses! Four wheels of cave-aged golden cheese! Three sacks of imperial stone-ground flour! Scallions and sweet melons gathered from the southern mountain springs!"
Drake dropped his forehead against the bottom cedar step, his shoulders shaking beneath his armor.
"We bring no weapons of war!" Drake sobbed into the wood. "We bring only the humble flavors of the mortal realm, begging that your divine countenance might look upon our empire with continued mercy!"
Felix looked down at Drake, then glanced past him toward the gilded handcart sitting by the suspension bridge.
He saw the fat, glistening smoked hams and the crates of fresh produce.
"Oh, the groceries," Felix said, his tone instantly softening into mild relief. "Nice. You're right on time, Drake. I was running out of sandwich meat."
Felix pointed with his wooden fork toward the back of the cottage.
"Just wheel the cart around to the cellar door," Felix instructed casually. "Stack the hams on the dry shelf. And make sure to latch the crate with the cheese—last time the Thunder Gryphon got into the dairy, it had sulfur gas for three days and almost blew the roof off the privy."
Drake froze, his nose pressed firmly against the bottom step.
*'He remembers the beast's spiritual digestion...'* Drake thought, his soul trembling with holy terror. *'The Sovereign tracks every cosmic ripple on this mountain, down to the subtle elemental balance of the ninth-tier apex mount! His omniscient awareness misses nothing!'*
Drake slowly raised his head, gasping for breath:
"It... it shall be done as the Sovereign decrees! Every ham shall be placed with reverent care!"
Felix looked down at the old inquisitor.
Drake’s face was bright red, his breath was ragged, and his hands were shaking violently against his knees.
Felix furrowed his brow with mild concern.
He triggered his Inspector HUD with a quick squint:
【Target: Grand Inquisitor Drake】 【Age: 84 Years】 【Cultivation: Seventh-Tier Peak (Meridians Recently Cleansed)】 【Lifespan Remaining: 42 Years (Critically Depleted by Ancient Battle Corrosions)】 【Current Status: Severe Exhaustion / Emotional Hysteria】 【Inspector Note: Pushed a heavy grocery cart across an alpine gorge on an empty stomach while wearing eighty pounds of steel plate. Suffering from severe low blood sugar and acute religious panic. Desperately needs carbs and protein before his knees give out completely.】
Felix shook his head with a quiet sigh.
"Look at you, Drake," Felix muttered. "You ran all the way across that bridge pushing a heavy cart in full plate armor. Your face is purple and you're breathing like a broken bellows. Did you skip breakfast?"
Drake blinked through his tears, totally paralyzed by the question.
"B-Breakfast, Sovereign?" Drake stammered. "This lowly servant... this sinner would never dare consume mortal sustenance before completing the divine delivery!"
"Yeah, that’s how people pass out from hypoglycemia," Felix said, rolling his eyes. "You delivery guys need to take better care of your stamina bars. If you drop dead on my front steps, who's going to bring the hams next Tuesday?"
Felix looked down at his own ceramic plate.
The Solar Omelet was enormous.
Three Nine-Colored Spirit Eggs had expanded in the cast-iron skillet into a feast large enough to feed an entire adventuring party.
His personal hunger meter on the AetherDeck was only at forty-two percent.
"I made way too much anyway," Felix muttered. "And eggs taste like rubber once they get cold."
Felix reached down to the wooden side table beside his recliner and picked up a clean, broad cabbage leaf that had been washed that morning.
He set the leaf on the porch railing.
With his wooden fork and knife, Felix sliced off half of a thick, golden slice of toasted sourdough.
Then, he cut a massive, steaming wedge from the center of the Solar Omelet.
The omelet parted with a soft, velvety sigh:
*Shhhhhk.*
Golden, molten yolk swirled with iridescent rainbow ribbons oozed gently across the crust, soaking into the toasted bread.
Rich, buttery steam billowed into the morning air, carrying the crisp, herbaceous scent of the Sun-Lotus Cabbage.
Felix transferred the loaded half-slice of toast onto the fresh cabbage leaf and leaned over the porch railing.
"Here," Felix said, holding it out toward Drake. "Eat this. Don't let it go to waste."
Drake stared up at the outstretched cabbage leaf.
His vision tunnel-visioned.
The world around him lost all color, all sound, all meaning.
Sitting upon that emerald leaf was a chunk of golden bread heaped with shimmering, rainbow-hued divine matter.
It pulsed with the pure, unadulterated law of the Primordial Solar Phoenix.
It radiated the undying essence of the First Sun—a concentrated nexus of True Yang vitality capable of restoring a shattered universe.
"F-For... for me?" Drake choked, his voice barely a breath. "A... a portion of the Sovereign's sacred banquet?"
"It’s an egg on toast, Drake. Take it before my arm gets tired," Felix said, his voice flat with mild exasperation.
Drake didn't dare reach out with his iron gauntlets.
With frantic, trembling haste, he tore off his steel gloves, tossing them into the grass.
He raised his bare, calloused, wrinkled hands as if receiving the holy mantle of the creator.
His fingers touched the cool, waxy surface of the cabbage leaf.
*BZZZZZT.*
A faint, pleasant static charge rushed up Drake’s forearms, sending goosebumps rippling across his skin.
He brought the leaf down to his chest, staring at the steaming golden egg with wide, unblinking eyes.
Beside the railing, Lyra Ashford gripped the hilt of her silver rapier so tightly her knuckles turned blue.
Her heart pounded against her ribs like a war drum.
*'He gave it to him...'* Lyra's thoughts screamed in deafening silence. *'Senior Brother just casually gifted an Eighth-Tier Imperial Inquisitor a direct infusion of Primordial Phoenix Essence! That single bite contains enough concentrated rebirth law to raise a dead saint from the tomb! Senior Brother treats divine immortality as an afternoon snack!'*
Drake took a deep, shuddering breath.
With trembling hands, he raised the half-slice of toast to his lips.
He took a single, reverent bite.
*CRUNCH.*
The toasted sourdough cracked cleanly between his teeth, yielding to the velvety, sun-drenched richness of the golden yolk.
For one microsecond, absolute silence enveloped Solitude Spire.
Then, the world shattered.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM!*
A pillar of pure, blinding solar light erupted from Drake’s lower abdomen!
The golden beam shot straight through his chest, blasting skyward and scattering the clouds above the spire into a spinning halo of golden auroras.
Drake’s mouth fell open, but no scream escaped.
Only a pure, resonant chord of celestial harmony vibrated from his vocal cords:
*AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!*
The True Yang essence of the Nine-Colored Spirit Egg flooded his eighty-year-old meridians like molten liquid gold.
Inside his body, the changes were violent, instantaneous, and miraculous.
The deep, jagged scars across his chest—souvenirs of thirty imperial wars—dissolved into smooth, flawless skin.
The chronic bone ache that had plagued his spine since the Siege of the Iron Citadel vanished in a burst of soothing warmth.
His brittle, aging bones condensed, recrystallizing into dense, indestructible star-iron marrow.
Down in the clover, Drake’s appearance began to morph before everyone’s eyes.
The deep, weathered crow’s feet around his eyes smoothed away like wet sand beneath a gentle wave.
His sunken, leathery cheeks filled out with firm, youthful muscle.
His skin gained a radiant, sun-bronzed vitality.
And then, his beard.
The coarse, brittle, eighty-year-old silver beard that had been his trademark across the three imperial provinces began to smoke with golden steam.
Starting from the roots at his jawline, the silver color dissolved.
In its place surged a deep, rich, lustrous jet-black!
Within three heartbeats, Drake’s long white beard and thinning white hair had transformed completely into a thick, glossy mane of midnight-black hair that gleamed in the morning sun.
His spiritual aura, previously capped at the Seventh Tier, smashed through the realm ceiling like an imperial siege ram:
*CRACK!*
Eighth-Tier Saint Realm!
His dantian expanded by three times its original volume, spinning with the golden radiance of a miniature sun.
A translucent notification flickered in Felix’s passive vision:
【Target: Grand Inquisitor Drake】 【Lifespan Extended: +500 Years】 【Current Status: Nirvana Rebirth / Peak Saint Awakening】 【Inspector Note: Consumed half a slice of egg toast. The ancient battle wounds are gone, the gray hair is history, and his stamina bar is completely overflowing. He could probably bench-press his own grocery cart across the mountain range right now.】
Drake lowered the remaining crust of toast with shaking fingers.
He stared at his own hands.
The liver spots were gone.
The wrinkles were gone.
His skin was smooth, tight, and overflowing with the boundless, roaring vitality of a man in his absolute thirty-year-old physical prime.
Drake’s eyes flared with pure, piercing eagle-like intensity.
He fell forward, slamming both palms and his forehead directly against the cedar steps with a thunderous crack:
*SLAM!*
"I HAVE TASTED THE BANQUET OF THE FIRST GODS!" Drake roared at the sky, his voice booming with the resonant power of an Eighth-Tier Saint, echoing off the distant mountain crags.
Tears of pure, unbridled worship poured down his youthful, unblemished face.
"FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OF LONGEVITY!" Drake bellowed, weeping openly into the wood. "MY SOUL HAS BEEN REBORN! THE SOL-AETHEL EMPIRE LIVES ONLY BY THE GRACE OF THE GREAT SUN! COMMAND ME, SOVEREIGN! MY LIFE, MY BLADE, AND MY BLOOD BELONG TO THIS MOUNTAIN FOR ALL ETERNITY!"
On the porch, Felix stood by the railing, slowly chewing on his own forkful of omelet.
He watched the newly black-bearded man screaming at the wood with deep, exhausted exasperation.
"Great," Felix muttered around his fork. "I gave him some leftover breakfast and he turned it into a theatrical performance. Typical dramatic NPC."
Felix took another bite of his toast, chewed thoughtfully, and rubbed his chin.
"A little heavy on the black pepper," Felix remarked to himself. "The yolk is nice and runny, though. Good texture on the cabbage. Solid seven out of ten. Next time I'll melt some sharp cheddar over the top."
Beside him, Lyra Ashford fell to one knee on the cedar planks, her ancestral rapier resting flat against the floorboards as she looked upon Felix with boundless, trembling veneration.
"Senior Brother," Lyra whispered, her voice choking with emotion. "You reshape the fate of mortal empires with a crust of bread. The world will never comprehend your boundless benevolence."
Felix sighed, walking back toward his deep woven recliner.
He picked up the Infinite Cozy Teacup from the table, took a long sip of hot black tea, and settled comfortably into the cushions beneath the morning sun.
On the ceiling beam above, Barnaby’s clockwork gears hummed with steady, rhythmic contentment:
*Tick... tick... tick...*
The mountain was warm.
The groceries were delivered.
And best of all, Felix still had another four hours before his afternoon nap.