Lyra returned from the kitchen carrying a small terracotta jar of wild mountain honey and a small wooden paddle.
She set it gently upon the cedar table beside Felix’s cup.
"Fresh cliff-honey, Senior Brother," Lyra said softly. "Gathered by golden spirit bees in the southern valleys. It is rich in sweet Yang nectar."
"Nice," Felix said, leaning back into his reclining wicker deckchair. "Appreciate it."
He scooped a generous golden dollop of honey and dropped it straight into his warm jasmine tea. The thick amber syrup sank to the bottom of the porcelain cup, sitting in a stubborn, heavy blob.
Felix picked up his obsidian AetherDeck from the armrest.
"While that dissolves, let's see what the devs gave me for hitting the milestone," Felix muttered to himself.
He unlocked the screen, swiped past the idle accumulation meters, and tapped on the glowing mailbox icon in the upper right corner.
A golden envelope fluttered open with a digital chime:
Felix tapped the claim button without hesitation.
The ticket dissolved into his bag, reappearing as a flashing golden voucher in his main summon tab.
Felix eyed the gacha banner with deep, battle-hardened cynicism.
He had played enough mobile games in his previous life to know how free tickets worked.
The banner showed a stunning 3D illustration of an ancient celestial blade wreathed in roaring violet dragon-lightning, labeled *SSR: Heaven-Sundering Dragon Glaive*.
The advertised drop rate for that top-tier prize was zero point zero five percent.
Meanwhile, the drop rate for mundane junk sat at a hefty ninety-four percent.
"Free milestone tickets are always bait," Felix muttered under his breath, shaking his head. "They give you one single pull, trigger your dopamine receptors, and hope you swipe your credit card when you pull a common wooden bucket. Well, jokes on you, dev team. I don't even have a credit card registered on this world."
Lyra stood three paces away, watching him with rapt, breathless attention.
She saw the mysterious black slate in Felix’s hands pulse with divine golden runes.
She could feel the surrounding air grow heavy with spatial tension. The fabric of reality around Felix's wicker chair seemed to ripple, as if the dimensional boundaries between the mortal plane and the primordial vault of heaven were thinning.
*He is reaching into the Void,* Lyra thought, her heart hammering against her ribs. *Senior Brother is about to commune with the Ancient Heavenly Treasury! What divine treasure will he summon from the First Era? A dragon-slaying halberd? An immortal resurrection pill?*
Felix tapped the summon button with his right thumb.
"Just give me something useful," Felix grumbled. "At least a purple-tier tea kettle or some decent bath towels."
The screen flashed bright white.
A spinning golden pentagram materialized on the glass display, accompanied by a jaunty, pixelated fanfare that only Felix could hear.
Five seconds later, the summoning animation finished with a dull, anticlimactic thud.
Two notification windows popped up side by side:
Felix stared at the screen, his mouth twitching with pure disgust.
"Are you kidding me?" Felix groaned, tossing his head back against the wicker chair. "A three-star soup spoon and five rolls of cheap bandages? That’s what I get for igniting an entire star in my chest?!"
He rubbed his temples in frustration.
"RNGesus has forsaken this account," Felix muttered bitterly. "Ten billion energy units accumulated overnight, and the system rewards me with dollar-store first aid supplies and cutlery. Total trash drop."
*Plop.*
With a soft dimensional displacement, the items materialized out of thin air.
Five rolls of plain beige linen bandages dropped into Felix’s lap.
And straight into his right hand landed a heavy, eight-inch iron spoon.
The spoon was dark charcoal-grey, forged from dull, unpolished metal that looked like pitted cast iron. Along its slender handle ran faint geometric grooves that resembled old scratches rather than magical runes.
Felix shoved the rolls of bandages into his tunic pocket for emergency napkins.
Then he lifted the iron spoon to eye level, squinting at it with utter skepticism.
【Item: Ancient Iron Stir-Spoon (3-Star)】 【Sub-type: Kitchen Utensil / Relic of Agitation】 【Function: Automatically stirs any liquid placed within 3 inches at variable speeds up to 1,000 RPM without spilling a drop. Cleans itself upon removal.】 【Operation: Dip tip into liquid and mentally select speed.】 【Flavor Text: Forged by a lazy chef who hated whisking eggs.】
Felix raised an eyebrow.
"Wait..." Felix murmured, rereading the description. "Automated fluid agitation up to one thousand RPM? Self-cleaning?"
He looked over at his cup of jasmine tea sitting on the low pine bench.
The thick honey was still resting at the bottom of the cup, barely dissolving in the warm water.
"Well," Felix said, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess it beats finding a clean wooden spoon and getting my fingers sticky."
He leaned forward in his wicker chair, took hold of the dark iron handle, and dipped the bowl of the spoon into the teacup.
*Dip.*
The moment the iron touched the tea, Felix gave a lazy mental nudge: *Stir.*
The spoon answered instantly.
*Vvvvvvvvv—!*
A silent, frictionless vibration pulsed through the metal handle.
Without moving Felix's wrist an inch, the bowl of the iron spoon began to spin on its own axis at blistering speed.
Within two seconds, the rotational velocity ramped from a gentle swirl straight up to a screaming one thousand revolutions per minute.
The jasmine tea in the ceramic cup responded with terrifying mechanical obedience.
The amber liquid was violently drawn downward into a razor-sharp, pitch-black vortex.
The center of the funnel reached all the way to the bottom of the porcelain, exposing the ceramic base while the tea climbed the inner walls of the cup in a glass-smooth cylinder of liquid.
Yet despite the sheer kinetic violence of the thousand-RPM spin, the fluid dynamics remained mathematically flawless.
Zero droplets flew over the rim.
Zero splashes touched the cedar table.
The honey at the bottom was pulverized at the molecular level, instantly blending into the hot water in a silky, iridescent emulsion.
As the vortex spun, the ambient air above the cup grew ionized. Tiny sparks of golden Yang photons—venting passively from Felix’s chest—were sucked into the whirlpool like moths to a flame.
A deep, reverberating hum echoed across the porch.
*Whum... whum... whum...*
The sound was like an ancient temple bell vibrating in a vacuum.
Lyra Ashford took one look at the cup, and her breath stopped entirely.
Her jaw dropped slack.
Her ancestral silver rapier began to hum in its scabbard, trembling in terrifying resonance with the spinning teacup.
*The Spatial Whirlpool Ladle!* Lyra screamed in her mind, her soul shaking to its very core. *The legendary creation relic of the First Era! The spoon said to have stirred the Primordial Void into the Twin Rivers of Yin and Yang!*
She looked at the faint scratches along the iron handle.
In her eyes, those were not scratches.
Those were the lost Spatial Geometry Runes of the Void Sages!
Runes capable of compressing infinite rotational inertia into a microscopic boundary layer, manipulating liquid mass without generating outward centrifugal force!
*He summoned a First Era creation engine... just to mix a spoonful of honey into his morning jasmine tea!*
Lyra’s knees trembled so violently she had to brace herself against the cedar railing.
*To mortal cultivators, such an artifact would be locked inside the deepest imperial vault behind nine blood seals!* Lyra thought, tears of holy awe gathering in her eyes. *Wars would be waged across three continents for three centuries to claim a single shard of that iron! And Senior Brother... Senior Brother sits in a wicker chair in straw slippers, complaining that it is a 'trash drop'?!*
【Target: Lyra Ashford】 【Comprehension: Void Vortex Emulsion Dao (Transcendent)】 【Status: Mind Thoroughly Blown】 【Inspector Note: Staring at your teacup as if it holds the blueprint for universal creation. Has completely forgotten that you just wanted the honey mixed.】
Felix watched the spinning vortex for three seconds.
"Okay, that's definitely thoroughly stirred," Felix said.
He lifted the iron spoon out of the cup.
The moment the metal broke surface contact, the spoon immediately stopped spinning.
*Pop.*
The tea collapsed back into a calm, gentle amber pool. A silky layer of golden foam rested on top, releasing an intoxicating aroma of honey, toasted jasmine, and pure solar warmth that made Felix’s mouth water.
Felix looked down at the iron spoon in his hand.
The metal was completely dry.
There was zero sticky syrup, zero wet tea leaves, and zero residue clinging to the surface. It was as clean and polished as if it had just come out of a dishwasher.
"Self-cleaning too," Felix murmured, letting out an approving whistle. "Alright, dev team, I take it back. It might be a three-star utility drop, but the quality-of-life feature is top-tier. No washing dishes, no sticky counter."
He set the iron spoon down on the armrest of his wicker chair.
Then he picked up the warm porcelain cup and took a slow, appreciative sip.
The flavor was magnificent.
The honey was blended so completely into the tea that every single drop carried the exact same smooth, velvety sweetness. The heat was even, the texture was rich, and the lingering aftertaste warmed his throat with clean, honeyed sunshine.
"Man," Felix sighed happily, settling deeper into his wicker cushions. "That is good tea. A proper emulsion really does make all the difference."
Lyra remained standing by the railing, staring at him with glazed, reverent eyes.
"Senior Brother," Lyra whispered, her voice barely louder than the mountain breeze. "Did you... did you just balance the elemental polarity of the tea leaves using the vortex of heaven and earth?"
Felix blinked, glancing up from his cup.
"What? No," Felix said dryly. "I just used the spoon so the honey wouldn't sit at the bottom in a lump. Nobody likes chewing on cold honey at the end of a drink."
Lyra’s heart skipped three beats.
*Nobody likes chewing on cold honey...*
She repeated the words in her mind, her soul practically ascending to a higher plane of enlightenment.
*Of course!* Lyra realized, her eyes shining with manic zeal. *Cold honey represents the stagnant, unrefined karma of mortal greed! If left unblended, it sinks to the bottom of the soul, turning bitter and heavy! But Senior Brother uses the divine vortex of inaction to dissolve all mortal karma into pure, effortless harmony!*
She bowed until her waist bent at a clean ninety-degree angle.
"Thank you for this lesson, Senior Brother!" Lyra said loudly, her voice trembling with emotion. "I will never allow my karma to sit at the bottom of the cup!"
Felix held his teacup halfway to his mouth, staring at her in complete silence.
"Right," Felix muttered after three seconds, slowly shaking his head. "Sure. Just... make sure you don't overthink your tea, Lyra. It's just breakfast."
He took another long sip, completely content, watching the clouds drift lazily over the mountain peaks.