"This is meat from a gold horned bull. Its skin is as tough as diamond, taking most of the brunt of its weight, so its meat is really tender as they're hardly worked. I seasoned it with some special herbs I collected and marinated it for a few days before putting it away in my spatial ring to preserve.

"This is jade rice boiled in cleansing waters. It had a satisfying crunch to it and an herby, garlic-like essence, but its contradictorily soft at the same time.

"Try it!"

Dyon happily dug in. Saru's cooking skills shocked him to the point where he could only calm himself by eating more. Dyon had always been a food connoisseur, but he was at best an average cook. He had never had such good food in his life.

She really put her heart into this meal. He couldn't help but thank and praise her after every bite.

How could Dyon know that Saru had prepared thousands of meals over the years, preserving them all in perfect condition in her spatial ring, all for this moment?

Even before she entered the tower trials, Saru had been a good cook. It wasn't entirely her choice, but rather that the conservative culture of the Shruti Empire had forced it upon her. Only after she showed her talent was irrefutable did she partially break away from the constraints women faced in this Shruti Empire's territory.

However, the rewards of her trials practically gave wings to a tiger.

She only received four rewards because the second trial disappeared, likely due to Dyon as she speculated. Among those rewards, she chose an ancient book with deep rune etchings on its cover. It introduced the long lost ancient secondary profession of the Spiritual Cook.

The founder of the Spiritual Cook path believed it was lamentable that Celestials and Dao Realm cultivators often ate nothing but tasteless pills. To make matters worse, sometimes these pills were bitter due to impurities. Maybe only a rare few might taste good

Though he had great accomplishments in the latter portion of his life, he was a late bloomer. So he remembered well what it was like to be mortal and to have a love of food. The issue was that even when cultivators ate food, it was often for leisure, rarely did eating actually improve one's cultivation.

So, this founder set out to change this and forge a path that could compete with array alchemy. The ancient tome Saru chose was in fact this legacy.

She chose it for two reasons. Firstly, though eating rarely improved cultivation, that was in terms of energy and soul path cultivators. As a body path cultivator as well as an energy path cultivator, Saru knew the importance of food to her bodily strength.

And second She really wanted to wow Dyon with her cooking, to be praised just like she was today.

Though it was a petty and foolish reason, the use of the tome couldn't be denied. The beauty in the path of the Spiritual Cook was their ability to take simple ingredients and to not only make them delicious, but nutritious as well.

Despite the fact the ingredients Saru used were mostly of the Grandmaster grade, even with his overbearing body, Dyon felt a slight, but still apparent improvement. His eyes couldn't help but shine.

Unfortunately, it seemed that only Dyon and Saru were enjoying themselves.

Brahman, who stood to the side of them in the air, felt that he had lost all face. Last night, Dyon said he wouldn't give him any treasures as a disciple since he rejected him, but still trained him to the point his bones ached.

'If you acknowledge that I rejected you, why are you still calling me your disciple?!'

He had said these words too many times already, but Dyon ignored them every time.

As lost as Brahman was, the three Grand Elder, Emperor Shruti and Atlas, not to mention the countless ten billion celestial warriors below, were even more lost than that.

The Gates vibrated open the large ocean surface. Unfortunately, it was already too late to change anything. They could only hope the Shruti Empire survived until the Gates closed once more

On the other side of the gate, despite what the Shruti might have assumed was cheering and excitement toward the foolishness of their enemies, the atmosphere was solemn. Or, rather, it was solemn within a minimalistically decorated Commander's Tent.

Within, there were several individuals. The Patriarchs and Grand Elders of the Heaven, Jikan and Void Clans, as well as a few individuals dressed in beast skins.

Outside the tent, however, there was happiness. The soldiers believed that Shruti had lost their minds and their victory was at hand. In truth, many within the Commander's Tent felt this way as well. However, there was one reason they didn't dare to celebrate, and that was because the person who had brought them all together was still frowning deeply.

The person at the head of them all was none other than Head Void's son and Aki Void's father, Kaori Void.

Over the years of the Kitsune Clans' seclusion, this person had proved himself to be near infallible. If he wasn't so talented, he wouldn't be able to pull BPA to act for him so early on.

Of course, in the former timeline, Kaori failed to entice the Beast Protection Assocation into action, something they later regretted greatly. This alone showed the amount of foresight that Kaori had. Though he technically relied on Dyon killing 4 numbered warriors and forcing 2 to betray their organization in order to get his way, his method was right in the end.

"This is too odd." Kaori finally spoke. "The Shruti aren't stupid. It's either they're luring us into a trap, or they've gained substantial help. Enough that they're willing to go against us now.

"It can't be forgotten that the relationship between Atlas and Shruti Clan is deep. Maybe they believe that with the creation of the Federation, they can get away with ignoring the inter-quadrant war taboo."