Rin Wi sliced the food down to pieces. Her hands could move faster, but the equipment wouldn’t hold, even with her qi-reinforcement techniques. She was already working in her own separate kitchen out and away from any mortals and her hands moved at multiple times the speed of sound, though she used her movement techniques to avoid the sonic booms she would produce.

But even then, she was slow. She could move ten times this speed and keep that pace consistently. At her fastest, she could move a hundred times this speed, but this was enough for the village mortals and they were quite happy with the aid she brought, regardless of efficiency.

And she quite enjoyed that bit. Rin Wi found that serving a person was one thing, and helping people was another. The lady known as Medin had been nothing but kind to her at almost every turn, and Chin Chin, Medin’s husband, seemed to be indifferent towards her.

She hadn’t asked Rin Wi for much, just the occasional chore here or errand there. But mostly Rin Wi had watched and waited. It had been strange for her, not having someone tell her what to do. She generally had some sort of instruction, and even when she didn’t, she knew what needed to be done and how it needed to be done. People to serve, feed, bathe, please, her purpose had always been laid out before her.

But now she didn’t need to do anything. And for a while that had been pleasant, just sitting there and watching as things went by, but it soon became tiring. She needed to do something and when she asked Medin for a task, the woman had asked her what she wanted to do.

That had been a burden all its own and it took her a whole day’s worth of deliberation to decide, but she had chosen to cook. It was the task she enjoyed the most overall and it was always the most rewarding. Back when she served in the Divine Beast Emporium she had cooked a bit and always enjoyed the process. But the Servant Mother never let her take that spot as her role. She was too pretty to cook and too weak.

Cooking in higher realms required strength. You had to be strong enough to skin an eighth-rank dragon and durable enough to withstand the heat of the fire that would cook it. It was a deadly affair overall. Some chefs even slew the beasts themselves, fighting the thing to near death and cooking it directly afterward.

And Rin Wi had always wanted to try that. Cleaning her own kill and making a recipe through pure scent alone. The process altogether was a wild and creative one, both an art and a technique. And now she could try it.

Of course, a chicken wasn’t nearly as fun to fight as a dragon might’ve been, but it was an interesting battle. One slice of her cleaver and a hundred chickens lost their heads, another slice and off went their feathers. A rope extended from her hand and pierced the flesh of every chicken before it had even hit the ground. She had then collected the bastards and went to the kitchen, bathing and cleaning the carcasses before tossing them into her dishes.

Medin had been impressed by that and apparently, her cooking was far beyond what any of the mortals here had ever tasted, which made sense. Mortal senses were barely senses, but a cultivator could taste a grain of salt in ten jugs of water. Of course her cooking, no matter how amateur, was beyond them. She had tried mortal food, once with the honored master, and since then she had resoluted to cooking the food herself.

Mortals were just…tasteless, though it wasn’t their fault, it was a problem.

And Rin Wi cooked, mainly for all the merchants that would be passing through this year. And Medin was quite happy about the quality of the food and how much higher they could charge because of it.

That was another thing. Currency, or rather mortal currency was a strange thing. Out here they used dried-up spirit stones that were cut into ten different pieces. To her, they were useless, bits of crumbled old stone, but mortals treated them with such value that she would think they still had qi within them if she didn’t know any better.

They were unique after all, each shined and shimmered in a way only spirit stones ever could but they were also useless, and the mortals valued them nonetheless. Something she could make in less than a second was held to such high standards and when Rin Wi had offered to make Medin some of these stones, she had rejected the offer vehemently.

Mortals. They just didn’t make any sense.

Rin Wi focused on her cooking, food flying in the air after she sliced it and arced perfectly into the pots she aimed for. It was all quite symmetrical, if a little disappointing.

"Rin, someone's requesting a simmered big shell. I told them we don't have big shells out here but he brought back a whole carcass! And then I told him I'd have to ask to be sure, but he was insistent, practically demanding I make it for him. I think he’d a cultivator and-”

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“Where?” Rin demanded.

She had seen the cultivators of this land. They had all gathered to visit the Honored Master and they had all been incredibly weak. Rin knew the lesser realms had fewer techniques and resources to cultivate with, but she had been shocked at just how simple those people had been. She alone could’ve wiped out the entourage they sent.

The Honored Master treated them all the same, with some respect and patience, though she didn’t know why. Honestly, he confused her more than anything else, but she was able to accept it.

But she was not as kind nor patient as that man. She would be fair because the Honored Master had asked her to be fair. But fair and kind were two separate things. Rin Wi walked over to the serving maid, a cleaver in one hand and a fist in the other.

“He demanded?” She asked.

“He- Well he threatened to kill the chef if it wasn’t to his liking, but we sent someone to Mister Bill and he’ll be here to sort all”

“No need,” Rin Wi replied.

The Honored Master didn’t need to be informed of anything within this place. Rin Wi knew he tried to limit how far his senses spread, but she also knew he kept a good eye on everything within this desert.

“Lead me to him,” Rin Wi demanded.

“There’s really no need, I’m sure Mister Bill can-”

“This is not worth his time,” Rin Wi cut in. “Now show me his tent.”

The girl hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

She led Rin Wi outside the building. The inn was too small to host all the customers, so most of the food was delivered straight to their tents that were set up about a quarter mile away from the kitchen. A loose line of serving men and women were constantly walking back and forth from the tents to the cooking area, each carrying foods of one sort or another.

Her own senses spread, searching through the masses and pinpointing all the cultivators in the region.

“Which tent?” She asked.

The serving girl slowly pointed towards one of the larger tents situated at the center of the place.

Rin Wi nodded and grabbed the girl’s hand before leaping into the sky and achieving slow flight. Her body glided through the air as she used her movement technique to cover the distance in an instant. The serving girl, whom she had included in the movement technique gave out a short scream at the sudden change in scenery and then violently yanked her hand away from Rin Wi when they touched ground.

“This tent?” Rin Wi asked.

The girl, still shaken up at the sudden change, nodded, and Rin Wi walked.

The tent was expensive, clearly made out of some animal hide that had been stitched together to create something this large and comfortable. And a tent this expensive had an entrance, one located at the other side of where Rin Wi was. Unfortunately for it’s owner, Rin Wi didn’t care.

The tent parted like air as she barged through it and the atmosphere in the place changed instantly. There was a circle of men lying on a rather luxurious carpet, with an immense platter of food between them. They seemed to have been laughing and having a rather pleasant time before Rin Wi came in and now they seemed surprised.

But then the surprise quickly turned to an offense and the largest of the men, largest both in height and in width stood up and spoke in a booming voice.

“You dare to come in here-”

Rin Wi stopped listening. There were several cultivators in the tent and while this one may have been the strongest at the third rank, that didn’t mean he was the villain.

“Him?” Rin Wi asked turning towards the servant girl. The girl had ran a good distance from here, likely out of fear, but she could still hear Rin Wi, even while she was hiding behind one of the carts. The girl peeked over and her head glanced at Rin Wi’s finger and then she nodded.

“-Shall have your skin for this you wretched mortal sc-”

“Do not threaten people,” Rin Wi spoke.

This was fair. She was warning him, telling him to not repeat his behavior. She could have been kind and released her aura, letting everyone know how strong she truly was. She could’ve.

The man’s face got red like an ugly sunset.

“YOU DARE TO COMMAND ME MORTAL? I SHALL-”

She slapped the man and his whole face turned. There was a sense of shock for a moment before everyone in the room stood up, each reaching for their weapons and preparing their techniques.

She slapped them too and since they were weak, they collapsed like spent flies.

“Do you understand?” Rin Wi asked the sole standing red-faced man.

“YOU DARE-”

Rin Wi slapped again, this time with enough force to smack the man to the ground.

“Do you understand?” She repeated.

‘What clan do you hail-”

This time the man rolled like a boulder and out of the tent making another hole in the instrument.

“I- I can compensate-”

And again she slapped. And again, and again, until eventually the man’s face was so swollen that his lips couldn’t come together to form a sentence. Several of the bastard's teeth had also been forcefully evicted and his clothes had been torn from being tossed around the ground too much.

Rin Wi looked at him again.

“Do you understand?” She asked once more.

This time, the face that resembled a baboon’s ass more than it did a face, nodded.

Rin Wi smiled and nodded in return. She got up, dusted herself off, and returned to her kitchen.

The soup should be done by now, she thought to herself.