‘Ugh, it's getting warm. Resistances are weird.’ The fire mage and chef complained about the weird way resistances worked.
Winter was coming to an end and the temperature was gradually rising. Ning Xin continued to compress her blood and her body temperature already dropped below Ebony’s. According to him, if a normal human was 36 he was 22 and she dropped below 18 recently. She liked his measurements and adopted them for her cooking and incorporated a value for cooking temperatures in her recipes. It took some time to experiment and learn but they got it down without too much trouble. Most recipes use ‘low, medium and high heat’ without any reference so it did make experimenting easier.
Heat resistance made one capable of withstanding more heat, it didn’t take away their perception of heat. If anything, they were only getting more perceptive to temperature as their Perception increased. She always had trouble sleeping because her body heats up with her old Core Skill. The change and evolution of her Core Skill removed this problem but the change in her physique which made her blood harder to heat up caused her natural body temperature to drop. She thought compressing her blood would warm her up but it only increased the amount of energy it took to heat herself up.
She put the sheep down as quickly and painlessly as possible before skinning them. Draining them didn’t take long with her magic. The army collected blood for their alchemists but they wouldn’t find out even if she took half of some animals’ blood. They cared more about monster blood, animal blood was used more in food than potions.
“Wash these.” She told some of the assistant chefs. The older chefs took her as a peer but the younger assistants were still nervous around her. She contained her overflowing Vitality so she didn’t understand why they always moved so stiffly around her. Thousands of sheep took hours even for her. It was great that most of the older chefs share her passion and high standards for quality and hygiene.
“Hmph! Young lady, you can’t share this recipe with anyone alright?!” The bearded head imperial chef got less haughty with her after months of cooking challenges. She’d say she got more than half his skill in terms of keeping the standard consistent for copious amounts of food but she won in terms of how delicious her dishes were. Except for this mutton and peas meal which had been compared against by every soldier who ate her meals.
She ate it once and had to admit that it was more perfect than any dish she could make with mutton. She couldn’t sniff out every ingredient even with her nose. The ingredients were blended really well, the mutton was tender and the peas soaked up plenty of flavour. She could do that. The sauce had to be what she was missing.
‘As expected from full-time chefs…’ They might not be as fluent or swift in dismantling animals and monsters but these elderly people had steady and accurate hands. Their control of heat, ingredients and especially timing was something to be admired. An area she was more lacking was the eye for ingredients’ condition. The same vegetables should be treated individually and separately, careful observations were needed to bring the best out of each and every ingredient.
Ning Xin’s nose twitched in annoyance when there was a foul smoky odour. The slaughtering was done outdoors but they had a massive indoor kitchen way larger than the training barracks she used with the others. They needed to feed a literal million people and there were more than a handful of military and civilian kitchens around the city. This particular kitchen was nearer to the cliff and surrounded by knights and soldiers’ residences.
The cats and dogs that stayed outside and were fed by the chefs were making a lot of noise. Although safety shouldn’t be that big of an issue, she couldn’t be sure their giant enemies didn’t find some way to get up the cliff and past the walls.
Ning Xin washed her hands, took her apron off and dashed off to where she placed her mantle. She was wearing comfortable clothes not fit for battle and had enough decency of putting her sweaty and grimy mantle outside the kitchen. She wasn’t so careless as to leave her weapons apart from her and she always had her bodysuit on. What clothes she wore didn't really matter to her now, they burned to ashes if she got serious. Her bodysuit and mantle were usually the only thing on her during battles.
The ground shook violently. Many kitchen utensils fell onto the grounds but the chefs quickly got a hold of the pots and pans. Most of them started to panic and it only intensified when a young assistant screamed during the second tremor that lasted even longer.
“Hold onto your pots tight! We’re chefs! Shame on us for allowing a dish to be unfinished!” Ning Xin was about to reassure them before the head chef beat her to it. ‘That was a bit dramatic when no one started cooking but he’s a great ch…they’re really here!’ The mark on her arm numbed her a little, it meant that there really was a Troll nearby.
The world slowed down as her concentration spiked, a nifty effect of her mental acceleration being brought to greater heights. ‘Come.’ All the fire in the kitchen was dragged towards her, she used it to light her mantle to warm her up. Truly, she didn’t understand how her body didn’t feel uncomfortably hot now. ‘What a mystery. Anyway, it’s good that they only started boiling water. The dish wouldn’t be ruined.’
No doubt, the fires were lukewarm but it saved her some energy. She wouldn’t take in external mana to enhance herself. Since she had the leeway, she picked dropping utensils out of the air and righted the pots and pans for the whole kitchen before moving back to the entrance. Having to move slowly so that she didn’t knock anything over was quite a bother.
‘My concentration spike can last more than 11 seconds now?’ She made use of this ‘bullet time’ to get a grasp of the situation outside. She already directed mana to her callstone to Ebony but that was moving slowly, it would only connect in a few seconds. Not the ‘seconds’ that she perceived but actual seconds.
The look of shock on the guards' faces told her that it was not a friendly spar between Commanders or Generals but she already knew that. The surroundings were clear and that relieved her a fair bit. At least the Trolls weren’t in such close proximity.
The world sped up again.
“Tell the cooks to focus on butchering the sheep for now. I’ll make sure they aren’t disrupted.” Ning Xin spooked the soldiers that were peeking into the kitchen.
“How did yo-!” He was quite good at acting cute by shutting his own mouth with his hands.
The flexible hair tie that Ebony called a ‘scrunchie’ burned and her hair unravelled. ‘He needs to make these more resistant to heat and fire…’ she lamented the loss of a nice hair tie. She followed the nasty scent and found herself making her way towards the wall.
‘That’s… tribeless hunters? Where’s mine?’ Ning Xin recognised the Trolls that crashed onto the wall. All those who were marked had specialised squads that countered each other. The Trolls must have gotten the Slingarm Tribe who threw Trolls onto the mainland here. She heard the Slingarm Tribe were few and concentrated at Third Tide, they must have spent weeks to travel here. The link of vitality must be from the Shamans and these Hunters were regenerating at breakneck speeds to take down marked individuals.
Ning Xin wasn’t sure about the sequence of events but no Troll had been successfully hurled onto the mainland for the past months. The reason had to be the corrosion cloud in the sky above the battlefield and right at the walls. It must have cost them thousands of Trolls’ Vitality to keep these Hunters alive as they flew across the skies and smashed into the walls. The corrosion cloud really helped the Imperials as well as the citizens didn’t have to worry about stray rocks dropping on them. It still benefited the Trolls more as the Imperials had greater long-range capabilities that were made useless with the presence of the cloud.
She realised that she shouldn’t be looking for opponents that specifically countered her right now. Some soldiers were squashed to paste by these hunters and they didn’t have the Trolls' regeneration, they were dead. Her Intuition stopped her feet for a moment but she didn’t change targets.
‘450?’ The stronger and sharper her Intuition, the more she understood that the Imperial Generals were not people she could face directly yet. All the more reason for her to stop these Hunters that were still in decent physical shape. They were enveloped with such thick and visible Vitality that most of them retained their skeletal forms with only their flesh melted.
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“I need you here, fast! Get everyone.” Ning Xin felt the short distance call connect but she already leapt to stab at the head of the strongest tribeless. She might be wrong about them being ‘General’ Hunters as there was only one of them that she felt was above her own strength.
She was too swift for the injured Hunter to react but her sword barely pierced through the red layer of condensed life force and was stopped by his skull. If only Ebony was here, he could cast his sonic vibrations on her swords. Staying near him also increases her mana regeneration and she could really use that right now. Her mana pool was about 20% full after her daily training, a safety precaution she was glad to have taken.
‘Sorry about this.’ She apologised to the dead guards on the walls and struck her surroundings with lightning. Her storage of blood escaped her mantle and reformed into halos but she couldn’t multicast as well as Ebony and she only got to the level of using Will with fire magic relatively poorly. She needed to prioritise buying time and she grew out of her impatience a little. Rather than pick a fight with the strongest Troll, she knew she had to interrupt all 12 or so Trolls within her reach. The city didn’t have many strong defenders with the current aggressive push on the frontlines. ‘Is that why that old man kept us back here?’
There was nothing she could do to those out of her reach. The remaining guards would have to do their best for a minute or two.
Ning Xin could feel and even see the link of Vitality but she couldn’t cut it. The red gas-like thread would simply flow along. The Troll she attacked only spared her a glare with half-regenerated eyeballs before it slapped her blade aside. They were temporarily stunned by lightning with blood halos sawing at their bodies and keeping their half-melted bodies together. The best she could do was to bundle a few together as she physically contested one Troll.
‘My body’s still sore…’ They trained harder than usual because they weren’t at the frontlines and the Imperials pushed the Trolls back further. The Hunter’s limbs were healed but it didn’t have a weapon or even any clothes on. They fashioned weapons and armour from materialised life force and completely ignored her attempts to kill them. Her target passively defended and tried to escape and jump down the wall, into the city.
‘They aren’t hunters, they are going for the warehouse and kitchens!’ She should’ve realised much earlier, further to both her left and right were Trolls that already pulled their bodies off the wall. The foul smoky odour was from a few burning bodies, probably a guard who could use fire magic and who acted fast. But these guards couldn’t stop the path of the incoming Trolls. If they were lucky they might have dodged but the burning bodies were forcefully healed by an injection of Vitality. They made use of the fire on the bodies to set fire to whatever buildings they could get to.
She didn’t dare to get distracted but even if the buildings were made of stone they just had to punch the buildings down. ‘How dare they go after the food!’
The echoes of screams reached her but not before the sounds of combat. The militia arrived!
Other soldiers contacted their superiors as well so they just had to minimise the damage and remove the interlopers. She couldn’t use many of her skills without causing more destruction so she had really hoped Ebony would hurry and set his domain to protect the structures. A downward slash in her enhanced state would cause the stone floor to collapse from the strength she put in her feet. Flimsy.
Her body got lighter and she instinctively changed the strength she put into her movements, some magical resistance could be switched off as easily as holding one’s breath. Space and gravity resistance were those that she had more control over.
The Troll didn’t even notice his feet freezing as it was more bothered about the condensed life force being penetrated. His exaggerated motions to break free and jump down the wall only increased the vibrational feedback.
And she was part of his domain. Any wounds she opened would burst into a mixture of flames, icy blue flames that dug into the body and dark red flames that incinerated the flesh. Even just one of them could stop these Troll’s regeneration, not to mention both together. The influx of Vitality wasn’t weaved into the usual complex layer which really weakened the defences that this warrior should have been able to summon.
“Gar da!” She didn’t expect the Troll to power through the vibrations and swiped his arm at her. In the midst of her barrage of attacks, she couldn’t dodge the giant arm and had to block with her blades instead. Ebony already stood before her but her arms pushed forward to meet the red arm with her swords. Both of them skid back but they successfully guarded against the attack.
“He doesn’t speak Elcrain?” Ebony asked.
“A lot of them don’t speak the same language. Is that really important right now?”
“It’s important, but maybe not right now.” They prevented the Trolls from getting past the wall. It would have been a tough fight if the Troll had a weapon or if it even tried to fight but all it did was swing at them in panic.
Seeing that, she got Ebony to go after the others that got into the city. She could handle an opponent that wasn’t even trying to fight.
“My models are handling them. You don’t have much mana left.”
The Troll gave up on getting into the city and started making its way towards any cannon or ballistae it saw. With Ebony around, it was extremely hard for any target to move. The Vitality-wrapped Troll was very dependent on the long-ranged protection it was receiving.
“None of them are keen on fighting directly. Hard to believe they are Hunters.”
“Can you focus?”
“I’m trying to distract you from the fact that they disrupted your mutton and peas learning.”
“Distract? You reminded me…I’m not that angry, we haven’t started cooking.”
They were not able to kill the Troll and she could tell Ebony only tried to contain their invader rather than kill. He probably didn’t want to kill the Troll that didn’t have any killing intent.
Cap Dwarf rode his earthen serpent that had a belly full of Trolls. Ning Xin noticed the link of Vitality to the others was already cut off and just moments later, their helpless opponent was abandoned as well. The source of Vitality being cut off actually made the Troll calm down and put up a better fight but the Troll was at a loss without a weapon and Cap Dwarf was here as backup.
“I think they are remotely controlled by their Shamans, what a waste of their warriors’ talent.” Cap Dwarf lamented as he trapped the last Troll into his serpent.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I’ll pass them to the army. They won’t work as prisoners but they might have valuable information. If not, they would likely be executed by some level 300 Master.”
“Hey! I haven’t gotten a Natural Potential increase from a 450, give that one to me!” One of the militia’s men yelled.
Ning Xin and Ebony actually only got up to 425 as well but she frowned at the casual talks about executing the Troll for Natural Potential. She had no qualms killing the Trolls but she wanted it to be an actual battle. Ebony would agree but the difference between them was that he still wouldn’t kill unless their opponent had killing intent towards them. She would hunt animals and monsters for food whether or not they had killing intent towards her. She did see the Trolls as people like he did and she didn’t take them as food.
She knew Ebony had changed a tiny bit over the past few months. For example, his attitude towards who he calls ‘Mr kidnapper’. To her, it was a positive change. If that halberd user didn’t think that she was a Xeng, there was no doubt he would’ve just killed her. He had just been talking to himself when he realised that and he was no longer as passive towards that man now. He was talking to himself more frequently and she didn’t cut into his thoughts.
The situation changed as the Trolls within the earthen serpent's belly were spewing killing intent now that they weren’t under their Shamans’ influence. In any case, they wouldn’t be spared.
Some Commander she didn’t recognise got here and took the Trolls away with Cap Dwarf’s help. As expected, the army’s reaction was slow, it took them almost 3 minutes to get here. It wasn’t that surprising with the size of the city but it was quite disappointing even if most of the soldiers were out front.
They left the talks to Cap Dwarf. Ebony guarded the wall with a few soldiers that got redeployed just in case any more Trolls were sent flying towards them. Mark had helped and he also remained on the wall to chat with Ebony.
Ning Xin scanned the city. Major food warehouses and kitchens were targeted. The loss was small but damage was damage. She didn’t know the location of every warehouse or army kitchen but she could sniff out the mixture of ingredients with dirt.
She stopped outside the kitchen she came from when she remembered she had blood and fat on her. The blood can be stored in her mantle but she was still unclean.
“There’s no problem. I’ll be back after I get cleaned up. You can start cooking.” She really wanted to see every step but she wouldn’t delay them any further. She knew the feeling of hunger after a hard day of training and the soldiers aren’t exactly fed a lot.
She turned a bit moody as her Intuition and gut feeling told her that the mutton and peas tonight would be the last good meal for a while.
‘That mutton and peas better be delicious.’