Matriarch Zareena wasted no time.
With a casual wave of her hand, the titanic body of the Silver-Winged Skywhale was suspended in the air, its flesh stripped clean with a delicate flick of her finger as if countless invisible blades danced along its frame.
The raw meat glistened with silvery light, each cut releasing streams of essence so rich that the void itself seemed to ripple.
She drew out her cooking tools and began her work.
Each movement of her hands carried the rhythm of the Dao itself. The way she carved, seared, and seasoned the whale was like watching art come alive.
Flames danced but never burned out of control, oils shimmered with spiritual light, and every cut seemed to release waves of fragrant Spiritual Energy.
The scene was breathtaking. It was as if the heavens themselves were rejoicing, the faint music of the Dao echoing in the air.
Cultivators from the nearby area where their flying carriage passed by stopped what they were doing, sitting down cross-legged as enlightenment washed over them from the aroma alone.
In an instant, bottlenecks that had plagued them for decades shattered like fragile glass.
Gray's nose twitched as the smell reached him.
His body reacted before his mind did, saliva filled his mouth as his breathing quickened. His soul trembled in anticipation.
His instincts screamed at him, it was not desire but primal need. If he ate this flesh, his strength would rise to unimaginable heights!
Matriarch Zareena's hands stopped, and she glanced at Gray with a knowing smile.
"You may have one bite. But only one. If you eat more than one, your body would burst apart instantly. Your dantian cannot handle that much Spiritual Energy." With a flick of her fingers, the meat in her hand dimmed greatly as she stripped away most of its power.
With a wave of her sleeve, countless streams of radiant Spiritual Energy were drawn out of the portion she cut for him, dispersing harmlessly into the void. What remained was but a fraction of the dish's true potency, yet that small amount was still enough to shake the heavens.
Gray took the piece, his fingers trembling, and placed it into his mouth.
The instant it touched his tongue, he felt as if the world shattered into light. His mind went blank, his soul rejoiced, and he was overwhelmed by a bliss that could only be described as divine.
This was not food… it was creation itself condensed into flavor. He had dined on the rarest delicacies, feasted on the masterpieces of Earth's greatest chefs, yet compared to this… those meals were nothing but pig feed.
The meat of the 10,000-year-old Silver-Winged Skywhale melted in his mouth, tender beyond reason, carrying the weight of an existence that had cultivated to the pinnacle of this world.
In that moment, Gray felt the entirety of his long life converge into a single truth: every hardship he had endured, every joy and every sorrow, had all been leading to this one bite.
The very next moment, an explosive power erupted from his stomach, splitting into two distinct, overwhelming torrents.
The first was a raw, primordial force that slammed into his physical body.
His weak and untrained flesh instantly began to harden as if being forged in an invisible fire.
His brittle and ordinary bones let out audible groans and cracks as they were compressed, their density increasing a hundredfold.
His blood began to boil with a vitality so potent he felt like a dragon had taken up residence in his veins.
A series of System Notifications flashed in his vision.
[Your body has absorbed 0.00001% Physique Energy of the Silver-Winged Skywhale!]
[Physique is being forcibly reforged...]
[You have reached Mortal Physique Level 2!]
But that was only half of it. The second torrent, an ocean of pure, impossibly refined Spiritual Energy, bypassed his broken meridians and slammed directly into his dantian. His dantian, which had been deprived of even the slightest bit of Spiritual Qi, was now being force-fed Spiritual Energy the amount of an ocean.
[Your body has absorbed 0.00001% Spiritual Energy of the Silver-Winged Skywhale!]
A sound like a dam breaking echoed in his mind.
The blockage that had crippled him, the wall between him and cultivation, shattered into a million pieces.
Spiritual Energy flooded his body for the first time.
[You have forcibly broken through to the 1st Level of Qi Condensation!]
The energy didn't stop. It roared through him, a rampaging river carving a new path.
CRACK!
[You have forcibly broken through to the 2nd Level of Qi Condensation!]
He felt his body reaching its limit, but the tidal wave of power was relentless. With one final, thunderous boom that shook his very soul, he broke through again.
CRACK!
[You have forcibly broken through to the 3rd Level of Qi Condensation!]
The torrent of energy finally subsided, leaving a warm, powerful current flowing gently through his newly opened meridians.
Gray opened his eyes, gasping for air, his body covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
He looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists. He could feel the raw, thrumming power beneath his skin.
'Level 3 Qi Condensation... just like that?' He remembered the body's old memories and was stunned.
'It took the previous Gray two years of painstaking, non-stop effort to reach this level. Two years... and I did it in a single bite.'
The sheer absurdity of the gap between a mortal's hard work and an immortal's leftovers was staggering.
Gray clenched his fist, unable to resist. With a sharp exhale, he punched the air in front of him.
BOOM!
The sound was like a cannon going off. Wind exploded outward. Gray blinked in shock as he stared at his own fist.
"Did I really just do that?"
Ziye folded her arms, smiling faintly.
"This is normal. That single bite wasn't simply food. It was a supreme treasure. The meat was brimming with pure, refined Spiritual Energy, stronger than most pills. Although 99% of the Spiritual Energy was removed by Matriarch, the remaining 1% fused directly into your body."
Gray flexed his fingers, still buzzing with energy. "So… I truly got that much stronger just by eating food?"
Ziye nodded. "Indeed, that meat tempered your physique from the inside out. It strengthened your blood, bones, and muscles all at once. Ordinary cultivators need years of painful body refinement to reach this stage. But you…"
She gave him an amused look. "You got it from a single bite."
Gray was speechless, he understood just how precious that one bite of meat was.
He gazed at Matriarch Zareena with a complicated expression.
He owed her far too much, probably more than what he can repay.
He sighed, again and again, he found himself indebted to others, burdened by kindness he was unsure if he could return.
He was truly grateful, but beneath that gratitude lingered a quiet embarrassment that gnawed at him.
A few moments after steadying his breath, Gray clenched his teeth and made a decision.
His heart was still pounding from the burst of power he had just unleashed, but he forced the turbulence within to calm.
He then lifted his head with a firm gaze and asked,
"Matriarch… please, teach me how to cook!"