Greasy Bird Neo

"Come to think of it, getting this card had something to do with Lord Moro. It happened nearly three months ago..." Angel slowly recounted to Moro how he had encountered that strange seabird that day.

"That oddly dressed seabird drank the tea brewed with Morning Dew After Rain, then left. Before it went, it left this gold card with me."

After Angel finished speaking, Moro's expression turned rather strange, a mixture of regret and envy. When they had left Pat Manor, Angel had given most of his Morning Dew After Rain to him.

Though Morning Dew After Rain was only a low-grade magical plant, its unique effects rivaled those of the White Orchid Potion. For the vast majority of wizard apprentices, the White Orchid Potion was medicine they could only stare at longingly, utterly beyond their means.

Moro had originally planned to make a fortune from the Morning Dew After Rain after returning to the Prosperous Continent, hoping to seize the chance to receive guidance from a formal wizard. Thus, throughout the journey, he had never taken out the Morning Dew After Rain. Even Florent did not know he carried such miraculous tea leaves.

He had hidden them away so tightly, all for the sake of seeking a sliver of opportunity; yet Angel had openly taken them out to drink and somehow stumbled upon an opportunity!

!

Moro hated it!

If only he had known, if only he had known...

Moro suddenly let out a deflated sigh. There was no such thing as knowing beforehand in this world. His luck simply was not enough; the times had not waited for him.

No one noticed the changes in Moro's expression. Even if they had, no one would have cared.

"Nyehahahaha, so Lord Toby gave you your gold card!" Soup Weasel said.

"Lord Toby? That strangely dressed seabird carrying a backpack?" Angel asked doubtfully.

Soup Weasel performed a ballet spin, worship gleaming in his eyes. "That's right, it was Lord Toby! Lord Toby is Master's most favored magical pet. In Barbie Restaurant, his status is equal to Master's!"

When Angel tried to ask further about Toby, Soup Weasel said no more. He merely chuckled. "Nyehahaha, when the guest dines later, you will naturally see Lord Toby."

Soup Weasel's attention had been drawn to "Toby" in Angel's story, but the other transcendents had focused on the Morning Dew After Rain.

However, Angel was standing beside Soup Weasel, and unlike Moro, they were not familiar with Angel. They could only keep their thoughts bottled up.

As for the formal wizards, once they learned the origin of Angel's gold card, they no longer paid attention to him. Whatever effects that Morning Dew After Rain had, it held no appeal for formal wizards.

Only Heloline of White Coral Floating Island Academy gave Angel a deep look.

Good fortune was also a part of strength. If Angel could maintain such flourishing luck, perhaps becoming a formal wizard would not be impossible.

Heloline pondered to herself. If this boy's talent was decent enough, she could observe him for a while first.

Oh, right. What had he wanted to ask Moro just now? What came after "the day they tested talent"? It seemed Moro had interrupted him.

Whatever. He was merely a lucky talent-holder. There was no telling whether he would amount to anything.

The deep corridor's walls were covered in every crevice by thorn-tipped vines. From time to time, a brilliant blood-red rose bloomed among them, and within such an extreme contrast lay a kind of decadent, absolute beauty.

At the end of the corridor, scarlet drapes blocked the view. Behind them was Barbie Restaurant's banquet room—more precisely, the banquet room for bronze-card VIPs.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho, the Devil Vine seeds here have ripened. They can be planted in the brain pulp of black-skinned goblins. Ho-ho-ho, in just three months, you'll harvest the most delicious brain blossoms." A purple-haired woman, plump to the point of obesity, obese enough to have six chins, raised a cocktail glass filled with fragrant white sludge that nevertheless gave off a billowing violet-black aura before Sanders. "Old friend, care for a glass? Oh-ho-ho-ho, drinking this Black Goblin brain blossom will raise your mental focus so high that you won't tire for ten days and nights."

Sanders took the black top hat from his head, revealing short gray-green curls. After placing the hat on the table, he accepted the cocktail glass from Gloria and, without a care, drained in one gulp the brain blossom Flora considered dark cuisine.

"Not bad." Sanders set down the glass, interlaced his fingers, and shrugged, his answer neither approving nor disapproving.

"Hehe, I forgot to tell you—the Black Goblin brain blossom also has a powerful effect on the release of Shulomon in the brain. Do you like it?" The purple-haired fat woman, Gloria, narrowed her tiny eyes.

Sanders remained expressionless. "I can feel it. Pheromones are being secreted in large quantities."

Gloria leaned close to Sanders and took a deep breath beside his neck, but she did not smell anything.

Gloria could not help frowning. She looked at Sanders with contempt. "You stinking man with no sense of romance. You actually blocked the secretion of Shulomon. I wanted to catch a whiff of your scent—was it as bland and tasteless as you are?"

Gloria's words won strong agreement from Flora, who floated in midair, idly drifting up and down.

Flora's support prompted Gloria to toss her a flirtatious glance. However, that flirtatious glance only earned an eye-roll from Flora.

Sanders's gaze was bland. "Let's talk less about irrelevant matters. Your invitation cards are not easy to obtain."

Gloria bent forward with abundant charm, her large, pale, plump hand with vermilion-painted nails propping up her chin as she gazed at Sanders seductively. Her gaudy eye makeup, following one exaggerated flirtatious look after another, smudged into layers of rippling waves.

Yet Sanders still did not give her so much as a proper glance. This time, he did not even want to raise his eyes.

"So he really is frigid? A beauty stands before you, and you don't even know how to seize the opportunity." Gloria, who considered herself a "beauty," rolled her eyes, swayed her enormous buttocks, and waddled over to the ingredient table.

The ingredient table was covered with all kinds of miraculous tools—

All manner of floating glass vessels held all kinds of ingredients, though their appearances were anything but conventional: pitch-black chunks of meat, viscous liquids emitting purplish-red smoke, soft-bodied worms densely covered in eyeballs whose eyes still moved as they arched their bodies and crawled about, and even some colored vortices of gas.

Gloria had collected these ingredients from all sorts of places. One reason why her Barbie Restaurant drifted from place to place was to acquire ingredients from different locations. Sometimes, Gloria even traveled to other planes in search of ingredients. For instance, most ingredients emitting violet-black auras had been obtained from the Abyssal Plane; most gaseous ingredients came from the Burning Plane.

Dressed in a light crimson, form-fitting thin gown, Gloria struck what she considered the pose that best displayed her curves before the kitchen counter. Raising her chin piled high with layers of flesh, she picked up an enormous diamond-studded soup ladle. "Twisted Baworm again?"

Sanders nodded.

Gloria snorted and curled her lips. "Boring man."

The Twisted Baworm was a special insect incapable of reproduction, and it did not exist in nature. The only way to obtain it was through a witchcraft Gloria had created herself, using all kinds of ingredients in cooking. The final result was this kind of strange-tasting food that was useless to everyone else, yet immensely useful to Sanders alone.

Gloria cast the witchcraft unique to the mysterious gourmet school, working with her exclusive kitchenware as she began processing the ingredients.

She had only finished a little less than half when the drapes of the banquet room were lifted. A short man who looked utterly slovenly, greasy all over, with a pointed mouth and bean-like eyes, slipped inside.

The short man was roughly the same height as Flora. His limbs were exceedingly thin, his back hunched, and he looked like a lazy, slovenly laborer from the lowest rung of society.

The moment this short man entered, Flora frowned and flew a little closer to Sanders. Disgust and wariness surfaced in her eyes toward the man, making it clear that this newcomer was no ordinary person.

"Greasy Bird, what are you doing here?"