Beneath the emerald cliffs, a campfire burned merrily in a flat clearing.
Orange-red flames licked at several succulent slabs of beast meat suspended above the pile of wood.
These cuts were the choicest portions taken from the inner thighs of that two-thousand-year-old Ironclad Earth Dragon. Both their texture and the faint vital energy they contained far surpassed those of ordinary wild beasts.
Huo Yuhao sat beside the campfire, holding a sharpened wooden stick as he slowly turned the roasting meat.
He had long since extended his spiritual power, controlling the heat with almost exacting precision. The heat reaching every inch of the meat's surface was under his meticulous control.
As the surface roasted to a crisp golden brown, the rich fat inside gradually melted, seeped along the grain, and dripped onto the glowing coals below.
Amid a series of soft crackles, showers of bright sparks rose, and the rich aroma of meat immediately spread across the clearing on the breeze.
With a flick of his wrist, Huo Yuhao evenly scattered a few simple seasonings, ground from locally gathered ingredients, over the meat.
The spices and fat melded fully in the intense heat, sending that enticing aroma to an entirely new height.
Long Batian crouched beside a jumble of rocks downwind, helping out by adding firewood.
His gaze kept darting toward the turning meat, and he swallowed several times in succession.
Although he had already enjoyed several meals of high-grade dragon meat while tagging along with this unfathomable senior over the past few days, every time the food was ready, he still struggled to suppress the instinctive hunger it stirred in him.
But he was exceedingly well behaved. He forcibly held his cravings in check and stayed obediently tucked to one side, not even daring to shift his position.
By contrast,