Purple Precious, Feast Ritual!

"Gulp..."

With the final mouthful, Jiang Xuan swallowed the gourmet-grade Buddha Jumps Over the Wall Nan Zhi had brought back. At last, he had fulfilled all nine prerequisites for becoming a Gourmet.

The system prompt sounded as well.

[You have completed the nine requirements for becoming a Gourmet. Transfer professions immediately?]

"Yes!"

"Boom—"

The moment he confirmed it, Jiang Xuan felt a taste bomb explode within his mind. Myriad flavors instantly swept through every one of his senses. The plain meals and lavish delicacies he had eaten in the past, the countless flavors of mortal life and strange aromatic ingredients he had just sampled, even the fine wines and jade liquors he had once drunk—every memory and taste related to "food" surged and boiled within his sea of consciousness.

At that moment, Jiang Xuan felt as though his soul had become a pot of supreme spirit broth simmered for ten thousand years, blending every flavor in the world.

"I understand now..."

The warmth of mortal hearth smoke soothed ordinary hearts best, and hid the Great Dao most deeply. The endless cycle of a thousand flavors, the shifting of sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy, gave him the illusion that he had seen through the origins of all things.

Of course, it was only a false sensation brought about by his sudden surge in power. Yet Jiang Xuan's understanding of flavor, cuisine, and even the mortal world's hearthfire had indeed undergone a complete transformation.

That transformation was clearly reflected on his attribute panel:

[You have successfully transferred from Kitchen Apprentice to Gourmet]

[Your physique has undergone a spiritual essence baptism and received comprehensive enhancement. Trait unlocked: Feasting Body · Beginner]

[Your profession passives "Taste a Hundred Flavors" and "Smell a Thousand Fragrances" have completed their transformation and advanced into: Thousand-Drawing Tongue, Hundred-Spirit Breath]

[Your profession skill "Cooking: Beginner" has advanced into: Feast Ritual]

At this point, a radiant profession card had appeared in Jiang Xuan's attribute interface.

[Gourmet]

[Grade: Precious (Purple)]

[Level: 1/7 (Level-up Experience: 1/700)]

[Attribute Bonus: Slightly increases physique strength per level]

[Profession Traits: Thousand-Drawing Tongue, Hundred-Spirit Breath, Feasting Body · Beginner]

[Active Skill: Feast Ritual]

Several minutes later, the aftereffects of the profession transfer finally subsided. Jiang Xuan opened his attribute panel and froze for a moment when he saw the profession rating.

"Wasn't Gourmet supposed to be Blue Grade?... Wait, did I awaken a hidden rare skill?"

He instantly recalled the foundational setting of Skyward Immortal Journey—the various professions, skills, and traits in the game were not set in stone. Beyond the basic abilities unlocked by default, there was also a chance for random mutations to occur, awakening hidden skills.

Take the most basic Qi Refiner, for instance. Beyond the Dao Foundation Contract, there was also an extremely low chance of awakening rare passives such as [Qi Consumption] and [Five Qis Returning to Origin · Beginner].

The grade of an awakened skill directly affected the rating of the profession itself. Clearly, Jiang Xuan had struck it rich this time, directly unlocking an exceedingly rare hidden ability.

Lowering his gaze, Jiang Xuan read through the descriptions of every trait and skill word by word. He quickly found the core reason Gourmet had leapt straight into a Precious-grade profession, as well as the greatest gain from this profession transfer—his Purple Precious Grade active skill: Feast Ritual!

[Food is the people's heaven. Eating is also the most important, and the most sacred, matter in the mortal world. As a Gourmet, you are especially devout toward food and have always upheld the original intention of wasting nothing and treating nothing carelessly;

You may perform the Feast Ritual three times each day;

After performing the Feast Ritual, empowered by the ritual's spiritual essence, you may swallow in one go an amount of food equal to your own "mass" and digest it perfectly;

Special Effect: When sampling gourmet-grade or higher delicacies, there is an extremely low chance that, through consumption, you may obtain some of the source traits carried by the ingredients themselves]

"By eating, I can seize the source traits of ingredients... Then if I swallowed the flesh of a true dragon, wouldn't I be able to directly awaken dragon-descendant bloodline?"

Jiang Xuan's heart stirred. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Without such heaven-defying potential, Gourmet could never have leapt straight into a Purple Precious Grade profession.

But the skill description made it equally clear: only by sampling gourmet-grade food or above could this effect possibly trigger, and the chance was extremely low. Gourmet-grade ingredients and dishes cost hundreds or thousands of Spirit Stones at every turn—far beyond what Jiang Xuan could afford at present.

"...But it doesn't matter. Even if I don't touch this trait-seizing ability for now, simply being able to perfectly digest food equal to my own body weight is already an outrageous profit! With this Feast Ritual, my Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Art can finally operate at full power without restraint!"

The instant the thought arose, he caught a crucial detail in the skill description. "No, it says equal to my own 'mass,' not 'body weight.' There's probably much more to this."

"I'll find a chance to test it later. Then I'll know."

The Feast Ritual was already heaven-defying, and the Feasting Body, Thousand-Drawing Tongue, and Hundred-Spirit Breath unlocked alongside it each possessed their own wonders as well. Among them, the Feasting Body could directly increase Jiang Xuan's raw strength.

[Feasting Body · Beginner: A Gourmet can always eat more food. Your appetite has increased, your body can store more energy, your constitution has received a slight enhancement, and you are now immune to ordinary toxins]

[Thousand-Drawing Tongue: Through your tongue, beyond tasting the five basic flavors of food and discerning its freshness and ripeness, you may use your tongue as a guide to taste the "cooking" process of food, even the production and growth conditions of its ingredients]

[Note: When used in conjunction with Feast Ritual, more source-tracing abilities may be unlocked]

[Hundred-Spirit Breath: Your olfactory sensitivity and perceptive range have greatly increased. Beyond accurately capturing the myriad fragrances of the world, you can also smell the emotions and obsessions contained within scents]

"Every one of them possesses extraordinary power. Especially this Thousand-Drawing Tongue—it faintly carries the meaning of tracing things back to their roots and touching cause and effect."

Considering that "eating" was the most fundamental need of humanity and even all living things, the Dao foundation that ran through the cycle of heaven and earth.

A profession condensed around "food" could ultimately become the Myriad Spirit Sacrificial Lord that devoured all things. Possessing such miraculous abilities was only natural.

"No matter what, with my profession transfer successful, I now have hope of passing Four Seasons Valley's assessment."

"No." Feeling the Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Art within him no longer restrained, but rapidly circulating, a trace of a smile appeared at Jiang Xuan's lips. "This will be the beginning of my rise. With Feast Ritual, I no longer need to worry about passing the second round of assessment. What I need to fight for now is first place!"

Changing his goal from barely passing to taking the top spot—this was the earth-shaking improvement a Purple Precious Grade profession had brought Jiang Xuan.

"Whew..."

The sudden massive gain of Gourmet changing from Blue Rare to Purple Precious had left Jiang Xuan's emotions churning. It took him quite some time to suppress the surging excitement.

Then he lifted his foot and walked without hesitation toward the Four Seasons Valley assessment entrance.

"Tsk, another one who refuses to give up."

A disciple nearby could not help muttering under his breath, "Brother, I advise you not to waste your effort. This Four Seasons Valley assessment simply isn't meant for people to pass!"

Jiang Xuan's movement made the remaining disciples who had yet to leave shake their heads. Their faces were full of disdain. Clearly, no one believed he could clear this nearly unsolvable assessment.

Ignoring them, Jiang Xuan walked straight to the entrance of Yellow Mud Village.

Four tables stood neatly arranged at the village entrance. Behind each table sat a Four Seasons Valley cultivator, corresponding exactly to the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

The burly young man Wu Shan, who had once stood behind Xia He, guarded the second table, the summer table. It was piled with juicy, sweet, enticing midsummer fruits.

Senior Sister Meng Yingyue, gentle and graceful in temperament, sat behind the third autumn table. Before her lay plump grains and autumn fruits weighing down their branches.

As for the cold young man whose body radiated a biting chill, he guarded the final winter table. It had the fewest items: only frost-resistant moss, roots deeply embedded in frozen earth, and Winter cold leaves with thorny edges.

As for the first spring table, the one behind it was not Xia He as Jiang Xuan had expected, but a particularly lively and restless-looking young man. The food on his table consisted primarily of tender, verdant leafy spring vegetables, brimming with vigorous life.

Remembering that he could only perform the Feast Ritual three times a day, Jiang Xuan cupped his hands toward the senior brothers and sisters behind the tables. "May I ask, Senior Brothers and Sisters, can I gather the foods of all four seasons together and sample them at once?"

"Of course." The first to respond was Zhou Qing, the young man behind the spring table. Compared with the aloof and cold cultivators of Star Sword Peak, the people of Four Seasons Valley were clearly much kinder. He waved with a smile. "Take whatever you wish to eat."

Having received permission, Jiang Xuan did not stand on ceremony. Unwilling to waste one of his only three daily opportunities to use Feast Ritual, he asked another question while collecting food. "I have quite a large appetite. May I take more?"

The moment those words came out, Zhou Qing was briefly at a loss for words. Wu Shan and Meng Yingyue, however, both laughed.

Wu Shan laughed heartily. "Eat as much as you want from my table. There's plenty."

Meng Yingyue followed with a gentle smile, her voice soft and unhurried. "Even if you want to eat your fill here, that's fine."

With everyone's consent, Jiang Xuan completely let loose. He took a full armful of the midsummer fruits from Wu Shan's table, filled more than half a container with the autumn grains and fresh fruits before Meng Yingyue, and took ample portions from both the spring table's greens and the winter table's cold-resistant foods. In no more than a moment, the food before him had piled into a small mountain.

This sight instantly filled Xia He, who had already been holding back her anger, with fury. Even Wu Shan and Meng Yingyue, who had been smiling moments ago, furrowed their brows slightly.

It was not that they begrudged him the ingredients. Jiang Xuan looked thin and lean, yet he had taken so much food at once. No matter how they looked at it, he did not seem to be here for the assessment or to comprehend Dao rhythm. Instead, he looked like he had come deliberately to cause trouble.

Those disciples who had not left, still clinging to a thread of hope that Four Seasons Valley might fail to recruit enough people and make an exception to take them in, had their eyes light up at the sight.

"If he ruins all the food, how are they supposed to recruit anyone? Why didn't I think of that?"

"Jiang Xuan! Nicely done!"

The rising waves of jeering made it clear that this group had completely taken Jiang Xuan for someone deliberately causing trouble as well.

And that made Xia He, already impatient by nature, unable to suppress the anger on her face any longer.

"Whoosh!"

She moved and stepped forward, intending to directly drive away Jiang Xuan, who was deliberately stirring up trouble.

Yet just as she took that step, the anger on Xia He's face abruptly froze, replaced by utter astonishment.

—Having gathered all four seasons' ingredients together, Jiang Xuan first closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. When he opened them again, an entirely different, special aura suddenly spread from his body.

It was solemnity, dignity, and wholehearted devotion.

He pressed his palms together and bowed deeply to the ingredients before him. Then he took out a small portion of the food and offered it upward to the heavens and downward to the earth.

Once the entire ritual was complete, he fetched clean water and cleansed his hands, body, and mouth. Every movement was meticulous, yet incomparably practiced.

Naturally, he was practiced—he had performed such rites of honoring heaven and earth and cleansing himself no fewer than a hundred times while casting the Three Purification Incantations.

And that prompted a thought in Jiang Xuan's mind: Perhaps awakening the Precious-grade skill Feast Ritual was not entirely luck. Maybe the Three Purification Incantations had always been deeply connected to these rites of food, invisibly lowering the threshold for awakening it?

The thought flashed through his mind only briefly. He quickly gathered all his focus and concentrated every bit of attention on the ingredients and the ritual before him.

The solemn Feast Ritual, paired with his fully focused and meticulous movements, along with the ever-present spiritual essence of Three Purifications Spell: Truth Communion around him—under the intertwining of these several forces, these seemingly ordinary actions no longer carried the slightest absurdity of a mortal performing a shamanic dance.

Even though he was alone, the entrance to Yellow Mud Village was dyed by that utterly earnest aura with a solemn, almost sacred atmosphere.

And as the spiritual essence of the Feast Ritual slowly spread out, an indescribably terrifying pressure suddenly descended, gripping the hearts and minds of everyone present.

At that moment, everyone was seized by a hair-raising illusion—as though they had become food upon a dinner plate, while the figure standing before the table was both god and demon, holding chopsticks and spoon like a heavenly deity who controlled life and death, looking down indifferently upon them in the dish.