Gourmet Area Vanguard

"Want to come over and take a look? The latest red strategy guide released by the White-Eyed Azure Dragon Strategy Team!"

"The fastest way to conquer Moen City! Learn how to navigate the unchanging main roads within an hour!"

"The latest foolproof strategy guide from the Sky Chicken Strategy Team is now available!"

Wait, the Heavenly Chicken Strategy Team?

Hearing the shouts of the shop next door that catered specifically to adventurers, Fudolin paused, picked up the strategy guide signed by the Sky Chicken Strategy Team, and flipped through it.

"It really is a rip-off of Skyrim Strategy Team's work."

She was speechless for a moment, then took the item and went into the store, dragged the store manager over, and questioned him about where these counterfeit goods came from.

While her daughter was arguing with the store manager, Nati started flipping through the various strategy guides displayed in the store.

They came here to buy a guidebook in order to properly complete their assigned task of exploring the Gourmet Area.

The map of the Gourmet Area may change daily, but there are always patterns that can be studied.

Just as the three beacon towers of Farron Keep will always exist no matter how much it changes, routes leading to the beacon towers in Farron Keep are called main roads by adventurers. Main roads do not change much often, and such roads exist in every area.

Therefore, most guidebooks for each region focus on the main roads, although some guidebooks specifically study roads that change over time.

Each guidebook has an eye-catching title, and the colorful covers clearly aim to attract customers' attention. The names of various Strategy Team are written in a smaller font on the cover.

The strategy guides always have a rectangular icon on the cover. The strategy guide icons arranged from top to bottom on the bookshelf are red, yellow, green and white in that order. This is a characteristic of the Warrior Country. The colors are used to distinguish the difficulty of the regions represented by the strategy guides, preventing adventurers from accidentally entering dangerous areas that are beyond their capabilities.

Nati squatted down and flipped through the books before finally finding the Gourmet Area marked in white. The white guidebooks were all placed at the bottom, suggesting that not many people bought them.

The red strategy guidebooks on the top shelf were selling very quickly, clearly indicating their popularity.

The Gourmet Area is quite unique, with guidebooks in four colors: red, yellow, green, and white.

Sure enough, just as Nati was snapping up all the guidebooks with the names of the Gourmet Area on them like she was on a shopping spree, an adventurer came over and picked out two more from the red shelf.

"Um?"

Nati frowned in confusion. She noticed that the strategy guides that had been taken were for Anor Londo and the Red Fang Dungeon area, both of which were clearly high-risk locations.

However, the adventurer who took the strategy book was so weak that Nati could suffocate him with just a breath.

Could it be that you bought it for someone else?

The adventurer heard her voice, turned around, and saw that Nati's arms were mostly filled with white and green strategy books. He couldn't help but let out a disdainful laugh.

The next second she was sent flying, turning into a shooting star in the sky, and the shop owner who made and sold pirated strategy guides was also thrown in the same direction by Fudolin.

"These days, adventurers are getting vain. No matter how strong they are, they have to buy the red strategy guide. If they buy the white one, people will look down on them."

While explaining to her mother, Fudolin scattered some gold coins into the shop as payment for books and medical expenses.

"Vanity is no good." Nati nodded seriously.

"..." Fudolin paused for a moment, then couldn't help but say, "Mom, don't you think our roles have been reversed a bit?"

"Hmm?" Nati tilted her head in confusion.

Despite her mature appearance, she appears quite innocent and naive when she makes this gesture, and the contrast further enhances her attractiveness.

"You used to be the one lecturing me with all sorts of profound truths, and I would just agree with you. Why is it that now I'm the one lecturing you?!"

To this day, Fudolin still cannot adapt to her mother's personality change.

"Playing dumb sometimes can make you feel good. You don't have to think about things as much as before," Nati patted her shoulder and said earnestly, "This is a lesson I learned from my time in the Zane Dungeon. You should try it too, and don't live such a tiring life."

In short, unless something serious comes up, Nati will continue to maintain her natural state.

After all, the plague has only just been resolved, and based on past experience, it is unlikely to recur for at least ten years. We should relax now.

Upon hearing this, Fudolin slumped her shoulders, speechless.

She felt that she had a tendency to develop into a complainer.

Thanks to her adventures with Lu Lu Wo and the others, she has accumulated a lot of vocabulary. Now her ability to make sarcastic remarks is no less than that of the Skyrim Strategy Team. Even Nati praised her for becoming more witty.

"This kind of praise is not good at all."

Requests for exploring the Gourmet Area are handled directly by the Adventurers' Guild through the agents selected by Nati. The agents then distribute the requests to other dragons, ensuring that the dragons in the clan have something to do and don't just lie around getting bored.

Half of the already small number of Floating Island Dragonkin went to the construction site to build their own houses on the land allocated to them by Bontou.

The rest are the ones who need to enter the portal to complete the quests.

However, since everyone wants to go to the Gourmet Area and no one wants to be on the construction site every day, the two groups of dragons have to take turns working every now and then.

Sure enough, no intelligent being in any world enjoys playing with ashes.

Nati purchased this guidebook for the dragons, so they could have a general understanding of the Gourmet Area and avoid making mistakes during their missions.

After returning with the strategy guide, she worked through the night to formulate several policies.

If you want to work on a commission in the Gourmet Area, you must understand all the details of the commission, at least memorize them before you can enter! And you must complete the commission before considering things like your stomach.

She had her reasons for doing so.

In the early stages of cooperating with the Adventurers' Guild, there were instances where dragons would suddenly run off to eat their favorite foods while working. Sometimes they would even eat all the items requested in the quest, and sometimes they would stay in the dungeon for days without coming out. When asked why they did this, the answer was that they had tried foods like Electric Banana and poisonous potatoes and were poisoned to death. As a result, after eating them a couple of times, they became addicted and were constantly in a cycle between being lively and unconscious.

There's no hope. The socialization level of these dragons under my command is too low. I have to crack down on them!

The Floating Island Dragonkin's original living environment was quite different from that of the Warrior Country, and they needed time to adapt. During this adaptation period, they caused quite a bit of trouble.

This leads to Nati has accumulated a lot of pressure, turning herself into a completely clueless and naive person whenever she decides to relax.

Although she would scold her clansmen, she would also sneak into the Gourmet Area to relax and do some errands along the way.

Nati and the experts in her tribe have their own custom commissions, and her current commission is to explore the map.

Explore the Gourmet Area map behind the Rainbow Fruit.

Adventurers haven't really developed the Gourmet Area much. Among all the areas in the Zane Dungeon, the Gourmet Area attracts the most ordinary people and the fewest experts, making it quite unique.

In the Gourmet Area, the area accessible to ordinary people is white, the somewhat dangerous area is green, and the area near the Rainbow Fruit is a stark red.

As for the map behind the Rainbow Fruit? A small portion is red, while the rest is entirely black, representing question marks.

Because few people venture out to explore, and those who do don't yield any results, the general public's spontaneous exploration stops at the Rainbow Fruit. Only guilds continue to fund and organize explorations of the areas beyond.

But to be honest, the area behind the Rainbow Fruit is a bit too difficult for people.

The most powerful monster near the Rainbow Fruit is the Trojan Kong, which looks like a giant gorilla but has many arms. These monsters, which move in groups and are incredibly strong, are very dangerous. In addition, there are even stronger mutated individuals among the Trojan Kong, so the area is marked in red.

In Toriko, the individual Trojan Kong are generally at level nine to ten.

A level 1 creature requires at least ten fully armed soldiers to capture; at level 3, most conventional weapons are ineffective; and at level 10, a creature can easily tear apart tanks and armored vehicles.

Not to mention that the Trojan Kong always move as a group, which greatly increases the difficulty of capturing the Rainbow Fruit, turning the surrounding area into a red zone.

So what about the area behind it?

Thanks to Gong Qiying's benevolence, the creatures in the area behind the Rainbow Fruit are mostly level 20 or higher to capture, and most of them reach level 20 through pure combat power rather than simply because of the difficulty of obtaining them.

This leap in combat power poses a significant obstacle to adventurers' exploration.

Not to mention, many of these powerful gourmet creatures require special cooking methods to be eaten, and some parts are even inedible.

Adventurers simply don't know what's edible and what's not without a lot of trial and error, making it difficult for gourmets to buy at high prices. In addition, the later areas are just too difficult, and even if you achieve something in the Gourmet Area, it's hard to become famous like you would in other areas, which makes the Strategy Team uninterested in this place.

These conditions are practically tailor-made for the Floating Island Dragonkin.

They don't care about fame or not, as long as they can find good food. Moreover, the combat power of a single dragon is quite considerable, and fighting against the monsters in the later areas is not a problem at all.

It's already foreseeable that the future Gourmet Area will be dominated by the Floating Island Dragonkin!

"I didn't expect to have such a fruitful haul this time; I even discovered a second legendary kitchen utensil."

The following day, deep within the Gourmet Area, after defeating a group of powerful monsters of unknown capture level, Nati discovered a golden item inside the cave they guarded.

[Dragon Conversion Pot]

[A legendary kitchen utensil, specially designed to speed up cooking; simply place the ingredients inside, and they will cook instantly.]

It is said that the dish prepared by the person who collects all eight legendary kitchen utensils can grant them immortality.

"Judging from the description, the effect seems quite ordinary," Nati, who had transformed into a dragon, picked up the Dragon Conversion Pot with her claws and examined it carefully. The Dragon Conversion Pot was decorated with a coiled dragon, which was quite unique in its design.

The Adventurers' Guild commissioned her to collect the legendary kitchen utensils; more precisely, it was a commission issued by an Elf Race chef named Ku Li Pa through the guild.

It seems that Ku Li Pa already owns a legendary kitchen utensil called the Eternal Spirit Blade, so this should be the second one.

"When I get back, I must make that chef cook me a grand meal with it!"

Having made up her mind, Nati tilted her Dragon Conversion Pot, then turned to deal with the monsters she had defeated.

These monsters are incredibly diverse, including crayfish with biscuits as hard as basalt growing on their bodies, earth dragons with scales made of candy, and giant mammoths, all of which are extremely powerful.

These monsters would be considered Elite Monsters even in the outside world; only a legendary dragon like Nati could handle them.

She's probably the only legendary expert who would target the Gourmet Area; most other legendary experts are busy challenging stronger enemies, while she's just looking for food here.

Sure enough, no one but the Floating Island Dragonkin could do this. What legendary figure would bother to come and collect ingredients?

"There are still many places to explore."

Nati looked up into the distance, where a vast and boundless landscape stretched before her eyes: forests, plains, and mountains. Deep within the Gourmet Area lay an endless vista, filled with ingredients she had never seen before.

The growls of dangerous creatures reaching our ears indicated that this area was not as safe and peaceful as it appeared, but rather teeming with danger.

The sunlight simulated by the underground city shone on her lava-like scales, and the warm feeling made her squint her eyes comfortably as she took another breath of sweet air.

Nati suddenly felt that she had found the meaning of her life.

"Alright, let's go!"

From now on, the exploration of this Gourmet Area can be left entirely to the Floating Island Dragonkin!

While the Floating Island Dragonkin were engrossed in exploring the Gourmet Area and cleaning up the construction site, others were also making progress in their exploration in the adjacent Forest Area Gourmet Area.

"Thump! Thump!"

Heavy impacts echoed through the dense forest, accompanied by the furious roars of monsters, causing the entire forest to tremble.

With a final roar, the monster collapsed to the ground, lifeless, and the hunters cheered.

That was actually a small Tigrex!

The one who delivered the final blow to the Tigrex was a shirtless man with muscles as solid as steel, exuding a powerful fighting spirit.

"Your Prince Lanle, you have finally succeeded!"

The person next to him revealed the man's identity.

No one would have guessed that this tough guy who looks similar to Te Mude is actually the former Lan Le!

"Yes, I never thought I could be so much like Warrior."

Lan Le wiped the blood from his katana and asked the bodyguards behind him:

"Is the time for the Battle Festival to resume soon?"

He was accompanied by three bodyguards on the hunt.

They used to be a team of five, but for some reason, all sorts of accidents happened. After switching to a team of four, everything went smoothly.

"It should be soon!" the bodyguard replied.

"Then I'll practice some more. We're shipping a large batch today."

Points of light slowly appeared in front of the Tigrex's corpse, and the light was actually golden.

Lan Le stepped forward and touched it, his eyes showing delight.

[Memories of Battle on Azure Star, Part Thirteen]