Sometimes, completing a mission in a Breakthrough Secret Realm required not only personal effort, but also leveraging outside support.
Take the Breakthrough Secret Realm Lu Ran and the others had entered: even if Infinite City had not assigned them identities as restaurant apprentices at the start, they would still have needed to find somewhere to learn under a master.
The same applied to other missions. A Breakthrough Secret Realm was just like a real world, where every living being had a mind of their own. Some attractive Beast Tamers could rapidly build up their resources by selling their looks and latching onto someone powerful.
It all came down to an extremely high degree of freedom.
Then again, wasn't Lu Ran currently selling his own "talent and potential" to entice the Secret Realm's inhabitants into investing in him?
"All right, keep cutting~" Shopkeeper Long had an excellent eye. After investing for just over half a month, her investment was guaranteed to go down the drain.
But half a month later, this world would disappear anyway, so it would not really matter...
"All right." Lu Ran returned to cutting fruit.
Time slowly passed, and the lively banquet neared its end. The many guests had enjoyed fine food, watched battles, and eaten fruit that cooled their minds both before and after the meal. They had spent an extremely pleasant day.
With the banquet celebrating the Ningchuan City Lord's breakthrough over, the Frostmoon House party began their journey home.
After this little interlude, only a week remained before the Gourmet Hunter Association's Expert-tier Chef Assessment.
Lu Ran and the others had little time left to improve their cooking. Whether to clear the mission or earn better rewards, they trained even more relentlessly.
That very evening, Lu Ran received a little illustrated booklet from Shopkeeper