Mount Kulera was covered in snow year-round, its temperatures bitterly cold.
Luo Wei felt the Demonic Dragon had to be influencing the surrounding environment; otherwise, how could they possibly have run into a once-in-a-century blizzard?
"We can't keep going, or we'll all freeze to death!" Luo Wei spoke with difficulty.
Yunir Heavyhammer the dwarf said, "And here I thought your brain had already frozen solid."
"There's a cave ahead! Hurry!" Sif the elf called out just then.
Hearing this, the group quickened their pace and reached the mouth of the cave in moments. However, noticing the flicker of firelight within, none of them ventured in rashly.
Inside the cave, a minotaur sat cross-legged beside a campfire, eating a piping-hot boxed lunch.
"Excuse me, could we come in to shelter from the blizzard? The storm outside is just too heavy," Luo Wei asked, looking at the minotaur.
Yu Xian glanced at Luo Wei and the others outside the cave. "Come on in. The cave doesn't belong to me alone."
Having gained Yu Xian's consent, the hero's party filed in one after another. Only upon stepping inside did they let out sighs of relief. The wind and snow outside were ferocious and brutally cold, whereas inside the cave, thanks to the campfire and being sheltered from the wind, it was vastly warmer.
"My name is Luo Wei. This is Yunir Heavyhammer, this is Sif, and this is Carmen," Luo Wei introduced after sitting down.
Yu Xian asked, "And the dragon beside you?"
"You can see Gabriel?" Luo Wei's eyes widened in pleasant surprise.
Yu Xian nodded. "Of course I can. With a dragon that fat, it's not like I'm blind."
"You're the fat one!" Gabriel the Holy Dragon snapped angrily.
Luo Wei coughed and shot Gabriel a look, signaling him to keep quiet.
According to the rules of this world, only those who harbored justice in their hearts and possessed the courage to stand against the Demonic Dragon could see the Holy Dragon Gabriel.
Every member of this party had come together precisely because they could see the Holy Dragon Gabriel.
Naturally, in their own words, they had united for a shared ideal.
"This is the Holy Dragon Gabriel. Only those who harbor justice in their hearts can behold him!" Luo Wei solemnly introduced him to Yu Xian.
Yu Xian nodded and politely introduced himself in kind: "Mm, nice to meet you all. I'm an honorary member of the mermaid clan. You can call me Newton."
"You... a mermaid?" The Holy Dragon Gabriel was the first to question it.
The others also looked at Yu Xian with utter disbelief. Calmly taking off his boot, Yu Xian revealed a thick, sturdy leg covered in scales and explained, "My lore is rather complex. My grandfather was human, my grandmother was a minotaur, my father was a half-minotaur, and my mother was a mermaid. Therefore, our race is determined by the purity of our bloodline, and the highest concentration in my blood happens to be mermaid. So I'm a mermaid—makes total sense!"
Looking at a burly, muscular man with a giant bull's head claiming to be a mermaid—backed by an irrefutable justification—everyone present fell into a stunned silence.
"Then, Sir Newton, if you are a mermaid, why aren't you in the ocean instead of here on this harsh, desolate snow mountain?" Sif couldn't help asking after a long pause.
Yu Xian said solemnly, "That's a story longer than my great-grandmother's foot-binding wraps. I originally came from a well-off family, so my parents prepared to send me to Siberia to learn the art of potato farming. Who would have thought bandits would ambush us halfway? Both my parents were brutally murdered, and only under the cover of my parents and Big Yellow did I narrowly escape with my life.
"Having lost all our wealth, I was left homeless and had to wander the roads begging, journeying north to seek my Uncle Jules. He was a formidable half-minotaur warrior; if I could only take refuge with him, I'd have the chance to become a powerful warrior myself and avenge my parents.
"Yet when I finally reached Saibei after enduring countless hardships, I discovered that my Uncle Jules wasn't the mighty warrior described in the letters at all. He was just a thief.
"Can you imagine? A towering, burly half-minotaur with massive presence becoming a thief!
"What could he possibly steal?
"Still, I had no better choice. But just when I was ready to learn the thieving trade from my uncle, he insisted I shouldn't follow in his footsteps, claiming it would ruin my whole life.
"Gritting his teeth, my uncle took me to work at the harbor. There, I learned how to shuck oysters, fry rice noodles, grill lamb skewers, sizzle teppanyaki squid, whip up salt-and-pepper black tiger prawns, roast potato slices, shiitake mushrooms, and eggplants, deep-fry mini mantou buns, make golden fried rice, charcoal-roast whole chicken, stir-fry beef chow fun, flash-fry clams, and cook all sorts of other dishes. In the end, the business grew bigger and bigger until I actually became an ultra-rich tycoon at the Port of Saibei, with chain restaurants spread across the entire country."
"..."
Hearing this, Luo Wei and the others quietly swallowed their saliva, their stomachs letting out loud rumbles one after another.
On this freezing, pitch-black snow mountain, Yu Xian's speech was the exact equivalent of posting late-night food porn in a chat group, spamming pictures of delicacies—downright evil!
Yet Yu Xian paid no mind to their rumbling stomachs and rambled on, "After becoming a restaurant tycoon, I began studying various crafts, aspiring to become a great class master so I could avenge my parents through my own strength. But by the time I finally became a powerful class master, I learned... that those bandits had pledged allegiance to the Calamity Demonic Dragon, becoming its lackeys! So I embarked on this journey. I must track those people down and wring the heads right off their necks with my own hands!"
"So... what is your class...?" Luo Wei asked, still somewhat baffled after hearing all that.
Yu Xian puffed out his chest with pride. "I am an alchemical chef, skilled in crafting all manner of alchemical gadgets and alchemical delicacies! Let me tell you a secret: I've brought plenty of dangerous weapons with me. If we run into the Demonic Dragon's lackeys, I'll definitely give them the shock of their lives!"
An alchemical chef?
Luo Wei and the others exchanged glances and confirmed that none of them had ever heard of such a class.
"Then Sir Newton, what kind of weapons did you bring?" Carmen the fox girl asked curiously.
Yu Xian gave a gratified smile. "Excellent question! Since this blizzard won't be letting up anytime soon, I'll let you all feast your eyes on the fruits of my world-shattering intellect!"
Gulp!
Everyone swallowed hard, gazing at Yu Xian with great anticipation.
Yu Xian took out a storage pouch, then pulled a robot out from inside it. He introduced it triumphantly: "This is the Cheering Robot! When we're in battle, it'll stand by our side cheering us on. Most importantly... it can shout '666'! Tell me, if someone is constantly pumping you up in the heat of battle, wouldn't your morale soar through the roof?"
"Is there... anything else?" Carmen forced an awkward smile.
Yu Xian nodded immediately, then took out a boxing glove from the storage pouch and explained, "This is the Full-Belly Glove. As long as you take a punch to the stomach from it, you won't feel hungry for an entire day! However, it does have a side effect—it really hurts!"
"I reckon getting punched in the gut by an ordinary boxing glove would also keep me from feeling hungry for a while," Yunir Heavyhammer deadpanned.
By now, Luo Wei and the others had begun to question Yu Xian's mental state. But Yu Xian didn't care about Yunir Heavyhammer's snark in the slightest. At that moment, he reached into the storage pouch to pull out yet another item.
Chapter 666