Ren took a slow, steadying breath before walking into the kitchen.
The tavern was alive tonight—boisterous laughter spilling from every corner, tankards clinking, the smell of woodsmoke and seared meat thick in the air. Half of them had come for the usual ale and chatter. The other half?
For his cooking.
It made what he had to say harder.
Maela stood by the chopping block, cleaning fish with her usual ruthless efficiency. She didn’t look up as he approached, but the air shifted—tense, alert.
“I’m opening a stall,” Ren said, voice low but firm.
The knife paused. Only for a second. Then resumed its work.
“Thought you might.”
“I’m not leaving immediately,” he added. “I’ll finish the week. But I’m going to file with the market board tomorrow. I’ve saved enough. It’s time.”
Maela didn’t speak right away. She finished the cut, wiped her blade, then finally turned to face him.
“You think you’re ready for that?”
He met her gaze. “Not completely. But if I wait until I’m ready, I’ll never do it.”
She gave a small grunt. Not approval, not denial—just acknowledgment.
“Fine,” she said. “You can still sleep here if you pay the rates of my customers. And you better not poach all my damn regulars.”
Ren grinned despite himself. “No promises.”
That night, he made the announcement. He stood on one of the tables (after apologizing profusely), cleared his throat, and told the tavern’s regulars that starting next week, they could find his daily specials under a new name—his own name.
Or rather, the name of his stall.
The Sleazy Snake.
There was a pause. Then someone laughed—one of the miners who always asked for extra spice. “Is it ‘cause your food’s so slippery it makes you cheat on other meals?”
Ren chuckled. “Something like that.”
A few patrons clapped him on the back. Others groaned that they’d have to walk all the way to the market square now. But there were smiles. And curiosity.
The morning of the grand opening, Ren arrived early to his rented corner lot. A simple canvas awning shaded his stall. The iron searing plate sat ready. Crates of herbs and fresh-cut vegetables—some mundane, others faintly glowing—lined the back wall.
He was nervous. More than he expected. His hands fidgeted with the fastening of his apron. The knife on his belt felt heavy. The air around him shimmered with the faint buzz of street mana—carts rolling in, vendors setting up, voices rising in the early heat.
He hung the wooden sign:
The Sleazy Snake – Mana Food That Bites Back
It was half-joke, half-challenge.
By midmorning, the first customers arrived—regulars from the tavern, a few curious vendors, and one adventurer he didn’t recognize who looked like he’d been dragged there by the scent alone.
Ren took a breath.
Mana flared softly at his fingertips.
And then the fire lit beneath the pan.
His stall was open. His journey, really open.
And the world was hungry.
_________
The stall had only been open a few days and already The Sleazy Snake was getting a reputation—half for the food, half for the chaos.
Ren hadn’t planned to become a showman. But the moment a miner shouted “this spice has to be illegal,” and another screamed through tears that the sour stew “punched him in the soul,” he knew he was onto something.
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So he leaned in.
The Daily Special rotated every day, of course—usually a one-dish experiment based on whatever herbs he’d foraged or traded for that morning. Sometimes it was a triple-affinity stew with roots and slow-seared river meat, sometimes it was a dessert that hummed with barely-contained sweetness. A gamble, really. People loved it.
Prices for those specials floated between three and seven bronze.
Then there were the Pan Favourites (yes that’s a terrible pun of Fan Favourites) - former experiments turned staples thanks to sheer demand. Stuff like:
- Mana-Fried Root Fritters with a faint crunch of lightning affinity
- Herbed Boar Rice with a warmth that lingered in your chest
- Velvet Citrus Slurry, the accidental result of a sour infusion gone right
Each dish ran for 5-8 bronze and he could never make enough. He kept the prices fair—people had followed him from the tavern, after all, and he wasn’t about to gouge the ones who gave him his start.
But the real draw? The Three-Tongue Challenge.
Each week, he’d design a new gauntlet of flavor—one for spicy, one for sour, and one for sweet. Each dish was infused and tuned until it teetered right on the edge of too much.
This week:
- Blisterfire Dumplings – fire and spice so potent they made your ears ring
- Astringent Orchid Broth – mouth-puckering and aromatic, tingling with air mana
- Syrup-Slicked Petal Cake – sickly sweet and ether-rich enough to leave a buzz
Each challenge cost 1 silver and most didn’t even finish one. But if you managed all three in one day—without vomiting, passing out, asking for milk or any other liquids (apart from water of course) you got your name carved into the board and earned free daily meals for the rest of the month.
So far? No winners.
But plenty of hilarious failures.
Ren didn’t do it for cruelty. He did it to push limits—just like he was doing in the kitchen every morning before the sun rose. These weren’t just dishes. They were controlled alchemy, sensory tests, small moments of magic. And the more people talked, the more they lined up.
He wasn’t just feeding people anymore, wasn’t just giving them a brief moment of joy, he was building a community.
The queue was longer than usual that morning, wrapping around two side streets by the time Ren opened the shutters. Word had gotten out about the week’s Three-Tongue Challenge—a new record in failures, six people vomiting in a single day—and a few foolishly brave souls were eager to make history. He was halfway through a batch of mana-seared boar patties when he felt it.
Someone was watching him. Closely.
Not the usual hungry kind of stare. Not even the gleam of culinary curiosity he saw in a few local apprentices. No—this gaze was measured, quiet, predatory in the way a snake studied heat before a strike.
Ren didn’t look up immediately. He focused on the sear, flipped the patty, and let his Flavor Sense trickle outward—just enough to catch a hint.
A sharp, sterile presence. Lavender. Parchment. Waxed linen.
He risked a glance.
The man was tall, clean-shaven, dressed in layered tan robes far too fine for the market. No stains, no wear. Not a local. Not a miner, not a hunter, not even a traveling merchant. His hands were gloved despite the heat, and he stood patiently at the edge of the crowd, making no effort to approach—yet never looking away.
Ren turned back to his station, heart ticking up a notch.
He knew that kind of scrutiny.
He’d seen it on documentary crews, on investors, on high-end chefs assessing their competition. It wasn’t hunger. It was analysis.
The man didn’t step forward until the lunch rush died down and Ren was catching his breath, towel slung around his neck.
“An… interesting technique,” the man said in a low, pleasant voice. “Your use of fire-affinity mana in those dumplings—it’s controlled. Refined. You didn’t learn that here.”
Ren raised an eyebrow, keeping his tone casual. “I’m just a cook who got tired of wasting good ingredients.”
“Of course,” the man replied. “Still. Few local chefs can manage even a stable infusion, let alone shape flavor profiles with composite affinities.”
So he knew.
Ren offered a dry smile. “You seem to know a lot about how I cook. You from around here?”
“Around,” the man echoed. “I travel between outposts. Guild consultant. Culinary efficiency. Mana allocation. Standardization of alchemical procedures.”
That sounded fake.
But it sounded official, too.
Ren forced a laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
The man didn’t offer one.
Instead, he leaned in, just enough for his voice to drop.
“Where did you really learn to cook like this?”
There it was.
Ren’s fingers tightened around the spatula. “I told you. I cook. I experiment. It’s not that rare.”
The man tilted his head. “No formal crest. No apprentice mark. And no scent of herbal tutelage, your mana control is barely better than the average layman and yet you cook with such precision and knowledge, you could put the duke’s chef to shame.
Ren said nothing.
After a beat, the man stepped back and adjusted his gloves.
“Well. If you ever want to formalize your technique, there are groups who’d take an interest. Very serious interest. You might even find them before the Church does.”
Ren’s blood went cold.
And then the man smiled—thin, polite, sharp as a razor—and melted into the market crowd without another word.
He didn’t come for the food.
He came for Ren.