The Forest of Whispers spat the surviving chefs back into the Pavilion's sun dappled courtyard one by one.
They were a ragged, wild eyed bunch. Kai had a bleeding scratch across his bicep but wore a grin, holding a squirming, iridescent fish that flickered between solid and mist. Elara looked serene, cradling a bundle of glowing moss that pulsed like a heartbeat. One of the twins was missing a sleeve, bitten clean off.
Li Na slipped in quietly, her basket containing the silver mushroom and the ginger root feeling both incredibly heavy and absurdly small. She saw others with glistening cuts of strange meat, clusters of giant eggs, even what looked like a still beating, crystalline heart of some creature. Her foraged ingredients looked like a child's nature collection in comparison.
Lady Su Ling and the frost haired judge, Shen Feng, awaited them on a raised dais. Su Ling's fox like smile was in place. Shen Feng's expression was one of perpetual disapproval.
"Time," Su Ling announced softly, and a ghostly hourglass behind her ran out of sand.
Three chefs did not return at all. Their absence was a heavy, unmentioned fact in the air.
"Present your primary ingredient," Shen Feng commanded, his voice leaving no room for protest.
One by one, the chefs stepped forward. Kai presented his phase shifting fish, explaining how he had to sing a tide song to calm it enough to catch.
Elara showed her living moss, stating it would provide a deep, earthy umami. The flame embroidered chef, a woman named Meili, presented a tough looking cut of meat from a boar like creature with obsidian tusks.
When Na's turn came, she walked to the front, her legs feeling stiff. She placed her silver mushroom on the presentation table. A few competitors snorted. Shen Feng's icy blue eyes swept over it with clear disdain.
"A fungus," he stated. "You risked the Forest for a common mushroom?"
"It's not common," Na said, finding her voice. "It responded to music. It chose to be harvested. I used Ginger's Song to barter with the forest, not conquer it." She held up the ginger root, which still gave off a faint, warm light.
A murmur went through the crowd. Some looked intrigued. Others, like the stern Meili, looked unimpressed.
"Emotional nonsense," Shen Feng dismissed with a wave. "A protein challenge requires substance, not poetry. You will cook with this?"
"Yes," Na said, her chin lifting.
"Then proceed to your stations. You have two hours. Create a dish that showcases your ingredient's essence."
The kitchen arena in the Pavilion was a breathtaking marvel. Stations were carved from living wood, with water flowing from taps in hollow vines and fire springing from embedded crystals at a touch.
Na found her station, her hands trembling as she laid out her simple tools. All around her, magic flared. Meili seared her boar meat with actual jets of flame from her palms. Kai's fish, now in a water filled basin, kept vanishing and reappearing in different corners. Elara coaxed her moss to grow over a frame, creating a living, edible bowl.
Na took a deep, steadying breath. She blocked it all out. This was just a kitchen. The mushroom was just an ingredient. She remembered the feeling in the clearing.
She cleaned the silver mushroom carefully. It was denser than any mushroom she'd ever felt, its flesh cool and firm like a scallop. She sliced it thinly. It released that incredible scent of roasting chestnuts and butter. She decided to treat it like both a mushroom and a delicate seafood.
She made a quick broth with the ginger, some wild scallions she'd gathered at the forest's edge, and water from a clear, singing spring at her station. She let it simmer, a clean, aromatic base. She would poach the mushroom slices gently, so as not to lose their delicate texture. For substance, she used some provided rice to make a simple, perfect risotto, stirring it slowly, letting the starch create its own creamy sauce.
As she worked, a strange calm settled over her. The chaos of magical cooking faded into the background. It was just her, the pot, and the memory of her grandmother's hands doing the same simple, patient work.
When the mushroom slices poached, they turned a deeper, opalescent grey and curled slightly, like petals. She arranged them on the creamy risotto, ladled the clear ginger scallion broth around it, and finished with a single, perfect leaf of a peppery wild green she had found.
Her dish, "Forest's Silent Promise," looked like a dewdrop on moss. It stood in stark contrast to the dazzling, complex creations around her: Meili's flaming boar rack, Kai's mist wrapped ceviche, Elara's living moss salad that moved.
The judges, now five in number including Su Ling and Shen Feng, moved from station to station in a deadly quiet procession. They tasted in silence, their faces giving nothing away.
When they reached Na's station, Shen Feng took the lead. He ate a bite, his face impassive. He took another. He said nothing, moving on.
Lady Su Ling was next. She took a bite, her eyes closing. When they opened, there was a spark of genuine surprise. "The mushroom… it tastes of tranquility. A clever interpretation of 'protein.'"
Another judge, an ancient looking man with bark like skin, nodded slowly. "The ginger speaks of respect. The broth is clean, allowing the forest's own voice to be heard. Unorthodox, but… valid."
Na's heart soared. But then Shen Feng, who had been conferring with the other judges, spoke from the head of the table. "Valid, perhaps. But lacking in structural tradition. Where is the technique? The mastery of fire or transformation? This is… rustic. It is home cooking, not Gauntlet caliber cuisine. It relies on a gimmick rather than culinary skill."
His words were like a bucket of ice water. The approval from the other judges seemed to wither under his disdain.
Before Na could even form a retort, a new voice cut through the tension. It was a voice she knew, but it had never been this… present.
"A gimmick."
Everyone turned. A door at the back of the judging platform, which Na had assumed was a wall, slid open. Jin Long walked out.
He was dressed in robes of deep charcoal grey, simple but of a fabric so fine it seemed to drink the light. He moved with a silent, predatory grace that made the air in the vast kitchen arena feel thin. His gaze swept over the assembled chefs, and Na felt a physical pressure when it passed over her, a weight that made her want to step back.
The faint, disturbing gold glow was gone from his eyes, but they were no less intense. They were the color of a starless night, absorbing all light and giving nothing back.
The silence was absolute. Even the bubbling pots and magical sizzles seemed to hush.
"The Celestial Gauntlet has always valued more than mere technical prowess," Jin Long said, his voice not loud, but it resonated in the bones of every listener. "It seeks the essence of flavor. The source of inspiration. To that end, a new phase begins."
He paused, letting the words hang. Shen Feng's face was a mask of icy fury, clearly blindsided.
"The remaining twenty one chefs will no longer compete alone," Jin Long continued. "You will be paired with a mentor from the judging panel. A guide. Your mentor's success is tied to your own. Their knowledge will sharpen you. Your progress will reflect on them."
A wave of anxious whispers broke out. Mentors? Tied together?
"The selections," Jin Long said, "are not open for debate. They are final."
He took a scroll from a attendant. He began to read names, pairing chefs with judges. Kai was paired with the ancient, bark skinned judge, which made him grin. Elara went to a serene looking woman who smelled of rain. Meili was paired with a judge whose robes smoldered at the edges.
Na waited, her stomach a knot of dread. Who would get her? Will it be the dangerously beautiful Lady Shu Ling? Or, worse, Shen Feng, who would delight in breaking her?
Finally, only a few names were left. Jin Long looked up from the scroll, his dark eyes finding hers across the distance. The air crackled.
"There is one final rule," he said, and a strange, almost imperceptible tension tightened his jaw. "Each mentor may select one protégé as their primary focus. A chef in whom they will invest their… particular expertise."
He rolled the scroll shut. The sound was like a stone dropping in a well.
"I have made my selection."
He didn't look at the scroll. He didn't consult a list. He spoke directly to her, his voice echoing in the silent hall.
"My first, and only, selection is Li Na."
For a moment, there was no sound at all. Then, the hall erupted.
Gasps, shouts of disbelief, the clatter of a dropped utensil. Na felt the blood drain from her face, then rush back in a hot, dizzying wave. Horror. Pure, unadulterated horror.
The cold, disdainful, inhumanly powerful being who thought her heart was a liability… was now her mentor? Her success was tied to his? It was a death sentence. A cruel joke.
Shen Feng took a step forward, his composure shattered. "This is preposterous! An unprecedented intervention! She is the weakest link! A mortal with no discernible legacy! You would waste your position on this… this sentimentalist?"
Jin Long turned his head slowly toward Shen Feng. The movement was reptilian in its calm. "My position," he said, each word dripping with frost, "allows me my choices. Do you question the rules of the Gauntlet, Judge Shen?"
The threat in the question was palpable. Shen Feng's mouth snapped shut, but his eyes promised vengeance.
Jin Long's gaze returned to Na. He looked at her as if she were a complicated equation he had just solved, and the answer was mildly unsatisfactory. There was no encouragement in his face. No hint of why. Just that unfathomable, heavy stare.
"The mentorship begins tomorrow at dawn," he announced to the hall, but his eyes were still locked on her. "Prepare."
He turned and walked back through the door, which sealed behind him, leaving a vacuum of shock in his wake.
Na stood frozen at her station, the remnants of her "Forest's Silent Promise" suddenly looking like the last meal of a condemned woman. All around her, the other chefs stared—with pity, with jealousy, with outright scorn.
Xiao Chen's words from a lifetime ago echoed in her mind: "You're about to get cooked, Na. And I don't mean in a good way."