Ona was a Reef Level 8 player.Her primary skill was Gathering, with Cooking as her secondary.As a second-wave entrant to the game, she had worked relentlessly since the day she arrived. Fortunately, her Luck was solid and her overall strength not bad—especially with her Logos trait synergizing absurdly well with Gathering. Each morning she could randomly choose one character to form a word; that day’s fortune would align with that word.By now, Ona had become a standout among the new players and had a bit of a name in District 8.She’d also registered for the Mad Chef Tournament.When she saw she could serve as a judge—getting to taste other players’ dishes for free—she signed up for that as well.The tasting pool drew from other districts’ entries.She had no idea who the creators were.Per the System, after she tasted a dish she had to submit a hundred-word honest review, evaluating color, aroma, taste, and effect.The System would assign a score based on the judge’s review.Ona had already taste-tested two dishes.Hand on heart: both were decent, but nothing that stunned her, and not much better than what she could cook herself.So her earlier reviews were middling.That evening she’d just finished dinner and figured she probably wouldn’t be selected.Then the System tone chimed.[Hello, you have a new Cooking Master Tournament dish to taste… The dish will be teleported over in one minute.]“Ugh, I just ate. What timing.” Ona muttered, half-praying the incoming dish would be something delicious but light.Ideally one of the menu’s desserts or a small plate.Instead, the light curtain flickered twice and showed the name of a heavy-hitter—Spicy Braised Venison.“Tsk. Great ingredients, sure, but a big hunk of venison? That’s belly-busting.”She hadn’t even seen the food and was already sighing. She wasn’t one of those players scraping by; she never worried about meals and ate her fill every day.The System typically chose judges like her.After all, when you’re starving, it’s hard to be objective about food.Ona thought: Looks like I’ll just take a couple bites and dash off a review.As the glow faded from the curtain, a wave of fragrance hit her.A rich meaty aroma braided with the scent of chili oil.Her sigh was still on her lips when the smell barged into her sinuses.Saliva pooled in her mouth before she could stop it; the spicy perfume was downright seductive. She’d already eaten, but just the smell made her appetite spark.“What on earth did they put in this?”Eyes wide, Ona stared at the bowl of Spicy Braised Venison that had just arrived.The sauce gleamed; the venison cubes were uniform, their surfaces lacquered with oil-sheen, studded with a generous amount of chilies and dusted with fragmented spices.Not a bad look at all.Whatever she’d said before was gone from her mind. Right now her fingers itched; she snatched up her chopsticks and dug in.She lifted a piece carefully.The meat was braised to the exact point; a nudge of the chopsticks and it fell apart. She slid it into her mouth…“So soft! So tender!”“Delicious!”“Mm—this is… ridiculously good.”Her hand and mouth wouldn’t stop.Her teeth barely had to work before the venison melted on her tongue.Flavor detonated across her palate—fresh, juicy, then a flash of heat lit up her taste buds.There were other spices in play, too, all of them pushing the meat’s natural savor to center stage.God, that aroma.The more she ate, the better it got.She couldn’t stop. One piece, two pieces… utterly forgetting she’d just claimed she was full.Every bite was peak enjoyment, a double hit of bodily and mental satisfaction.Before she knew it, she’d cleared the whole plate.The lingering taste on her tongue and in her nose kept echoing back.Hot, savory, fragrant, lightly sweet, lush…Perfect.The day’s fatigue vanished without a trace, replaced by a steady welling sense of strength.Her Sanity shot back to full, and Stamina ticked up +10 per minute for five minutes.The effects were solid—but the taste was the real triumph.Ona leaned back, utterly content. @Unlimited good reads, all at Jinjiang Literature City@Unlimited good reads, all at Jinjiang Literature CityBliss.She felt like she could go another eight hours without a break.Without hesitation she opened the review panel and poured out far more than a hundred words.She had no clue who’d cooked it; a pity she’d have to wait until the Mad Chef Tournament ended.If a daily cooking task’s high-scoring recipe made the cut, it could be listed among this tournament’s high-grade dishes.But since this one was from the System’s menu, the final rankings would publish the top three versions of each dish by score.——The next day, the Broodmother’s Ring, Yuntun, and Roubao all stayed at the island.Roubao would fish up shells and handle errands; Yuntun had to manage the spiders remaining on the reef and hold position at the Spider House for training.Yun Luohe set out to land on an island.She brought the ones who had already laid eggs—Watermelon, Wintermelon, Apple, Pear…They’d had a lot of babies; by now they’d fully recovered.[Welcome to Golden Fruit Island…]Golden Fruit Island, then.Yun Luohe immediately ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) recalled the intel.Golden Fruit Island — high-grade specialties:Golden Seeds: when planted, yield high-calorie fruit that sustains full Stamina for 2 hours.Resin Amber: usable to make a natural preservative that extends food shelf life.Resources: a giant nut forest producing assorted nuts; deeper in, agarwood and dragon’s blood trees, whose trunks yield high-grade resins used to craft mutant resins.The island’s dangers were mainly the marshes, the forest labyrinth, and the squirrel hordes and macaws in the woods.Per intel, the squirrel hordes attack players who come to pick nuts and also bury Golden Seeds.To secure these materials, you had to face the squirrels en masse. Most were radiation-tainted with aggressive tempers; a few untainted ones were high-grade breeds that could be captured as pets.In addition, macaws were also high-grade pets with special skills—but with one quirk: filthy mouths. They cursed people, with profanity.Macaws and squirrels were tight; the moment a player entered the Golden Fruit Island woods, the macaws would alert the squirrels, then help drive players off and steal whatever they were carrying.An S-rank intel note for Golden Fruit Island added one more line:Deep in the Golden Fruit Forest lived a troop of monkeys. If you fed the leader Golden Seeds, you could obtain a Luck blessing—your Luck stat had a chance to increase.The island was riddled with hazards, but its resources and opportunities were plentiful; it was one of Autumn’s hot destinations.If not for the insect plague, players would be swarming ashore every day. As it was, most couldn’t spare the time.So when Yun Luohe arrived, players were few and far between.Since she’d come to Golden Fruit Island, she had to make for the monkeys deep in the forest.Any chance to boost Luck—Yun Luohe would never let it slip.——Golden Fruit Island’s air was thick with the sweet rot of fallen fruit and the metallic damp of soil.Beyond the beach lay mangroves, all sucking mud; once you crossed them, a spread of marsh opened ahead.Farther off, a canopy of mutant beech blotted the sun; from within came the thin squeals of squirrels and the raucous calls of some bird.On the island’s perimeter, a mass of irradiated insects—giant biting flies and carapaced roaches.The moment they sensed Yun Luohe, they surged like a black tide, the susurrus prickling the scalp.They were shockingly fast.Yun Luohe, however, was delighted at the sight.“Babies, dinner’s served~”The reef’s bugs had been eaten clean these past few days; the spiders at home were hungry.What followed was a one-sided massacre.The Crimson-Blood strike team moved like cold-eyed snipers, venom-spraying the big roaches—pfft, pfft, pfft—and downed dozens in moments, frighteningly efficient.“Nice work, Watermelon, baby!”Yun Luohe stood a short distance away, cheering them on.“Eat up later.”The Gold-Shells were led by Twists and Chips.Their Gold-Shell squad formed a solid defensive line: half screening Yun Luohe, half guarding the Crimson-Bloods.Their hard carapaces soaked the gnawing and ramming of the swarm; with each scissoring of their chelae they chopped apart anything that closed in.They were like a moving bastion, giving the Crimson-Bloods a perfect lane to pour on damage.“Twists, beautiful work!”Yun Luohe clapped, praising the flourish with which Twists had just lopped two big bugs with a single sweep.Once the nearby insects were down, the Scavenger Corrosive Spiders went in.They jetted strong corrosive mucus, decomposing the corpses into slurry, then collected it to bring home.It was their favorite nutrient broth.They’d take it back to share with the sisters on the reef.At the marsh’s edge—Time for the Horticulture Nanny Spiders.They darted between several massive beeches near the marsh rim,spinning great ropes of silk, weaving and reinforcing without pause,and at a height of several meters, they built a bridge entirely of silk.With that bridge, Yun Luohe could go straight across.The silk was layered into a thick, wide mat—sturdy and deep.When Yun Luohe stepped on, it was rock steady.The Nanny babies even laid down anti-slip filaments so she wouldn’t take a spill.Yun Luohe poured on the praise again, feeding the spider babies ample emotional value.With the spiders’ help, the booby-trapped marsh turned safe, saving her plenty of time.——Crossing into the outer ring of Golden Fruit Island’s forest, the air felt noticeably fresher.All kinds of fruit trees grew here.Chestnut trees bristled with green, spiny burrs.Hawthorns were loaded with red fruit, breathing a sweet-tart fragrance.Wild persimmon trees dangled heavy globes that bent their branches.These were the most numerous; here and there, a few pomegranate and peach trees were mixed in.Yun Luohe’s pulse kicked up.This whole stand of fruit was hers now.With spider support, clearing every tree was trivial.“Babies—harvest!”At her word—The spiders hissed in excitement and rushed to work.Some wrapped chestnut burrs with silk and heaved; others simply took a chela to a trunk, and the chestnuts fell like rain.Gold-Shells split the burrs with their chelae and plucked out the nuts.The Horticulture Nannies wove net-bags, swaddled entire clusters of hawthorn, then cinched, taking dozens in a single pull.They did the same for the other fruit.At spider speed the orchard went down like a time-lapse—shh, shh, shh—and the trees were stripped clean.Yun Luohe harvested too, but she was much slower.By the time she’d scrambled up and down and picked every persimmon off one tree, she looked back—The surrounding trees were bare, only leaves and a few green nubs left.She’d told them: take only ripe fruit with good appearance, big and marketable.At the sight, Yun Luohe couldn’t help but throw a thumbs-up. “You’re monsters, babies.”The spider legion did not disappoint.With the fruit stand cleared, it was time to enter the nut forest.While they were picking fruit, the macaws had clocked the operation and warned the squirrels long ago.Before Yun Luohe even stepped in, the squirrel horde’s chatter rose around her.Listening closely, she could make out their protest and profanity.The nut forest trees were tall and dense, and giant hazelnuts glowed with collectible luster high in the crowns—gold-quality at a glance.The squirrel crowd had many big ones.They were about the size of feral cats,bounding along the branches, zipping up and down with ludicrous speed,launching attacks from every angle, hitting and fading: one popped out to harass here, another darted down there—infuriating.The squirrel raids were one thing; the real spectacle was the macaw standing on a limb and laying into them with insults.“You ugly freaks, get out!”“So ugly—so ugly!”“Black and chubby spiders with too many legs—hideous!”The parrots were brilliantly colored and fairly large, with handsome head-crests.The one that drew the eye was a pink bird:deep rose body, lighter pink crest and neck.Its voice was syrupy sweet, but the volume was enormous—and the swearing was vicious.Yun Luohe recognized a Pink-crested Cockatoo—a rare breed flagged in Golden Fruit Island intel.A nightmare to deal with—and clever.There were too many squirrels, and they were too quick; coupled with the parrots’ harassment, they couldn’t simply be ignored.If they wanted the nuts, they’d have to clear them out first.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.