Chapter 977: Eel Feasting
While Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian and Patriarch Zhen Shi were fighting an eel that was large enough to swallow elephants whole, their respective subordinate elders/children were busy handling all of the eels that the aforementioned leaders fished up during their rampage.
To be more precise, the branch clan was in charge of butchering and dismantling any eel corpses that ended up on the ship’s bridge while the main clan elders were in charge of storing both the freshly dismantled carcasses and any live specimens, by making use of the [Myriad Marble Garden].
It should be noted that even the branch clan thought it was a little overkill using such a powerful treasure for something as menial as storing live eels and eel related products.
That is, until they all noticed the sharp disturbance in the surrounding aether.
“Obvious question, but I’m not the only one who felt that spike of aether that could only belong to a 6th tier aether beast, right?”
“No, I felt it too…and I think mother and Patriarch Zhen Xun Tian are about to go and fight it.”
Once that feeling of danger swept over them though, and caused everybody on the fishing vessel to stop what they were doing in order to see what the hell was going on down in the blackened depths.
The moment they all reached the edge of the ship, though two more powerful surges in aether occurred. Only this time, the Zhen clan elders immediately recognized the sources of those particular spikes in power.
“That big and domineering one is definitely Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian…”
“Huh…did father’s aura always feel like that? I’m not sure how else to describe but it feels…vast? Like it ain’t obvious.”
Whatever the case in regards to these spikes in aether though, the Zhen Clan elders could at least confirm that their leaders/family heads hadn’t ended up in the belly of any giant beast…yet.
Some of the elders wanted to go and assist their respective leaders in taking down what they all assumed to be an even bigger giant eel, but they knew better than to interfere in such situations when they weren’t up to snuff in terms of cultivation.
Attempts to assist when lacking the right qualifications, have a tendency to make matters worse as opposed to better.
Besides, this battle wasn’t going to last long enough for them to help anyways.
“Okay, unless any of y’all want to go swimming in these obviously cursed waters, we should probably go back and-”
Ka-Pow!
“INCOMING!”
“-addres the absolutely titanic Dire Eel and the fact that both of our respective leaders are riding it as it plummets to the ground. Godsdamnit,” Zhen Xun Po cursed as he tried his best to adapt to his mother’s antics. “Wisdom Elder?”
“On it.”
Literally seconds before they went back to doing whatever it was they needed to do, both Zhen Xun Tian and Zhen Shi returned to the surface in a rather triumphant manner.
Well, as triumphant as one can look when uppercut launching a giant glowing eel into the air before mid air mounting it to crash the damn thing into a fishing boat.
Granted, actually crashing the damn thing would’ve caused the boat to capsize, so the Wisdom Elder of the Zhen Clan proceeded to channel the power of the [Myriad Marble Garden] to create a mid-air pocket space bubble.
He actually timed and positioned it in such a way that as the eel continued to plummet, it would get caught into the floating bubble, while also allowing Zhen Xun Tian and Zhen Shi to land on the deck of the fishing vessel with little interference.
Much to Zhen Xun Tian’s mild annoyance.
“Stop trying to crash shit into the clan treasures.”
“D’awww, you’re no fun.”
Regardless, the Zhen Clan had fulfilled their objective with the capturing of this giant 6th tier aether beast eel so there was only one thing left to say/do.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
And with that, the fishing expedition of the Zhen Clan, came to an end.
“Wait…do we even know anyone who knows how to cook eel?”
“Don’t know, but I think I see another sea creature about to charge us.”
“Shit.”
________________________________________
Now back to the present day after the capturing and killing of one too many glowing giant eels, and dealing with some kind of giant shark thing…
“…and that’s why we have about ten dozen or so different styles of eel based dishes for dinner tonight,” Zhen Hai explained to Zhen Liu as he ripped off a chunk of eel flesh from a kabayaki skewer.
“Any other questions? Oh damn, that’s good.”
“A few questions…but I think that I should wait until after I eat dinner,” Zhen Liu replied as he grabbed himself some pieces of umaki made from [Luminescent Wolf Eel] meat and [Rock Chicken] egg. “Okay, one questions before I start eating, who made all this?”
“Xiao Feng.”
“Ah.”
When Zhen Liu returned from the Endless Swamplands to Stampeding Bison, he had done so at around the same time his father, uncles and grandfather had returned from their fishing expedition.
A happy coincidence.
However, he could not discuss these events with the elders directly, due to the aforementioned elders currently mending some freshly acquired wounds.
They apparently got attacked by some kind of giant shark monster due to all the blood that was split from all of the dead eels, but they managed to survive and get away with all of the booty.
They now had several broken bones and a couple bad abrasions, but nothing life threatening.
Regardless, when Zhen Liu,(the kaijin) and his fiancees returned to the estate, the scent of cooking eel meat had greeted them before anything else.
Due to Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian’s and Patriarch Zhen Shi’s actions, they had returned with a little over several…tons…of [Luminescent Wolf Eel] meat.
Unfortunately, the chefs of both the branch and main clan only had two recipes each that made use of eel.
Luckily for them, a certain fat young master of the branch clan had gotten his hands on a fuckton of cooking alchemy recipe books, alongside normal cookbooks.
One of the latter of which contained one hundred and two recipes on how to prepare eel without getting sick of the taste.
However, these recipes weren’t the main star of this eel feast, it was Zhen Feng.
“Alright, this next one is called Eel…matelote? I don’t know if I pronounced that right. Anyways, I made it using [Moonlight Onions] and [Sun Shiitakes]. If I understood the books correctly, it should help with blood circulation while making it easier to cultivate Luxarii and Caligos aether. So try to eat a lot of it, Zhen Yue.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice!,” Zhen Yue replied while already wolfing down the bowl with a piece of fluffy bread that Zhen Feng called, “brioche”.
Apparently, Logos and Pathos assessment on Zhen Feng having a talent for aether cooking was right on the money, as the man managed to not only perfectly perform all of the necessary handling and cooking steps for the ingredients in question, but he even figured out how to adapt some of the methods for recipes that weren’t explicitly meant for aether cooking.
Hence why he was able to convert the recipes from a cookbook from Zhen Liu’s old life, into recipes that were not only delicious, but also potent cultivation elixirs.
Most surprising of all from this discovery though was that these elixir-like dishes worked on anybody, regardless of their cultivation.
Meaning that through the simple act of eating, the members of the Zhen Clan had all received a small, qualitative boost to their cultivation.
Whether or not it was a critical development though was dependent on the person.
“Hey…am I going crazy, or is my body getting hot from eating this eel curry?”
“Is this how you tell me that you’re actually a bitch when it comes to spice?”
“Fuck you, I can handle my chilli just fine!”
“Sure…”
“On to more interesting topics, does anybody else find it crazy just how monstrous this newer generation is?”
That being said, not everyone could enjoy this feast of eels quite yet.
…
[Well, I’m jealous.]
[Huh? Why’s that?]
[The maestro and his familia get to enjoy what I can literally smell is a delicious feast and we, once again, cannot participate! It’s bullshit, I tell you. Bullshit!]
[Hurricroak you know-]
[I know, I know. You’re gonna say something about secrecy and how-]
[No,] Nepherage interjected. [I was gonna say, you know that we have human disguises that they recognize as being friendly so we could just…blend in. That or we could ask Arachnidame, Lacerage or Screamira to just grab us a to-go box.]
[Oh…why didn’t I think of doing that?]
[Because out of all of us kaijin, you’re the one who thinks about being in the moment the most.]
[Huh…I always figured I was the most emotional.]
[That title got taken by that trio, remember?]
[Oh yeah…how are they doing, anyways?]
