Dinner service at The Hungry Griffon was a controlled burn.

  The dining room was packed with local merchants and silver-rank adventurers. The air was thick with the rich, heavy aroma of roasted Phantom-Vein Basilisk and spiced wyrm-broth. In the kitchen, Yuno’s blade flashed through the remaining cuts of meat, while Myria managed three separate ironwood skillets, her golden tail twitching as she kept the heat strictly regulated.

  It was a rhythm. A heavy, breathing cadence of heat, steel, and ambient mana.

  Then, the rhythm died.

  The brass chime above the front door didn’t ring; it gave a dull, hollow clack, as if the metal had suddenly forgotten how to vibrate.

  The ever-glowing soft-light crystals in the dining room sputtered. Their warm, yellow illumination turned the color of bruised ash before snuffing out entirely. Shadows stretched across the mahogany tables.

  A cold, suffocating vacuum rolled through the room. Several casters in the dining area gasped, clutching their chests as the ambient mana was violently stripped from the air. The heavy, joyful noise of the tavern died instantly, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic clink of sabatons on hardwood.

  Bishop Malakai stepped into the dining room.

  He didn't draw the massive, single-edged greatsword strapped to his back. He didn't need to. The parchment suppression tags fluttering around the blade drank the room's energy like a starved beast. He was a walking void.

  He surveyed the frozen, terrified patrons with eyes like flat grey stones. Then, his gaze locked onto the swinging doors of the kitchen.

  I stood in the threshold, wiping my hands on a towel. The anti-magic field hit me like a physical wave of freezing water, attempting to snuff out my core. I simply tightened my internal circulation, anchoring my aura deep within my chest. I didn't push back. I let him have the room.

  "Master," Yuno whispered from behind me, his hand dropping to his glass knife. His breath plumed white in the suddenly freezing kitchen.

  "Stay at your station," I murmured, tossing the towel aside. "Both of you. Do not channel a single spark."

  I pushed through the doors and walked out into the silenced dining room. Malakai tracked my approach. He didn't posture or sneer. He simply waited as I stopped behind the heavy oak bar.

  "The Church rarely sends a Mage-Breaker for a health inspection," I said, keeping my voice level and conversational.

  "Adamas Soulsman," Malakai ground out. His voice lacked any inflection. It was just sound, heavy and blunt. "You bypassed the Tribulation of a High Scholar. You manipulate the flesh of the condemned to rewrite the System's laws."

  "I cook," I corrected. "What they do with the calories is their business."

  Malakai stepped forward. The suppression field intensified, rattling the glass bottles behind the bar. "The Pontiff calls it heresy. The corruption of the Divine Path. I am here to dismantle the rot."

  He didn't reach for his sword. He reached for a stool.

  The heavy ironwood groaned in protest as the Bishop sat down at the bar, his armored gauntlets resting flat against the polished mahogany. He stared at me, an immovable object waiting for a reaction.

  "If it is poison," Malakai said slowly, "I will taste it before I burn the source."

  I studied him. He wasn't looking for a fight tonight. He was an executioner, yes, but he was also a zealot driven by absolute certainty. He needed to understand the sin before he punished it.

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  I turned my back on him and walked into the kitchen.

  Yuno had a cut of the basilisk resting on the board. I looked closely at it under the dim, non-magical light of the hearth. There was a microscopic tear in the muscle fiber near the edge. A slight hesitation.

  When Yuno had dropped from the canopy, his blade had met the fractional resistance of a denser scale, forcing him to adjust his angle by a millimeter.

  It wasn't pristine. The earth mana hadn't pooled evenly in that specific corner of the cut. It would be slightly tougher, a tiny knot of resistance in an otherwise tender cut.

  I plated it anyway.

  I brushed it with the wyrm-honey glaze, added a sprig of charred star-thyme, and carried the obsidian slab out to the bar. I set it down in front of the Bishop.

  "Phantom-Vein Basilisk," I said. "Harvested three hours ago."

  Malakai looked at the meat. His anti-magic field gnawed at the residual earth mana trapped within the crust, but the sheer density of the basilisk's core held firm. He stripped off his right gauntlet, revealing a hand heavily scarred by spell-burns. He picked up the silver fork and knife.

  He cut into the meat. The blade passed through smoothly, until it hit that tiny, microscopic knot of resistance Yuno had left behind. Malakai pressed harder, severing the fiber, and brought the piece to his mouth.

  He chewed.

  The dining room held its collective breath.

  Malakai stopped chewing. His grey eyes, previously devoid of any emotion, widened by a fraction of an inch.

  He was waiting for chaos. He was waiting for the demonic, unnatural surge of stolen power that usually accompanied forbidden alchemy. He was waiting for the heresy.

  Instead, the earth mana broke over his tongue like a foundational pillar. It was heavy, quiet, and deeply resonant. The wyrm-honey provided a sharp, clear contrast, highlighting the profound age and stillness of the forest the beast had come from. The slight toughness of the meat wasn't a flaw in the magic; it was a testament to the physical struggle of the hunt. It tasted like blood, soil, and survival.

  It didn't feel like a perversion of the System. To Malakai's quiet, suppressed horror... it felt like genuine creation.

  He swallowed. He set the fork down carefully on the obsidian slab.

  For a long, agonizing minute, the Bishop of the High Church simply stared at the half-eaten cut of meat, the rigid architecture of his worldview trembling under the weight of a single bite.

  The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Behind me, the kitchen was entirely still. Yuno wasn't chopping; Myria wasn't breathing.

  Malakai kept his grey eyes fixed on the half-eaten cut of basilisk. He did not reach for his greatsword, nor did he erupt in righteous fury. He just stared at the sear on the meat, as if trying to read a heresy written in the rendered fat.

  "You are looking for the cheat," I said softly, breaking the quiet.

  Malakai didn't look up. "The Church defines heresy as the theft of the Heavens' design. Power unearned. A shortcut through the System's architecture."

  "And you tasted a shortcut?" I asked, leaning my forearms against the bar.

  "I tasted... the forest," he murmured. It was a terrifying admission from a man built to destroy mages. He slowly pulled his gaze away from the obsidian plate to look at me. "But Scholar Vane advanced. A bottleneck of two decades, shattered by a single plate of food. That is a subversion of the Trials."

  I shook my head. "The Tower thinks mana belongs in a spell circle. The Church thinks it belongs in a prayer. You both forgot it comes from the dirt."

  I pointed at the meat on his plate. "There is no unearned power here, Bishop. The boy who butchered that beast left a microscopic knot in the muscle fiber because his blade caught on a scale. He hesitated. He bled for that cut. The girl who managed the hearth nearly drained her core trying to match the basilisk’s density. They worked for it. I just showed the meat how to yield."

  Malakai picked up his right gauntlet from the bar.

  "The System does not reward culinary effort, Adamas Soulsman," the Bishop replied. He slid the heavy steel over his scarred hand. The leather straps creaked. "The Divine Path requires tribulation. It requires faith. To grant a Tier-7 advancement through digestion is to mock the Heavens."

  "The Heavens didn't build this world, Malakai. They just put a roof over it. I'm just using what's in the basement."

  The Bishop stood up. The massive, chained greatsword on his back shifted, and the anti-magic field pulsed. It felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest, a cold reminder that this man could snuff out my life’s work with a single draw of his blade.

  He looked around the darkened dining room. The patrons were still frozen, terrified to even blink while the Church's executioner breathed the same air.

  "The taste is not demonic," Malakai stated. His voice was cold, measured, and devoid of the fanaticism I expected. It was worse than fanaticism. It was duty. "But the law of the Pontiff does not bend to flavor."

  He turned away from the bar, his sabatons striking the floorboards with a heavy, final rhythm. He stopped at the heavy oak doors, looking out into the night sky over Oakhaven.

  "I am an instrument of the Tower," Malakai said, not looking back. "I will grant you three days. Ground this vessel. Burn your journals. Surrender yourself and your disciples to the local parish for judgment."

  He pushed the door open. The night air rushed in, carrying the distant sounds of the city.

  "If this hearth is still burning on the fourth day," Malakai finished, his voice dropping to a low, grating whisper, "I will not come to eat. I will come to break."

  He stepped out into the dark.

  The moment the door swung shut, the suppression field vanished. The glow-crystals in the ceiling flared back to life, flooding the tavern with warm, yellow light. The patrons collectively gasped, lungs expanding as the ambient mana rushed back into the room.

  I stood behind the bar for a long moment, looking at the two gold coins Malakai had quietly left next to the half-eaten plate. He had paid for his meal.

  The kitchen doors swung open behind me.

  Yuno stepped out first, his face pale, his hand gripping the hilt of his glass knife so tightly his knuckles were stark white. Myria followed, her tail wrapped tightly around her leg, her ears pinned flat. They had felt the sheer, crushing weight of a man who could unmake magic itself.

  "Master..." Yuno started, his voice barely a whisper. For the first time since I met him, the boy looked genuinely rattled. "That was a Mage-Breaker. He can sever a mana core with a single strike. What do we do?"

  I picked up the two gold coins. They were cold to the touch. I tossed them into the lockbox under the counter.

  "We do what any good kitchen does when a critic leaves a bad review," I said, picking up a towel and

  wiping down the mahogany bar. I looked at my two disciples.

  "We update the menu. Yuno, we're going to need a bigger knife."