The next day, Arena Gamma was buzzing with a rowdy, grease-stained energy.
It wasn't the usual refined, high-class crowd from the placement duels. The stands were packed with students from the lower-ranked, blue-collar guilds: the Tinker's Union, the Forgemasters, the Agronomy Division. This was their kind of fight. No fancy knife-work, no delicate plating. Just pure, unadulterated POWER.
On one side of the arena-kitchen stood the Titan Tools Club, and they had taken the theme to its absolute extreme.
Their centerpiece wasn't a stove; it was a behemoth. A V-12 engine block, salvaged from a dump truck, had been hollowed out and converted into a massive smoker. Thick exhaust pipes vented from the side, belching plumes of hickory-scented smoke. Next to it, mounted on a custom-built gyroscopic spit, was their ingredient: an entire, 200-pound wild boar. And aimed at the boar, ready to crisp its skin to a perfect crackling, was the roaring maw of a modified jet engine turbine.
Grit Hark stood before it all, arms crossed, a look of supreme confidence on his face. He and his team looked like a gang of post-apocalyptic mechanics ready to cook for a warlord. The crowd roared its approval.
Then, the doors on the other side of the arena opened.
Izen, Kael, and Elara walked in.
They wheeled in a simple steel cart. On it sat Izen's humming, stainless-steel box, an induction cooktop, and a few bowls. They looked less like a dueling team and more like a high school science club that had wandered into the wrong room.
A wave of laughter and derisive catcalls rolled through the stands.
"Is that a microwave?" someone shouted.
"They're going to fight a jet engine with a toaster oven?!"
Grit smirked. "Having second thoughts, Garbage Man?" he boomed across the arena. "It's not too late to start polishing my boots."
Izen ignored him. He calmly walked to his station and gave the humming box a gentle pat. Kael and Elara, looking terrified but resolute, began neatly arranging bowls and spoons on their prep table.
The duel's proctor, a burly teacher from the Forgemaster guild, stepped forward. "The theme is POWER! You have one hour to create a dish that best embodies this theme. The winner is decided by a panel of three judges, chosen from the captains of neutral guilds. Begin!"
With a roar, Grit hit a massive red button.
VROOOOOOM! WHOOOOOSH!
The jet engine turbine roared to life, shooting a controlled twenty-foot plume of searing blue flame. The heat wash was so intense that the first few rows of the audience had to lean back. The gyroscopic spit began to turn, slowly rotating the massive boar in the jet's fiery breath, its skin instantly beginning to sputter and crisp.
It was an overwhelming spectacle of raw, brute-force power. The crowd went wild.
On the other side, there was no spectacle at all.
Izen calmly unlatched the lid of his ultrasonic machine. He lifted it, and a cloud of steam, so thick and aromatic it was almost tangible, billowed out. It didn't have the smoky, aggressive smell of the roasting pork, but the deep, soul-satisfying aroma of his bone broth immediately began to weave its way through the arena.
He ladled the broth into a pot on the induction cooktop to keep it warm. It was beautiful. It had a deep, amber clarity and a rich, velvety texture. Kael and Elara, their earlier fear now replaced by a quiet confidence, began portioning out freshly made noodles and finely sliced herbs into bowls.
In the stands, Nyelle Ardent was watching with Ciela Vantablue, who was, of course, live-streaming the whole thing.
"He's making… soup?" Ciela said to her viewers, confused. "Against a whole roasted boar? I don't know, you guys. The optics on this are not good. My analytics are showing a massive viewer bias toward the jet engine."
Nyelle wasn't watching the spectacle. She was watching Izen's hands. They were calm, precise, efficient. "He's not just making soup, you idiot," she muttered, her eyes narrowed. "Look at the broth. That color. That viscosity. To get that from bones using conventional methods would take at least forty-eight hours of constant simmering. He did it in less than one. What kind of power is that?"
The duel continued. The Titan Tools team was all sweat, noise, and fire. They basted the boar with a spicy marinade using what looked like a fire hose. They cheered and high-fived as a huge thermometer signaled the pork had reached its target temperature.
The Hearthline team was the picture of calm. They said nothing. They simply moved in quiet harmony, preparing their bowls.
With a final, triumphant roar of the turbine, Grit crisped the boar's skin to a perfect, bubbled crackle. He shut down the engine, and his team used a small crane to lift the magnificent roast onto a giant platter. It was a masterpiece of masculine, fire-powered cooking.
With minutes to spare, Izen gave a final nod. His team was ready.
"TIME'S UP!" the proctor bellowed. "Present your dishes!"
Grit and his team swaggered forward, carrying their massive platter with pride. They carved thick, juicy slices of the pork, the crackling shattering with an audible CRUNCH. They served it with a simple, aggressive barbecue sauce. They called it "The Overlord's Reward." It looked incredible. The judges' eyes lit up.
Then, Kael and Elara stepped forward. They placed three simple, unassuming bowls on the judges' table.
It was a noodle soup.
In each bowl, nestled in the crystal-clear, amber broth, was a small nest of noodles, a few slices of green onion, a sprig of cilantro, and a single, soft-boiled egg. It was humble. It was clean. Compared to the mountain of roasted pork, it looked pitiful.
The crowd began to jeer again.
"That's it? That's your dish?!" Grit laughed mockingly. "That's not power! That's what you feed a sick old lady!"
One of the judges, a stoic woman from the Agronomy guild, looked at the bowl, then at Izen. "Chef Loxidon, the theme is POWER. Can you explain how this… soup… represents that theme?"
Izen stepped forward. His voice was quiet, but it carried in the silent arena.
"You see a bowl of soup," he said. "I see the strength of an entire herd. Your boar was powerful, yes. But it was the power of one animal, in one moment, released by fire."
He gestured to the bowl. "This broth is made from the bones of dozens of animals. The parts you threw away. It contains the power of their entire lives, the strength they held in their very skeletons. We didn't burn it out of them. We used pressure, vibration, and time to convince them to share it. Our dish isn't the loud power of a single explosion."
He looked directly at the judges, his gaze clear and steady.
"It's the quiet, concentrated power of a legacy."
The arena was silent. The judges stared at the simple bowl of soup with a newfound respect. It was no longer just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a story.
Hesitantly, the first judge picked up his spoon. He wasn't just going to taste a dish. He was going to taste a philosophy. He took a sip of the broth.