"Your Grace, please don't grieve. Tears are not good for your health." The Red Door House's steward humbly closed the door to the ailing Ser Willem's room, then watched Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen leave.
"It must be hard to put on such an act," Viserys thought, his purple eyes concealing a maturity beyond his years.
The Red Door House was currently a hotbed of intrigue, with Viserys and the steward locked in a power struggle.
The servants had already planned to steal the funds Ser Willem was guarding, wait for Ser Darry to die, and then kick the three of them out.
Viserys, however, was determined to prevent this from happening, seeing it as the first step in changing his fate.
The steward was acting, and so was Viserys.
Viserys was playing the role of a humble, cautious, and kind exiled king, a part that a transmigrator was naturally good at.
The servants were quite taken with this act, which made them relax their guard against these half-grown children even more.
"To reclaim Westeros, one cannot do without swords and dragons," Viserys thought, holding Daenerys's hand.
Restoring a kingdom wasn't something that could be achieved by mere words.
Live dragon eggs were out of the question for now, and Viserys had no idea where the Targaryen dragon egg treasury was hidden.
The year Rhaegar Targaryen was born, the royal family had lavishly experimented with seven dragon eggs and wildfire, resulting in the tragedy of Summerhall. And "Kinslayer" Aegon and "Dragonbane" Aegon had also tried to hatch multiple dragon eggs.
But when the Targaryen dynasty fell, all the dragon eggs vanished.
Even the dragons that reappeared later were hatched from the three fossilized dragon eggs of the fat Archon Illyrio.
Let's set dragons aside for now and consider personal strength.
But the biggest problem at the moment was the lack of military power. Ser Willem was on his deathbed, loyal sworn swords were long dead, and hired sellswords were hard to trust.
It all came down to Viserys himself, and his personal combat skills were somewhat lacking.
For a warrior to excel, it ultimately came down to a combination of social class, talent, and early education. "Poor in letters, rich in martial arts" – the way of a knight required not only sweat and talent but also gold dragons.
Viserys's birth was extremely high, and his talent was good, but his early education had been terrible.
He had already wasted a few years in King's Landing, and the six years in Braavos were almost entirely empty, meaning he started his training later and learned less than others.
The most competitive people in Westeros often began their page training at five or six, then squire training, until they became knights.
Super genius Daemon Blackfyre became a knight at twelve, and even late bloomers among geniuses were out in the field by fifteen or sixteen.
And he, Viserys, was fourteen, yet at best, he was still only half a greenhorn.
As he walked down the corridor, Viserys suddenly stopped. He felt a tremor in the air before him.
Then, a translucent information panel unfolded in his sight, looking very clear.
As the panel opened, various pieces of information flowed before Viserys.
[Viserys Targaryen]
[Age: 14]
[Profession: None]
[Reputation: A little-known, landless king]
[Charm: High]
[Companions: None]
[Attributes: Strength 1.1, Endurance 1.3, Agility 1.2, Spirit 1.4.]
[Special Talent: Unknown (Panel activated, rewards one talent skill)]
Viserys was ecstatic. His golden finger had arrived.
The next step was to allocate points. "Open for me."
As a tragic transmigrator, if he didn't want to repeat his predetermined misfortune, there was only one path: activate his golden finger.
Viserys had "Genius Skinchanger" Rhaenys and "Mother of Dragons" Daenerys, two individuals with great destiny, by his side. He often felt out of place for not being as talented.
This sudden joy was a flame that rekindled Viserys's otherwise dim dream of restoring his kingdom.
Without a talent entry, it would indeed be very difficult to defy fate.
The long-standing confusion, fear, and worry finally had a possibility of breaking through at this very moment.
Possessing power would be humanity's greatest desire, especially for Viserys, as crisis was already imminent.
Robert Baratheon was a brute, while Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark were honorable and upright knights. These few alone wouldn't pose too much trouble.
Others like Tywin Lannister, Littlefinger, Varys, and even Renly were ruthless characters who would stop at nothing.
Viserys's promises to Ser Willem by his bedside also contained an element of comforting the master-at-arms.
But now, perhaps he could only return to King's Landing and sit on that ugly, dragonfire-forged Iron Throne, bristling with spikes.
Viserys noticed that his talent bar also had an unopened "?" card.
Viserys, filled with anticipation and trepidation, watched as the panel activated and the card swiftly flipped over.
The image on the card was a ferocious dragon, black as coal, with eerie green eyes. The dragon exuded an inherent evil.
[Talent: The Cannibal (Gains enhancement through eating. If magical creatures are consumed, a higher boost may be obtained)]
"Is this talent a tribute to the infamous dragon-eating beast, The Cannibal?" Viserys wondered.
As the fiercest wild dragon, The Cannibal once fed on the corpses of dead dragons, newborn hatchlings, and dragon eggs.
Viserys felt that knight training could also improve his various attributes, but that would be too slow.
And now, The Cannibal's skill was clearly a fast track.
As the name suggested, Viserys also needed to eat to stack attributes.
Currently, there were no conditions for The Cannibal to eat dragon eggs or young dragons, such a waste of resources. Viserys decided to start with the food in the kitchen.
Viserys first sent Daenerys back to her room, then entered the kitchen himself.
Viserys looked at the dazzling array of raw ingredients and semi-finished products in the kitchen. By the standards of entertaining a king, it was a bit meager. But for an exiled king, it was passable.
Most of the food in the kitchen was seafood, with relatively little beef, lamb, pork, or venison, because Braavos's fishing industry was very developed.
There was smoked sturgeon, pickled crabs, plump oysters, raw oysters, and so on.
Braavos's rocky reefs meant no livestock farming, and its mining industry relied on iron, tin, lead, and other metals from nearby continents.
Cattle, sheep, and vegetables were also transported from Braavos's sphere of influence on the mainland, making them relatively more expensive.
This was somewhat different from Westeros. After all, Westeros still had a feudal manor economy, and many lords had their own manors and forests.
"Your Grace." Because Viserys had recently been frequenting the kitchen to tinker with gourmet food and even cook some dishes himself, the cook was no longer surprised by it.
After all, the great cuisines of the known world couldn't do without butter, spices, cream, frosting, etc., and Volantenes couldn't do without beets. Eating too much of it was truly unbearable.
Viserys would also cook some dishes himself.
The cook would only assume that the exiled king had completely lost his fighting spirit and had turned to pursuing delicious food. After all, the kitchen was the domain of the lower class, and such a noble young master should be wielding swords and spears.
Viserys saw the hidden mockery in the cook's eyes. Perhaps they already considered him insignificant. He would soon be driven out of the Red Door House, so what did it matter if he ate a bite more or less?
Then let's see who has the last laugh.
After the cook left, only Viserys remained in the kitchen. Viserys ignored the cook's disdainful expression and began to eat.
Sturgeon, crab, oysters, cake—Viserys tasted a little of each.
He found that none of them seemed to have any effect until he tasted the last of the sea snail meat. The delicious and juicy sea snail had a somewhat rich flavor.
After the sea snail meat entered his mouth, Viserys felt it transform into a pure power, warming his entire body.
[Strength attribute ↑]
Viserys was overjoyed. So, Viserys devoured the sea snail meat like a whirlwind.
To be safe, Viserys repeatedly tried other fish, crab, and shrimp, but there was no improvement.
It seemed that this Cannibal talent truly existed, but it was quite picky.
Sea snails were a specialty of Braavos. Besides producing dark purple dye, sea snails were also an expensive ingredient.
However, people tended to focus more on their commercial value and were unwilling to use them solely as a delicacy. Even Viserys, in Braavos, couldn't eat sea snails in large quantities.
If he ate them every day, Viserys felt he would eat himself into poverty.
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