The roar in the Aether-Hex Arena was a physical thing, a tidal wave of sound that vibrated through the steel-plated floors. Holographic commentators buzzed above, their voices booming with aether-amplified clarity. "And on the Diamond Stage, the culinary prodigy, Reign Voltagrave, has just electro-seared a Tomahawk steak to a cellular-perfect medium-rare in ninety-seven seconds! The umami field readings are off the charts!"
Cheers erupted, a storm of adoration for the academy's shining prince.
Then there was the Iron Stage. The forgotten one. The stage for placement duels, for no-names and burnouts. The one currently occupied by Izen Loxidon.
Silence didn't cover the Iron Stage; mockery did. Giggles and snickers rippled through the stands. Ciela Vantablue, her silver hair shimmering under the broadcast drones, was already live-streaming from the student section, her filtered voice a breathless whisper to her millions of followers. "OMG, you guys, you have to see this. They literally let a construction worker into the academy. #CulinaryCatastrophe #ClownChef"
The camera zoomed in on Izen. He was a visual crime scene. A fluorescent safety vest, the kind road workers wore, was stretched over a simple white shirt. His apron, a faded pastel pink atrocity, was covered in a repeating pattern of cartoon cats chasing balls of yarn. On his feet were two different clogs: one lime green, one traffic-cone orange.
He hummed a cheerful, off-key tune as he unpacked his gear not from a pristine knife roll, but from a battered, grease-stained industrial toolbox. The clang of heavy metal on the stainless-steel prep station echoed in the relative quiet.
His opponent, a sneering third-year named Favian with meticulously gelled hair, scoffed loud enough for the stage-mics to pick up. "Are you planning on cooking, or are you here to fix the plumbing?"
The theme for this duel was deceptively simple: "Chicken." The judges, two junior instructors from the Velvet Palate Society, looked bored. They had pristine, whole chickens laid out for both competitors on chilled marble slabs.
Favian's hands were a blur of classical grace. He brandished a French Sabatier knife, disarticulating his chicken with the fluid economy of a master. Skin, bone, breast, thigh—all separated with surgical precision. He tossed a carcass, the skin of the neck, and the wing tips into a chrome discard bin with a dismissive clatter. Pure meat for a pure technique.
Izen watched the bin. His eyes, the color of warm honey, held a peculiar glint. He ignored his own perfect chicken. Instead, he ambled over to Favian's discard bin and peered inside. "Excuse me," he said, his voice polite and completely unbothered by the growing laughter. "Do you mind if I...?"
Favian waved a hand dismissively. "Take the garbage. It suits your station."
"Thank you kindly," Izen said, hauling the bin back to his station. The crowd howled. Even the commentators were struggling.
"Unprecedented, folks! Is Loxidon conceding the quality game before it even begins? He's choosing to cook with… scraps."
From her seat, Nyelle Ardent watched, her arms crossed tight. Her meteor-streak hair, a vibrant crimson and orange, seemed to smolder. "Idiot," she muttered, though her eyes were narrowed with a concentration that belied her disgust. She'd seen a thousand arrogant prodigies and a million wannabes. But she'd never seen a contestant actively sabotage themselves with such baffling cheerfulness.
Izen's 'mise en place' began. Out of the toolbox came a small, modified jackhammer with a flat, polished steel plate welded to the end. He laid the discarded chicken skin on his board and, with a BRRRRAAAAP that made the judges jump, vibrated it at a controlled high frequency.
"Is he… tenderizing skin with a jackhammer?" Ciela shrieked with laughter into her stream.
Next, Izen pulled out what looked like an automotive paint sprayer, its canister filled with a dark, viscous liquid. He carefully arranged the leftover neck, bones, and wingtips in a pan and coated them with a perfectly atomized mist of his secret marinade. There was no brushing, no soaking. Just one psssshhh and every millimeter was covered.
Favian was already searing his perfect chicken breast, the air filling with the rich, traditional aroma of butter, thyme, and garlic. He smirked at Izen's antics. It was performance art, not cooking.
But Nyelle leaned forward. The air around Izen's station wasn't perfuming the arena. The aromas were… contained. Tightly coiled. She was a master of aether-heat, a flame-sorceress of the wok. She understood energy flows, the way flavor volatilized into the air. What Izen was doing wasn't chaos; it was a bizarre, almost violent, form of control.
Finally, with minutes to spare, Izen pulled out a heat gun. The industrial kind, used for stripping paint. He aimed the focused nozzle at the jackhammered chicken skin, which he had rendered over his peculiar bone-and-wing-tip reduction. The skin blistered, crackled, and puffed into a translucent, golden shard that looked like spun glass. A chicharron of impossible delicacy.
"Time!" a judge called out, snapping a tablet over his knee.
Favian presented first. His dish was a textbook masterpiece: Suprême de Volaille a la Velvet. The pan-seared breast was fanned out in perfect slices, resting on a bed of silk-smooth pommes purée, napped with a flawless cream sauce. It was elegant, aromatic, and achingly… correct.
The judges tasted. They nodded.
"Impeccable knife work, Favian."
"The sauce has excellent body. Textbook execution."
It was the kind of praise that secured a high grade but never a legend.
Then it was Izen's turn. He placed a single, rustic stoneware bowl before them. Inside, nestled on a small mound of glistening rice, was a single, glistening piece of that ridiculously puffed chicken skin, and a spoonful of the dark reduction sauce made from the 'trash.' That was it. No garnish. No flourish. Just… scraps on rice.
One judge let out an audible sigh of exasperation. "Mr. Loxidon, is this a joke?"
"Taste it," Izen said, his smile never wavering.
Reluctantly, the judge picked up his spoon—a specially forged silver utensil of the Velvet Palate Society, designed to detect the faintest flaw. He cracked the chicharron, the sound echoing like shattering glass in the hushed arena. He scooped up a bit of skin, rice, and a drop of the sauce. He brought it to his mouth.
And the world stopped.
For one second, there was nothing. The judge's eyes were wide. The spoon trembled in his hand.
Then came the memory.
It wasn't just the taste of chicken. It was the memory of every chicken. It was the sun on a dusty yard, the ghost of corn feed, the earthy funk of a coop. The concentrated essence of Favian's discarded bird had been unlocked, its entire life story force-fed into a single, explosive bite. The jackhammer hadn't just tenderized the skin; it had vibrated its 'memory lattice' open. The paint sprayer hadn't just marinated the bones; it had shock-infused them. This wasn't cooking. This was Residual Alchemy.
The judge's eyes rolled back in his head. A single, perfect tear traced a path down his cheek. He slumped back in his chair, a look of pure, unadulterated ecstasy on his face. The silver spoon, forged to be unbreakable, fell from his limp hand and clattered on the floor, a hairline crack now marring its perfect surface.
His partner stared, aghast. "Marcus? What is it?" He nervously took a bite himself.
His reaction was identical. He dropped his own spoon and grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white, a choked sob escaping his throat.
The arena was dead silent. A million viewers on Ciela's stream watched, their sarcastic comments frozen mid-type. Favian's perfect sneer had melted into a mask of disbelief.
From the VIP box, Reign Voltagrave, who hadn't even bothered to watch the match until the silence became deafening, stood up and stared down at the Iron Stage, a flicker of something dark in his eyes.
Nyelle Ardent shot to her feet. That wasn't Umamancy. It wasn't technique. It was something else. Something forbidden. Something that didn't just target the tongue, but the soul itself.
The first judge finally found his voice. It was a hoarse, reverent whisper.
"Winner… Izen Loxidon."
The title of the duel, once a mockery, now seemed prophetic. The 'laughing ladle'—the utensil of the academy's jesters and fools—had been silenced.
Izen just packed his toolbox, the cheerful clanging of metal echoing in the vast, stunned silence. He picked up the judge's cracked spoon and gently placed it on the table. He turned to leave, his mismatched clogs squeaking softly on the polished floor.
"Wait!" Nyelle's voice cut through the air, sharper than any knife. She was at the edge of the stands, leaning over the rail, her eyes burning. "What was that? How did you do that?"
Izen paused at the stage exit. He looked over his shoulder, a hint of genuine surprise in his eyes as if he couldn't understand the fuss. He just smiled, a disarmingly gentle curve of his lips.
"Waste nothing," he said, and walked away.