The Royal Treasury was no longer a vault; it was a pressurized steam cooker. Outside the massive mithril doors, the sirens of the clock tower wailed like dying banshees, signaling a "Level Omega" breach. Inside, the air smelled faintly of ozone, boiled holy water, and the expensive, metallic tang of melting gold.
Cedric sat cross-legged on a pile of ancient dragon scales, staring intensely at a small, brass kitchen timer. In front of him, the black iron guillotine-base simmered atop the "Knight-Stove"—the eight heavy infantrymen were still fused together in a geometrical formation, their enchanted armor now glowing a dull, cherry red from the residual heat of the [Violent Red Lotus] spell trapped beneath them.
"Maintain the resonance," Cedric muttered, his eyes narrowing. "If the temperature fluctuates by even 0.1 degrees, the proteins in the yolk will denature prematurely. We're aiming for a custard-like consistency, not a rubber ball."
[System Notification: Current Water Temperature: 65.48°C. Heat Source: Unstable. Suggestion: Add more conductive material to balance the thermal distribution.]
Cedric glanced around the vault. His gaze landed on a rack of legendary weapons—the [Deep-Sea Cold Iron Sabers], forged by dwarven masters to retain a permanent freezing enchantment. To any warrior, they were priceless relics capable of decapitating frost giants. To Cedric, they were high-grade stirring sticks.
He stood up, grabbed two of the sabers, and—with a casual flick of his wrist—snapped the hilts off. He plunged the blades into the simmering holy water.
Tshhhhhh—!
The cold iron reacted with the enchanted heat, creating a perfect, stabilized thermal equilibrium. Cedric began to stir the water in a slow, rhythmic figure-eight pattern.
"Perfect," he whispered. "Now, the egg."
The [Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Phoenix Egg] was vibrating so violently it was vibrating the gold coins off the floor. Cracks, glowing with a frigid, sapphire light, began to spiderweb across the shell. The primordial deity inside was awakening, its ancient consciousness screaming for rebirth, for fire, for the destruction of the mortal world that dared to boil it.
"Quiet," Cedric snapped, tapping the shell with his bronze shard. "You're clouding the broth. Stay submerged until the timer dings."
DING.
The sound of the kitchen timer echoed through the vault like a death knell.
Suddenly, the mythril doors exploded. Not from the inside, but from the outside.
First Prince Aurelian burst in, flanked by a phalanx of Platinum-Rank mages and the Imperial Inquisition. Aurelian was a "Blood Supremacist," a man who believed the very stars bowed to the Royal Lineage. He wore a cape made of manticore hide and carried a scepter carved from a titan's rib.
"Step away from the Divine Relic, you sacrilegious rat!" Aurelian roared, his voice trembling with greed. "The Phoenix awakes! Only the blood of the Sun-King can tame the—"
Aurelian stopped. His jaw hit his chest.
The Ice Phoenix Egg didn't explode into a magnificent bird of prey. Instead, the shell fell away in clean, poached sections. From the steam emerged a woman—or rather, a young girl with the icy, sharp features of an imperial consort. Her hair was a waterfall of frost-white silk, her skin was pale as moonlight, and she was currently bright red from head to toe, looking thoroughly steamed.
This was Elsa, the primordial avatar of the Ice Phoenix. She stood in the center of the pot, her sapphire eyes burning with a cold that threatened to turn the entire capital into an iceberg.
"Mortal..." Elsa's voice resonated with the power of an avalanche. "You have dared to... to simmer the Eternal Frost? Prepare to be erased from existence. I shall freeze your blood, shatter your soul, and—"
"You're over-seasoned," Cedric interrupted.
He didn't look at the Prince. He didn't look at the army. He reached into the System's inventory and pulled out a handful of [Refined Glazed Rock Candy]—a SSS-rank sweetener processed from the nectar of World Tree blossoms.
"Open up," Cedric commanded.
Elsa blinked. The sheer audacity of the command caused a momentary lapse in her divine aura. Before she could summon a blizzard, Cedric flicked a piece of the rock candy into her mouth with the precision of a master sniper.
The effect was instantaneous.
The "Absolute Zero" mana swirling around her suddenly turned into a soft, shimmering mist. Elsa's pupils dilated. The primordial hunger of ten thousand years, usually satisfied by devouring the souls of the unworthy, found a much more efficient fuel source: glucose.
"Sweet..." she whispered, her terrifying aura collapsing into a docile hum. "What... what is this alchemy?"
"It's called 'Proper Palate Balance'," Cedric said, grabbing her by the collar of her newly-manifested frost-robe and hauling her out of the pot. "You're the Ice Phoenix, right? Absolute control over cold?"
Elsa nodded dazed, her mouth still busy with the candy.
"Good. My pantry needs a dedicated cold-storage manager. Also, the potatoes out there need scrubbing, and I need someone to shave ice for the dessert course. Get to work."
"Excuse me?" First Prince Aurelian finally found his voice. He stepped forward, his scepter glowing with a blinding light. "That is the Guardian of the Empire! The bringer of the Eternal Winter! You... you have turned her into a kitchen hand? Guards! Seize the heretic! Slay him and bring the Goddess to my side!"
The soldiers charged. The mages began to chant the [Cataclysm of the Sun].
Cedric didn't even turn around. He was busy showing Elsa how to properly hold a scrub-brush.
"They're being noisy," Cedric noted. "Elsa, deal with the background noise. It's affecting the resting period of the meat."
Elsa turned her gaze toward the Prince. Her eyes, which had been soft and sugar-dazed, snapped back into shards of lethal ice. She hated the Prince. Not because he was a tyrant, but because his shouting was distracting her from the lingering taste of the rock candy.
"Be. Quiet."
She didn't use a spell. She didn't chant. She simply exhaled.
A wave of absolute cold swept through the treasury. It was so fast the mages didn't even have time to finish their first syllable. The Prince, his guards, and the Inquisition were frozen mid-stride. They weren't killed—Cedric had told her not to spoil the 'ingredients'—but they were encased in blocks of crystal-clear ice.
Prince Aurelian was frozen in a particularly embarrassing pose, his finger pointed at the ceiling and his tongue sticking out in the middle of a war cry.
"Now," Cedric said, ignoring the row of human popsicles. "Since you're an ice elemental, your hands are naturally sterile and cold. Use your mana to create a high-frequency vibration—like this."
Cedric grabbed the Prince's frozen scepter, handed it to Elsa, and watched as she effortlessly shaved it into a pile of fine, glittering snow.
"Perfect," Cedric nodded. "We'll use the Prince's 'Royal Scepter' as the base for a Blood-Orange Sorbet. It has a high mineral content."
Five minutes later, the Treasury doors were wide open.
The Princess Isabella and the remaining Royal Guard arrived to find a scene of utter madness. The First Prince and his elite guard were serving as decorative ice sculptures. The Royal Treasury had been rearranged into a high-end prep station.
And there, in the center of it all, was the legendary Ice Phoenix—the bird of prophecy, the destroyer of realms—wearing a white apron she had fashioned out of a royal silk banner. She was currently hunched over a bucket of cold-water tubers, her divine fingers moving like a blur as she peeled them with a shard of bronze.
"Master," Elsa said, her voice devoid of its primordial thunder, replaced by a focused, hungry intensity. "The starch content in these roots is high. Shall I prepare the ice-bath for the blanching process?"
"Not yet," Cedric said, tasting a spoonful of the holy-water broth. "First, I need you to go to the Imperial Garden and find some wild scallions. If they're frozen, even better."
Isabella stared at her brother's frozen face, then at the Phoenix who was currently arguing with a potato.
"Cedric..." Isabella whispered, her voice trembling. "What have you done? That is a god... you have a god washing vegetables."
Cedric looked up, a smudge of flour on his cheek.
"A god? Maybe. But in this room, she's a junior sous-chef with a serious sugar addiction. And if she doesn't get the skin off those potatoes in the next thirty seconds, she's losing her rock-candy privileges."
Elsa shivered at the threat, her peeling speed doubling until the bronze shard hummed with the sound of a jet engine.
Cedric turned back to the pot, his eyes reflecting the blue flames. "Highness, don't just stand there. You're blocking the ventilation. Either pick up a knife or get out of my kitchen. I've got a 'Divine Omelet' to finish, and the timing is everything."