The villain daughter did all kinds of things

This Lian... is no simple character.

Amélie became even more curious about her and continued to stare at her.

However, Rei then took the initiative to ask Emerald for help:

"Young Miss, you know ice and fire magic, right? Since you can also cook, you shouldn't have any problem controlling the heat. Could you please heat up a few pots for me, and heat up the oil and broth separately?"

"no problem."

Amelie nodded readily.

She's someone who's fed several gluttonous cats, so while her cooking skills can't compare to professional chefs, these little things are still a piece of cake for her.

Snapped!

After the snap of her fingers, under the influence of magic, ten cylindrical cauldrons, each half a meter deep, floated in mid-air, flames appearing at the bottom of the cauldrons as they heated up.

Lian wasn't idle either. She took out a spicy sauce that was supposedly a secret recipe, marinated the sliced ​​fish, and massaged the fish slices.

Once the fish fillets have absorbed the flavors, the broth and oil in Ameliete will also reach the designated temperature.

She thought Lian would fry the marinated fish fillets before braising them... This is the normal way to make braised fish.

Unexpectedly, Lian took out a large stone, then took out her jade ruyi, blew on the stone, and then had Amelie pour the broth onto the stone.

Emery did as she was told, and the flavor and temperature of the broth did not dissipate as the broth flowed away; instead, they were fixed to the surface of the stone by Emery's magic.

Lian took out a pair of bamboo chopsticks longer than her arm and quickly picked up all the fish slices one by one and stuck them onto the stone surface, allowing each slice to quickly release its aroma.

After all the fish slices were almost cooked by the hot stones, Lian took out her secret spicy sauce again, put it in a metal bowl, and poured hot oil over it.

The spicy sauce was already very fragrant, and when it was drizzled with hot oil, it became even more fragrant. Even Amelie, who had eaten a lot of delicious food, couldn't help but swallow her saliva. She understood why Lian could become a top star in Sphinx after only half a year since her debut. Her cooking skills alone were unparalleled!

With the fish and sauces prepared, the final step is plating, which is very simple for a chef who can manipulate ingredients with magic; it can be done with just a thought.

Before long, plates of spicy and delicious snow ray fish fillets were delivered to every room in every carriage of the entire magical train. Each person could also add scallions, cilantro, or sesame seeds to the fish fillets according to their own taste.

Amelie quickly returned to her room with several plates of spicy snow ray slices to eat with Julia and the others.

"Wow...delicious! It's even better than what Emery makes!"

Yulia's eyes lit up after just one bite. Despite her love for sweets, she didn't care at all about the fish slices' amazing spiciness and ate them in big mouthfuls.

Marcy and Viliana didn't say anything, but the rapid twitching of their elven ears as they ate the fish showed that they were thoroughly enjoying their meal.

Lulu once again abandoned her ladylike image, smearing her milk-white stockings with chili oil.

Even Emerald, though she managed to maintain her elegance, was incredibly fast as she shoveled fish slices into her mouth with her fork... After finishing half a plate of spicy fish slices, she was so comfortable that her black stockings were slipping down her legs.

Chapter 161 Locke City Without Julia's Protection

It's so delicious... no, wait.

The overwhelmingly delicious taste didn't completely captivate Amelie; instead, it alerted her.

She immediately stopped eating the spicy fish slices, first pulling up her pantyhose that had slipped down, then observing the fish slices while carefully recalling the process of Lian cooking them.

Lian's cooking skills were indeed high, but not so high that Amelie couldn't understand them.

Give Amelie some time to practice, and with the help of the magical artifact, she is confident that she can perfectly replicate this spicy fish fillet dish.

Will my homemade spicy fish slices taste just as good?

Based on her understanding of ingredients and seasonings, Amelie calculated that she could never replicate the taste of the spicy fish fillets.

Then there is only one answer.

Amelie looked at the plate in front of her again, but not at the delicious fish slices; instead, she looked at the spicy sauce on the fish slices.

The only thing that Lian called her secret sauce was that she took it directly from her storage space. Amelie didn't see the production process and couldn't replicate it... which is very likely the main reason why this spicy fish slice is so delicious.

Let's try and verify it.

Thinking this, Amelie took out an empty bowl and used water magic to create a bowl of the purest water out of thin air. She then rinsed the fish slices covered in sauce as clean as possible in the water.

When the red sauce was almost completely gone from the surface of the fish fillets, Emerald was still not satisfied. She put on a white glove from her magical costume, the Saintess, and used holy purification magic to clean the fish fillets once more.

Only then did Emery take out a bottle of her favorite chopped chili sauce, spread it on the fish slices, and put it in her mouth to taste again.

Sure enough, the snow ray fish fillets still tasted delicious, but they no longer had that amazing, electrifying flavor that made you feel like you were being electrocuted, nor did they have that irresistible urge to stop thinking.

There's definitely something wrong with Lian's secret spicy sauce! It's most likely not just a simple seasoning, but a special potion with magical effects!

"Anna, come here."

Amelie immediately waved to Viliana.

Still lost in the deliciousness of the fish slices, Viliana's eyes glazed over for a moment. She shook her head and stared blankly for a few seconds before snapping back to reality. Reluctantly, she put down the fish slices and walked over to Amelie's side.

Emerald's expression became even more serious.

She first took out a test tube and a small spatula, scraped some of the remaining fish fillets from her plate and put them into the test tube, then handed it to Viliana, asking her to try to extract the spicy sauce using the magic of extracting potion power from alchemy.

Viliana was somewhat puzzled, but she did as she was told.

Sure enough, under the effect of the extraction magic, a strange red magic power was extracted from the spicy sauce, and then captured by Amelie with a quick and swift holy seal.

Next, Emerald divided the collected red magic into two parts. She gave one part to Viliana to analyze from the perspective of elven magic, and took out a magical device to observe and analyze the other part herself, recording various data of this red magic.

Emerald's unusual behavior had, of course, already attracted the attention of the others in the room.

Yulia and the others quickly realized that Emerald suspected there was something wrong with the spicy fish slices, so even though everyone still looked reluctant, they stopped eating and patiently waited for Emerald's response.

Lulu, the youngest, had a weak will and still wanted to eat fish slices, but Yulia forcibly took them away from her. She was pouting and angry at the moment.

A moment later, Viriana got her result first.

All magic in the world originated from elves. No matter how humans improve and innovate, all magic has a corresponding elven magic prototype... Theoretically, an excellent elven mage can reconstruct the prototype of any magic through tracing its origins; at least Viliana can.

"This is not magic... or rather, it is not magic originating from elves."

Viriana confidently gave her answer:

"But this is indeed magic, not spiritual power as people in the Eastern Continent understand it... So there is only one possibility: it is the power of some kind of innate magic, also known as supernatural power in the Eastern Continent."

Magic and spiritual power are essentially the most basic mysterious energies in this world. They only have different outward manifestations due to different users' understanding of them, and they are relatively easy to distinguish. The effects of Eastern magic and spells are generally not difficult to identify.

The traces left by the uniquely human talent of magic, or supernatural power, are essentially the basic mysterious energy that has not yet been recognized or changed. In the eyes of Western practitioners, it is the form of magic, while in the eyes of Eastern practitioners, it is the form of spiritual power.

Therefore, Viliana's judgment is logically sound—there are no magical remnants of the elven magic prototype, so it could only be a product of innate magic.

"It really is innate magic..."

Emery was not surprised by the result, and at the same time quickened her pace.

Compared to Viliana's Origin Magic, Amelie's work was more like scientific research.

She used a magic device to observe and record all the data of that red magic power, and then imported it into another magic device that looked like a monocle.

Then, by putting on the monocle-like magical device and precisely locking onto it, Emerald could easily see the traces of this red magic.

As expected, every slice of snow ray meat had this red magic on it, and even Yulia and Marcy had traces of this red magic on them.

The effects of this red magic are not yet apparent, and the red magic on Julia and Marcy is still dissipating, so it is estimated that it will completely disappear in two or three hours at most.

It's possible that this red magic simply makes food more delicious, but it could also have some effect on the person who eats it... At least, Amelie dislikes the feeling of food being so delicious that it almost makes one want to give up thinking.

Amelie loves food and enjoys being close to pretty girls, but neither food nor closeness can affect her thinking ability, otherwise she will stop immediately.

Once you can accurately detect the red magic in your field of vision, dealing with it becomes simple.

Without a sound, Amelie put on the full set of [Saintess], then with a grab of her right hand, a high-level holy purification spell precisely targeted the red magic like a scalpel, completely removing it from the fish fillet and Julia.

"Alright, everyone can continue eating...Try it again."

After speaking, Amelie transformed her "Saintess" outfit back into her everyday clothes, speared a piece of fish with her fork, and put it in her mouth. After a moment, she nodded slightly, revealing a satisfied expression.

Seeing this, Marcy, Viliana, and Julia also continued eating the fish slices, and soon after they finished eating, they all showed a look of realization.

"I see, that magic is indeed the main reason why the fish tastes so good."

Yulia, being straightforward, directly expressed her feelings:

"Now that the magic is gone, the fish fillets are still delicious, but only slightly better than the dishes made by Emerald. They're not as good as before, when I wanted to eat the whole plate... Hmm."

At this point, Yulia tilted her head and thought for a moment, then said cautiously:

"That Miss Lian added strange magical talent to the food. Could there be a conspiracy?"

"I think it's unlikely. She probably just wants to make the food more delicious and her shop more popular."

Emery said without changing her expression:

"We should keep this to ourselves. Yulia, please don't go around telling anyone. It would be bad if it caused misunderstandings with Miss Lian or Brother Ark, understand?"

"Well……"

Yulia tilted her head, licking the remaining chili sauce off her fingers:

“Alright, although I still find Miss Rei a bit suspicious, if you don’t want to get involved for the time being, then I’ll leave it at that… because my intuition tells me that Miss Rei doesn’t seem to have any bad intentions.”

"Hmm, Yulia is so good, that's why I like you~~"

Emerald's smile grew even brighter, and she deliberately said things that would make Julia blush, though she was slightly surprised—Julia had actually figured out that she just didn't want to cause trouble.

If Julia found Lian suspicious, how could Amelie not?

Hailing from the Tianyun Empire east of the White Sea, Lian has only been in Sphingart for less than a year, yet she has already risen to the top of the Federation's social circles with just one shop, and she also has a close personal relationship with the eldest son and his wife of Lohid... All of this combined is quite suspicious, not to mention that Lian also used strange talent magic in the food.

That's so suspicious, poor thing!

If Emerald were an investigator like Miss Momo, she would definitely sneak into Rei's room tonight to find out Rei's secrets.

But Emerald is different, and her main purpose this time is to kill her fiancé, so there is no need to make trouble for Lian. Just have your people be on guard... Maybe when we get back, we can sell this information to Mengmeng and let her actually infiltrate and investigate?

Along the way, Emerald also chatted with the other guests and carefully observed them, especially Starling... After all, Starling was her friend, and if Lian's magic really had a problem, Starling would still have to help.

Fortunately, nothing serious happened. The magic seemed to have only made the food taste better, and the red magic on Starling and the others almost completely disappeared about two hours after the meal. They weren't affected in any way; they simply thought Lian's cooking was superb and planned to eat at Zuihonglou more often in the future.

The magic train encountered no further incidents and traveled smoothly, arriving at a human-built exploration station on the snowfield as planned by Ark.

Just as humans on Earth like to build research stations at the North and South Poles, the Allen Federation has also built many similar exploration stations in the northern snowfields, providing a place for people who come to the snowfields to gather, hunt, and cultivate to rest.

Not far from the exploration station is a frozen lake with an ice layer more than 3 meters thick, but below the ice is water tens of meters deep, containing various aquatic creatures.

This is why an exploration station was built here; with this ice lake, the station will almost never lack food.

The hunting party's dinner consisted of food sourced directly from the frozen lake.

First, people used fire ray magic to burn round holes in the surface of the frozen lake. Then, they took out the chicks they had prepared in advance, tied them to a hook at one end of a thin thread, and put them into the round holes.

Once you feel the thin line twitch in your fingers, give it a sharp jerk. You'll likely catch a large crab with meat in its claws that's almost the size of a sausage. It's delicious steamed and dipped in sauce.

Lian once again provided everyone with her secret spicy sauce. Even though everyone had just eaten it at noon, they didn't find it greasy at all and still enjoyed it very much.

Emerald also accepted Rei's secret spicy sauce, but after returning to her room, she put the spicy sauce away and replaced it with her usual sauce, which she then shared with her companions.

After dinner, the teachers and students of Lohid Magic Academy were gathered together by Ark to listen to his final explanation of the key points for tomorrow's red dragon hunt.

The guests mostly stayed in their luxurious cabins on the train to rest. Emery originally wanted to go and chat with Starling for a while, but found that Starling was really busy and was still studying and analyzing various financial data, so she didn't disturb her.

Back in her room, although Marcy and Viliana were still serving her, Amelie wouldn't be able to practice water magic with two women on either side tonight.

Because Lulu is also there, and she has to sleep with Emerald... No matter what Emerald does, she wouldn't do something so outrageous in front of her sister, especially since Lulu is still a minor.

So tonight, Emerald's only option is to sleep peacefully while holding her sister on one arm and her cat on the other.

Fortunately, the large beds in the train cabins were quite comfortable, and everyone slept well that night.

. . . . .

Compared to the peaceful night at the Snowfield Exploration Station, the night in Locke City was anything but peaceful.

Locke City was originally just a third-rate small city, mainly based on mining, which wasn't very profitable, so there were very few outsiders.

However, everything changed as Rock City became the movie capital. Although it is not yet as popular as the resort town of Champs-Élysées, it is almost certain to become one of the top tourist cities in Caledonia in the future.

Economic prosperity attracts a large influx of outsiders.

Especially with the booming film industry and excellent public security in Locke City, it's often said by outsiders to be a land of opportunity, a place where you can make a fortune doing any business.

This has made some people restless... You, Miss Melson, have monopolized the meat in the movies, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to go to the area around Locke City to have some soup, right?

Just like when Amelie first expanded into Champs-Élysées, those who wanted a piece of the pie in Locke City initially chose to send their own controlled gangs to test the waters.

The White River Gang, led by Fatty Vie, always adhered to Amelie's philosophy: Locke City is my backyard, and any insects that try to sneak in and steal flowers must be crushed!

All gangs attempting to enter Locke City were met with fierce resistance from the White River Gang, resulting in numerous large-scale brawls at night.