Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

After everyone came out of the simulation, the group headed to one of the luxurious public gardens in Vorara City.

It was massive. Exotic plants everywhere, water features that glowed faintly blue, wide open spaces with stone paths winding through it all. The kind of place that cost money just to breathe in.

Ainen stood at the entrance and looked around slowly.

“We’ve spent way too much today,” he said.

“100,000 per person for the simulation alone,” Clovelle said flatly.

“Yeah.” Ainen cracked his knuckles. “I’m cooking.”

“Here?” Saffa raised an eyebrow.

“Right here.” He was already pulling ingredients out of his storage. Things he’d been picking up around the city for the past day — exotic stuff, the kind that smelled interesting just sitting in your hand. “Help me set up.”

Nobody argued. They’d eaten Ainen’s food before. They knew what was coming.

He got a fire going and started working. Within fifteen minutes the smell was already spreading through the garden. Something rich and layered and warm that had no business existing outdoors in a public space.

A woman walking past the garden slowed down.

Then stopped completely.

She stood at the edge of the path with her nose in the air like an animal that had caught a scent.

Saffa watched her for a second, then looked at Ainen, then back at the woman. She pulled out a small board from her storage, wrote a price on it, and held it up toward the stranger without saying a word.

The woman read it, looked at the food, and paid immediately.

“Oh,” Lily said. “That’s how it’s going to go.”

It snowballed fast after that. The smell traveled further than it had any right to, and people in Vorara City clearly had no resistance to good food regardless of how much money they had. A small crowd gathered outside the garden within thirty minutes. Then a larger one.

“Almond, Lily — payments,” Saffa said, already moving into organizer mode. “Fraisea, track the numbers. Clovelle, handle the dishes coming out. Benedict, Galvaren — I need you two at the entrance keeping order.”

Benedict looked at the growing crowd. “Fine.”

Galvaren almost smiled. “This will be fun.”

“Indeed,” Alfred said with a chuckle, positioning himself near the gate where his expression alone made people instinctively form a proper line.

Gopu sat in the corner of the garden in his mini form, tail curled around his feet, watching all of it with half-lidded golden eyes. Completely unbothered.

Ainen cooked for five straight hours.

He didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, didn’t look tired once. If anything he looked like this was exactly where he was supposed to be — moving between pots and surfaces with a focus that his three wives had probably only ever seen him apply to two other things in his life. The crowd outside stayed thick the whole time. People finished their food and went back to the line for more. A few tried to negotiate bulk orders. Saffa said yes to all of them at a higher price.

When the last dish went out and the final customer left, Fraisea looked up from her numbers.

“Total earnings — three million Anchor Points.”

“Ingredients cost?” Almond asked.

“One million.”

“Two million profit,” Clovelle said.

Ainen wiped his hands on a cloth and leaned against a nearby tree. “Five hours of cooking. Two million profit.”

“We’ll be able to pay for a place here.” Saffa grinned. “Who wants to go back to Arklight City? No one? I thought so.”

Everyone chuckled.

And they totally agreed.

From the garden they headed straight to the Meditation Mountain.

It was visible from almost anywhere in Vorara City — a massive structure rising high above even the floating districts, its upper half disappearing into a layer of something that wasn’t quite cloud and wasn’t quite sky. Up close it was even more striking. The mountain wasn’t fully natural. Platforms and carved meditation spots had been built into its face at different heights over what must have been centuries, each one a spot where cultivators and fighters sat to absorb the energy flowing through the stone.

The higher the spot, the denser the energy.

The denser the energy, the stronger the person sitting in it.

And the rule was simple. If a spot was taken, you had to challenge the current occupant to claim it. No challenges, no spot.

Almond stood at the base and looked up.

The people near the very peak were visible as small figures from below, but the pressure coming off them wasn’t small at all. It rolled down the mountain in quiet waves, the kind that didn’t announce themselves loudly but settled into your chest and made something in you pay attention.

’Those are not people I want to fight right now,’ Almond thought.

“Top is out,” Galvaren said, arms crossed, also looking up. “For now.”

“Agreed,” Nyssara said quietly.

“Near the top though,” Saffa said, scanning the upper sections of the mountain. Her eyes had already found targets. “Those spots look good. The people in them are strong but not unreasonable.”

“How many spots do we need?” Clovelle asked.

Almond counted the group. “Enough for all of us.”

They split into pairs and moved up the mountain path, identifying occupied spots near the upper face and issuing challenges one by one. The current occupants weren’t pushovers — a few of them were clearly veterans who’d held their spots for a long time and weren’t happy about being approached.

It didn’t matter.

The challenges went cleanly. No one in the group lost.

One by one they settled into their spots, spread across the upper face of the mountain with Vorara City glowing below them and the dark star-filled sky above. The energy at this height was dense and warm and moved through the body like a current, the kind that made you feel every part of yourself very clearly.

Almond sat down, crossed his legs, and took a slow breath.

Everyone closed their eyes and began to meditate.

The simulation was still fresh, and they could get some insights acquired evolved versions of their cards.

Moreover, this place wasn’t that quite as people were able to spar in an exotic isolated bubble platform to exchange pointers.