?Being saved from an illusion by a duck and an amazonian, it was far too good to be a coincidence.

Lith explained what had transpired when he first landed in this world and after some thinking, Dennis said, "So His Highness means to say There was a deity who looked after him?"

Lith nodded. "It's just a speculation for now, but something we cannot ignore. In any case, we have three paths in front of us that we can take."

"First: we go to the realm of devils, find places that have caves, and search for Miwa. Or"

"Second: we roam all the cities and barge into all churches to find Ralph. Or"

"Third: we go to that deity's place, seek its help, and get some clues."

"In either case, we have to spend quite some time looking around."

Dennis nodded. "Time consumption is inevitable. But, I have a hunch that at least Ralph won't be killed anytime soon by the church."

"I feel that too. A demon who landed in their clutches so easily it would be too foolish of them to kill him so quickly."

"Agreed."

Lith then squinted his eyes and stared at the laid out map, on the darkened areas specifically.

"I also have a hunch that Miwa won't be harmed so easily either."

Dennis raised his eyebrows. "Why do you think so?"

Lith had a solemn expression on his face. "Just a hunch. And I hope this hunch is correct."

It had to be correct. There was no other way. Lith grit his teeth.

"If His Highness says so." Dennis sighed. The words of his Prince were absolute and there was no debating.

"Let's go to that deity." Lith said and left with Dennis and Jenna.

..

The night had passed, it was the next day.

Under the scorching sun in the afternoon, walking on a shaded path due to the canopy of the tall trees, Lith, Dennis, and Jenna reached the shrine of the deity, holding various offerings.

The shrine was at a clean, levelled place, and the idol of the deity was a flat rock having a fish's carving on it.

Jenna stated this was the deity and Lith nodded.

Lith placed the fruits in front of the idol and clasping his hands, said, "Oh revered one, I thank you for saving my life the other day. Please accept this humble offering and"

Give gratitude where it was due. Lith was not a foolish young master to act haughty.

He offered the fruits first and then made a prayer to the deity, saying that he seeked an audience with him.

His words were casual and did not sound like ancient prayers or chants, making Jenna think that it was a futile effort.

Yes, deities did exist, but there was no way of confirming it or even seeing them.

Nobody on this planet had seen them, including the people from the church.

This deity here did protect a part of the forest, but that was something the ones living around were told by the older generations.

No one's actually seen any god. Let alone god, they had not even seen a devil! They were not so common to come by as the church states!

Sighing and thinking it was a futile effort, Jenna went to the side and sat on a protruding rock, looking at Lith and Dennis.

Looking at the rock idol, Dennis said, "Revered Deity, it is blasphemous for me to worship anybody other than my Prince beside me and the Queen and the Princess. But, there's nothing that says I cannot make an offering to you. Also, to be honest, I feel these fruits are bland. I'm not sure how you're even eating it for so many years and protecting these guys. You know, I can make something much better with these fruits. Something that you've never had in your whole lifetime. Oh yeah and I can also show you the process of how it's being made and give you the recipe. But, but, but, you need to guide me and His Highness beside me if you like it. I ain't gonna ask you to make a promise, but I'm sure you'll lose a lot of face if you don't guide us. Alright, alright, I'll stop and make the food."

Jenna felt her head spin just from hearing Dennis recite the dao of yapping while Lith smiled.

He gave Dennis an understanding nod and taking the fruits offered to the deity, quickly got to work.

Lith and Dennis used magic and quickly set up a traditional cooking stove made up of mud.

They brought some wood from nearby and lit the fire up.

Lith made two rock tables using Earth magic and also made out some essential utensils such as bowls and clay pots for cooking.

Dennis in the meantime ran into the forest to fetch some more ingredients and after ten minutes, was back with a sack full of them on his shoulder and holding a big bucket of water.

Soon, he got to washing, cutting, slicing, and peeling the ingredients while Lith did a taste test of everything Dennis brought. He listed down every single detail about the ingredients and it barely took five minutes to do so.

The two boys were far too efficient in the aspects of cooking and this was but the tip of their exorbitant culinary potential.

Lith shared the ingredients list with Dennis and started preparing things.

He handled the part of mixing, kneading, and fetching things while Dennis stirred, controlled flame temperature, and focused on the actual cooking of things.

What the two first did was extract sweetness from a sugarcane-like plant and turned it into thick sugary paste.

They then mashed a starchy plant and turned it into a glutinous dough, then threw it into an open fire oven for baking.

Once the sweet, spicy, and salty, and sour ingredients were prepared, Lith and Dennis divided the dishes into two parts.

Lith handled all the sweet and sour dishes while Dennis focused on the spicy and salty ones.

Lith quickly made sweet and sour stir fry noodles with the leftover glutinous dough.

That dough was flattened out and cut into noodles, then boiled and thrown into a clay wok for frying.

In minutes, the noodles were ready and Lith went to make a few other dishes.

Watching the two put Jenna in a daze and made her seriously rethink life as a whole.

She had never seen anybody work this efficiently and put their heart and soul into cooking!

Watching the two was like watching the gods of cooking themselves in action, orchestrating flavours with divine precision.

Jenna had no clue what she was spouting in her mind, but she did not care as she was far too absorbed in watching the two cook!

After a good two hours, Lith and Dennis had finished cooking and plating the dishes.

It was now time to offer it to the deity and see its reaction!