Chapter 224 | Bloodline Awakening…?

Chapter 224: 224 | Bloodline Awakening...?

Dexter exited the house and walked toward the bakery.

The morning was still early and the air was cool, carrying the faint scent of freshly baked bread that had been drifting from the bakery as Dexter neared there.

Just like yesterday, the place was already packed, but the moment Tessa spotted Dexter through the entrance, her eyes lit up.

She was behind the counter, wearing her white apron over her blue dress. Her curly red hair was tied back with a ribbon that was already coming loose, strands escaping in every direction. Flour dusted a but of her nose, she had probably been baking since four.

She headed toward him immediately, practically skipping the entire way. The customers in her path parted without complaint. M

"Good morning!" she greeted, arriving in front of him with a smile that could have powered the city’s grid. "You’re quite early today."

Dexter shrugged. "Yeah. I woke up early to prepare the orders."

He lifted the two bags in his hands. Each one contained fifty sealed containers of Grade One Comfort Chicken Rice.

Tessa’s eyes moved to the bags.

"Come over here," she said, gesturing toward the back of the bakery, leading him through the narrow hallway behind the counter, into the small storage room where the thermal shelves waited.

Dexter followed.

Tessa pointed toward the empty section of shelf that had been cleared for his meals. "Just put them here. I’ll sell them one by one today."

Dexter began stacking the one hundred containers neatly.

He stepped back.

"If that’s all, I’ll take my leave," he said, turning toward the exit.

"Wait!"

Dexter paused and turned back. Tessa was standing in the doorway of the storage room, her hands clasped behind her back.

"You’re coming to the festival tomorrow, right?"

Dexter raised an eyebrow. "I already told you I was coming, didn’t I?"

Tessa shrugged casually.

"You might have changed your mind. I’m just making sure you haven’t."

She smiled.

Dexter couldn’t help smiling back.

"No, I haven’t changed my mind. Or do you want me to change it?"

Tessa’s eyes widened and her head shook so rapidly that her curly hair bounced in every direction simultaneously.

"No, no, no! Of course not!"

Dexter chuckled.

"All right. If there’s nothing else, I really have to get going."

His expression became slightly more serious.

’Selene still hasn’t woken up.’

He wanted to be there when she did and she hadn’t eaten yet. The Grade Five meal was waiting in the refrigerator, but he wanted to feed her immediately she woke up.

He didn’t want her waking up and finding him gone. So he was in no mood to waste time.

"If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back."

Tessa hesitated.

Suddenly, her hand reached out and caught his sleeve.

Dexter looked at her with a puzzled look.

"Is something the matter?"

Tessa wanted to speak but then she hesitated again. After a while, she eventually spoke.

"The food you gave me..."

Dexter stopped as he looked at her hand on his sleeve. Then at her face.

"What about it?"

Tessa looked at him curiously.

"The food you gave me that time. Did it have any special effects?"

Dexter blinked.

"Yeah, all the meals I gave you have special effect."

Tessa immediately shook her head as her curly hair bounced as she spoke in a serious voice. "Now these ones. I meant the one you gave me to eat when I came to your home through the fence."

’The food I gave her.’

He rewound through his memory. The first meal he had ever given Tessa. Weeks ago. Before the bakery partnership.

It had been a small portion and was the remains of his wives bloodline meals

Those ingredients carried bloodline-awakening effects as a passive property. He hadn’t thought about it affecting Tessa.

And Tessa had eaten it.

Dexter studied her carefully.

’Did she awaken a bloodline?’

He looked her up and down. His Arcane Nutrition Insight, which provided passive information about ingredients and their effects, didn’t extend to reading other people’s cultivation status. He couldn’t detect bloodline activation through observation alone.

But he could look for signs.

Tessa’s skin was clear. Healthy. The complexion of a 17 year old who spent her days in a bakery and her evenings in a garden. Nothing unusual there.