(Not so) Iron Chef [Crafting/Invite]

[Shuwen]

Words: 662

As he was not trapped in a world without any relatives and very limited funds, one of the things Shuwen figured he needed to do was learn how to feed himself. As a chef, that involved learning how to cook. Apparently, the best method to actually cook involved manually cooking the food, something he had only a small amount of experience in doing. Before he tried that though, he briefly considered trying a more reliable, albeit less satisfying method; unfounded cooking. From what he’d researched, it was a method pretty much anyone could do, not just chefs. It was a simple matter of combining ingredients in the system menu, no manual labor required. Even without consulting the public at large, Shuwen figured it was an unpopular method, except by people desperate for food and those who didn’t care what their food tasted like.

As he brought up the system menu to do so, something else came to his attention; his cash level. Buying the exact ingredients he’d need to craft an available recipe cost money. He could sometimes find the ingredients in the field instead, but not always, and his funds were limited. He had a feeling he’d need as much as he could get to afford decent gear. Now that he thought about it, wasting precious ingredients on tasteless food probably wasn’t a good idea. Reluctantly, he closed the system menu and reconsidered his training method. Now that I think about it, it’s probably best if I just get right to cooking the old fashioned way. Having decided that, Shuwen brought up a menu list, and reconsidered what ingredients he’d need. Even though he hadn’t done much cooking back in the real world, favoring conveniences such as the microwave and preprepared meals, he wasn’t ready for making a whole lot of different things, but there were a few things he’d been successful in making on his own, perhaps he could do so in the game as well. I guess it’s worth a shot.

The first thing he needed to do was to decide what to make. His repertoire was limited to begin with, and he had to make it using in-game ingredients, preferably using no more ingredients then the system required. Scrambled eggs? No, it doesn’t require enough ingredients to count. Chili then? No, chili won’t do either, it requires too many ingredients. It’s got to be something simple, with ingredients that are clear and readily available within the game. Hmm, how about a hamburger? If I use cooking dough to make the bun, a beef patty cooked in seasoning, that’s three ingredients, it should work!

Cooking the hamburger would have to be done in two parts; making the bun, and cooking the patty. Back in the real world, the patty would have already been made, and he’d needn’t bother, but that wasn’t the case in the Elder Tales-ish world he’d found himself in. Unless he wanted to buy already-made bread and use it himself.

After a brief search, Shuwen was able to find an oven in a public area that wasn’t being used. After making sure no one else in the vicinity wanted to use it, he got to work. He kneaded the bread as swiftly as he could. He found his choice of main class to be quite useful in that respect. The dough didn’t need to rise any further, so there was no need to wait before baking it. Once he calculated a reasonable time and temperature to bake it at, he put the dough clump in the oven, and turned up the heat. He’d need to keep a close eye on the would-be bread once its baking reached the final stage, or he’d burn it, but until then, he could kill time by starting on the other part of the cooking process. Pulling out the ground beef he’d brought, he seasoned the pan he planned to use with sesame oil, and shaped the beef into a patty.

[Shuwen]

Words: 514

Now, here’s where the timing gets tricky. He wanted to finish cooking both the bun and the patty within a relatively short time frame, but that would require cooking both at the same time, at least part of the way through. Unlike the bun, the patty would require relatively constant attention, as it would require flipping about halfway through, but Shuwen believed he could do it. Turning up the stovetop to medium high, the monk coated the bottom of a skillet in cooking oil, and set it on the stovetop. Within moments, the oil was beginning to splatter a little as bubbles formed and burst within the oil.

Okay, it should be ready now. His teeth clenched, Shuwen placed the pinkish-red meat patty onto the skillet, and watched it start to sizzle. Looks like I set the heat just about right. Excellent, so far so good. He bent over to check the state of the bread. It looked like it was more then halfway done, but still needed a fair amount of time. All the better! At that point, the hardest part of cooking began; the waiting. You couldn’t try to rush the food or it would come out wrong, but you couldn’t go off and do something else either. For someone with ADHD like him, that turned it into quite a chore, but he managed to persevere and prevent himself from losing his focus.

A few minutes later, he checked the bottom of the hamburger patty, and saw the color of the meat had become sufficiently grey, and flipped it so the remaining red side was on the bottom. It’s about half done then. How is the bread doing? The bread looked much closer to being done, but still required some more time to finish.

He wasn’t sure which of the two finished first. He pulled the patty off the stove first, but it was also the first one he checked, so it might not have been the first one to be ready. To be sure it was finished, he used a knife to slice it open part-way, checking the color of the interior of his creation. There was still a small amount of pink in the center, but that section was small and felt warm to his touch, so it had probably been sufficiently cooked. No sooner was he done checking it when he realized the bread had also finished baking. I think this was a success. Shuwen thought happily. He sliced the freshly baked bun in half then and stuffed the pattey between the halves.

Alright, the moment of truth! His creation complete, there was only one thing left to do; eat it. The results weren’t as stunning as he might have hoped, but for something that was largely an experiment, he was quite happy about it. I forgot that I’ve been losing my taste for burgers over the past couple years. I also lack the scientific precision a first-rate burger would require, but this is certainly eatable. It was an encouraging start to what he hoped would be further success.

[Shuwen]

Words: 491

Next he decided to try and make something to go along with the hamburger. Right under the menu entry for ordinary foods was one labeled “fried foods.” I guess I can try that out next. Even if I’ve never done it before per say, I think I know how they’re made.” Potatoes, sliced thin, liberally seasoned in salt and cooked in oil. Even he could do that much with the materials he had on hand or could easily obtain. Heading over to a nearby ingredient stall, he bought the things he’d need to make them; a few potatoes, salt, and more cooking oil.

First, he began by slicing the potatoes into thin slices, as thin as he could reasonably manage. If they were to thick, they probably wouldn’t qualify as chips, but if they were too thin, they wouldn’t have enough strength to stay together and fall apart, which would be troublesome. Getting just the right thickness took some practice and experimentation. Unfortunately, he ended up with a few that were significantly thicker then they really needed to be, and a few that fell apart despite his efforts, but none of them were so bad as to be unusable in what he was making. When he was done, he used the oil to coat the bottom of the skillet he planned to use, and put as many potato slices on it as there was room for. In the real world, the potato chip manufacturers probably use something else to do this; some big newfangled machine with a conveyor belt. But getting one of those here would be a bit… yeah. At least I can do it with what I have, albeit not as efficiently

Turning up the heat on the stovetop, he began cooking the slices. Before long, the smell of cooking potatoes caused a few people to start wandering over to see what he was doing, though fortunately no one tried asking for some. Well, if anyone really wants some, I suppose I wouldn’t mind giving them some, he thought, wicked thoughts forming. But only if they’re willing to pay for it. When a few minutes had passed, he checked the underside of the potato slices currently on the skillet, Frying them wasn’t terribly unlike cooking a hamburger; cooking both sides relatively evenly, flipping at the proper time. The only issue was there were a lot more things to flip this time around. A bunch of smaller harder-to-get-under things. He was about halfway done flipping the slices when he realized he was doing it wrong; the utensil he was using was big enough to flip several slices at a time, and a slice that wasn’t ready to be flipped wouldn’t be hurt by being flipped a little too soon. He could flip several at a time, check if they were actually ready to be flip, and return the ones that weren’t to their original positions as quickly as he could.

[Shuwen]

Words: 428

Some time after he’d started, he realized he’d almost forgotten something. Fumbling through his inventory, he pulled out the third ingredient he intended to use; salt. Chips wouldn’t taste like chips without it, as depressing as that knowledge could be at times. If only someone could make a potato chip that retained the taste without salt. In his (real world) experience, he found baked chips to go a ways towards lessening the unhealthiness of potato chips as a whole, but they still used salt, so the differences could only go so far. I guess it’s something to ponder in the future. He thought as he poured salt over the chips he was currently baking.

Even before the first batch was done frying, he began to prepare the second. Chopping up another skillet’s worth of potatoes and salting them. By that point, the first batch appeared to be done, so he pulled them off the skillet and onto a fresh plate. He also tried one for the sake of doing so. Hmm, not as crispy as I’d like. Do I need to make them even thinner? Or something else? Unfortunately, he didn’t really want to take the time time to ponder it, so he supposed it was something to work towards in the future. He wanted to get the second batch done and hopefully work on some smaller improvements.

However, as he was putting them on the skillet, he got an idea, a possible way he could make them crispier after all. He increased the temperature he was baking them at, and lowered the time he intended to cook them. It increased the risk of him accidentally burning them, but it would also hopefully make them crispier. Usually, food gets crispier when it’s closer to being burnt, so cooking it more quickly might yield better results. Of course, it also increases the chance of carbonization, but it’s still worth trying I think. If it failed, he could just fall back on the ones he’d already made, or consult another chef about what he could do to correct the issue. As it turned out, he had so-so success. Some of the chips near the center ended up being blackened, but the ones on the edge had become nice and crispy like he’d planned. ALL RIGHT! Smilling, he put them in a container and moved it all into his inventory. He was about to leave when he remembered something important. Oh yeah, I have to clean up. He took one look at the heavily used skillet, cutting board, and utensils. Uuuuuugh.

[Shuwen]

Shuwen was deep in thought about something. Chef wasn’t exactly the most popular subclass in the game. Sure, it’s popularity had gone up after the discovery that only chefs and brewers could make food that had actual taste, but as long as their basic needs were satisfied, a lot of players didn’t have any more interest in food. That was… something he found to be irritating. I guess the only way to increase the value of chefs is to increase the value of food. That would require I stick my hand in research. However, to actually do so, he’d need to do one of two things; come up with a food item more effective and powerful then what was already available, or come up with something more useful. There are already a number of other chefs around, many of which are probably higher leveled with me. Most of the ones doing research are probably focused on coming up with more powerful things. With his level lagging, the latter was a more feasible option. That didn’t require as high a level, but it required more overall intelligence; it required coming up with a new use for food. Tapping his head, he began to think about it.

[Shuwen]

Fortunately for Shuwen, it didn’t take long for him to come up with an idea. The biggest change to food in Elder Tales since the apocalypse was it’s attractiveness; the inclusion of taste was apparently a new thing in this world. It was comforting, but not exactly practical, other then motivating someone to eat it. However, such motivations didn’t have to be restricted to humanoid races. Monsters probably enjoyed good food just as much as the humanoid races. And managing agro was an important part of fighting monsters, so why not make something that was particularly attractive to monsters? It could make for a good distraction, help draw agro to whoever was supposed to be drawing said agro, or act as a lure for a trap, once people figured out how to make those. Alrighty then! Fortunately, figuring out what would lure monsters wasn’t that difficult. For the most part, their minds were more primitive then that of humanoids, and they’d probably be attracted more to primitive tastes. As someone who’d just grown out of adolescence, he knew all too much about those already; sugar, salt, fat; the kinds of things that could be difficult to resist and all too easy to eat too much of. Fortunately, it hadn’t been as big an issue for him

[Shuwen]

Words: 159

It seemed Saskia was in need of an assortment of food items, and had sent him a message consisting of her order. Well, it was certainly something he could handle. After procuring the necessary ingredients, he went right to work on her order.

The first item on the list was a sandwich. A Tuna Sandwich to be precise. Fortunately, it was something Shuwen had a fair amount of experience making (and eating) back in the real world, so preparing it would probably be simple as long as he had the necessary ingredients. Most of the ingredients were available locally, with one exception, Tuna. He had to make a quick trip to the Thames coastline, and started looking for Sahagin, which he’d heard dropped it. Finding the Sahagin was easily enough; stirring up their waters brought a trio of them to him in a flash. First, he drew them in with Aura Kick and followed up with Tier Echo Fist.

[Shuwen]

Words: 171

The second skill staggered them somewhat, allowing him to charge in and finish off the first one. The second one he took care of with a Zoom Attack and two more regular attacks. The third one, unfortunately, managed to flee once it saw the fight had turned against it. It slipped back into the water where he wouldn’t be able to follow effectively. Fortunately, the two he’d fought dropped more then enough tuna meat to suit his needs, so he turned around and headed back to Londinium.

Spreading the tuna on a piece of bread, he added lettuce and tomato. Those toppings were then quickly followed by another slice of bread With that, the first food item on the list was complete. The second one would probably be even less of an issue; he’d already made potato chips for himself, he could probably just move some of the chips in his inventory into the package he planned on sending it in. With that, the second order on his list was complete.

[Shuwen]

Words: 194

The third item was something that Caerbannog had taught him how to make; doughnut holes. It required a bit more advanced equipment then he normally used; namely a deep frying pan, but he didn’t need to gather any hard to obtain ingredients, so that saved him a trip. Since Caer had already said it was fine to use the cooking facilities in the Abbey, he decided to make them there. He pulled out some milk, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs and butter. It was the first time he was going to try making doughnut holes by himself, but he was eager to try. The sugar, salt, baking powder, and flour were all poured into a single bowl and mixed together. The butter went onto a sauce pan on a heated stove, where it began to melt. When the dry ingredients were sufficiently mixed, he made a small crater thing in the center of the mix, in which he poured the milk and eggs. Once again he began to stir, combining the dry ingredients with wet ones to form the batter, a moment later he poured in the melted butter. So far so good.

[Shuwen]

Words: 166

Putting the deep frying pan on the stove, he poured some cooking oil onto it and let it spread. By that point, the batter was pretty muh ready for frying, so he used an ice cream scoop to pull out ball-shaped pieces of batter and drop them into the fryer, where they began to cook. Within a few minutes, he’d used up all the batter, which was currently frying in the pan. For when they were done, he prepared a plate covered in paper towel to soak up the oil, then got to work on the glaze. For that, he mixed powdered sugar, milk, and a small amount of vanilla extract, until it was fully dissolved and watery. When the dough balls were done frying, he pulled them out of the deep frying pan and onto the toweled plate he’d prepared. When it looked like they were done dripping oil, he then started coating them with the glaze. It was tedious, but didn’t take too long.

[Shuwen]

Words: 166

The last item on the list was something he hadn’t made yet; though he was vaguely familiar with the pet system even before Elder Tale became more then a game, he hadn’t really done anything with it, or for it. Apparently Saskia was a different story; as a cavalier, she had a mount of her own, who needed to be fed. That was why she wanted to order some pet food for it. I guess that makes sense. Animals need to eat too, and feeding your mount better food will produce better results. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how to go about making them, so he had to do some research. Namely, consulting other chefs who were already familiar with the recipe on how to do so. It didn’t take him long to find one, but the chef he found insisted he pay him, which was more then a little annoying, but he complied; the Monk figured it wasn’t as bad as having to find another on.

[Shuwen]

Words: 246

The recipe he used was similer to making rice crispy treats, which he was a little more familiar with. The main ingredients were apples and oats, held together in a square shape by sticky molasses, which was then baked in a cake. Making the mix was… a bit awkward, as the molasses wasn’t quite as compliantly mixed as he’d hoped. However, after about half an hour of messing about with it with his hands, he managed to mix the three ingredients more or less evenly. Pouring the entire mixture onto a large trey, (which, due to being made from molasses, also took longer then he would have liked), he put it all in an oven and began to bake it. By that point, his hands were quite sticky from the molasses, and he had to wash them both quickly and aggressively in order to get back to the cooking as quickly as possible. The timing on the recipe he’d purchased wasn’t very exact, which was quite a pain to him; he had to constantly watch the dish being prepared, periodically pulling it out of the oven to check on it’s condition, but he finally managed to finish it. Cutting the large cake into smaller pieces that were just large enough to comfortably hold in one hand, he wrapped each one individually and lashed them together into a single package. Well, that’s all of it. I’d best send it all to Saskia as soon as I can.

[Shuwen]

Words: 349

Once again, someone made an unusual order for him. Ice cream cake? I had no idea you could even make that here. I guess the player base is advancing faster then I thought. I’ll need to look this up. Fortunately, he’d managed to make a contact or two who would teach him new recipes in exchange for a small amount of money, so it didn’t take him very long to learn.

So you mold or cut the cake part, then freeze it so it doesn’t melt the ice cream on contact. That made sense, if he’d put a layer of ice cream on a freshly baked cake, it would destroy itself due to the heat melting the ice cream, which would obviously be pretty bad.

First, he’d need to make the cake component, which he decided to make out of pound cake. For that he needed butter, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and salt. First, he preheated the oven. As it was preheating, he thouroughly mixed the butter and flour and put it in a circular cake pan. Next, he added the eggs. Cracking them open on the side of the pan, he dumped them into the mix one by one, discarding the shells as needed. Once four eggs were added, he stirred it again, even more thoroughly then before. Once that was done, he added the vanilla and salt, beating the mix only until it was combined. For some reason, the recipe specified not to over mix at that point. By that point, the oven was done preheating, and the mix was ready for it. He stuck the pan in the oven, and waited for about an hour. When it was done, he pulled it out. It wasn’t a first rate cake; he had a suspicion that he hadn’t done a good job mixing the ingredients, but it was good enough that he didn’t feel like doing it over again, so he considered himself satisfied, and stuck it in a cooled container to freeze. Gotta remember to turn off the oven too. He made sure to do so.

[Shuwen]

Words: 253

Once the pound cake was completed and ready, he added a layer of sugar to add friction between the two layers, so they were more likely to stick together. Once that was done, he began to add the actual ice cream cake layer. Actaully making ice cream was beyond his knowledge and available tools, so he’d had to buy some from elsewhere. It was a blow to his pride as a chef but, well, the pride was nearly non-existent to begin with, so it wasn’t really a big deal. Spreading out the ice cream along the top of the pound cake, he made an extra effort to keep it uniform, to make it look as though they’d been part of the same object for some time. Just in case, he stuck that creation back into the cooled container so the Ice cream wouldn’t melt. Next I’m gonna need… He pulled out some cake frosting. He hadn’t found a way to make food coloring, or sprinkles, so he was stuck with plain vanilla frosting, but he doubted the customer would complain. Pulling the cake back out, he added a layer of frosting along the entirety of the cake. He tried to experiment with decorations as well, but they didn’t go very well, so he quickly gave up. However, since the cake was technically finished, he quickly packaged and inventoried it so it could be sent to the customer.

Okay then, now I’ve gotta clean up! He thought as his enthusiasm began to fade rapidly.

[Shuwen]

Words: 504

Shuwen had an issue he wanted to deal with, an issue pertaining to the things he made with his crafting class. Shuwen was a chef, someone who made food for people. While anyone could make food, only a chef could make food with taste and statistical benefits other then staving off hunger. The other most common benefit of eating food were the healing benefits. Depending on what type of food it was, it could frequently heal the eater’s HP or MP. Of course, the amount was dependent on the item’s level, so Shuwen tried to keep his crafting level ahead of his main level, so he could supply himself with food items that had stronger healing properties proportional to his level. It wasn’t very easy, and frequently boring, since he liked to fight a lot more then he liked to cook, but it was an interesting learning experience. However, there were limitations to how much he could progress on his own. Cooking new things required the technical knowledge to do so. As someone who only infrequently touched an oven before the apocalypse, he’d had plenty of catching up to do. Fortunately, he’d met plenty of other chefs, enough of which had been willing to help him get started. So now he was reaching out a bit farther.

Apparently, pastilles were currently the most in demand recipe on the market at the moment. They restored a significant amount of HP or MP for their level, but were tastier and quicker to consume then even potions, which normally had an advantage in speed over food, which could take significantly longer to consume. Considering Shuwen didn’t really have money to spare on potions, he was happy to be able to make his own healing items, and being able to make better healing items would definitely be to his advantage. The issue was, he had no idea how to make pastilles, even less of an idea then he did most recipes he usually needed help with.. To be completely honest, he wasn’t even entirely sure what a pastille was exactly, which was rather embarrassing. It seemed to be something like a gummy or fruit snack, but he wasn’t really sure. It looks like I’ll have to do some research again. Fortunately, he had a few reliable sources for such information. They cost money, but not prohibitively so. Sighing, he retrieved an appropriate amount of gold from his bank account and headed over to a nearby restaurant. The chef there was something of an information broker regarding recipes, and made some extra money on the side by selling the information and recipes he knew regarding how to make different things to people like Shuwen, who lacked such information. After coming in through a side door and interrupting the chef in question, who was in the middle of making a chicken sandwich for a customer. After Shuwen handed over a set amount of gold, he quickly summarized what he knew and gave Shuwen some advice about how to make it.

[Shuwen]

Words: 520

Thanks to the info he bought from the chef, he knew how to make it now. Apparently you mixed fruit juice, strained fruit, sugar, and whatever else you wanted to put into it, heat it up, pout it into molds, then let it chill. Performing the recipe also required previous experience with the ordinary food and sweet confection recipes. Fortunately he already had that. He’d performed the ordinary food recipe countless times, and he’d practiced the sweet confection recipe while making custard with that crazy Heretic, Neun, so he most likely met the requirements.

However, acquiring the ingredients were another matter entirely. It seemed that the pastilles could be made using different herbs as a base, which were what gave the pastilles their strong healing capabilities. Different herbs would provide different levels of healing, and producing a strong healing effect would require a strong herb, which probably wasn’t going to be readily available on the market, at least not cheaply. Most likely, he’d have to gather the herbs he wanted to use himself. Based on what he already knew, the herbs he wanted could be found in Windsor forest, but their droprate was extremely low, and the monsters that did drop them were hard to find, so it was best to look elsewhere for them. A passing player recommended he try the poison swamp, which, despite the poisonous nature of the area, also produced some powerful antidotes and other herbs. It wasn’t an area Shuwen had gone into yet, but now seemed to be as good a time as any.

That was how Shuwen found himself in the middle of a foul smelling poisonous nasty swamp. Quite frankly, the view was terrible, the monsters were ugly, the smell was offensive, and the debuffs were annoying. Shuwen wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. Since he wasn’t there to farm, Shuwen was able to minimize the damage he was taken by simply avoiding fights whenever possible. Fortunately, while the zone wasn’t nearly as pleasant as Windsor Greatwood, it seemed to have been designed for newbie players, as most of the monsters there were simplistic and rather low leveled. A level thirty character of a class suited for soloing wasn’t really going to have any issues right away. Even better, most of the monsters there were docile or cowardly in nature, allowing him to avoid fighting them with little to no effort.

The first monsters he came across that attacked him without provocation (which, since he was avoiding combat, meant the first ones he fought at all) were a small group of possessed stumps. They were immobile, but capable of ranged attacks via throwing whatever they could get their hand-like branches on. When that many monsters attacked all at once, they could put out quite a salvo, despite their low level. Shuwen dodged the first few missles, thinking he could simply go through or around them due to their immobility, but as the intensity of their barrage increased, he quickly realized that wasn’t an option. Ugh, what a pain.

[Shuwen]

Words: 520

Fortunately, due to the difference in their levels, taking them out individually wasn’t really a problem. Shuwen took out one by throwing one of his knives at it. Due to being immobile, the stump was unable to evade, and the knife hit it squarely. Unfortunately, the focus required to pull out a knife and take aim had reduced his ability to aim somewhat, and one of the rocks the monsters were throwing him struck him on the shoulder. The damage wasn’t that great. Again, the large difference in their levels meant that taking a few hits from them was no big deal, but it was still somewhat painful, not to mention annoying. Fortunately, with one of the stumps defeated, the barrage’s intensity was slightly reduced. I guess that’s something. He pulled out two more knives from the waist pouch he kept his knives in. After taking aim as quickly as he could, he began to throw. The first one struck a second stump, dispersing it into a burst of multicolored bubbles, but the Monk didn’t stop to check; he was already taking aim at a third. Gotta do this quickly, so I don’t take any more hits then necessary.

Unfortunately, in doing so, he stood still for just a little too long, and one of the rocks hit his midsection. The damage was insignificant, but it messed up his form and posture in mid-throw, causing the knife to go wide. Oh come on! Even though he’d managed to interrupt monsters’ attacks with a well chosen interruption, it was the first time it had happened to him. Growling, he pulled out another two knives as he went back to dodging. I guess I can’t stay still long enough to throw more then one knife. He thought glumly. If I take any longer then that, they’ll lock on and hit me when I try. This was seriously getting annoying, he was here to collect herbs, not to fight with tree stumps, but his alternatives were even less appealing, even when against a monster who couldn’t pursue him.

Without any better options, he simply dodged, aimed, and threw a knife whenever the opportunity presented itself. Before long, the barrage ceased. Well, that’s that then. He thought, feeling a little relieved. After collecting the knives he’d thrown, he checked his winnings. The experience and gold he gained were negligible; no surprise there, considering their levels. He’d gotten an interesting ingredient item, but it wasn’t what he was looking for; willow bark was somewhat known for being good medicine, but it’s benefits did not expend to significant HP or MP regen. He might use it in future recipes, but he didn’t need it for anything in the immediate future, which was something of a shame. However, a little more searching in the immediate area yielded some unexpected results; in the center of the area previously occupied by the Willow Stumps he’d just defeated, was a potent MP restoring herb that he could use in his pastilles. Smiling, he bent down and quickly removed the appropriate portion of the plant and stored them in his inventory.

[Shuwen]

Words: 582

Unfortunately, acquiring the HP restoring herb he was looking for was somewhat more difficult then figuring out the right combination of actions. Apparently, the location it could be most easily found was guarded by several higher leveled Swamp Sahaugin. Individually, Shuwen’s level would have definitely been more enough to finish them, but he wasn’t sure if he could take on several of them at one time, especially when the marshy terrain made movement somewhat difficult for him. Frowning grimly, Shuwen made his way to where he heard the herb could be found, his mind forming the beginnings of a battle plan.

There were about four of the, wielding crude wooden tridents, clustered around a patch of suspiciously vibrant looking plants. A set up Shuwen had more or less expected. The Monk drew their attention by throwing one of his knives at the nearest ones. The Sahaugin appeared to be fairly social monsters, because it aggro’d the entire group. Turning their heads his way, they glared at him and began to charge his way. Alright, let’s get this started

They approached quickly, and attempted to circle around in an attempt to surround him. Unlike humans like Shuwen, the fish men didn’t seem to have any problems with the marshy terrain, but the Monk had a few tricks up his sleeve. He brought his fist down, initiating the Tiger Echo Fist skill, knocking them all into disarray. Alright then, I’ll need to whittle their numbers down as quickly as possible. Tiger Echo Fist is great for separating them briefly, so I should be able to isolate one and finish him off pretty quickly. The question was could he do it before the others regained their footing and counterattacked. The fish man he’d chosen to target attempted to stab at him with it’s trident, but Shuwen kept out of it’s reach, using Zoom Attack to hit it’s legs with a low kick. It’s posture disrupted, Shuwen charged in and followed up with several punches, followed by a knee strike, defeating it. By that point, the other three Sahaugin were back on the attack and coming his way. Shuwen hit one with another throwing knife, but with Tiger Echo Fist still on cooldown, he couldn’t do much to evade having to fight the remaining three at once. Instead, he used Aura Kick to hit them all at once with an area of effect attack, but in response was stabbed thrice by their incoming tridents. “Gyah!” He fell backwards, knocked off balance by their attacks. One seized the initiative and attempted to stab him before he could recover. It managed to do so, but in turn gave Shuwen an opportunity, circling around to the fishman’s side, he used Bullet Punch to start whaling on it at a much faster rate then he normally could. The fish tried to intercept the punches or at least counterattack, but Shuwen managed to stay ahead of his defenses and most of them landed, quickly defeating the second done. The remaining two attempted to flank him, and as he was sill locked in the bullet punch animation, the Monk didn’t have much choice but to let them, but he closed in on the third one with Wyvern Kick, leaving the fourth one too far away to counter attack until he’d successfully finished off the third. Seeing that it’s comrades were destroyed, the fourth one turned and fled, leaving Shuwen free to collected the herbs he needed. Awesome, time to head back now.

[Shuwen]

Words: 476

Once he retrieved the herbs he needed, Shuwen used the Call of Home skill to return to London. He did not want to spend any more time walking through that unpleasant poisonous swamp then he had to, after all, and now that he had the herbs, he want to jump right into making the pastilles.

The experiment he had planned (or as much of an experiment as trying a new recipe could be) was two-fold; he didn’t simply want to be capable of making pastilles, he wanted to be capable of making pastilles that restored HP, and pastilles that restored MP. Both variants would be necessary to get the most out of the potential boost to sustain he could receive from his food items as a chef. The recipe he was using was for fruit pastilles, which would make it slightly harder to use the herbs he needed in the recipe, but after some thinking, he found what he believed to be the optimal point in preparing them to add them. At one point, the recipe called for thoroughly straining the fruit through a mesh bag or strainer, and mixing it with the other ingredients. He figured as long as the herb was ground up and added before that point, that point, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal. Alright, time to get to work on this.

In addition to the herbs he’d collected, the recipe called for several other ingredients. Fortunately, they were relatively common and much easier to obtain then the herbs he’d just retrieved. It called for whatever fruit he wanted to use to flavor the pastilles, fruit of the same type, jam sugar, and caster sugar. As for equipment, it called for a pan, a stove, a strainer, a heatproof jug, an appropriate mold, and a cold container (essentially a fridge). For the fruit, he chose to go with a citrus flavoring, so he went with oranges, lemons, and limes, deskinned and roughly chopped as the recipe called for.

First, he placed the various fruits in the pan and poured the fruit juice in after them. Turning the stove up to medium heat, he placed the pan on top of it. While he waited for the heat to bring the pan’s contents to a boil, he brought out the HP recovering herb he’d collected from the Poisonous Swamp and quickly shredded it. Since he was doing so with his bare hands, he couldn’t shred it very finely, but he figured it would be enough for his purposes. He then sprinkled the results into the almost-boiling mixture, making sure to stir it a bit so it would mix as thoroughly as he could practically do so. Once it finally began to boil. Shuwen turned down the head and let the mixture simmer, placing a cover over the pan to help it do so.

[Shuwen]

Words: 532

The recipe said to let it do so until the fruit was soft, but checking that was easier said then done, so he simply chose to wait a few minutes before removing the cover and quickly poked one of the fruit pieces with a finger. Though he wasn’t entirely sure, he figured it was reasonably soft and went ahead with what he was supposed to do next. He poured the resulting mixture through the strainer, letting quite a bit of residue from the fruit get into the mix in addition to the juice itself. He then added jam sugar to the mix and stirred, removing the fruits from the pan and returning the mixture to it as the recipe instructed. Keeping it over the low heat, he continued to stir until the sugar appeared to have been complete dissolved. Once it was, his actions took a significant one eighty and turned up the heat and brought it up to a rapid boil. Once it reached slightly over a hundred degrees celcius, he immediately removed it from the heat and poured the mixture into the heatproof jug, from which he poured it into the first few moulds he’d acquired. After that, he was supposed to let them chill, then placing them in the fridge, where he was supposed to leave them overnight to set.

Well, they’re essentially finished, should I go straight to the other variant, or should I wait to see how the first batch turns out? It was certainly a tough decision for him. If he’d done something wrong with the first batch, he likely wouldn’t find out until the next morning. And if he used the exact same method to make the second batch without seeing how the first one had turned out, he would essentially be throwing away good resources after bad. Not really a good idea. On the other hand, Shuwen didn’t really want to take any more time then he already had. Eventually, Caution won out, and he decided to wait until the next morning to see how they turned out. Fortunately for him, the first batch of pastilles came out just fine. Their coloring wasn’t quite as vibrant as he’d thought they would be, though that could be due to either an error on his part, or a lack of artificial ingredients modern companies used to make sweets. Well, it didn’t seem to have reduced their effectiveness as health restoration items, so he considered them a success. As he finished them off by coating the newly created pastilles in sugar, he began to put together the things he’d need for the second batch, which he’d made sure to clean and keep close at hand. Other then changing what fruits he was using, the process was essentially the same, except for him using a different herb to change the effect of the food item, making the pastilles he was making recover MP instead of HP. As expected, they required another day to finish, but he was willing to be a little more patient. The second batch ended up more or less identically to the first, sans the differing type of recovery effect. Alright! It was a success!