Gourmet Gaming

Ruth went out of the room after a brief conversation between him and Minhyuk. Meanwhile, Minhyuk ate the last piece of egg roll as he recalled their conversation. He asked, “Are we not supposed to use the medicine in cooking?”

Minhyuk was completely unaware of the importance of the item so Ruth had explained to him why elixirs and medicines should not be cooked. Before Ruth left, he said, ‘Medicines and elixirs are a kind of special food that can only be eaten by one person alone. These medicines and elixirs will lose their effectiveness once cooked, it’s a sort of preventive measure, stopping anyone from dividing and sharing the essence of the medicine.’

Of course, it would not change the fact that Minhyuk would still use it to cook even if he knew the importance. Then, the notifications rang.

[You have eaten an Army Stew made with the Empire’s Elixir.]

[Food God’s Greatness.]

[You have ignored the medicine penalty. However, it still remains ineffective for other people.]

[A medicinal dish. You have obtained additional stats.]

[You have gained +180 DEX and +20 Will.]

“Oh...!” Minhyuk shouted in admiration. Cooking both a delicious and medicinal dish gave Minhyuk an additional +20 in his stats thanks to the effects of The Food God’s Greatness. But the notifications did not end there.

[You have accumulated a total of 400 DEX. All skills and abilities related to DEX will improve by 10%.]

[You have accumulated a total of 500 DEX. All skills and abilities related to DEX will improve by 10%.]

[You have accumulated a total of 50 Will. You have acquired the passive skill: Will.]

“Oh!” Minhyuk exclaimed in delight. All of his skills and abilities related to DEX had improved by 10% twice, for a total of 20%. Minhyuk was very happy with this, knowing that his farming skill would also be affected by this improvement.

Minhyuk might not be aware, but he had already received a lot of special benefits compared to other players. Minhyuk was given the special treatment that would allow him to learn and acquire skills related to DEX because Len was a master-ranked chef after working and doing various labor-intensive jobs related to DEX. It was basically because he studied under Len that he was able to learn skills related to DEX. Now, those skills would improve by 20%.

Minhyuk quickly checked his Intermediate Farming skill. The other day, he invested one of his SPs that he had received through Ellie in this skill. The only reason why he did not invest his SPs on Food God’s Cooking was because he could not use the general SPs to increase the skill’s level, so he invested it in his farming skill. Because of that, his Novice Farming skill had now evolved and became Intermediate Farming.

(Intermediate Farming)

Passive Skill

Level: 1

Effects: 

•You will be 60(+12)% faster whenever you gather and dig for materials and ingredients. 

•You have a 30(+6)% chance of obtaining better materials and ingredients.

•You have a 2(+0.4)% chance of obtaining special materials.

•You can grow a variety of things just by planting seeds.

“Yeah!” Minhyuk exclaimed happily. Now, he was sure that his skills related to DEX had improved by 20%. Although he wasn’t sure about the benefits, he still felt happy looking at the results. Then, Minhyuk looked at the new skill that he acquired, Will. This was the first time that Minhyuk had learned that a stat could become a skill so he immediately checked its information.

(Will)

Passive Skill

Level: 1

Level Up Requirements: Increase Will by 50 points.

Effects: 

•Your fatigue and exhausted mind will clear up whenever you exert your utmost effort, passion, determination and indomitable will. All skills and abilities related to DEX will have a 10-30% increase for one hour.

•Increases Will Acquisition Rate.

The stat Will was literally changed into a skill. The only difference was that the vague effects and conditions for triggering would now be definite. With the Will stat turned into a skill, Minhyuk would definitely be able to activate Will, as long as he tried hard and focused on his tasks. Minhyuk closed the skills window with a satisfied smile on his face. After he finished looking through all of his skills, he crawled onto the bed and hid under the covers. He said, “Knew it! The best thing to do after eating is lying down in bed, not cleaning up!”

I ate a delicious army stew and received a variety of things during my stay in the imperial palace!

Minhyuk continued to lie in bed as he opened Athenae’s official website. What he searched this time was…

‘Food found at sea.’

Just like usual, countless related search words and articles popped up.

[Guys, I heard the sound of a Kraken yesterday. Here’s the proof.]

“Oh?” Minhyuk said. The Kraken was a Level 300 boss monster and was considered to be a fairly powerful opponent. However, it was convenient to also think of it as a giant octopus. Drool dripped down Minhyuk’s chin the moment he thought of octopus.

“Slurp!” Minhyuk sucked back the drool and wiped the saliva off of his chin as he clicked on the article. Unfortunately, it turned out that the thing that the player called his proof was not a Kraken, but a distant relative of one, a small webfoot octopus.

“Oh, webfoot octopus sounds delicious. Wow, I can’t help but think of stir-fried webfoot octopus!” Minhyuk said. However, even though it sounded delicious for Minhyuk, the comments under the article were all negative.

[SeafoodMarketUncle: Is your fishing level only at Level 1? Why learn fishing if it’s only at that level? That’s a waste of your skill slot.

SoccerKingKangTaegong: I agree. Fishing is one of the trashiest skills in the production class that you can learn. Why would you even learn that?

ActionBall: Guys, wouldn’t the quality of the materials and ingredients that you will be able to catch increase if your fishing level increases? They say that it would be good to sell it to the chefs.

SoccerKingKangTaegong: I used to really like fishing so I learned fishing here and even got the class ‘Fishing King Kang Taegong[1]’ but it’s really different here. In real life, you can catch a lot of fish, right? But here, we can’t even catch 20% of what we can in real life... And the ingredient grade? You need to catch at least 20 materials before even getting one C grade ingredient. Fishing is a bottomless pit, it’s really bad.]

A lot of negative comments about fishing popped up, but Minhyuk only had eyes for the ingredients that could be caught at sea. It was not just the web-foot octopus, as long as one had the fishing skill, they could even catch blue crabs. Minhyuk was now sure that he would be able to catch a lot of seafood as long as he sailed at sea. So, despite the barrage of negative comments towards the skill, Minhyuk planned on acquiring the Fishing Skill. However, a post soon caught his eyes.

[You need to be at Level 200 to hunt in the lowest level hunting ground, Barmil Sea.]

“Gasp?!” Minhyuk gasped in shock at the sudden hurdle that appeared in front of him in his quest for seafood.

I can only go there if I’m at Level 200? What the hell does that mean?

Minhyuk quickly searched for more information until he finally found the reason why. The sea was filled with strong monsters and they were totally different from the monsters on land. Only high-leveled players who were well-versed in fighting at sea could enjoy fishing in these hunting grounds. In other words, Minhyuk was severely restricted by both his level and strength. Minhyuk was a bit disappointed that he could not get directly to the sea, but he still shook his head and thought positively. He thought, ‘I’m heading to the Barras Kingdom anyway.’

On his way to Prassel, the Emperor’s City, he had received a quest from Coachman Baran to meet with ‘Blacksmith Ron’, right? And according to Baran, Ron had special ingredients on his hands. Ingredients that were especially hard to come by. Minhyuk was curious about what ingredients they were, so he planned to visit him. On his way, he would also visit the Chef Tower to exchange his points. Minhyuk also knew that the kingdom has a lot of quests available for different production classes like quests for blacksmiths, quests for chefs and even quests for seamstresses. He was also able to confirm one fact when he searched through the official website...

‘There’s a lot of cooking quests available in the Barras Kingdom!’

…a lot of cooking ingredients seemed to be needed in the kingdom, so they would always issue plenty of quests to players. Things like asking them to hunt the monsters in the kingdom’s vicinity, helping them to replenish their ingredients, stuff like that. Of course, the ingredients were mostly ordinary and simple, but for Minhyuk, having a delicious meal was much more important compared to those worries.

“Great! I’ll have a good rest today and leave tomorrow!”

From what he heard, Barras Kingdom had a good relationship with Eivelis Empire. According to what Ruth said, he could take the warp gate to get to Barras Kingdom due to its close proximity to the empire. This was the special warp gate that was not open to ordinary players! However, Minhyuk was given special permission to use it. Not long after, Minhyuk fell sound asleep on the comfortable bed. A scene from ‘One Lucky Day [2]’ appeared in his dreams. It was the scene where Kim Cheom-Ji’s wife could not eat ox bone soup.

Minhyuk quietly murmured in his sleep, “Dirty old hag... You should just give me the ox bone soup... Nyam...”

Minhyuk was definitely doing bad things in his dreams.

***

Brony was laughing wildly. He said, “Keuhahahahaha! I really got one hell of a catch today!”

“Wow, isn’t that amazing? I didn’t expect that much from these low-leveled players and NPC merchants,” Elaine said, standing next to Brony.

They just finished killing off and looting the NPCs and players they came across on the top of the mountain. Even though they were only a small group, there was still a large difference between them and those novice merchants. In fact, they did not expect much profit from the low-level merchants since there was a limit to how much they could carry, but they gained a lot after seeing a lot of good things dropped from these novices.

“Come to think of it, that player from earlier had a good name. He was a novice, but how can he drop so much good stuff?”

“Hohoho. What does it matter? But, what was he saying earlier?”

“The being in my right hand will go berserk...? Or something like that.”

“Crazy bastard.”

“Yes, I think so too,” Brony said as he twirled his finger on the side of his head. Then, Brony continued to say, “It’s time to leave this place and go to Amenta.”

Brony and his colleagues were part of the Horden Guild, an infamous guild for their unscrupulous gameplay. The members of this guild would not hesitate to kill NPCs to loot them. They also would not hesitate to steal a dungeon or a field, as long as they got paid for it. Aside from looting activities, they would also gladly accept requests that other large-scale guilds would not normally take.

After laughing wildly for quite some time, Brony’s forehead suddenly crumpled in annoyance. He said, “Shit, that ‘Right Hand’ bastard looks strangely familiar.”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ve seen him from somewhere before?” Brony said, fumbling through his memories. Then, he shouted, “Ah, he looks like that damn bastard!”

Elaine looked at him strangely after seeing him act like that.

‘It was my dark history.’ Brony thought, not saying anything further about who, or what happened back then. However, he remembered the memories back then.

‘Was it around middle school?’

Brony was no different from how he was back in middle school. He was the typical bully that threatened his schoolmates and robbed them of their pocket money. The event had happened as he tried to extort some money from someone.

‘Are you Kang Minhyuk from Class 3? I heard that you suddenly went on a rampage and called us up to the rooftop.’

Brony remembered the president of their student council, Minhyuk. Minhyuk was a handsome boy with good grades and a nice personality. The typical A-lister that mothers loved. Hearing his challenge, around twenty people went up to the rooftop with Brony to intimidate him. However, something shocking happened…

‘Was it around 15? I think he knocked out 15 people all by himself at that time.’

Brony thought that everything would be over as long as they managed to trample on him, so the very next day, they gathered in twos and threes, and attacked Minhyuk. This went on for three whole months. They would always stage an attack, but Minhyuk would always just counter and defeat them all by himself. That was when Brony realized the painful truth…

‘That guy said, ‘Touch me and I will XXX you over so beg your friends to stop...’

Brony turned dizzy when he recalled that painful memory. He thought, ‘That damn bastard. He was really a freak.’

After that incident, the tables had finally turned. Since then, the one that was being robbed of their pocket money was them, and it was Minhyuk that did the extortion. Other people did not know what they went through and thought that it was just a funny anecdote. In fact, even Brony and his friends thought that Minhyuk was just like them, a typical bully. They thought that he was also trying to fill his stomach by extorting money, but after quite some time they found out…

‘From what I heard, he used the money he extorted from us to support starving children, I think?’

1. Kang Taegong, or more commonly known as Jiang Ziya or Jiang Taigong is a famous angler in history. He is commonly known because of the Chinese idiom, "There are always fish willing to be caught by angler Jiang Taigong" ☜

2. A novel by Hyun Jin-Geon. It was adapted into a feature film by EBS in 2014 (A Luck Day and Spring) ☜