Gourmet Gaming

Minhyuk’s eyes sparkled in excitement, his drool dripping from his chin as he ran towards the Chocolate Tree. He looked so small right next to the gigantic Chocolate Tree, as he looked up at the sweet chocolates hanging from every branch of the tree and slowly reached his hand out to touch it.

[You have found the Legendary Chocolate Tree.]

[You have gained 30 REP.]

[The first two chocolates that you will harvest will be very special.]

[You can acquire the Chocolate Tree after harvesting the first two chocolates.]

[You can also acquire the Spirit King's Sacred Branch while harvesting the chocolates.]

“Oh!” Minhyuk said after reading the last notification. He realized that the Spirit King’s Sacred Branch was the artifact material that Kald was talking about earlier. Minhyuk gathered his strength in his legs and jumped up to quickly snatch the two chocolates hanging on one of the branches of the Chocolate Tree. Then, one of the two chocolates started to turn white.

[You have acquired the Legendary White Chocolate.]

[You have acquired the Legendary Dark Chocolate.]

[You have acquired the Legendary Chocolate Tree. You will be able to harvest plenty of chocolates from the Chocolate Tree every day. The chocolate that you obtained from the Chocolate Tree will be much more delicious than normal chocolates.]

[To harvest chocolate from the Chocolate Tree, you only need to think or say ‘Harvest chocolate’.]

The gigantic Chocolate Tree began to shrink until it could fit in the palm of Minhyuk’s hand, before immediately slipping inside his inventory. Once everything was set, Minhyuk quickly checked the information of the legendary chocolates.

(Legendary White Chocolate)

Material Grade: Medicine

Special Abilities: Heals the diseases and injuries of a person on the brink of death.

Description: A white chocolate with amazing powers that can only be harvested from the Legendary Chocolate Tree. The taste is, of course, extremely delicious.

(Legendary Dark Chocolate)

Material Grade: Medicine

Special Abilities:

•STM +100

•WIS +100

Description: A dark chocolate with amazing powers that can only be harvested from the Legendary Chocolate Tree. The taste is, of course, extremely delicious.

Minhyuk nodded happily before harvesting normal chocolates from the Chocolate Tree. He said, “Harvest Chocolate.”

[You can only harvest 20 pieces of chocolate per day.]

[Amount that can be harvested: 20/20]

Minhyuk harvested only one piece. He planned to harvest the rest once he got out of the dungeon. Then, a chocolate fruit appeared in front of him. It looked like an apple with the color of a chocolate. Minhyuk checked the information of the regular chocolate from the Chocolate Tree.

(Chocolate Tree’s Chocolate)

Material Grade: D

Special Abilities: A chocolate that is much more delicious than any other chocolate in all of Athenae. It is so delicious that you will never stop nibbling on it.

The chocolate from the Chocolate Tree that could be harvested daily did not have any special abilities, if it had, then that would just be absurd. However, what stood out the most from these chocolates were...

‘A chocolate that is much more delicious than any other chocolate in all of Athenae..!’ Minhyuk thought with a smile as he bit on the chocolate.

Chew!

The thick and sweet flavor of the chocolate spread in his mouth. He continued to nibble and bite on it, tasting the pleasing sweetness and thickness of the chocolate. However, the sweetness could sometimes be too overwhelming, but as per the description, Minhyuk also could not stop biting the chocolate. It was like Minhyuk was finally charging his sugar battery with this chocolate after a long time? Or the feeling of selling his soul to the army just to eat a piece of choco pie, just like what Changwook told him!

“Wow!” Minhyuk shouted, his mouth smeared with chocolate. After eating one, he thought to himself, ‘The Legendary Chocolates probably taste the same as the normal chocolate from the Chocolate Tree. I’ll use the dark chocolate for the brownies, and I’ll keep the white chocolate in my inventory.’ 

Minhyuk loved to eat. However, he believed that there would come a time when he would need the Legendary White Chocolate’s special ability, so he kept it in his inventory.

[You only have 5 seconds left until the entrance closes. The countdown will now begin.]

[5 seconds, 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second.]

Minhyuk was immediately warped out of the dungeon once the countdown ended. When he came out, Lee Sangmin and the rest of the Horden Guild were already gone and taken away.

“Ellie left earlier.”

“I see.”

Hyemin’sDaddy had been waiting for Minhyuk. He had heard from Hyeminnie that Minhyuk had promised to give her the best tasting chocolate in the world. He felt extremely grateful when he heard that.

“Ah, wait! I received the artifact material!” Minhyuk said. He had checked everything while he was walking out of the mines. He took the Spirit King’s Sacred Branch out and handed it over to Hyemin’sDaddy, who immediately checked the unusually colored Sacred Branch, only to be left speechless as he turned to look at Minhyuk.

***

Hyemin'sDaddy had a look of disbelief on his face. He thought, ‘Did Kald know about the material grade of this material?’

Kald ranked second on the Blacksmith Rankings. So, Hyemin’sDaddy wondered if he knew about the material’s grade. If he did, then it made sense. At first, Hyemin’sDaddy wondered why an influential and popular figure like Kald would do something like that just because of greed. However, seeing the material’s description made him understand to some extent. Of course, he would never do such a horrible and cruel thing if he was the one who knew about it.

The grading of artifact materials were similar to the grading of cooking ingredients. Their gradings start from D until SSS. As a matter of fact, there was no SS or SSS-grade material that had been released or found in the country. The Dragon Sword that Hyemin'sDaddy made before was made from the bones of the ancient dragon and was only graded S. The only reason Hyemin'sDaddy was able to make such an amazing artifact that shocked the world was because of his own strength.

At that time, he thought that the effects and options of the material were the best, but right now, he considered S-grade materials to be the bare minimum when choosing materials for an artifact. Just like the Gryphon’s Spirit that he acquired not long ago, it was also an S-grade material, but it had much better effects and options compared to the material he got for the Dragon Sword, so he thought that he could make something even more amazing.

Then, the Sacred Branch appeared in front of him. From what he could see, this SS-grade material was considered to be the lowest among all of the SS-grade materials. He had heard that several SS-grade materials had been released abroad, but since the servers had not yet merged, excluding the other servers, this could be considered to be the best artifact material to appear in Athenae’s Korean server. While it might be considered the lowest among the SS-grade materials, its effects were more than enough to fit that grade.

(Sacred Branch)

Material Grade: SS

Special Abilities: 

•A +10~12% increase in all stats.

•A +60% increase in Magical Defense.

•You can include all five attributes and properties in the artifact.

•There will be a sharp increase in your spirit affinity.

Description: A sacred branch that was obtained from the Legendary Chocolate Tree in Chocolate Paradise. This branch contains the power of Elaim, the King of Spirits.

‘This is really unbelievable.’

Artifacts were not made with just a single material. It could only be made through the smelting of various materials. All those materials had various abilities and effects. In addition, the effects that would be written in the description would depend on the person who made the artifact. The figures listed on the material’s description might not necessarily appear in the artifact, but the likelihood for such numbers to appear was quite high.

“I believe I can make you a satisfactory frying pan with this. I can finish it by the end of today,” Hyemin’sDaddy said. He would be able to finish the artifact quickly since the only thing that he needed to do was add the Sacred Branch to the almost finished frying pan.

“Yes. I understand.”

“Are you going back to Ron’s smithy?”

“Yes. I’m going to make brownies there,” Minhyuk said, face filled with excitement. He looked like a child that finally got the toy that he wanted for a very long time.

***

Minhyuk quickly said goodbye to Ruwan, Leton and the other miners, before quickly going back to Ron’s Smithy. He quickly started preparing for the brownies the moment he arrived. Making brownies was not that difficult. He only needed to prepare the chocolate, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and powdered sugar.

“Finally, the chocolate...!”

Hyeminnie arrived just at that moment. Ron also looked seriously at Minhyuk and said, “You’re going to give me some this time, right...?” Minhyuk had already thought of giving Ron some this time, only because he looked like he would cry if he did not get any! 

Minhyuk then turned his attention back to the brownies. First, he melted the butter in a hot water bath. Then, he mixed the melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract and beaten eggs together. After mixing, Minhyuk sprinkled the mixture of all-purpose flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in the same bowl using a sieve. Then he mixed it again. Once he mixed everything well, he would place the brownie mixture in a pan and bake it in the oven preheated to 180⁰C for twenty minutes.

Before Minhyuk came to the smithy, he first went to the bakery nearby and borrowed an oven from Helo, the baker. Then, Minhyuk placed the baking pan with the brownie mixture inside the oven and set the timer. He said, “I can’t wait to taste these guys.”

“Me too!” Hyeminnie shouted and smiled excitedly.

Minhyuk rubbed Hyeminnie’s head before standing in front of the oven and looking at the brownies. He had made many batches of brownies. One of the batches was made with the Legendary Dark Chocolate. He did not forget that cooking the medicine-grade ingredient would give him additional effects with the help of Food God’s Greatness. Then, after twenty minutes, a ‘ding!’ rang loudly in the smithy.

“Yay!” Minhyuk cheered, grinning widely as he pulled the brownies out of the oven. Fresh from the oven, the brownies might scald their tongues so Minhyuk had to let them cool down for a bit. Besides, cutting the brownies before they cooled down would probably make the brownies crumble!

Once the brownies had cooled down, Minhyuk carefully cut them into bite-sized pieces. Then he sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of them. The powdered sugar fell lightly on the brownies, which looked like falling snow.

“Then, let’s eat!”

“Yeah!”

“Right!”

Ron followed Hyeminnie and nodded along. Minhyuk picked the one made out of Legendary Dark Chocolate. In fact, everything tasted the same so he did not cheat Hyeminnie out of anything. Before he started eating, Minhyuk pulled something out of his inventory and placed it on the table with a thud. It was none other than a barrel that was filled with ten liters of iced americano.

“...Is this filled with americano?”

“Yes!”

Ron was left speechless. That was a huge amount of iced americano! Of course, Minhyuk did not forget to prepare a glass of cold milk for Hyeminnie. Minhyuk poured americano in a cup then put the slightly warm brownie in his mouth.

“Aaaaah.” Chew! Minhyuk chomped on the brownie. A soft, sweet flavor slowly spread in his mouth. The more Minhyuk chewed, the stickier and chewier the chocolate brownie became. Minhyuk also did not forget to take a sip of his iced americano. The bitter americano magnified the sweetness of the brownie, making it stand out.

“Delicious!”

“Hyeminnie also thinks it’s delicious!”

Hyeminnie could eat very well now. As he watched her eat well, especially after being scared of eating due to the side effects of her treatment, it made Minhyuk feel extremely happy. He also hoped that she would continue to cherish these delicious things like this brownie. Once he finished eating all of the brownies made with the Legendary Dark Chocolate, a series of notifications rang in his head.

[You have eaten a Brownie made with the Legendary Dark Chocolate.]

[Food God’s Greatness.]

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

[A Medicinal Cooking. You have obtained additional stats.]

[You have gained +113 STM and +110 WIS.]