Mag smiled and nodded, and as he looked at the smile on Michael"s face, he felt as if he were looking at himself in the future when Amy became all grown-up. Regardless of whether she grew up or not, she"d always be a child in his heart.Michael paid a visit to the elves and welcomed them to Chaos City in person, informing them that the city lord"s castle would help them settle in this city.
All of the elves wept for joy, and they bowed over and over again toward Michael and Mag to express their grat.i.tude.
Mag looked at the tears on the children"s faces with a heavy heart. He could help these children settle in Chaos City, but there were still countless elves living in the same nightmare that those elves had just been freed from.
However, with Michael"s promise, it was most likely that more and more elves would come to Chaos City for refuge, thereby reducing the instances of similar tragedies.
Mag followed the workers from the city lord"s castle to the residential area where the elves were going to be settled, and when he finally emerged from the city lord"s castle again, it was already midnight. Michael insisted on getting someone to transport him back to the restaurant via a horse-drawn carriage. After disembarking from the carriage, Mag thanked the driver before making his way toward the restaurant.
There was still a small lit lamp left within the restaurant to light the way for him, and he tore the notice off the door before carefully entering the restaurant.
After locking the doors, Mag crept silently upstairs and opened the door to his room, which was slightly ajar. Amy and Anna were sleeping on the little bed, and Sally had already fallen asleep on his bed.
Mag looked at the smile on Sally"s smiling face, and he shook his head with a smile of his own. It was quite apparent that the journey she had just undertaken had truly exhausted her. Otherwise, she wouldn"t have fallen asleep on his bed.
His gaze trailed down her legs, which were sheathed in skin-colored stockings, and his eyes settled on the pair of black leather shoes on her feet. It appeared that she had only intended to take a small nap, which was why she had neglected to take off her shoes. However, Mag simply couldn"t bear to wake her up. After standing beside the bed with a hesitant look on his face for a long while, he finally extended his hands toward her long and slender legs.
10 minutes later, Mag heaved a long sigh of relief, and he stood up from the bedside, but his legs were feeling a little weak.
During the past few minutes, he learned that it was not an easy task to remove a woman"s shoes without alerting her to what he was doing.
Mag looked at the shoes in his hands, and shook his head with a resigned expression. This was the first time that he"d done something like this.
Even though Sally hadn"t woken up, she seemed to have sensed that her feet were no longer being restricted, and she rolled over before curling up slightly, withdrawing her feet from the side of the bed as she did so. As a result, her qipao tightened around her body and her long legs, creating a rather seductive scene under the dim light of the lap.
However, Mag remained unfazed as he gently pulled the blanket on the bed over her body, and then tucked the blankets around Amy and Anna under them in a more secure manner. He stood by their bedside and looked at them with a doting smile before pulling out a set of pajamas and a chef"s suit from the closet, and then carefully tiptoeing out the door.
After brus.h.i.+ng his teeth, Mag went downstairs and bartered with the system for a while before purchasing a blanket, and then settling down behind the counter for the night.
It"s been a while since I released a new dish; perhaps it"s time I learned to make stinky tofu. Mag looked at the s.h.i.+mmering golden experience bag in the corner of his mind in a hesitant manner for a while, but refrained from opening it in the end. Instead, he asked internally, "System, can I purchase a gas mask in the trial s.p.a.ce? I can"t even bear the smell of stinky tofu from afar, let alone make it at close quarters. On top of that, I might have to repeat the process countless times; I may literally suffocate to death from the smell alone!"
"The trial s.p.a.ce is not actually a physical s.p.a.ce, so gas masks cannot be brought into it. Furthermore, as a chef, it"s important to be able to constantly smell what you"re making as the nose is one of the most useful tools a chef possesses. If you can"t even do that, then you"re not fit to be a chef.
"Only by experiencing the different degrees of putridity firsthand can a chef gauge the ideal level of stinkiness to make the perfect stinky tofu. I"m quoting directly from a Weibo post that you released after pa.s.sing by a stinky tofu stall in your past life."
The system was clearly taking pleasure in Mag"s misfortune.
"I…" Mag opened his mouth, but he was at a loss for words. How could the system use his words against him? Besides, he couldn"t even recall that Weibo post, so it had to have been something that he"d written on a whim!
"Then I"m not going to learn it!" Mag said with a disdainful roll of his eyes.
"If you choose not to learn how to make stinky tofu and are unable to successfully produce stinky tofu, then the system will terminate your path to becoming the G.o.d of Cookery due to personal reasons." The system"s voice became rather stern as it spoke.
"So what?"
"Once your path to becoming the G.o.d of Cookery is terminated, you"ll be erased from this world. At the same time, due to the fact that you"ve already perished in your original world, you would truly cease to exist."
"F*ck!" Mag furrowed his brows as he clicked open the s.h.i.+mmering golden experience bag. A vast stream of information surged into his mind, following which he attained the experience of a stinky tofu master chef.
"Huh, so stinky tofu isn"t actually cooked using sh*t," Mag murmured to himself with a surprised look on his face before continuing to process the influx of information.
"I can tell how horrendous this is going to smell just by looking at the cooking process…" Mag made his way into the kitchen with a suicidal expression, and then downed a gla.s.s of ice water to strengthen his resolve. After that, he returned to the lounge chair, draped the blanket over himself, closed his eyes, and opened the doors of the test field for the G.o.d of Cookery.
Compared to tofu pudding, making stinky tofu required far more complex procedures. Just the brine alone required several steps to make, and even after the enhancements the system had made to the process to make it more efficient, it still required three days to make one batch of brine.
As for the production of tofu, that was the easiest part of the challenge for Mag. The process was quite similar to that of making tofu pudding, with only a few slight changes to some of the steps, so he"d be able to master it in no time.
Due to the fact that time was accelerated in the test field for the G.o.d of Cookery, Mag"s first batch of brine was soon ready. He arched his back and lifted the lid with a reluctant expression on his face.
Even though he was already mentally prepared, he discovered that he had still significantly underestimated just how putrid the brine would be in the instant that he removed the lid. The abhorrent odor struck him like a sledgehammer, causing him to stumble backward until his back hit the wall behind him, dropping the lid in his hand in the process.
This was an indescribably putrid odor, one that surely even an exploding sewage pipe couldn"t compare with. It was as if all of the putrid odors in the world had been combined, and then exploded in unison.
"Holy f*ck!!! System, get me out of here! I don"t want to become some bullsh*t G.o.d of Cookery anymore!!!" Mag yelled as he slammed the wall and pinched his nose with all his might.
"After entering the test field for the G.o.d of Cookery, you"ll only be able to exit after you"ve mastered the dish or after 365 days have pa.s.sed," the system refused in a calm voice.
"F*ck!!!"
Mag"s face was turning red from oxygen deprivation, so he was forced to draw in a breath. As soon as the putrid odor entered his nose, his face turned deathly pale, and he pa.s.sed out on the spot.
After a long while, Mag finally crawled up from the ground with a suicidal expression, and then made his way over to the pot of brine like a zombie. He looked at the black substance within the pot, and a ferocious look appeared in his eyes as he picked up a ladle before downing a mouthful of brine.