"However, what...?"The chef seemed to be slightly agitated at Cole"s sudden change of tone. His brows furrowed slightly and he clenched his fist behind the party"s view.
"There"s a strange aftertaste."
Val was the first one to take a bite and see if Cole was saying the truth.
He could first taste the crispiness of the skin and the exact right amount of juiciness of the meat. But after the initial flavor. There was a kind of funkiness that he couldn"t describe. Val thought that the aftertaste tasted somewhat similar to Mana.
His face fell into one of pure confusion as he continued to eat his slice.
The other"s reactions were the same as well. They still continued to et it though since it was still tasty. But they couldn"t get that strange aftertaste out of their mouths.
"If it was intentional, then I don"t understand why you would do such a thing. It simply becomes a distraction to the main appeal of the dish. It still tastes good though."
Cole took another bite from his slice of roasted duck and dipped it in a bit more sauce and ate it with some cuc.u.mber sticks and was about to take a sip of his tea when a message appeared in front of him.
〔Good Luck, Bad Luck has kicked in!〕
〔Due to your previous encounter with Bad Luck, here"s some good luck.〕
"What?"
Cole had still kept in mind of that certain skill because of what happened with Rory. But he didn"t expect it to come handy in the situation he was currently in.
He had just critiqued the food he was eating!
Cole just quietly and quickly read the two messages that popped out in front of him. But as he did, he noticed that the chef near him stayed silent the entire time he spoke about his short evaluation.
Not even a second after he finished reading them, the chef pounded his fist on the table which caused the plates to shake a bit.
Luckily nothing spilled, due to the efforts of everyone dining and pure luck.
If they weren"t dining in a private room, they surely would have attracted the attention of the fellow diners that were nearby.
"I do not accept the fact that you cannot truly understand my masterpiece!"
"I challenge you to a cooking match!"
Felicia couldn"t believe the sudden duel invitation. She could naturally understand what he said since she was taught Chinese from a young age from her mother.
Gemi and Mini could understand what the chef was saying due to the convenient function of auto-translate in their neurochips would we translate the words into subt.i.tles in front of them. It also directly translated names however which caused them to not take a lot of missions related to the 〈Huaxia Zone〉
Val actually didn"t understand anything. He mostly gathered what the situation was like based on context and the tone they were using. And telepathy to read his thoughts.
Although, telepathy didn"t help much. All he understood was the fact that the chef was infuriated for some reason.
When they rotated their heads towards Cole, they could see that his face was filled with disappointment towards the chef and his eyes became a graveyard full of death again.
"Dafuq? I"m not Bu Fang or some kind of Chinese female transmigrator that has intense knowledge of the culinary arts."
Cole first retorted such in his head and felt that his skill was lying to him. Well, he didn"t have any plans to rely on them in the first place.
"This man is a chef, right? Does he treat his job as some kind of plaything? Is he so mentally immature that he cannot accept criticism and cannot even think of explaining the weird aftertaste"s cause?"
His disappointment grew even further and thought that the chef"s IQ surely must have shut off and that his brain became filled with fuzzy cotton instead.
The chef seemed to be oblivious at all the signs that the people around him were giving him. Even the poor waitress had already collapsed down on the floor shivering.
And just as Cole was about to sternly reprimand the chef in front of him, a new thread of messages popped up in front of him.
〔Choose Your Decision〕
〔Please be aware that if you choose unwisely, you"ll be forced into a cooking match. And you suck at those. 〕
〔But if possible, please do so. It would be hilarious to watch you horrendously fail at something.〕
〔Your neighborhood AI, Steward.〕
Cole felt like beating up or possibly terminating a certain pile of ones and zeroes due to the "heartfelt" message they left behind. But he would do that later, he had to focus at a disappointment of a chef to the right of him.
"..."
"So, was the sa.s.siness of the messages before also because of you?"
〔Yeah. Your in-built system adapted to your personal experiences even before your Neurochip fully adjusted.〕
Cole sighed inwardly and started to make plans to keep his unneeded AI full of personality in check and looked at the choices he could currently make.
〔▶ Accept his challenge 〕
〔• Refuse his challenge〕
〔• Reason with him〕
〔• Intimidate him〕
〔• Educate him like the wise old sage you aren"t 〕
〔(You"ll be using only words)〕
〔• Thoroughly crush him like the blood-soaked madman you are〕
〔(You can use whatever skills you want)〕
Cole would normally choose to reason with the chef, but he was overcome with pure fury against the rudeness and unprofessionalism of the chef.
So he went with choice number 6.
"Steward, pull up my skill tab."
〔Okay.〕
Cole skipped over the skills he had already read before and decided to use a mix of the two that he hadn"t had the chance to full use yet.
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〈Influence〉: SSS
► Is able to "Influence" certain aspects. Is limited to physical laws and inanimate objects. Influencing physical laws takes a lot more Mana than Influencing inanimate objects. What? Why can"t I brainwash people with this skill? That"s because that"s an entirely different skill, you idiot!
〈Chaos Magic〉: SSS
► Cause Chaos to everything! It is possible to alter the result of a set spell but it will take more Mana.
*Maximum of 8 spells.
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"Steward, show me the spells I"ve registered already."
〔...Okay? I have a bad feeling.〕
Cole had actually experimented with his Chaos Magic a bit while they were on their way to Zhen Town. In the process, he ended up making a spell he was desperate to try out.
〈Chaos Magic: Available Spells (MAX: 8)〉
〈• Chaos Sphere (Sfaira Chaous) COST: 3〉
〈• Chaos Barrier (Fragma tou Chaous) COST: 3〉
〈• Devour (Katavrochthizo) COST: Depends on what you eat and absorb.〉
The things in the parentheses were the chants for the spells and the cost was the amount of Mana it would take to cast each spell. Steward was the one who a.s.signed the number based on the amount of Mana Cole had on him.
After confirming what he planned to do, Cole stood up from his seat and faced the chef head on.
The chef was a bit fat and short. He was around 168 cm so Cole was taller than him by just a bit. But Cole"s presence was imposing enough that the chef"s obliviousness seemed to be giving him.
"〈Influence〉"
As Cole said, the chef took a step back due to his slight intimidation and accidentally slipped and crashed the waitress that was behind him underneath.
"W-Wait, I-I"m sorry for offending Great Master!"
The chef didn"t feel any kind of Qi emanating from the young man in front of him and it was why he dared to boldly challenge him to a duel.
He thought that a young miss sitting to his left would just be a daughter of some popular merchant since he couldn"t feel any kind of energy from anyone present at the table.
All their at least above average faces made the chef convinced that they were just some nouveau riches that came to play around.
But the presence and deadly aura that the balck-robed man in front of him was releasing just terrified him.
The more he stared into his eyes, the closer he felt like he was to death.
His pure black eyes reminded him of a sky devoid of any light and his silver hair made him think of the grim reaper"s shining scythe.
Cole couldn"t let out his Qi Aura or whatever like all those eastern fantasy protagonists could do. But he didn"t mind that. He simply needed to use that as his weapon. He would just mercilessly kill his enemies by a skill they would never be able to use or understand.
Cole crouched down to his level and put on a smile.
But that only intensifed the chef"s fear even further.
"You know..."
The tone Cole used sounded like he was bored. Or sleepy and tired and unwilling to deal with the thing in front of him.
"If you"re like that with all your customers, you should try finding a different job.."
Cole put his hand in front of the chef"s face and chanted out the name of the spell he was about to use.
"〈Katavrochthizo〉"
A black-shaped jaw emerged out of his hand with red lightning sparks circulating around it. THe poor chef"s face started to get paler and paler by the second.
And in the next moment, his vision was clouded by pure darkness.
Cole made the jaw dissipate which left a chef with eyes rolled back into whites and foam frothing from his mouth along with a face so ashen as if he saw a ghost.
Cole stood up and dusted off any dust that got on his robes. He pulled up his mask and put on his straw hat that was lying by his the side of the sofa he sat on.
"Felicia, we"re bringing the rest for takeout."
"Y-Yeah..."
After that, rumors started to go around to not offend a man with silver hair like the grim reaper"s scythe and black eyes. Well, the party eventually decided not to care about them and went on their merry way.