Chapter 208 – Cooking Is An Art

    Now that Wei Xiao Bei added salt, the taste was a lot better than just plain roasted fish.

    When the Ming Lun Envoy finished eating both of the fish, Wei Xiao Bei had also finished roasting the boar meat. He gave one to the Ming Lun Envoy and tasted one himself.

    Not bad.

    This was his first time evaluating his own cooking.

    His current cooking was definitely a lot better than when he had boiled the hardtack in water.

    When the Ming Lun Envoy ate, her eyes glittered, and her mouth moved even quicker.

    Only food with proper seasoning could be called real food.

    Eh?

    Wei Xiao Bei thanked the heavens as he saw that he had obtained a new skill through his hard work.

    Cooking (Beginner): Cooking meals is an art! Processing and handling food well will make food tastier, look better, and more aromatic! This is the dream of every culinary master! In ancient times, people devoured raw meat to survive until fire was discovered! This was the first step to cooking! This had allowed human ancestors to become stronger and smarter! A good dish has excellent fragrance, appearance, and taste. It should not only satisfy the mind, it should also allow the body to easily absorb nutrition. A chef that has a high cooking skill can create a miraculous, extraordinary dish. Moreover, some ingredients can only be handled by higher levelled cooking skills and be turned into a dish! To reach the next rank, evolution points and cooking flavoured dishes is necessary. Flavoured dishes: 0/100.

    Compared to other skills that only had names, the [Cooking] skill’s description was written in Wei Xiao Bei’s brain the moment it popped up.

    So it was like that!

    Seeing this, he finally understood why he never obtained the cooking skill.

    It must be known that the amount of recipes in Wei Xiao Bei’s head were not below 100.

    He felt that the fish he had just cooked could already be sold in the supermarket.

    However, only now did he understand that cooking was not a simple thing at all.

    Cooking was an art! Just the description was enough to tell how high-end this skill was.

    It was incomparable to other skills. To sum up in a few words, cooking had greatly increased the survival of humanity.

    Moreover, from the increased requirement in evolution points, or the requirement to cook 100 flavorful dishes, it could be seen that this skill was not simple.

    So, I need to make 100 flavorful dishes. The so-called flavorful dishes probably referred to whether it was salted or not, right? I wonder if the meat that I just cooked could be counted?

    As he was thinking this, his hands did not stop at all. He began to busy himself even more.

    He needed to turn the boar meat in the fire all the time. He borrowed the strength of the fire to make the grease from the fat drip out, then placed on top the appropriate amount of salt. Only when the meat turned golden yellow, icould it be considered done.

    After all the prepared meat finished cooking, he had a 10% chance of failure. The meat would either be burnt, too salty, uncooked, or the grease had not come out. These were all failed dishes.

    However, the successes were all thanks to the experiences he obtained from the failed dishes.

    In truth, Wei Xiao Bei was glad.

    The flavorful food mentioned by the skill also included roasted meat. This had saved him a lot of effort.

    If he needed to make 100 complete dishes such as twice-cooked pork, or mapo tofu, then he would need to work a lot harder.

    A stick of roasted meat was equivalent to one flavorful dish. This was truly convenient.

    He had to maintain the fire properly when he was cooking. He would add dry leaves and twigs, but he did not dare add much, fearing that the fire would grow, but also did not dare add too little, fearing that the fire would go out. One small mistake would cause the food to burn.

    After all that, he had eventually cooked 34 flavorful dishes.

    Flavorful dishes: 34/100

    Wei Xiao Bei gave the Ming Lun Envoy two sticks of meat.

    The girl did not even speak anymore and just began eating while completely ignoring how hot the meat was.

    Wei Xiao Bei truly did not know if the Bai Ta Hill simply served bad food, or if she was being mistreated.

    He could now also feel that his skill had increased.

    Initially, the food that he cooked properly was either too salty or too bland.

    After all, using his hand to spread the salt was not as easy as how barbecue vendors would marinate their meat in salt water or soy sauce.

    However, directly sprinkling the salt gave a stronger taste than marinating it in salt water or soy sauce. It would also not give a  watery taste.

    In truth, Wei Xiao Bei was worried that the amount of meat he would cook would be too much. After all, he was not that hungry, and who know how much the Ming Lun Envoy could eat.

    Naturally, if he was not worried about the taste, then he would have just placed the cooked meat into his backpack.

    However, no matter how flavorful it was, its taste would degrade once it cooled down.

    But he remembered that he should be able to maintain the temperature inside the Small Holding Bag. The problem was that the Small Holding Bag was now filled with raw meat, so he could not simply create space for the cooked meat.

    However, Wei Xiao Bei had become relieved in the end.

    The Ming Lun Envoy looked like a little girl, but she had a great appetite that people would probably be startled by it. Even Wei Xiao Bei suspected that she might just be the human transformation of some big monster.

    Out of the 34 sticks of roasted meat, the girl had at least eaten 32 of them.

    Although one stick was not much, Wei Xiao Bei was not selling them, so he tried to pack as much as he couldon one stick. Five sticks would probably be enough to fill a platter.

    A normal man would probably only be able to eat 10 sticks before he was full. Eating 15 sticks would probably half kill him, and 20 would send him to the hospital.

    However, the little girl had actually eaten 32 sticks, but she still appeared to be hungry.

    Could it be a Taotie in disguise? 

    Wei Xiao Bei bitterly smiled, as he felt that this was too funny.

    He began to prepare more skewers and emptied more than half a backpack of meat. Then he cut them up, and skewered them with peeled branches.

    Compared to bamboo sticks, using tree branches were a bit more inconvenient.

    Thus, when the girl saw that there was no more meat on the fire, she took the initiative and came over to help skewer meat.

    When Wei Xiao bei saw that the little girl was breaking the sticks from the force of her hands, he could not help but sigh, “It would be so much better if we had bamboo.”

    The little girl was the Ming Lun Envoy, so it was a bit difficult for Wei Xiao Bei to talk to her.

    However, this time, she immediately replied, “Bamboo is out of the question. They are too precious.”

    Wei Xiao Bei was baffled by her words.

    Bamboo is out of the question? They are too precious?

    What does this mean?

    After thinking for a while, he still could not understand the meaning behind her words. Did she mean that bamboo was rare in Bai Ta Hill, or did she mean that bamboo was an important strategic material in the Dust World? Or did it have a completely different meaning?

    There was too many unknowns. Even if Wei Xiao Bei tried to increase his reasoning to 20 points, it would still be hard to make a conclusion.

    Moreover, asking the little girl would not bear any results. She only knew how to stare at you and skewer meat.

    The meat of the Dang Kang was different from normal household pork. When Wei Xiao Bei gradually mastered the art of roasting, he was able to even make the fragrance come out.

    Soon after, the meat was on the fire getting continiously being roasted. Wei Xiao Bei noticed that the color of the [Cooking] skill was also getting darker.

    In the end, the color of the [Cooking] skill became dark gray after the 100th stick. The flavoured dishes count was not at 100/100.

    This should be enough.

    Wei Xiao Bei inspected his evolution points.

    Because he had killed Zhang Xuan Shuo and two Dang Kangs, his evolution points was now at 1360 points.

    Wei Xiao Bei looked at the little girl who was busying herself with the sticks of meat and simply ignoring him at the same time.

    There should be no problem.

    Afterwards, Wei Xiao Bei focused on his [Cooking] skill and his evolution points decreased.

    The [Cooking] skill gradually turned from dark gray to red.

    When the skill fully became red, the [Cooking] skill reached intermediate rank.

    Other skills would needed 50 evolution points to increase in rank, but the [Cooking] skill used up 100 points.

    When it increased to intermediate rank, the flavorful dishes became, Fragrant dishes 0/200.

    This meant that he needed to cook 200 fragrant dishes to increase his [Cooking] skill to the next rank.

    Without even needing to think, Wei Xiao Bei understood that this would be a lot harder than cooking 100 flavourful dishes, whether in quality or in quantity.

    As the saying goes, a good dish must be colorful, fragrant, and tasty.

    For many people, the taste of the dish was the number one priority.

    Untasty food would not make the customer satisfied even if the two other conditions were fulfilled.

    After taste came fragrance.

    In simpler terms, why do plain noodles in broth need to be sprinkled with chopped pring onions?

    With the steam from the noodles, the fragrance from the spring onions would spread. When people smelt it, their saliva would flow, allowing them to understand how delicious the plain noodles would be even without eating it.

    This was the main importance of fragrance.

    After all, smell was an important factor that humans used to judge whether a dish was good or bad.

    By smelling food, people would know if the food had gone sour, needed to be taken to the trash, or would cause bad effects on their bodies.

    Wei Xiao Bei frowned at the thought of how hard it would be to cook 200 fragrant dishes.

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