Lucinda struggled to piece together the puzzling instructions. "So, Joey suggests using the rosemary branch either as a brush or a scalpel on the steak and... was there anything else?"

"That was it," Flaminia responded, her voice tinged with a touch of frustration. "He said he's completely engrossed in his physical training right now. The rest is up to us."

Lucinda paused to think, her brows furrowed. "The concept is... odd. Trying to infuse an Ethereal Cattle steak, which is already brimming with Mana, with even more stuff. It sounds mad. In theory, it makes some sense. It’s crazy since I’ve never heard of anyone inscribing runes on food, but who knows? Joey looks crazy enough.”

For all she wanted to deny it, her interest in the Human had now skyrocketed. If Joey was really serious about magic, perhaps the spark that she had felt when he had invited her for lunch…

Flaminia interjected, "He's got runes etched all over him, too, you know." She stated it so matter-of-factly that Lucinda almost missed it.

Lucinda did a double take. "Hold on, when you say, 'all over him,' you're referring to his clothing, right?" Her voice teetered between confusion and curiosity.

“No, on his skin,” Flaminia raised an eyebrow. “Is that unusual too? I think he mentioned it’s not done commonly… rotten roots; my head is starting to melt from all this new stuff. How do you [Mages] even do it, I wonder.”

Lucinda looked at Flaminia and opened and closed her mouth a few times.

“I… on his skin?” Lucinda. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. You said he won’t be back until he’s done?”

“We have to leave the steaks on the bed. I don’t know what that means,” Flaminia shrugged.

“On the bed, yes,” Lucinda took a deep breath.

So many things are making so little sense right now…

Lucinda took a moment, inhaling deeply.

“Anyway, I know a few things about Enchanting, and I know that the steak is going to be our vessel. What we could do is carve the final rune onto the surface of the steak hoping that the… butter,” she scrunched her face, “the damn butter, will trickle down while enchanting. Following the pattern could help. Another thing is… do you put the butter in the pan as well?”

“What do you mean?” Flaminia looked momentarily puzzled.

“Do you put butter in the pan?”

“I don’t understand,” Flaminia reiterated.

“What? Do you put the damn butter in the pan before the steak or not?”

“You have never cooked a steak?” Flaminia was the one looking stunned now.

Lucinda's cheeks were tinted a light shade of pink, her posture becoming defensive. “I practice a lot of magic, ok!?” she was losing her patience.

“Yes, kid, you do put the butter on the pan,” Flaminia chuckled, finally feeling like she was more knowledgeable than Lucinda, at least in something.

“Ok,” Lucinda exhaled, “let’s spread the butter following the runes’ pattern on the pan too. I don’t know if that will do anything, but trying won’t hurt. Sometimes, [Enchanters] enchant runes on top of already-made patterns. It’s very common, especially among beginners. Apparently, it helps the flow of Mana to find the right direction more naturally. Advanced [Enchanters] can do without it because they need more freedom to follow the natural patterns of Mana, but for beginners, it’s almost impossible to do it without it.”

“So, how would we do that?” Flaminia frowned.

“Instead of infusing the Mana before, let’s place some of the butter in the final pattern on the pan and then infuse it. Once it’s fully infused, we turn on the stove that will melt it. Hopefully, the shape of the Mana will still help the steak retain the original rune’s pattern.”

“This…” Flaminia looked at Lucinda with an impressed expression. “You are good.”

Lucinda smirked and nodded.

“Let’s also take a knife and start carving the runes.”

…

Lucinda and Flaminia carved and prepared two pans each. Flaminia had brought more than one set of utensils to Joey’s house, thinking she might break something while trying to cook magical food. In fact, she wondered if she should ask a [Blacksmith] to prepare Enchantment-grade steel for her.

“Ok, they all look good,” Lucinda said, brushing away a lock of red hair and straightening her back. She had been poring over the butter runes on the pan. “Both the pan and the steaks are good. You go first, and we’ll alternate to save Mana and rest.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Flaminia nodded, agreeing with everything the [Mage] was saying.

“Let’s start then.”

Flaminia activated [Mana Sense] and started infusing Mana into the butter on the pan as Lucinda, with her own skill active, watched the butter slowly fill up with Mana.

“It looks like this butter can store more Mana,” Flaminia frowned. “Is this the same butter I used?”

“It means that we are on the right path,” Lucinda smirked. “Physical vessels can only contain a limited amount of butter, but once you use runes, you align the vessel with the Mana, and now, instead of brute-forcing the Mana in it, it will enter a loop.”

Flaminia wasn’t sure she got all that Lucinda had just said, but what she knew was that this seemed to be working.

Joey… Flaminia thought to herself as her Mana trickled into the butter. Was I wrong?

It was a legitimate question that popped up in her mind.

Have I been acting like a fool?

Flaminia thought about what would have happened if she had refused to ask Lucinda. Would Joey have died because of her arrogance, because she had been upset with Plinius?

I don’t really like Joey, do I? Flaminia grimaced.

“Is everything ok?” Lucinda asked from the side.

Flaminia nodded as she stopped the Mana flow. The butter finally filled up.

“Just… I’ve made some mistakes with Joey. We can have a chat later. I want to ask why you refused him.”

“I didn’t,” Lucinda frowned. “I mean, I haven’t actually refused anything. We just sort of… rotted apart? I don’t know.”

“Green-eared kids,” Flaminia snickered. “It’s fine. Let’s turn on the fire.”

…

The butter started sizzling on the pan under the watchful eyes of the two women. As the butter dissolved, though, something interesting happened: the Mana that Flaminia had injected into the butter was not changing its shape—it still resembled the rune they had assembled before. Moreso, it seemed like the fire made the Mana brighter.

“This…” Flaminia trailed off, her voice a mix of awe and disbelief.

“Go, go! It’s slowly dissipating!” Lucinda told her in a frenzy.

Flaminia skillfully picked up the steak and laid it on the pan, immediately taking up a new branch of rosemary and starting to ladle some melted butter over it. She saw through [Mana Sense] that, even though the butter would pour all over the steak, the Mana in it seemed to naturally fall into the grooves they had etched into the meat.

The steak seared beautifully, the butter dancing on its surface, creating a golden crust. The heat caused the steak's fiber to contract, its juices bubbling up and caramelizing on the surface. With every brushstroke of the rosemary, the kitchen became more and more enveloped in a heady aroma – a symphony of meat, butter, and fragrant herbs.

Flaminia felt a natural pull toward the steak as if her own Mana was reacting to it, and she started letting more Mana loose through the rosemary branch. The butter that would slowly drip from the rosemary branch she was moving in the same patterns Joey had drawn out for them was resonating with the butter in the pan.

Now, with every movement of the branch, Flaminia was getting some sort of haptic feedback, as if it was telling her whether she was doing well. Slowly, she developed a feeling for it.

This is working! This is working!

However, right when she started feeling that this operation might go in the right direction and she turned the steak to lather it with more butter on the other side, ignoring the sparks of oil that flew on her skin, the magical feeling she had been holding onto fizzled away.

Through [Mana Sense], they could both see that all the Mana that had been accumulating in the pan had dissipated.

“Rotten roots,” Flaminia swore, turning off the skill and looking at the cooked steak in front of her. It looked great, but it had clearly lost its magic at some point. All the magic had gone. “What happened?” Flaminia asked Lucinda, who only shrugged in return.

“The process of enchanting is greater than the sum of all its parts. This means that the runes can have a different potency based on how many parts you got right and wrong. This was clearly on the right path, but your movements weren’t all good. And we might have messed up the etching or the placing of the butter on the pan. It could be any of the three, really.”

“Your turn, then,” Flaminia nodded.

…

Looking at Lucinda moving the rosemary branch confidently was a sight to behold for Flaminia. However, there was something that was clearly missing from the [Mage]’s approach.

“You are burning it! Turn it! Turn it! Rotten roots, the Mana dissipated again!”

…

“Move faster!” Lucinda told Flaminia.

…

“No, no! What are you doing?! You only turn a steak once!” Flaminia shouted, exasperated.

…

Six hours passed like this, with both of them having ingested more Mana Potions than most would have been able to, all thanks to the incredible purity of the concoction.

Flaminia was running on fumes, but she was clearly much closer to success than Lucinda. And, incredibly enough, success materialized on one of her last attempts.

All the Mana suddenly coalesced in their [Mana Sense] vision, filling up the steak after leaving the butter. In their eyes, the steak was now a glowing ball of Mana, with much more of it than they had seen during the previous attempts combined.

Flaminia suddenly breathed out and fished out the steak with her own hands, ignoring the heat like a true [Chef].

She put it on a plate and didn’t hesitate a second to cut it and throw a chunk of it in her own mouth.

Not only did the Ethereal Cattle’s meat melt in her mouth with a smoothness that not even this magical piece of beef had any right to do, but she suddenly felt a ball of energy redistribute throughout her body, lifting off much of the tiredness and making her feel like her muscles had tightened but also relaxed at the same time.

Flaminia smiled at Lucinda and offered the [Mage] a forkful.

“This…” Lucinda’s eyes went wide.

“We made it.”

…

They pushed themselves over their limits and kept cooking for several more hours, finally managing to get Lucinda to make two good steaks.

They placed them on Joey’s bed, and when they turned away from them, they all disappeared.

Flaminia went to knock on Tiberius and Quintus’s door, giving them all the failed attempts and telling them to take them to the Pratus.

“That’s what Joey would want,” Flaminia smiled, almost falling over and stumbling back to the apartment.

She fell by Lucinda’s side on Joey’s bed.

Both received the same messages that night.

[Magical Chef Class Acquired!]

[Magical Chef – Level 1!]

[Skill – Hands: Major Heat Resistance Acquired!]

[Skill – Food: Mana Infusion Acquired!]

[Skill – Runes: Greater Dexterity Acquired!]

Flaminia, coming back to her senses, stared in wonder at her skills, and a question materialized in her mind.

Wait, why didn’t my main class level as well?