“I still think we could have taken it.”

“Gel, that turtle was the same size as our hilltop.” Sean said, for at least the third time since he had started preparing one of the recipes Auntie Ta had given him. The main ingredient had required them to dig under a rock, but at least it seared well. “It would have flattened us before it even noticed us.”

The slime sighed expansively, before inhaling an appreciable whiff of the food he was making that took almost as long to complete.

“You don’t know that.” Gel said, the aroma wafting up clearly derailing his conviction on the topic. “We climbed up that queen ant without being noticed. If we’d dug in at the top, maybe we could have gotten to all the tender meat inside. Just imagine how big we could get if we ate something that size!”

“I feel compelled to remind you that it had a shell up top.” Sean pointed out, reaching over to their splayed-out pack to grab a pinch of herbs he had been told were called ‘marqui cloves’. The gelaton made sure to properly pinch said amount in the correct way before inverting his hand and rubbing his fingers to drop it in.

“A shell with actual boulders on it.” Sean continued, once he was sure he had gotten the maneuver correct. He adjusted his beloved frying pan’s position over the fire pit he had made, grateful for the contribution a few local cacti-things had made to its construction. “Pretty sure I saw birds circling up there, too. Big ones.”

“Delicious ones.” Gel corrected quickly. “I assume, anyway. I haven’t had bird yet. We should catch one. They can’t be that hard to catch, right?”

“Not if you have wings or a ranged weapon, which reminds me… we need to pick up some arrows when we get to Dervash.”

Having only one functional arm for most of his time here had precluded the use of a bow, but now that he had both back – and ideally, for good – Sean was curious to see what he could accomplish with one. Would make hunting quite a bit safer too, for the next time I’m out here running around with barely any health left.

After the temporary health from the trimleaf soup had worn off, Sean had used the calcification trait he had picked up not long ago to convert some of the excess mass they had stored up into temporary health. He hadn’t been sure what the ratio would be, but the effects had been impressive.

YOU HAVE SPENT 50% OF YOUR TOTAL MASS VIA YOUR CALCIFICATION TRAIT, EARNING 13 TEMPORARY HEALTH POINTS! THIS HEALTH CANNOT BE REGAINED ONCE LOST, BUT WILL LAST UNTIL DAMAGE REMOVES IT.

It was amazing the relief that having a buffer of roughly half your health could do for a mind, even though Sean admittedly didn’t feel much worry in general. His deeply cracked body had been a concern, sure. But the pain emanating from it had felt… dull. Distant. Almost as if he were feeling it through painkillers or some other dampening medium.

When he had activated calcification, the sudden loss in height had been a startling difference at first– but Sean had gotten used to it quickly enough. The process had also conveniently removed many of the deep gouges and cracks in his many bones, rendering a fair portion of them pristine once again. For some reason, that sight had deeply satisfied him.

I suppose even the undead don’t like to have open wounds just sitting there. Sean mused, deftly flipping the contents of his frying pan to ensure not an ounce of it was wasted. Then again zombies exist, so maybe it’s only certain types? Or do zombies only consider muscle injuries ‘real’, while the fleshy bits don’t matter? That would explain a few things.

Sean resolved to talk that particular quirk out with a zombie, should they ever come across a non-hostile one in the future. He chuckled to himself, wondering at how strange that idea might have seemed before. Getting left for dead really changed my perspective, I guess.

A sizzling pop that sounded a bit too much like his sear was progressing further than he wanted to drew Sean back into reality. Lifting his pan from the heat, the gelaton pressed the index finger of his left hand into the center ingredient: the pair of dash lizards they had caught earlier. Now that the dish was nearly complete, it was time to try imbuing it with some of his mana.

Sean concentrated, trying to focus on drawing out the same energy he felt he was tapping into whenever he used slash, as Auntie Ta had told him. Some dishes let him add the imbuement at the same time as the seasonings, but the druid’s notes had specified that for this dish to be properly imbued one had to do it via direct contact at the end. Those same notes had been frustratingly vague on how one imbued it all, but Sean was determined to get it right.

What he was aiming for was somewhere between imagining the feel of water on your fingertips, and pushing electricity out from them at the same time – or at least, that was how Sean had been envisioning it. It’s what he had done with the trimleaf soup, and to his surprise it worked again. With only a minute or two of effort, Sean managed to draw out a single shimmering mote of darkness from his finger and guide it into the dish by will alone.

The act was, hands down, the most magical experience Sean had ever felt since arriving here. When he saw the subtle changes in color spread throughout the lizards and the bed of cactus-steaks each rested on, it was all the gelaton could do not to jump for joy and dance a skeletal jig right there in the sands.

“Hah-hahh, perfection!” Sean declared to his friend, slipping the pan’s contents over to a flat rock he had prepared for just this purpose. The rock was smooth and scoured clean, having gotten the complete sanitization experience by Gel once Sean had told him what it was for. “Here, taste it. Tell me what you think.”

Sean had barely gotten the words out when a crimson whip landed softly atop the dish, oozing rapidly over the lizards as if Gel were afraid the cooked critters might up and run away. The slime in his chest made contented chewing sounds as the food rapidly dissolved, despite not having any teeth. Before Gel could make his thoughts on the flavor known however, a pair of prompts appeared to prove that Sean had gotten it right.

Congratulations, you have consumed a full portion of the dish: Dual-Dasher Medley! Your competency has been temporarily increased by four points for the next six hours.

Note: This recipe’s base effect and duration have each been increased by 100% due to its excellent quality.

Hah-hahh! Fuck yeah! Sean thought with supreme satisfaction. Nailed it!

Progress towards achieving the Magichef title: 73%.

So... bloody… close! Sean was just trying to figure out how to land that final 27%, preferably before the buff from the medley he had just made fell off, when Gel’s voice cut into his mind.

“Mmph… mmh! I don’t know how you did it, but that was even better than the soup!” Gel sounded genuinely in awe of his cooking skills, which made the half hour or so it had taken to put this all together that much more worth it in Sean’s opinion. “The cactus steaks were like fresh lungs filled with juice this time, and the lizards! Those chunky brown bits of flesh at the edges?”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“The sear?”

“The sear!” Gel enthused, practically salivating at the word. “It’s like you cooked up all the flavor of the meat and concentrated it in a single spot – only it was over all the sides!”

The slime cackled in delight, and Sean found himself chuckling along with his friend’s good-natured exuberance.

“Can we get more? There were more of those tan rocks around here the dasher lizards live under, weren’t there?”

“There were.” Sean admitted, fondly wiping his magical frying pan clean with a chunk of cactus-flesh he had saved to use as a sponge. “But I’ve been thinking. My progress towards this title has only really jumped after cooking when I’ve either made something a new way, or followed a new method of mana imbuement with a different recipe.”

“Mhm.. And?” Gel sounded like he was already dreaming about his next medley of lizards, only half-listening.

“And that got me thinking. Auntie Ta said progress with titles like this is usually more about mastery and proving yourself with different techniques. Which lines up with what I’ve been seeing.”

“When did she say that?”

“Back at her kitchen, I think you were busy eating.” Sean said, waving a free hand in the air as if to move the conversation along. “Point is, I have a plan to get me the rest of the way there… and I’ve got a feeling you’re going to like it.”

“If it involves food in literally any way, shape, or form– count me in.” Gel said, his attention instantly snapping back to the topic at hand. “I care about what you care about my friend, but in this case I care twice.”

Sean shook his head, appreciating the slime’s unflinching support but eager to get started. He set the frying pan back down on a separate section of his makeshift grill where the heat wouldn’t bother it, then he stood up and looked around.

“It does.” The gelaton answered his friend, and he felt his instincts already surging up with approval of his next words. Small trails and footprints in the sands were highlighted in contrast to the contours of the landscape around them, and Sean could already tell which of the nearby boulders laying on the rocky outcropping they had stopped at were likely to harbor more meat-morsels for him to experiment. “Basically, we’re going to need a whole lot of meat.”

“Because I am going to whip you up as many different lizard-dishes as I can think of with whatever we find.”

—------------------------

It took Sean only two more hours and seven different styles of cooked reptiles to finally reach his goal. His first attempt had been to try chopped dasher lizard atop a sort of cactus-salad, the results of which Gel had called “promising, but missing flair”. After that Sean had tried thinly slicing the meat in a manner very similar to how the meat for steak pho was prepared back home, imbuing the final product with death mana while nearly entirely ‘raw’ in a way that had surprisingly gotten full marks from his friend’s palate.

Of the following five, the gelaton had learned relatively little – save for that the addition of too much death mana during imbuement was a sure-fire way to end with a rotted carcass even Gel consumed with some reluctance.

“I’m not sure what you did to that one.” Gel had said, a bit too delicately in Sean’s opinion. “But I vote you never do it again.”

“Yeah, sorry. Imbuement is a bit of a wildcard, here. Still trying to get the hang of it.”

“I think I can taste my tongue.” Gel had added a minute later. “Is it supposed to taste like– no, you know what? I know that’s not right. Blegh. Tongue should never taste bad.”

Sean had at least made up for that mistake with his final creation: lizard skewers drizzled in cactus sauce filled with a small blend of some of the seasonings they had taken back at Dry Run. Admittedly, Sean had been trying to make a sauce out of the cactus’ juices this entire time and always coming up with something more runny than he was hoping for – but it turned out the trick was to break up some of the leftover charred meat into it. Something in the juice broke down the char, deglazing it in a way that reminded Sean of how one thickened gravy, and the end result had Gel begging for more.

Sean might have agreed, were it not for the glorious prompt that had awaited him once the dish was complete. It appeared with great fanfare, the sound of a hundred dishes all pleasantly sizzling away – like the bustle one might find in a busy kitchen. Its borders were comprised of endlessly scrawled notes that reminded the gelaton of Auntie Ta’s recipe dictation, though the characters were unfortunately too indistinct to read. The text of the prompt itself however, was an amusing array of utensils instead of any actual font.

Congratulations, you have earned the title: ‘Magichef’! Many are those who put meat to pan, but only the most dedicated can turn that meat into a dish fit for a king! Real Magichefs are those who have learned to infuse their meals with the very essence of mana itself, and having proven your prowess in doing so you have taken your first step upon that most savory of paths! Rejoice, new acolyte of the magi-culinary arts, for the journey of your tastebuds has only just begun!

This title grants the ability to passively select a handful of base magical recipes compatible with the user’s aspect(s) and permanently retain the knowledge necessary to create them. Additional benefits may also apply, but must be discovered.

Before Sean could share his excitement with Gel, exclaim in delight, or even raise a fist in victory – a new prompt appeared, this time formatted as a list. Its text snapping his already-dropped jaw closed by reflex.

Please make three selections from the following recipes:

* Baked Roast

* Cheese Melt

* Chiric

* Four-part Broth

* Mana-Leavened Dough

* Margerilla

* Mashlon

* Trisalad

* Whimble

*

* …

Sean stared, dumbfounded, as the list continued on. He counted thirty-seven total recipes in all.

And I can only choose three!? The injustice! How could he possibly choose just three!? Can I at least get more information here, or–

Attempting to focus on each of the recipes listed gave him something – but it wasn’t exactly what he was after. In each case, Sean received a mental image instead of any details on the recipe. Thinking about it, that actually made sense. If he could just call up the recipe for each one then he would have just written it down and gotten all of them for free.

Stupid system and it’s stupid safeguards. Sean cursed, though his frustration evaporated almost before the words had finished forming. He had free recipes to choose from!

The first one, a ‘Whimble’, appeared to be some kind of fruit-filled biscuit (or maybe a muffin?) with a hard glaze over the top. ‘Four-part Broth’ looked to be exactly what he had imagined, just a bowl of swirling deep-brown-and-dull-red broth that presumably had four different ingredients to it. ‘Mana-Leavened Dough’ seemed like a traditional baguette only thicker, and with patches of varying colors along its center. ‘Trisalad’ looked like somewhere between a fruit salad and a meat salad, a ‘Margerilla’ was some type of multi-hued drink that gave Sean fancy cocktail vibes, a ‘Mashlon’ reminded him distinctly of mashed potatoes only with far more chunks…

… and the list went on. All thirty seven options giving Sean glimpses into the ‘base’ cuisine options that populated this new world. The experience was so profoundly beautiful, the gelaton could almost cry. Not just because of the opportunities this prompt was offering him, but because Sean had always felt like food – above all other things – was truly what brought people together.

There was a feeling of connection that one only found in sharing or preparing a meal for or with others. It had been a primal, almost tribal feeling when he was a human. Even now, as a gelaton, Sean had witnessed something as simple as the availability of fresh water bringing monsters together. That sight had given him hope. Hope that the same feeling he had felt back on Earth could still be found here. That he hadn’t just imagined the bonding experiences he had shared with Gel all this time – that those had been real. That they had been valid.

Sean skimmed through the list another two times, committing the names of each recipe to memory and then double-checking himself against it just to be certain. Then the gelaton made his selection, and as he did…

… the once-disposed-of summoned creature finally began to feel like he was making this new world his home.