Chapter 10
Ezekiel woke up at five in the morning and his two brothers were still asleep. He slowly rose from the bed so as not to disturb the boys then went outside. It was still dark and because the outside had a breeze, he couldn’t use a candle as a source of light.
He was forced to purchase a gasoline-fueled lantern and for one copper, he found one together with half a liter of gasoline. He sighed at the fact that he kept searching for the cheapest items that he could find on his system shopping site and wondered when would the time arrive wherein he wouldn’t need to bother about the prices and just purchase everything that he liked.
Ezekiel also wondered about the logic behind his system. What would the system do with coins? At least with the other web novels wherein the currency that systems asked their protagonists were mana crystals or mana stones, at least one could understand that systems could use the energy in the mana currency to fuel their power but what about his system? Did coins have some sort of energy that the system could use or was his system a whim of some very powerful merchant god? He didn’t know so the best thing that he could do was to put those thoughts at the back of his mind since it would probably be a while before he would know the source of his system or even the reason why he was transmigrated in the first place.
After filling the lantern’s tank with fuel, Ezekiel lit it up using Prestidigitation and then was glad of the purchase since the lantern was as bright as three candles. He then proceeded to retrieve the foldable aluminum table that he purchased and laid it out just outside their shack.
He then put all the items that he purchased last night on the table like the foldable camping stove that uses wood for fuel, the big pot that he purchased, the knife, and the cutting board. He missed a few like a cooking spoon so he opened his system shopping site and for 2 copper coins purchased two types of ladle, one for stirring and one for scooping food, a couple of huge plastic bowls, three plastic plates, three plastic glasses, spoon and forks, and a plastic bucket with a lid so he could get water from the barrel where they stored the water from the well. The wooden buckets that they were using were very rough.
When everything was ready including the bucket of water, he proceeded to start cooking.
Ezekiel was also glad that there was firewood beside their shack so he took a few and filled the stove with them. Then he lit up the stove using his current favorite spell. He then proceeded to chop the garlic, onions, carrots, spring onions, bell pepper, and ginger but he made sure that the ginger’s cut was large since he was planning to scoop it out once the porridge was cooked. He forgot the meat so for 1 copper coin he purchased a kilo of chicken breast. He took ¼ kilo of chicken breast and stored the rest in his 4th tab inventory.
He cut up the chicken breasts to bite size and then seasoned them with salt and pepper then he proceeded to fry them in the pot with cooking oil that he put on the stove. When the chicken bite-size pieces were golden brown, he proceeded to put in all the chopped-up aromatics and vegetables. After a few minutes, he put in water in the pot then he put enough rice that would allow him to fill up 12 bowls of porridge.
Even though the pot would be full of porridge, he could store it in his 4th tab and it wouldn’t go bad and would be as fresh as the time he put it there.
Soon the smell of the porridge floated around the vicinity and that woke up the boys. The sun was already coming out from the horizon so Ezekiel stored the lantern and the remaining gasoline fuel in his inventory.
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“Wow, what are those!” Rober asked.
“They’re the magic items that I’ve conjured. Come here both of you and I’ll clean you using magic then we can eat.”
Robert and Luke went to him while Luke kept saying “Magic, magic”. Ezekiel cast Prestidigitation on his brothers’ faces then proceeded to scoop out three bowls of porridge for all of them and topped it off with spring onions. He also purchased a liter of milk since they had consumed all the milk he previously purchased but this time he searched for the cheapest one so he found a liter of milk and a liter of purified water for 1 copper coin. He only had 33 copper coins remaining.
The rice porridge that he cooked was from the internet and it was called Chicken Arroz Caldo. It was easy enough to follow and based on his brother’s reactions, it was delicious enough. He wasn’t that expert of a cook but as a bachelor, he knew enough to feed himself but he wasn’t worried about the taste since if he made a mistake, Prestidigitation could easily solve it.
After their bowls of porridge were consumed, the brother drank their milk but Ezekiel could see that the brothers were not particularly enamored with the milk but they emptied their glasses.
Looking at the plastic glasses, Ezekiel promised himself that he would replace their utensils once he had enough coins. Due to all of them being tiny, Ezekiel knew that he couldn’t and shouldn’t force it so after a bowl of porridge, even though they all wanted to eat more, he told them that they would eat again after a couple of hours to make sure that they wouldn’t experience any tummy aches.
Ezekiel then proceeded to clean everything using his Prestidigitation spell, snuffed out the fire in the portable camping stove then stored everything in his inventory. He made sure that all the items that he purchased from his system were in his 4th tab since he didn’t want anyone from the village to see them in case somebody came to inspect their shack.
“What are we going to do next? Let’s play Snakes and Ladders!” Robert shouted.
“Snakes! Ladders! Play, play! Luke shouted excitedly as well.
“Before we play we need to hunt some more animals in the forest so we can sell them in the market. With more coins, I could conjure more delicious food and toys,” Ezekiel told his brothers.
Robert and Luke were okay with that as long as he brought them with him so they proceeded to enter the forest again. Ezekiel thought that it might be better if he had a weapon with him so he checked his system shopping site that looked like the famous shopping site from Earth but the cheapest one that he could find was an axe and that one was 2 copper coins. He would have liked to purchase those crossbows but they cost a lot and the cheapest among them was 2 silvers.
Since for now, he wasn’t strong enough to wield an axe, it would be better just to keep using his knife and he would just rely on his cantrips.
After a couple of hours of walking, Ezekiel saw that his brothers were getting tired but before he could tell them to rest, Luke suddenly shouted “Pig!”.
When he looked at where the kid was pointing out, he saw a massive boar that was twice as big as the one they had killed yesterday. Ezekiel became a bit nervous but he calmed himself. His two brothers hid behind him and when the huge boar noticed them, it snorted loudly and ran towards them.
Ezekiel immediately cast his Fire Bolt spells toward the huge animal and was glad that his spells could be cast instantaneously. He just needed to think about the spell and the slots where it was slotted to and the spell would activate and the slot would be grayed out.
He cast the Fire Bolt that was slotted on the 1st level slot followed by a second one that was in the cantrip slots. The first Fire Bolt was powerful enough to stop the huge boar in its track and the second Fire Bolt killed it since it fell once the second spell hit its head.
Ezekiel was glad that his spell had some sort of homing feature since the two Fire Bolts easily hit the boar’s head. He still wanted to make sure so he waited for the cooldown to be over and cast the Fire Bolt slotted at the 1st level slot again towards the boar’s head and when the boar didn’t react, that meant that it was truly dead.
The three brothers went to the dead boar and when they got near it, Ezekiel prodded it using his foot first. After confirming that the animal was truly dead, he then proceeded to cut out the burnt part, which was the whole head. He was glad that his inventory was now as large as 2 cubic meters, which was enough to store such a huge animal.