I walked into my room, stretched out my sore muscles, and sat in my chair. Thankfully, I've done this enough to finally get over the pain stage, and now, it was just a steady burn that ate away at all of my muscles. I yawned as I sat back and figured out my plan. My domain had a little over an hour left for the upgrade to finish. I did consider a little more training, but I was a little too burnt out to worry about doing anything with my soul at the moment. I glanced over at my bed and decided to take a nap, then deal with my domain getting its upgrade. Maybe afterward I can cook!

With my mind made up, I walked over to my bed, crawled into it, and stretched out. The relief was almost orgasmic as my sore muscles stretched. I nestled into my pillow and stared up at the ceiling for a little while before my eyes meandered over to my map. Lately, before I went to sleep, something has been gnawing at me to make sure that everyone was okay before I slept.

The adventurers were still around, and a few fresh faces seemed to have arrived while I was training. Overall, everything looked to be good. The stronghold seemed to hold well. The only sad thing was that one outpost was taken by the adventurers, and they seemed like they were setting up shop there. Not that I was complaining since it was keeping them in the domain. With that fact settled, I rolled over, pressed my face into my pillow, and drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, it was to a few notifications blinking incessantly in the corner of my eye. I rubbed my bleary eyes and quickly read the stuff over.

Congratulations! You now have a tier two domain!

+Five thousand essence have been awarded to you!

You can now have four more bosses! All essence costs are now reduced slightly, and creation speed has been increased. You can now have up to tier four mob units.

Overall, it wasn't too bad. A little less climactic than I would have expected, but that's alright. I sat up, wiped away my bleary eyes, and tried to plan out my day. First things first, I have to go through and ensure that the troops are doing well, along with the treasure chests. I quickly scrolled through the map, restocked a few of the treasure chests, consumed a few dead adventures, and took their equipment for my use.

Once I was finished, I sat up and walked over to my desk, deciding that I wanted to cook, so I needed to look through my templates to see what I was working with. I knew for sure I had pots, pans, knives, and some herbs. I started humming quietly as I searched through my templates and quickly separated them based on use. The dead adventurers even had various herbs, spices, and even some proteins!

I cackled as I looked over everything and quickly went to look at everything else that I needed. I lacked an oven, a stove, and a few other key things, but I think I can do with what I have. If only I could use magic, I'm sure that I could do something with all this. I strummed my fingers across the desk as I tried to figure some stuff out. Out of curiosity, I looked through some templates from the recently deceased to see if I could find something of use.

Let's see here, some nice armor weapons. Oh, there is even a wand! But nothing that could directly help me at the moment. I sat back in my chair and ran a few ideas through my mind. Why don't I make a flat top? I could start a fire under a steel plate and use that to cook. I could also do a hastily made stovetop the same way.

I stood in a cleared-out area underground that was one hundred meters long in all directions. It was a little excessive, but I fully planned on decking this place with all the equipment I could imagine. Now all I had to do was set up some stuff so a fire wouldn't start and so I wouldn't asphyxiate. It was just a matter of how I should do it. In the meantime, I suppose I could make a small vent way to the surface, but I would have to hide it or find a way to recycle the stuff.

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Putting that thought to the side, I created a large metal table that was about two meters long, sat it down near the wall, and then designed a wooden board to go right on top of it. I added a decent shelf underneath it to store many pots and pans. While I could put doors and whatnot in there, it didn't feel right. I'd instead just leave it open, so I could grab what I needed.

As that was coming into existence, I started designing what would function as my flat top. Since it couldn't be anything super fancy, I created a small area underneath a small steel slab that would house fire the firewood and place it on another small steel slab that I could pull out and keep clean. Along with a small divot near the top that I could use to scrape all the excess stuff into so I could clean it out later. As with the prep table that I made earlier, I added a shelf underneath it to store more equipment that I would need in the future.

I stepped back and watched as my new items were in the process of being created. Now, all I had to do was create some spatulas, an oven, a stovetop, a trash can for sure, and a few other items. Unfortunately, I have nothing to create a refrigerator with, so I can't make too much stuff; otherwise, it would go bad. It was times like this that I really missed stuff from Earth.

Finally, I finished my make-shift kitchen. My oven was a bit of a pain to make since it's essentially going to be a bit of a smoker, which would throw off the taste of my food, but I would have to figure out how to make something slightly better. But that would be something to work on later. As for my stove, I went with a small fire under a metal grate that would allow the flames to reach upwards and act as a stovetop.

I grabbed my notebook and jotted out a list of equipment I would need. So far, I for sure had a traditional pan. I would make a soup pot, along with an extra-sized one, to make some broths and whatnot. I would probably make a wok just to have one since woks are life. On top of that, I would need some spoons, forks, plates, spatulas, whisks, strainers, bowls, and a few other dozen small things. From the looks of it, I would need to increase my storage space since I intended to make a metric fuck ton of food in the future.

With my list in hand, I quickly went to work designing and creating all the tools that I needed. Sadly, I couldn't do anything overly fancy since I had to worry about not biting too far into my resource reserves. As I worked, I was growing a little more excited. I got to cook again, and the best part is, it's on my own time. No more standing in a line for fourteen hours a day or more, making the same food. Now I can cook when I want, and whatever I want, and there was no one here to tell me otherwise.

Now it was time for me to tally up what I had in the way of spices and food. Let's see, I have salt, cilantro, mint, and a couple that I wasn't sure about since the system gave them names that I've never heard before, so I would do some testing and see. Hopefully, they were stupidly obvious and something that I knew how to use. As for the rest, I had some uncooked poultry and pork, along with some cooked chicken, which I would try to see how it was and if I could do anything with it. What I really wish I had here, though, was some seafood, and other proteins, like steak, or just the whole animal, so I could make my own cuts, but it is what it is.

As I was humming to myself, I quickly created a sample of all the herbs at my disposal. Cilantro was, well, cilantro; what more could I say there. Mint was one of my favorites, though I questioned what I could use it for outside of making some tea. Salt was salt and was one of the most vital spices. Now, it was time to test the stuff I didn't know about. The first one up was called Bray's leave and looked a lot like basil. I picked it up, ran my fingers across its surface, and smelled it.

Yep, that definitely smelled like it. I set the leaf to the side, quickly scribbled in what it was in my notebook, and went to the next. This time it was a small bundle of leaves with tiny cloves on top called Ewedu, which looked oddly familiar, though I couldn't place why. I picked off a small leaf and placed it on my tongue. As I tasted it, I realized it was a type of parsley.

Now onto the final one! This time it was a black powdery substance called peperine. Now, if common sense tells me anything, this would be black pepper, which would be a boon. I reached out, dipped my finger into the substance, tasted it, and nodded my head while grimacing. Ah yes, it was black pepper. So far, this was a solid haul. Now, it was time to throw together some food. Now I needed to gather ingredients and start doing more elaborate dishes! Maybe I could even use it as leverage outside of here.