“Here. Make another sword with it.” when both Jianmen and Josephine Wong escaped back to the cave, Josephine Wong handed the rib bone to Jianmen: “Don’t know how you’d handle with a bone sword, but in theory this should be better than a gallbladder stone.”

“Thank you. Here. It’s from the lizard’s brain.” Jianmen handed a piece of dark green stone with a blue shine to Josephine Wong: “There’s some kind of energy inside - it felt pretty pure. So it will help you recover once you figure out how to use it.”

“Thanks.” Josephine Wong took the stone and sat down on the ground beside the bed.

“You’re still welcome to use the bed. I’ m not using it at the moment.” Jianmen put down his giant stone box by the fire in the cave: “I’m going to prep some food.”

“Food… you mean that brain?” Josephine Wong was ready for this answer, still she felt her stomach rumbling when she heard the definite answer.

“Brains are actually one of the most nutritious parts inside of an animal’s body. And for animals and beasts of this place, it’s only gonna be better. For the very least, I would assume they possess qualities to help keep one sane and stable in this realm of chaotic energy fields.”

“Ugh, okay.” Josephine Wong sat back up on the bed, and focused her power of mind and will on the stone.

Just as Jianmen said, the energy inside the stone was quite pure, and moreover, it doesn’t seem to be showing any elemental properties, but it’s full of life force, and just by bathing in its radiation, she already started feeling better. And in less than five minutes, the fatigue from the fight and the warmth and comfort brought about by the stone made her fall asleep while still in a sitting position.

“Hey, wake up. Time for food.” Jianmen woke Josephine Wong with a stone bowl in his hand, inside which was some kind of thick broth and pieces of white tofu-like chunks inside.

“How long was I out?” Josephine Wong stretched and yawned: “Hmm… I feel a lot… rejuvenated.”

“About two and and a half earth hours. You look healthier and stronger than before. That gem’s some good stuff huh?” Jianmen smiled and placed the stone bowl in front of her: “That’s the gem from a close-to-apex predator, and apparently almost pure life force with no elemental properties, which is extra nice.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yeah - really good. But let’s not try that again unless we have to.” Josephine Wong put the stone into her robe pocket, whose energy seemed to be drained a little bit. She then examined her body and her power - her soreness and little wounds from the explosion were mostly healed, and her magical power had restored to around twenty to thirty percent of that when she was at her peak.

“Here - these are for you teammates.” Jianmen pulled out four little sealed stone boxes from around the fire and handed them to Josephine Wong: “They’re all fully sealed and fully heated and sanitized before preparation. So they should last at least a few months. They’re condensed brain soups, not gonna be tasty as what we’re gonna have, but should provide enough sustenance for a decent recovery.”

“Wow, thank you.” Josephine Wong took the stone boxes and tried to place them into some sort of bags - they were surprisingly light, and only on close examination was she able to tell that there was an anti-gravity array carved on the bottom of each of the stone boxes: “Did you use all of them brain?”

“Yeah, no parts wasted.” Jianmen nodded and pointed at the stone pot placed right above the fire: “The brain WAS big, but once condensed and dehydrated it would shrink like you’ve never seen anything shrink ever before. Come on, have some soup. It’s not as gross as you think.”

“Yeah, you definitely made it seem much more appealing than I thought.” Josephine Wong picked up the stone bowl of soup and looked closely, the little white chunks were definitely the brain. But the way it was cooked, with vegetables, herbs, some small pieces of rabbit meat, made it seem quite normal and even tasty.

Josephine Wong took a sip using the stone spoon, the soup tasted a bit fishy and oily, but it was definitely not bad. And after a short moment of hesitation, she scooped up a piece of brain and put it in her mouth.

It tasted like a piece of tender but oily tofu with meat and fish flavor, and once she got over the unease that she was eating cooked brain, she found herself to be enjoying the soup quite a lot.

And with each bite of brain she swallowed, she felt as if she swallowed a small chunk of sponge soaked in the same kind of energy full of life force from the stone, which in turn dissolved in her stomach, thus releasing the energy from inside of her body.

“How is it?” Jianmen asked Josephine Wong with anticipation.

“It’s good.” Josephine Wong smiled and nodded: “Even discounting the reinvigorating effects, it is still pretty solid. You should’ve probably put in some cooking wine though.”

“Nice catch right there.” Jianmen pointed at Josephine Wong and: “It’s pretty hard to find cooking wine here. And I wasn’t able to find ginger either to substitute for cooking wine. Too bad.”

“Oh, nono, it’s fine. It’s great. I don’t think anyone in the history of the grant academy had food like this before.” Josephine Wong soon finished the entire bowl of brain soup and started sensing the life force coursing through her body: “So does this mean that we’ll be ready to leave the cave for good?”

“I would say so. Let’s take a few hours to recover.” Jianmen poured himself another bowl of soup and pointed at a bunch of round and flattened bread lying on a hot and flat stone near the fire: “Thanks to that lizard, I finally have enough supply for the road.”

“Brain flat bread.” Josephine Wong poured herself one more bowl of soup and said: “Nice. Where’d you get the flour?”

“Not flour, just a combination of crushed mushrooms - non-poisonous ones, of course, and vegetables and starch from some kind of dense starch tree nearby.” Jianmen nodded and chuckled: “It’s more of a… naan.”