The Uchiha Clan's Cheat Codes

The essence of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall was a grand stew. Its ingredients were layered in careful order, creating the ultimate accumulation of umami. The key lay in ingredient selection and heat control.

Different ingredients required different preparation times, so they had to be processed or soaked according to schedule.

The dried sea cucumbers and abalone that had been soaked before dinner had softened somewhat by the time the dishes were washed. Uchiha Yu began the initial processing, cutting open the sea cucumbers and removing the sand, mouths, and teeth hidden inside. He washed the abalone again, removed their mouths and gills, then continued soaking them.

It was also time to prepare the fish maw. He placed it in a pot of cold water and steamed it for ten minutes over water. Once its fragrance had been released, he immediately took it out and rinsed it cool. After confirming that it had cooled completely, he replaced the water with fresh well water for soaking.

A handful of ginger slices was absolutely indispensable at this point. This batch of fish maw came from the Land of Waves, and there was no telling how the swim bladders had been dried after extraction. Their fishy smell was extraordinarily strong. Without thoroughly removing that odor, the strange stench could ruin all the work.

At around ten that night, he began preparing the fish lips. They were actually the scalps of large fish and possessed naturally excellent waterproofing properties, so they needed to be soaked in warm water.

After processing the fish lips, the Tabby Cat who had insisted on keeping him company was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. Her entire body hung limply over Uchiha Yu's shoulder as though she had no bones.

"All right, work is temporarily over. Rika-chan, go to sleep."

"Meow... no..." she said weakly.

"Don't force yourself. The conch needs to soak until four tomorrow morning, and you can get plenty of rest in between."

"You can't stay up all night. I'll need you to tend the fire tomorrow, so make sure you get enough rest."

"Meow..."

After settling Miwa Masayo, Uchiha Yu quietly left home and headed toward the clan's Archive Room.

The so-called Archive Room was a combination library, archive, and museum. It was one of the Uchiha clan's most important foundations, though unfortunately, Uchiha Yu seemed to be the only one who thought so.

Most of the Uchiha clan placed little importance on the Archive Room. Especially after the former clan head, Madara, had swept up the ninjutsu materials and treasures before defecting, no one believed there was anything of value left here.

Since no one was willing to sort through it again, they simply piled all the things Madara had passed over together and treated the place like a storage room or junk room, leaving it entirely unattended.

No one had been responsible for the Archive Room for a long time. Only after Uchiha Yu discovered it and took it over did it gradually regain order under his organization.

He had also gained an enormous amount of knowledge during that process.

When he unlocked the Archive Room and pushed open the heavy stone door, a full foot and a half thick, a faint stench wafted out. It was the mixed smell of parchment, primitive ancient ink, dried bloodstains, bone fragments, tortoise shells, tree bark, and other strange writing materials. It hit the senses hard.

Uchiha Yu did not like the smell either, but he could endure it.

In this Ninja World, where every form of entertainment bored him, he had become accustomed to the pleasure of reading. Before meeting Miwa Masayo, one of his few pleasures had been searching through these old papers for amusing anecdotes from Uchiha history.

Eighteen-year-old Uchiha Yu had spent most of his nights over the past fourteen years in this small Archive Room. Back when his biological father had not yet kicked the bucket, the man had been a busy ninja who was rarely home. Staying at home had been less interesting than staying here, and less safe as well.

After a full fourteen years, Uchiha Yu had finally sorted and organized all the materials. He had copied them into twenty-four large scrolls, systematically recording every legacy left behind by those before him.

The contents of those twenty-four scrolls included their predecessors' insights from personal combat, rare chakra phenomena, thoughts on chakra research, flashes of inspiration regarding Kekkei Genkai development, attempts to wield Senjutsu power, and conjectures about Natural Energy.

Uchiha Yu considered himself a true materialist. He would not fall apart simply because he had changed worlds and encountered supernatural power and so-called "gods."

Those who saw phenomena beyond their understanding and cried, "Science is dead!" or "Physics no longer exists!" were nothing more than mechanical materialists.

What they worshipped was not the scientific spirit of materialism, but the practical power of scientific achievements.

To Uchiha Yu, whether it was supernatural power or gods, as long as they truly existed, they were interesting or powerful things that could be understood through observation, analysis, and summary, then ultimately mastered.

But the prerequisite for all analysis and summary was observation, along with enough information obtained through observation.

And the Archive Room was filled to the brim with information—valuable information, even irreplaceable information.

It was precisely because of this information that Uchiha Yu could truly embark upon the Immortal Path, rather than sensing Natural Energy only to die from its erosion.

Uchiha Yu lit the illumination fixture in the Archive Room and, beneath the bright light, deciphered and copied the last portion of unorganized original materials.

The writing and patterns recorded on silk had been worn away by several centuries of time. Even the silk itself was badly damaged, while the characters written upon it were missing strokes and lines, making them extremely difficult to identify.

Much of the time, Uchiha Yu could only record them through a mixture of guessing and inference. Sometimes, he even had to draw the original forms of the damaged characters and mark them as uncertain for later study.

After finishing the copies, Uchiha Yu still had to read them carefully, analyze them thoroughly, and categorize them into the appropriate scrolls.

By the time he finished today's workload, it was already 4:20 in the morning.

He hurried home, checked on the still-sleeping Miwa Masayo, then continued preparing the ingredients for Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.

He sliced the conch, washed the slices repeatedly, and after confirming they were clean, soaked them in fresh well water.

Then, Uchiha Yu took out the dried scallops, shiitake mushrooms, and other ingredients, washed and soaked them. He also soaked the meaty ingredients such as pork trotter tips, tendons, deer tendons, and pig's feet to draw out the blood.

It was not until six-thirty in the morning that all the ingredient preparation was finally complete.

He lit the fire and turned it up high.

He scored the abalone, removed the heads and veins from the fresh shrimp, and boiled the quail eggs in cold water before peeling them.

He cut each pig's trotter into four pieces, chopped the soup bones into large chunks, and removed the innards, head, tail, and wing tips from the hen. He placed them in cold water with the trotter tips, tendons, deer tendons, ginger slices, and Sichuan peppercorns. Once the water came to a boil over high heat, he skimmed off the bloody foam.

Uchiha Yu carefully skimmed every bit of foam clean. This step could not be sloppy either. Even the slightest residue would greatly diminish the final dish's aroma.

After confirming that the boiling water was completely clear, he removed most of the firewood, blocked the air intake to reduce the flame, filled the pot to the brim with water, and slowly simmered the stock.

He heated oil in a wok, fried the quail eggs until they developed tiger-skin wrinkles, then removed them. After washing the wok, he added cold water, ginger slices, scallions, spices, and cooking wine. Once the water boiled, it was time for a test of skill.

He blanched the abalone, sea cucumbers, and shrimp meat, then processed the conch slices, shiitake mushrooms, fish maw, and fish lips in sequence. Timing was crucial: too little, and the fishiness would not be fully removed; too long, and their flavors would emerge prematurely and disrupt the blend.

He found the largest jar in the house and arranged the pork trotters and large bones at the very bottom. Above them went the fish maw, fish lips, and conch slices, followed by the quail eggs, abalone, and sea cucumbers.

He added stock and liquor. Unfortunately, there was no Huadiao wine in the Ninja World, and sake was unsuitable, so he could only use shochu. It lacked half the mellow fragrance but gained three parts of crisp sharpness.

Once it came to a rolling boil, he added salt, white sugar, and soy sauce, stirring them evenly. In rapid order, he added the sea cucumbers, abalone, shiitake mushrooms, quail eggs, and shrimp, poured in more stock, covered it with several layers of gauze, then placed a porcelain basin over it to minimize steam loss.

Finally, he set the jar over the fire and began simmering it slowly over a low flame.

By then, Miwa Masayo had already awakened. Her eyes gleamed as she stared fixedly at the earthen jar, her gaze filled with flames.