The Worst Student in History! Suiren Shi's Soul of Barbecue!
The "Soul of Architecture" of Youchao Shi dropped a nuclear bomb of law into the Reincarnation Metaverse, the aftershocks of which have not yet subsided.
All the newly born humans, whether fleeing for their lives in the wilderness or looking around in confusion in the safe zone, received a gift from the origin of the world.
[Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a brand new life skill - 'Architecture'!]
[You can now try collecting wood and stone to build your own house!]
[New Player Bonus: The first 100 players to successfully build a 'Thatched Hut (Inferior)' will receive a reward of 1,000 'Merit Star'!]
In an instant.
The trend in the entire newbie world has shifted from the brutality of "wilderness survival" to the fervor of "reclaiming land and building a home".
Climbing trees and crawling through holes suddenly became symbols of backwardness.
The human race began to emulate the great feat of Youchao Shi, carrying rough logs and embracing rocks, and began the first clanging symphony of construction on the Primordial Land.
The first houses built were more like disaster sites than buildings.
It was leaning precariously, drafty from all sides.
A gust of mountain wind blew by, and it crashed apart, returning to its original state of being just parts.
But this did not dampen their enthusiasm in the slightest.
The sense of satisfaction from creating a "home" for oneself, along with the substantial Merit Star awarded by the system, captivated everyone, making it impossible for them to extricate themselves.
In the forest, on the grassland, by the river.
One after another, dilapidated houses, full of primitive and wild aesthetics, stubbornly broke through the soil.
The entire Novice Village was immersed in a frenzied construction boom.
However, in this thriving scene, there are always one or two outliers who don't fit in.
A scorched forest near a volcano.
A thin young man with exceptionally bright eyes was squatting under a withered tree charred by lightning, his face full of distress.
His name is Suiren.
Compared to his rapidly progressing fellow tribesmen, he was clumsy and seemed like an oddity.
When Youchao Shi unlocked the "Building" skill, he was being chased to the death by a tusked boar.
When he finally managed to shake off the wild boar and returned covered in dust, wanting to learn how to build a house like everyone else, he was devastated to find that he couldn't even tie two pieces of wood together securely.
Others' building levels are skyrocketing, and Merit Star are pouring in.
He couldn't even lay the foundation for a thatched hut.
Even more fatally, food was extremely scarce in the volcanic region where he was located.
The wild fruits in the forest were covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash, and tasted bitter and astringent.
The small fish in the river, as soon as they get close, are scalded by the scorching heat of the water and then swept away.
He had been hungry for three whole days.
No one starves in the Metaverse, but the deep-seated weakness and helplessness are incredibly real.
"Gurgle..."
The rumbling in his stomach was the greatest mockery of him.
Suiren's gaze involuntarily drifted to the distance not far away.
A wild rabbit had just poked its head out of the grass when a spark flicked out by the "safety officer" Zhurong (his virtual avatar) scorched its rear end, causing it to scream and flee in panic.
He swallowed hard.
He also learned from other tribesmen to hunt using stones and sticks.
The result is often that the prey is unharmed, while the hunter is exhausted like a dead dog.
He also mustered the courage to eat raw small animals that he had finally managed to catch.
But the strong smell of blood and the tough, unyielding texture of the raw meat made him vomit violently after just one bite, and he almost got forcibly sent back to the resurrection point by the system due to "virtual gastroenteritis".
"How can I possibly eat delicious meat?"
Suiren clutched his head and let out a desperate growl.
Frustrated, he grabbed two charred wooden sticks that had been struck by lightning from beside him and, fueled by pent-up anger, began to rub them together fiercely.
"Sizzle... sizzle..."
The monotonous, dull sounds echoed through the forest.
Suiren gritted his teeth, channeling all his desire for food into his arms.
His movements became faster and faster, and his strength increased.
In his mind, an image appeared: a rabbit, roasted to a golden brown and glistening with oil, waving at him.
He even "saw" the rising steam and the overflowing aroma of meat as the rabbit leg was torn open.
He "smelled" it!
A wonderful taste called "barbecue" that has never existed before, yet is so distinctly clear!
He rubbed even more vigorously!
Just then...
"Puff!"
A very faint popping sound.
A wisp of extremely thin smoke, carrying a burnt smell, rose from the point where the two wooden sticks met.
Immediately afterwards, a tiny, orange-red spark was quietly born from the hot wood shavings produced by the friction of the stick!
"Huh?"
Suiren was pulled out of his delirious fantasies about food.
He lowered his head curiously, staring intently at the tiny spark.
What's this?
He had never seen anything like it before.
It is small, yet it can pierce the darkness.
It was warm, dispelling the chill of the volcanic ash zone.
He reached out his finger, instinctively wanting to touch it.
"Ah!"
The burning pain in his fingertips made him pull his hand back in a flash.
Although it was only a virtual pain sensation, it instilled in him a primal awe for this tiny Mars.
He tentatively brought some dry leaves from beside him closer to the Mars.
Call--!
The flames suddenly shot up!
A vibrant, orange-red life was burning joyfully before him!
The surrounding temperature rose instantly.
In the cold, dark night, a corner of light was torn open.
Suiren stared at the ball of flame, mesmerized.
He felt as if he had grasped a miracle that could change the world!
A bold idea, one that even he himself found insane, exploded in his mind.
If...
What would happen if you put meat on this flame?
He acted immediately.
He used all his strength and spent several hours to finally catch a plump wild rabbit using a simple trap.
He cleaned the rabbit and skewered it with a sharpened stick.
His hands were trembling, and his heart was pounding.
He slowly and reverently extended the skewer of rabbit meat toward the burning flame.
"Sizzle... sizzle..."
The grease dripped and collided with the flame.
That sound was more beautiful than any music in the world!
An unprecedented, domineering aroma of meat, mixed with the unique smoky scent of burning firewood, exploded out and savagely penetrated every pore of his body!
Suiren's eyes instantly turned red.
This is the taste!
It tasted exactly like the divine revelation he had imagined!
He stared intently at the rabbit, watching it cook under the licking flames, turning from raw to cooked, from red to yellow, its surface gradually becoming crispy and fragrant.
His saliva had already formed a small river.
Finally, when he could no longer resist and eagerly put the first piping hot rabbit meat into his mouth—
Boom--!!!
The thunderous roar of the laws was ten times more magnificent than when Youchao Shi created "architecture," resounding throughout the entire Reincarnation Metaverse!
A dazzling golden pillar, a hundred times thicker than before, no longer poured in, but crashed down like a sacred furnace from the heavens!
It completely engulfed Suiren, along with the sizzling roasted rabbit in his hand and the small campfire!
[Ding! Warning! Warning! Player 'Suiren Shi' has successfully created a brand new concept—'Fire'!]
[World Announcement: The Law of Fire has been unlocked! The world has entered the 'Cooked Food Era'!]
[World Announcement: Player "Suiren Shi" has obtained the "Civilization Fire" achievement, and is rewarded with "Soul of the Kindling" (unique talent)! One million "Merit Star" have also been awarded!]
The Netherworld Underworld.
All the bigwigs watching the screen fell silent once again.
Zhurong's face, which always wore an arrogant smile, froze completely.
He stared blankly at the thin young man in the light screen, who was wolfing down a roasted rabbit, and the small, insignificant campfire in front of him.
He, the Ancestral Witch of Fire, was born with the power to wield the most raging All-Heavenly Divine Fire in the world.
He had never imagined that, apart from relying on his bloodline to "generate" flames, fire... such a magnificent existence, could actually be "drilled" out through the friction between two broken pieces of wood?
This... this overturned his principles!
This isn't the Primordial World!
Far away in the Eight Sceneries Palace of Kunlun Mountain, Taiqing Laozi, who was refining elixirs with his eyes closed, suddenly opened his eyes.
His gaze pierced through the endless void, landing on the mortal fire and the skewer of roasted meat.
He looked at the Six Ding Divine Fire burning fiercely beneath his alchemy furnace, a fire powerful enough to incinerate mountains and boil seas.
I could also "smell" that most primal, purest "Daoist charm" of cooked food, transmitted through the light screen.
His prized Nine Revolutions Golden Elixir, refined with the essence of heaven and earth and supreme divine fire, possessed an aroma that... seemed to have lost in the face of the ancient and magnificent art of "barbecuing"?