The Future Food Connoisseur

"Ma'am, please watch your figure. It wouldn't be good to eat so much." After tasting Rend's pork stew, Magatha immediately found herself a large bowl and started eating as well. Rend felt a little heartbroken over the delicacy he had worked so hard to make and tried a trick that had always worked in the past.

"I'm old. Who knows when I'll return to the embrace of the Earth Mother? If there's good food, I should eat more of it. Anok, get over here. There's something delicious." Magatha shamelessly played the elder card. Of course she understood that Rend was distressed over his pot of meat, but she had no intention of caring about the little thoughts of this Orc brat.

"Coming, coming, Auntie." A tall, dark Grimtotem Tauren came trotting over eagerly. This Tauren was still young and in the middle of growing. The moment he heard his aunt call, he rushed over without hesitation, utterly ignoring Rend's darkening expression. Fine, eating my food for free was one thing, but you even brought your nephew to eat it too? Did he think making a dish was easy?

A boar weighed two hundred jin, but Rend was still inexperienced. In the end, he only made a few dozen jin of the braised meat he liked. A few dozen jin sounded like a lot, but on Azeroth, practically every warrior was a big eater. Rend alone could wipe out dozens of jin of meat, let alone with a glutton like Anok added in.

Rend observed this future young chieftain of the Grimtotem Clan, who would rebel and eventually be killed by Baine. Unlike his aunt Magatha, who would later redeem herself, Anok would be discarded as a pawn because of his recklessness and his misunderstanding of Magatha's plan. The current Anok was still immature. He was the same age as Baine and a candidate for the highly coveted position of Tauren High Chieftain, but compared to Baine, the gap in their strength was far too great, and he was far too rash.

"Auntie, this meat smells so good. Brother Rend, do you think you could let me have some more?" Anok looked at Rend with a flattering expression. Seeing that twisted-together black cow face, Rend was so annoyed that his face went from gray to black. In the end, he merely waved a hand and let him take it himself.

Rend still wanted to redeem the Grimtotem Clan. They were, after all, the second-largest Tauren clan, and they had a powerhouse like Magatha as well as a rising talent like Anok. There was no need to let the Horde's strength be wasted in pointless internal conflict when they could be redeemed in the future. Otherwise, Cairne would die, Baine would owe Jaina a favor, and the Tauren would suffer heavy casualties from their infighting.

They clearly weren't enemies, so they should become proper allies of his. Internal conflict—pass. Yet Rend still could not think of a way to redeem that stubborn, black-hearted old cow. In the future, she would come to her senses only because of the Burning Legion's invasion, which made her understand her father's prophecy anew. But Rend had no intention of allowing the events of Warlords of Draenor to happen. He would not permit the Siege of Orgrimmar to occur, so Little Roar would not be judged and escape back to Draenor. Without that, there would be no Gul'dan from another timeline coming to this world and triggering Legion.

This was a difficult task. How was he supposed to redeem the Grimtotem Clan? Honestly, the Grimtotem Clan was practically a copy of the Blackrock Clan. One was the second-largest Orc clan, and the other was the second-largest Tauren clan. Both rebelled because they refused to submit to the ruler of their time. Both young chieftains died, and after being thoroughly taught a lesson, the survivors redeemed themselves and returned to the Horde. It was utterly ridiculous. Oh, right, there were also the Dark Iron Dwarves—three dark-skinned brothers in misery.

This was a joke Blizzard had made. Fortunately, because of racial discrimination, Blizzard had not repeated this pattern among the human kingdoms. But among the other races, they copied it over and over. Later on, they even made dark-skinned Blood Elves... Void Elves. There were already so few Blood Elves left, and they still had the nerve to create dark Void Elves.

Still, the Dark Iron Dwarves seemed to be the luckiest. They had constantly caused trouble and committed terrible crimes, even launching a surprise attack on Ironforge during the Council of Three Hammers. Yet they kept bouncing back after being weakened again and again, eventually returning to the Alliance as an Allied Race. Meanwhile, the Blackrock Clan and the Grimtotem Clan were replaced by the Mag'har Clan and the Highmountain Tauren. Where were they supposed to cry about that?

Thinking about it, Rend suddenly realized, damn, these really were brothers in misery. Just for that, he had to find a way to redeem the Grimtotem Clan and add another stroke of black to the Horde. (Something about that seemed wrong.)

But as the saying went, with age came wisdom. Magatha could tell that Rend had some intention of drawing them over. Still, after giving it some thought, Thrall's Horde supported Cairne. In that case, joining forces with the Blackrock Clan did not seem like a bad deal for her.

So, she watched Rend use food to lure in her greedy nephew and said nothing, pretending not to notice.

"Anok, stick with me from now on. I guarantee you'll get to eat all kinds of special delicacies often. I may lack many things, but money and cooking skills aren't among them." Rend patted his chest and threw an arm around the bent-over Anok's shoulders, looking utterly confident that he could be trusted.

"Really? Brother Rend, will I get to eat lots of other delicious food in the future? If that's true, I'll follow you every day, Brother Rend. I'll listen to whatever you say." A youth was still a youth, after all, and could not resist temptation. But when it came to cooking, Rend, who had loved good food and cooked for himself in his previous life, could truly be called a master of cuisine in this world. Perhaps only the various Pandaren culinary masters could compare with him. He had no interest in anyone else's dark cuisine, though he particularly enjoyed the elves' fruit wine, and their pastries were quite good as well. Still, pastries alone could not prove that someone excelled in every other aspect of cooking. When he had the chance, he would have to properly learn from elven pastry chefs and brewers.

One thing the Horde had going for it was that it would establish many boar farms in the future. Most of Durotar and the Barrens were unsuitable for farmland, but livestock could still be raised in enclosures. The Quilboar had also generously supplied the Horde with large numbers of penned boars, which meant Rend would have plenty of fresh, succulent boar meat to eat in the future. There were also the Kodo Beasts raised by the Tauren. Kodo Beast meat tasted more like real beef, while being chewier and even more delicious, making it excellent for steaks. The Barrens possessed abundant wildlife resources—tallstriders, raptors, thunder lizards, gazelles, and more. For the first time, Rend felt that the world was so wonderful.

He had only intended to treat himself and fool Anok along the way, yet it ended up stirring his own cravings and inspiring the idea of becoming Azeroth's food connoisseur. How could a person possibly mistreat himself? He could not waste Azeroth's abundant and diverse resources for nothing, could he?