Magical Treasure Fragments, the Dao of Cuisine

After spending most of the day on edge without seeing Lantern-Burning Daoist return to kill them, Wu Chu quietly breathed a sigh of relief and invited Yueling to eat the all-natural charcoal-grilled prawns with him.

Although he had just finished off a basin-sized fruit, Wu Chu discovered that he could still eat. This increase in appetite was a little frightening.

Moreover, his digestive ability seemed to have increased countless times as well. This Shrimp Soldier was a demon, after all, and its flesh was certainly different from ordinary meat.

This world was filled with Primordial Spiritual Energy, and these creatures were Innate spiritual beings. Yet he, an ordinary person, could digest such things with ease...

But if something like transmigration could happen, then an increased appetite and stronger digestion did not seem so strange after all.

"Senior A Chu, when are we going to eat that Azure Dragon?"

Though she was not hungry, Yueling did not refuse Wu Chu's invitation again. She reached out and accepted the prawn meat he had pried off with a wooden chip, then began chewing it slowly with the air of a little lady.

The longer she chewed, the brighter Yueling's eyes became, as though she had never tasted such delicious food before.

When Wu Chu looked away from her, the little girl tilted her head. Her small mouth opened into a huge, blood-filled maw, and she swallowed the large chunk of prawn meat in one gulp.

Gulp...

A bulge slid down her neck.

When Wu Chu looked back at her empty little hand, he thought she might not care for the giant prawn and had secretly tossed the meat away!

So he asked, "Yueling! Purple Jade Daoist and that Azure Dragon perished together in the battle at Purple Jade Mountain. This Purple Jade Spirit Crabapple was severely injured too, even losing its crown. Their magical treasures should be scattered around here, right? Can you find them?"

Yueling, who had been staring at the prawn meat and waiting for Wu Chu to continue feeding her, let out an "Ah." With a wave of her little hand, a pile of delicate forked halberds spilled from her wide sleeve.

The forked halberds looked like tiny pieces of tableware, but once they landed on the ground, they grew several yards long. When Wu Chu tried to pick one up, he found that he could not lift it at all.

Seeing Wu Chu struggle before finally giving up helplessly, Yueling covered her smooth little forehead with one hand and said helplessly, "Senior A Chu, you truly need not be like this..."

"..."

Wu Chu thought, Why won't you believe me no matter what I say? Sigh!

After clearing his throat, Wu Chu asked, "Are these the only forked halberds?"

The black, unremarkable forked halberds had absolutely no flair in Wu Chu's eyes.

Of course, he could not tell whether these magical treasures were good or bad. He could only judge them by appearance.

Then Little Moon Spirit waved her little hand again, and a pile of magical treasure wreckage fell out of her other sleeve. "Purple Jade Daoist's and that Azure Dragon's magical treasures were all shattered. After I returned, I secretly gathered them up to see whether there might be a chance to restore them in the future!"

"Yueling, do you know how to refine magical treasures?" Wu Chu asked curiously.

Little Moon Spirit shook her head. "I am still young and do not understand much! Senior A Chu, would you be willing to teach me how to refine magical treasures? I will definitely cultivate diligently under you!"

"I don't know how either. I'll teach you once I learn," Wu Chu could only say.

He figured that if he said he was ordinary again, this girl would surely say he was being modest. Wu Chu was also somewhat troubled. He had originally wanted to cling to this little fairy's thigh, yet somehow this little fairy had ended up treating him as someone to cling to instead.

But very soon, Wu Chu's eyes lit up.

Among the magical treasure wreckage, he had spotted a blade fragment. If he attached a wooden handle to it, he could completely turn it into a thick, palm-sized kitchen knife.

The only problem was that its tip lacked a curve and a cutting edge.

Yet even though it was only a palm-sized fragment, it felt as though it weighed dozens, perhaps even a hundred pounds in Wu Chu's hand. That left him rather helpless.

Seeing that Wu Chu seemed to be brushing her off again, Yueling had no choice but to let it go.

However, when she saw Wu Chu rummaging through the magical treasure wreckage, Yueling added, "That blade fragment should have fallen from the blade of that Azure Dragon's halberd. Purple Jade Daoist's magical treasures used to be a Purple Jade Staff and a Purple-Patterned Crabapple Seed Bead String of forty-nine beads..."

Wu Chu actually knew all that, because he had seen it in his dream. But those magical treasures had all exploded, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Still, Wu Chu did not disdain this magical treasure wreckage. He felt that many fragments could be fashioned into everyday tools—hoes, shovels, firewood choppers...

Their shapes might not be as satisfying as that kitchen knife, but as long as they worked, that was enough.

Even the tiny section at the very end of the Purple Jade Staff could be used as a Firewood Stick.

Of course, that was only if he had the cultivation necessary to shrink it down.

"Yueling, do you have some kind of storage item on you? Like a Sumeru Mustard Seed or a Cosmos Storage Bag..." Wu Chu pointed at the broad sleeves of her Daoist robe.

Yueling shook her head slightly, then demonstrated how she stored these magical treasures. She tucked them into her sleeves, transformed them into tiny dots, then, when no one was watching, covered her mouth with her sleeve and swallowed them into her belly.

"..." Wu Chu opened his mouth, then finally laughed. "I was wondering whether you had some way to store that dragon corpse first!"

"Senior A Chu has no way either?" Yueling asked strangely.

Wu Chu shook his head and decided to focus his energy on improving his life.

After all, he did not know how to cultivate. Rather than sit around foolishly, he might as well make something to improve his current living conditions.

Once he thought of it that way, Wu Chu became energized. Life had to go on, after all!

As for whether the dragon corpse would attract other trouble, Wu Chu had no solution for that either.

Then Yueling watched with a strange expression as Wu Chu hurriedly ate some prawn meat before running off to fuss with various things. First, he used the sharp edge of a magical treasure fragment to test the hardness of the Purple Jade Spiritwood, then found a branch and fashioned it into a kitchen knife.

He had originally wanted to use that small section of the Purple Jade Staff as the knife handle, but he simply could not cut it open. Its material was too exceptional.

Even ordinary Purple Jade Spiritwood branches were harder than he had imagined.

Although the kitchen knife he made weighed more than he could use easily, he believed that once his strength grew a little more, he would be able to wield it without issue.

Then he used that kitchen knife as a chopping blade and made a strange tool.

Uh, it was a hoe.

He found an ordinary forked wooden stick, then used a crosspiece to secure a magical treasure fragment to the fork. He tied it firmly in place with thin vines.

And so, a rather crude-looking hoe appeared.

Carrying that hoe, Wu Chu began digging more than a hundred meters away from the Purple Jade Spiritwood, near the lakeshore. After only a few digs, a streak of golden light descended from the sky and landed on both the crude hoe and Wu Chu.

Wu Chu was somewhat stunned, but after the shock came a trace of understanding.

Perhaps because this was the first hoe on the Primordial Land, destined to witness the beginning of agricultural civilization, the Heavenly Dao had been moved and bestowed Merit as a reward!

Though the Merit was not much, it was enough to turn this rough and crude hoe into a Merit Spiritual Treasure. At the very least, it would not be easily damaged while farming.

Yueling was dumbfounded for a while when she saw the Merit Power descending from the sky.

After watching for a bit, she ran back to the prawn corpse and began devouring it in huge bites.

She ate remarkably fast. Though she looked tiny, when she opened that exaggeratedly large mouth, she could stuff something nearly half the size of her head inside.

At that moment, Yueling looked like a little monster.

After he finished digging a simple latrine pit, laid crosspieces over it, and sealed the gaps between them with mud, he buried the entire pit, leaving only a pipe opening. Then he planned to make a toilet elsewhere and use this pit as a septic tank.

Just as he was about to do that, Yueling had already finished the several-meter-long cooked prawn tail.

When Wu Chu spotted Little Moon Spirit in the distance lighting a fire to grill prawns, he ran over to take a look. Seeing prawn shells scattered everywhere, he could not help but stare in surprise.

Only when he saw little Yueling with her belly bulging, reclining against a giant tree and happily rubbing her stomach, did he come back to his senses.

"I thought you only wanted to eat dragons!" Wu Chu said with a laugh.

When Yueling saw Wu Chu smiling, she shyly tilted her little head to one side. "Ever since I learned to consume spiritual energy, I have never eaten anything else. Please forgive me for making a fool of myself before Senior A Chu."

After pausing, she looked at Wu Chu curiously again and asked, "Senior A Chu, why does food become more fragrant and delicious after being roasted over fire? No wonder someone as powerful as you is still willing to eat such things..."

Hearing that, Wu Chu did not bother wondering what else the girl had imagined. He merely laughed heartily. "That is the charm of the Culinary Dao! It is a pity there are no other seasonings. Otherwise, you would know what real delicacies are!"

"The Culinary Dao? Senior A Chu, can you teach me to cultivate the Culinary Dao?"

"Haha, why not?"

"Teacher, please accept Yueling's..."

"No, no, don't call me Teacher. Just call me A Chu. This Culinary Dao is not really cultivation; it is merely a minor art for satisfying one's appetite."

Wu Chu did not dare lead others astray by teaching cultivation in this Primordial World.

Could cultivating the Culinary Dao perhaps let someone ascend to the heavens and become a god of cooking someday? Uh... it actually seemed possible! But who knew how long it would be before the Heavenly Court even appeared!

Even if this girl was a demon, whether she could live until then was still a question.