Sect Gathering

After the restaurant waiter left, Serie kept staring at Guter's body, scrutinizing him from head to toe.

"Once you grasped the operation route of the Body Tempering Method, you already tried making your mana oscillate to generate tempering fluctuations, didn't you, Guter?"

Facing his teacher's question, Guter nodded and recounted his cultivation experience during the day in full detail. After painstakingly circulating his mana along the Body Tempering Method's route and letting it settle back to stability, he attempted the mana oscillation method of body tempering. The result was that his eyes rolled back, and he passed out on the spot.

Serie stared at her disciple with a complex expression for a long while, then sighed and spoke.

"Guter, do you know how long your senior disciple Bodi, who developed this Body Tempering Method, was unconscious after his first attempt at mana oscillation?"

"How long?"

"Nearly three days."

Serie added, "And that was with two senior monks standing by his side the entire time, casting multiple instances of Goddess Magic on him."

"According to my original plan, your first oscillation was supposed to be delayed until we reached the Holy City—Hutrall—before you could attempt it."

"Because that's where the continent's finest monks gather. In the Holy City, no matter what condition your cultivation puts you in, they're confident they can save you."

"But looking at it now, you've saved me that step."

Saying this, Serie couldn't help but feel a twinge of emotion.

"Guter, I'm not sure if you realize this."

"Your physical talent is far more terrifying than most warriors."

"If Bodi had had a body like yours back then, he might have actually succeeded on this path."

Watching the complicated look on Teacher Serie's face, Guter lowered his head and clenched his fist, momentarily lacking confidence.

Setting aside the double training effect from daily tasks, and setting aside the system's nightly reset of training damage after midnight—after stripping away all these system-granted bonuses—did his body truly possess such high talent?

Not a damn bit of talent.

If Guter hadn't remembered that his Personal Interface detailed all his Talent Traits, he might have actually fallen into self-doubt.

Human emotions can lead to misjudgment, but the cold, objective system doesn't make errors.

[Personal Interface]

[Host: Guter]

[Activated Traits: Transmigrator (Gold), Otherworldly God of Cooking (Blue), Worldly Engagement (Blue), Disciple of the Mythical Archmage (Blue), Great Fortune (Blue), Atheist (White)]

Among the six fully activated Talent Traits, every one of Guter's extraordinary qualities was listed. But not a single one of them was related to physical talent.

The reason he woke up early from his coma had less to do with believing in his physical talent and more to do with the miracle born from the combination of the resilient soul granted by the Transmigrator (Gold) trait and the good luck from the Great Fortune (Blue) trait.

But given the atmosphere at the table, Guter couldn't bring himself to deny it. He just silently slumped over the table, waiting for the food to arrive.

"Is your body already feeling hunger?"

"Huh?"

Guter looked at Serie in surprise and affirmed, "Of course, I haven't eaten anything today except breakfast."

"It seems your hunger hasn't kicked in yet."

Hearing her disciple's answer, Serie shook her head. "The hunger I'm talking about isn't ordinary hunger. It's a hunger that comes from deep within the body, transmitted from every muscle and every bone."

"As I recall, Bodi proposed a theory. The first oscillation activates certain latent tissues in the body, causing the cultivator to feel extremely hungry and fall into a state of binge eating for a period."

"But after getting through that phase, the cultivator's physical condition will likely see a small improvement."

As Serie reached this point, Gumi, who had been burying her head in her food, suddenly stopped eating, raised her head, and stared at her teacher with sparkling eyes.

"Don't look at me. You're different from your senior disciples. You're just simply a big eater."

"Oh."

Gumi let out a disappointed sigh, stopped paying attention, and went back to devouring the fragrant dishes in front of her.

"Hunger, huh."

On his side, Guter murmured slowly to himself, closing his eyes to seriously sense the state inside his body.

"Holy shit!"

Guter let out a rare curse. The feeling hit him! It was surging!

Just as Serie had said, when Guter focused on sensing his body's condition, a torrent of overwhelming hunger crashed into him like a fierce tiger.

For now, Guter could still use his reason to briefly suppress this spreading hunger, keeping his hands from snatching the food from his junior sister Gumi across the table.

But the next moment, Guter's gaze locked straight onto the greasy, glossy lips of his junior sister Gumi, beneath which was the sizzling, fragrant roasted meat.

Even the bland vegetable leaves his junior disciple Lairn was gnawing on looked refreshingly crisp and appetizing to Guter at this moment.

Guter had never imagined he would one day feel such a strong urge to devour a salad.

Good thing, good thing.

She had already ordered quite a bit of food for herself just a moment ago. All he had to do was wait a little longer, just a little longer.

Guter kept giving himself mental reassurances, using them to suppress the primal biological urges awakened by his intense hunger.

But perhaps it was because of the festival, the restaurant's serving speed today was exceptionally slow.

Guter, head lowered, was almost losing control of himself.

Shuff—

A soft sound. Guter, who had been staring at the table, suddenly looked up and saw that his teacher, Serie, sitting across from him, had pushed her own food over to him.

"Teacher."

Staring at the plate of spaghetti bolognese in front of him, Guter didn't know what to say.

"The cheese on the pasta isn't good. As my disciple, you can take care of it for me."

Before Guter could speak, Serie had already given an excuse in advance.

"Thank you, Teacher."

Guter lifted his head and solemnly expressed his gratitude to his teacher.

Shuff—

Shuff—

Suddenly, two more sounds came from beside him. Guter looked over and saw that his junior disciple siblings had also pushed their own food toward him, each offering their own explanations.

Gumi said she had eaten too much meat and was getting sick of it, so she needed to trouble Senior Brother Guter to help finish it.

Lairn, on the other hand, said the vegetable salad was getting a bit boring and he wanted to order some meat to change things up. He asked Guter to help share the leftovers.

"You all..."

For a moment, looking at the suddenly abundant spread of food before him, Guter shook his head with a smile, a faint glimmer of tears at the corners of his eyes. For a moment, he didn't feel quite so hungry anymore.

Then, Guter gently pushed the salad Lairn had sent back.

If he had a choice, Guter really didn't want to eat those wilted vegetable leaves.

But what the harmonious group didn't notice was that the head chef, Lake, who had just finished preparing the dishes and was about to serve them, quietly shattered inside.

Earlier, after finishing all the dishes for Gumi, Lake had planned to take a short break. But the next moment, he received a new order from the restaurant's waiter.

He thought it would just be two or three small dishes, but when Lake looked closely, he felt like the sky was falling. It was as if he had entered a time loop—why did he have to make the exact same meal he had just finished?

After repeatedly confirming that the order was correct, Lake had no choice but to steel himself and do it all over again.

Once most of the dishes were finished and the rest only needed slow roasting, Lake set down his chef's hat, picked up several plates of completed dishes, and walked out of the kitchen. He wanted to see with his own eyes which guests had placed this order, how they could eat just as much as the two from yesterday.

But just as Lake reached the vicinity of Guter's table, he heard complaints from the three people other than Guter.

One lady said she didn't like the cheese he had carefully selected to best complement the spaghetti bolognese.

Another lady said the sauce he had paired with the meat after grilling off the excess fat wasn't enough to cut the grease.

And the most damnable was that guy who barely spoke. Translate this for me: what the hell, what the hell does "the salad is getting a bit boring" mean?!

Bro, what kind of "meaning" are you expecting from a salad? Do you want me to make those raw, crunchy vegetables taste like grilled meat?!!

"Look into my eyes, tell me, why?"

"Baby, why?"

Please bookmark.

The protagonist will create his own magic later on, but that will be further into the story, because I want this story to be long—around one to two million words.

Therefore, the self-created magic parts will appear in later chapters.

One spoiler:

Magic that makes statues dance > Upgraded > Magic that restores consciousness to statues

Himmel's Statue, Goddess Statue