After the restaurant waiter left, Serie kept staring at Guter's body, looking him over again and again from head to toe.
"After mastering the circulation path of the Body Tempering Method, you tried making your mana vibrate to create body-tempering fluctuations, didn't you, Guter?"
Faced with his teacher's question, Guter nodded and honestly recounted what had happened during his daytime cultivation.
After painstakingly guiding his mana along the Body Tempering Method's pathways and waiting for it to stabilize, he had attempted the mana-vibration method of tempering his body.
The result was that his eyes rolled back, and he passed out on the spot.
Serie stared at her disciple with a complicated expression for a long time before sighing.
"Guter, do you know how long Bodi, the one who developed this Body Tempering Method and your senior disciple, was unconscious after his first attempt at mana vibration?"
"How long?"
"Nearly three days."
Serie added, "And that was with two experienced monks standing watch at his side at all times, casting multiple Goddess Magic spells on him."
"According to my original plan, you weren't supposed to attempt your first vibration until after we reached the Holy City—Hutrall."
"That's because the finest monks on the entire continent gather there. In the Holy City, no matter what happened during your cultivation, they would be confident of saving you."
"But looking at things now, you've spared me that step."
At this point, Serie could not help feeling a little emotional.
"Guter, I don't know whether you've realized this."
"Your physical talent is far more terrifying than that of most Warriors."
"If Bodi had possessed a body like yours back then, he might have been able to walk this path to the end."
Looking at the complicated expression on Teacher Serie's face, Guter lowered his head and clenched his fist. For a moment, he actually felt somewhat uncertain.
Setting aside the double training effect brought by his daily tasks, and setting aside how the system cleared the damage from that day's training every night after midnight.
After removing all the bonuses granted by the system, did this body of his really possess such extraordinary talent?
Talent, my ass.
If Guter had not remembered that the system's Personal Interface contained detailed records of his Talent Traits, he might truly have doubted himself for a while.
Human emotions could lead to misjudgment, but the cold and objective system would not issue a false report.
Personal Interface Host: Guter Activated Traits: Transmigrator (Gold), Otherworldy God of Cooking (Blue), Worldly (Blue), Disciple of the Mythical Archmage (Blue), Great Fortune (Blue), Atheist (White)
The six activated Talent Traits listed every extraordinary aspect Guter possessed. Yet among them, not one was related to his body.
Rather than believing that he had woken from his coma so quickly because of exceptional physical talent, it made more sense to think it was a miracle born from the combination of the tough soul granted by the Transmigrator (Gold) Talent Trait and the good luck brought by the Great Fortune (Blue) Trait.
But given the atmosphere at the table, Guter could not exactly deny it. He could only lie quietly on the table and wait for the food to arrive.
"Has your body started to feel hungry?"
"Hm?"
Guter looked at Serie in surprise and answered firmly, "Of course. I haven't eaten anything today besides breakfast."
"Then it seems the hunger hasn't hit you yet."
Hearing her disciple's answer, Serie shook her head. "The hunger I'm talking about isn't ordinary hunger. It comes from deep within your body, transmitted from every muscle and every bone."
"In my recollection, Bodi once proposed a theory. The first vibration activates certain latent tissues within the body, causing the cultivator to feel extreme hunger and fall into a period of binge eating."
"However, after the cultivator gets through that period, their physical condition will most likely improve by a small stage."
As Serie spoke, Gumi, who had been burying her head in her food, suddenly stopped eating. Her eyes gleamed as she looked up at the teacher beside her.
"Stop looking. You're different from your senior disciples. You simply eat a lot."
"Oh."
Gumi sighed in disappointment, then stopped paying attention to the matter and lowered her head to continue wolfing down the delicious food before her.
"Hunger, huh."
Guter murmured softly, closing his eyes and carefully sensing the state of his body.
"Fuck!"
Guter rarely cursed, but he could feel it now! It was hitting him!
Just as Serie had said, the moment Guter seriously sensed his body's condition, an overwhelming wave of hunger pounced on him like a fierce tiger.
For the moment, Guter could still use reason to suppress the ever-spreading hunger and keep his hands from snatching food from his Junior Disciple Gumi across the table.
But the next moment, his gaze locked directly onto the fragrant roasted meat beneath Junior Disciple Gumi's glistening, oily lips.
Even the soggy vegetable leaves his junior disciple Lairn was chewing looked crisp and refreshing to Guter right now.
Guter had never imagined that one day, he would feel such a powerful urge to eat a plate of salad.
Thankfully, thankfully.
Teacher Serie had ordered plenty of food for him just now. He only needed to wait a little longer, just a little longer.
Guter kept giving himself mental encouragement, trying to suppress the primal instinct awakened by the intense hunger.
But perhaps because of the festival, the restaurant was serving food especially slowly today.
With his head lowered, Guter was almost unable to control himself anymore.
Scrape—
At the soft sound, Guter abruptly raised his head and discovered that Teacher Serie, seated across from him, had pushed her food toward him.
"Teacher..."
Looking at the plate of spaghetti with meat sauce before him, Guter did not know what to say.
"The cheese on the spaghetti isn't good. As my disciple, handle it for your teacher."
Before Guter could speak, Serie had already offered him an excuse.
"Thank you, Teacher."
Guter raised his head and solemnly thanked her.
Scrape—
Scrape—
Two more sounds suddenly came from beside him. Guter looked over to find his junior disciples pushing their own food toward him as well, each giving a reason.
Gumi said she had eaten too much meat and was getting tired of it, so she needed to trouble Guter, her senior disciple, to help finish it.
Lairn, meanwhile, said the vegetable salad had become a little boring, and he wanted to order some meat to change things up. He asked Guter to help with what remained.
"You two..."
For a moment, looking at the suddenly abundant spread of food before him, Guter smiled and shook his head. A faint glimmer of tears appeared in the corners of his eyes, and somehow, he did not feel quite so hungry anymore.
Then, Guter gently pushed the salad Lairn had given him back.
Given the choice, Guter still really did not want to eat those soggy vegetable leaves.
What the harmonious group failed to notice was that Lake, the head chef standing nearby with the prepared dishes and ready to serve them, quietly shattered inside.
Lake had just finished preparing all of Gumi's dishes and planned to rest a little when the restaurant waiter handed him a new order.
He had assumed it would only be two or three small dishes. But after examining the order closely, Lake felt as though the sky had collapsed. It was like he had entered a time loop—why did he have to make all the food he had just finished making again?
After repeatedly confirming that the order was correct, Lake could only grit his teeth and make it all over again.
Once the dishes were mostly finished and the remaining ones merely needed to roast slowly over the heat, Lake took off his chef's hat, carried several completed dishes out of the kitchen, and wanted to see for himself exactly what kind of customers had ordered this much food. How could they eat as much as those two from yesterday?
But the moment Lake approached Guter's table, he heard the complaints of the other three.
One lady said she did not like the cheese he had carefully selected as the perfect accompaniment to spaghetti with meat sauce.
Another lady said the sauce he had paired with the meat, after roasting away the excess fat, was not enough to cut through the richness.
The worst was that quiet guy. Someone explain to me what the fuck it meant that salad was getting boring?!
Bro, what kind of experience were you expecting from a plate of salad? Did you want me to make raw, crisp vegetables taste like roasted meat?!!
"Look me in the eyes, tell me why?"
"Baby, why?"
Please add this to your collection.
The protagonist will create his own magic later on, but that will be later in the story, because I want to make this a long one—around one to two million words.
Therefore, the self-created magic part will appear in later plotlines.
A spoiler:
Magic that makes stone statues dance > Upgrade > Magic that restores consciousness to statues
Himmel's Statue, Goddess Statue
Before you continue