Heath was cooking, making another vegetable salad, but this time he had put on the mask he had received from Giratina. He wanted to try incorporating emotion while wearing it and see what kind of food he could make that way. Since vegetable salad was an appetizer, he could also use the system's rating to judge how adding emotion affected the food itself. Heath was looking forward to it, but after putting on the mask, he felt nothing unusual as he cooked. He simply worked as attentively as usual. Once he finished the vegetable salad, however, he suddenly felt somewhat mentally exhausted.
It was as though he had just spent over an hour tossing food in a wok. The intense exhaustion made Heath stop involuntarily, and only after removing the mask did he feel a little better. He now roughly understood that this was probably why the mask could only be used once a day. Still, what concerned him more at the moment was exactly what this item did. He wanted to see whether the vegetable salad would be any different after emotion had been added.
[You made an ordinary vegetable salad.]
The system's assessment appeared just then, leaving Heath momentarily stunned. Frankly, he was a little disappointed. He had been thinking that adding emotion would let him make some good food, but he had not expected it to remain ordinary-grade food. That would not meet the requirements for a Divine Meal offered to a god. This puzzled Heath a little. Could emotion not be used as a seasoning after all?
With that thought, Heath picked up a mouthful of vegetable salad with his chopsticks, put it in his mouth, and chewed. It still tasted of vegetables and salad dressing, but as he ate, he noticed that the