harleyscars Chapter 41 The Senior Who Was Not Ashamed to Ask Questions
Chapter 41 The Senior Who Was Not Ashamed to Ask Questions
"Oh? What is it?"
Lorne felt that his sleep quality had been okay for the past few nights, and he wasn't having trouble sleeping.
Viola chuckled:
"Our college also offers extra rewards for those who achieve a ranking. The first place in the individual total points is awarded 100 credits, the second to fifth place are awarded 80 credits, and the fifth to tenth place are awarded 50 credits. There are also corresponding rewards for teams, and there is a minimum of 10 credits guaranteed for participating in the competition."
One hundred credits!
Thormont gasped sharply, making the students in the next seats feel suffocated and almost suffocate.
This award alone is worth a whole year's worth of hard work.
Lorne couldn't help but feel a slight stirring in his heart. He now had a total of eighteen credits, which was close to one-tenth of the 150 credits plus the 50 credits he was in debt for this academic year.
If you can join a team, you can get a reward of ten credits. If you can even get a ranking, wouldn't that be wonderful?
Of course, this is just something to think about, since the competitors are all the magical geniuses in the magical world, and the main force is definitely the senior students. As a first-year student, he is at most just there to broaden his horizons and be an extra. He doesn't even dare to think about winning a ranking.
For him, burdened with heavy student debt, this competition was indeed incredibly attractive!
Viola, standing nearby, couldn't help but let out a smug hum as she saw Lorne's mind wandering after just a few words of flirting from her.
……
By the time the three of them had eaten and drunk their fill and were slumped back in their chairs burping, most of the students in the cafeteria had left.
Just as Lorne was about to suggest that everyone head home to digest their food, a figure suddenly appeared beside him.
Turning around, they saw it was the senior waiter. He was frowning as he looked at the mess on the table in front of them, as if he had encountered something very troubling.
"Senior, is there anything I can help you with?"
Lorne asked, somewhat puzzled, wondering if this senior was here to get revenge for getting his wand stained with red oil. He thought to himself that he should have known better than to lend it to him.
The senior waiter nodded, then shook his head, a troubled look on his face.
"Junior, I've come to ask you for advice."
Lorne: ?
What do you, a high-ranking mage, want to ask me?
The senior student said, "I just tried to recreate your dish in the kitchen. The ingredients were the same, the steps were the same, the heat, the time, the ingredient ratios, and the order of the seasonings were all the same, but I just couldn't get the same taste as you. So I wanted to ask you, how did you manage to do it?"
Lorne was taken aback, never expecting that this senior, who possessed the skills of a high-ranking mage, would ask him, a freshman, such a down-to-earth question.
However, it seems understandable. I talked to Viola about high-ranking mages before. They are said to go a step further on the basis of magical specialization, making breakthrough progress in that sub-field, almost understanding the essence, and forming a unique domain.
Within their domain, all their understanding of magic can be transformed into unique attack methods. Therefore, the more profound their understanding of magic, the more nourishment they can provide to enhance their magical prowess.
This senior's research direction is clearly food, gourmet food, and cooking, which is why he tried to replicate Lorne's dishes and use this to enhance his magical skills.
Lorne considered the senior's question for a moment and figured that with his high-ranking magician skills, even if he didn't say anything, the senior would eventually figure out the trick and solve the problem of the wrong taste. He might as well take the initiative to guide him and maybe even earn a favor.
"I see," he said, pulling out a table and chairs to invite his senior to sit down.
"Senior, please explain your approach in detail so I can see if there's anything wrong with it."
The senior waiter nodded, and the moment they sat down, Lorne and his two companions felt as if their surroundings had changed. It was as if they had been dragged out of the cafeteria and thrown into a world made of food.
Huge golden bacon clouds floated in the sky, the ground was covered with fluffy breadcrumbs, a cheese waterfall cascaded down from a height, making a thick, bubbling sound, and further away, flocks of roast chickens ran around, lining up to jump into a river of thick soup.
But all of this is not a good thing.
Because they found themselves becoming food.
Lorne looked down and saw that his hands had turned into two giant sausages. Viola was horrified to find that her hair had turned into macaroni and pasta, and her body into marshmallows. Tormont was the worst off, as he had turned into a giant mountain of flesh.
And those bacon clouds, roast chicken, and cheese waterfalls all stared at them with greedy eyes.
"Don't be afraid," the senior's voice came from all directions: "This is my domain, I call it 'The Glutton's Table.' In my domain, any enemy will become food and be cooked by me. I can also try all kinds of cooking methods here."
It was truly terrifying. In his domain, the food chain of all living things was almost reversed, and intelligent life at the top of the food chain was reduced to the bottom.
High-ranking mages are terrifyingly powerful.
"Next, I will demonstrate to you the process of preparing this dish."
As he spoke, a large pot appeared in front of Lorne, bubbling with red broth. Spices floated out, deftly processing themselves in the air, peeling off their outer skins, helping each other break down into several pieces, and then orderly falling into the pot. A few drops of red oil splashed up, and a spicy and pungent aroma wafted out.
It's somewhat similar to the one Lorne prepared before, but you can clearly feel the difference.
Lorne examined it carefully several times and began to understand: "Senior, your spices are processed too thoroughly."
He pointed to a spice shaped like a regular polygonal sphere, which had a similar flavor to cinnamon, and Lorne used it as a substitute:
"Its outer skin actually has a subtle bitter aroma; peeling it off actually makes it lose its layers. And this Sichuan peppercorn oil—you can't just dump it all in at once. You have to do it in two stages: first, fry it in hot oil to bring out the numbing flavor, then…"
Upon hearing this, the senior waiter fell into deep thought.
"In two stages..." He clapped his hands. "Junior, you're right. When they stew monster meat in the Spice Town of the Southern Territory, they add the spices in stages. It's similar to this principle; it definitely adds more layers of flavor..."
“Also,” Lorne said, “your heat control is the same throughout, but hot pot broth requires three stages. First, you fry the spices over high heat to extract the oil; then you simmer it over low heat to let the flavor of the spices seep into the oil; and finally, you turn the heat up again to lock in the aroma. You use medium heat the whole time, which is stable, but it lacks the variation of ‘top notes, middle notes, and base notes’.”
"So how do you determine when to switch gears?" the senior student asked.