Path to Transcendence

As he mentioned before, he found himself a new hobby. Well, it wasn't exactly a new hobby, but rather one he was re-exploring. It came as a shock but since he had come to Goldencrest, he realized he hadn't really cooked a proper meal for himself.

That was the reason he went to Gabriel for assistance. However, the bald and beefy professor gave him the most confused look when Julius asked if there was a way for him to use any of the school's facilities to cook for himself.

He had been confused as to why Julius was trying to cook instead of training. Julius had not really sparred with Gabriel all that often lately. Previously it was because his soul hadn't been healed but even after it had been, Julius chose to wear the suppression band. With the band on, Julius had been satisfied with the level of his current opponents and didn't really feel the need to fight the already frightening individual known as Gabriel on top of that.

Okay, but not joking, it was just that Julius was too busy. There was always something that came up or distracted him, so he hadn't been able to dedicate as much time to training as he had been. Though, he wouldn't say that was necessarily a bad thing. His balance of training and relaxing had been noticeably improving.

However, even while badgering Julius to reconsider his thoughts on sparring with him, trying to explain to Julius that cooking wouldn't get him stronger, Gabriel still promised to find out if Julius could use the kitchens. With that being said, Gabriel didn't foresee how it would be a problem and he was right.

Julius was given permission to use the kitchens for his own purposes. It was a separate kitchen that many of the staff members used for their own private meals whenever they weren't eating at the cafeteria.

At first, the adults who were using it were confused as to why a first year was using their kitchen. However, once Julius proved that he was allowed in there, they left him be. In fact, some of them were very friendly and Julius found himself cooking alongside some of them.

There was a particular guy named Johan, who was often there at the same time Julius was. This led to them cooking together. Johan was very helpful because, like Julius, he had a fire affinity. However, instead of using it for combat, he focused on becoming a chef.

Johan was a shorter male with tan skin. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and a short buzz cut to along with it. The only thing he was missing was a cigarette hanging from his lips and he would have looked like every late-night sous chef from his old world.

After a couple of meetups late at night in the kitchen, Julius and Johan formed a friendship of a sort. To Julius's immense luck, Johan showed Julius his various skills that specialized in food preparation. They were some amazing skills as well. Julius could see some of them being used for combat purposes even though they had names that wouldn't exactly go with fighting.

[Refined Dice] and [Polished Knifework] were two very good rare skills that showed Julius just how amazing some sharpness aspected mana could cut through materials and with extraordinary precision too.

Weirdly, Johan wasn't shy about sharing his skills. His reason was that since he wasn't fighting monsters or people, there wasn't a need for secrecy. Julius kind of disagreed with that, but considering that it was this very mindset that allowed Johan to share his skills with Julius, he wasn't about to complain.

At the moment, Johan was showing Julius his [Regulated Temperature] skill. It was a skill that fit perfectly for cooking. He considered his mastery over temperature to be excellent. However, Johan's ability to control temperature exceeded Julius's own control by a large significant margin.

Julius could get things within a few degrees of what he wanted, but when it came to consistently getting the same temperature with exacting accuracy, Johan was in a different league.

Julius understood the importance of a few degrees made in cooking. Take two pieces of chicken and cook one a few degrees over what you want and it can come out noticeably drier.

While Julius wasn't going to get [Regulated Temperature] at this time, he was attentively observing Johan's precise management of fire mana. There was a lot to learn just by watching Johan play around with his fire mana. After Johan finished his demonstration, he allowed Julius to have a turn.

"Remember, the key is to infuse your will into whatever you are heating up. It is all about feeling the right temperature, once you know what's right, you can replicate that same feeling the next time," Johan told him. Julius realized that Johan was a very much, go by feel type of guy. Which he didn't mind at all. While sometimes it was hard to understand where Johan was getting at, once he got the general gist, it helped a lot with his own exercises.

Okay, focus. Don't allow it to get dry like last time, he reminded himself.

The last time he had overcooked it by a hair and ended with something more akin to shoe leather than actual tender meat.

The time before that he hadn't cooked it long enough and it ended up too rare. The meat was from a Tier 2 monster, which meant that unless you cooked it perfectly the meat would be practically unedible. This time though, he felt like he got a handle on it. As one would say, the third time's the charm.

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He let out the breath he was holding. Then he gently and smoothly fed fire mana into the pan, making sure that each part of the pan was heated evenly. If there was any hot spots or places where heat was unevenly distributed it would result in potentially scorching part of the meat when placed in the pan.

There were mana-fueled stoves available to use, but Johan was insistent that this was the best and proper way, especially for someone with fire mana. It made the dish taste so much better when directly cooked with magical fire. Julius believed him too, Johan showed him the difference and it was clear upon the first bite.

The trick was to stay patient. Flooding the pan with heat would just ruin the entire process. Julius should know, he had made that mistake a couple of times already.

It took his entire focus. [Sage of Savagery] was very helpful in this regard, the epic ranked skill proving its worth and locked him in so that nothing but the pan existed in the world.

Following Johan's instruction, Julius used his aura and will to soften the intensity of the flames, making them more malleable. At first, Julius didn't quite understand what Johan was talking about, but once he felt it with his own manipulations, it was clear.

It was sort of like using his former Fire Concept, now Phoenix Concept with his skills. Instead, this time he was focusing his willpower to directly force the properties of the fire to change to his whims. It was very similar to how he manually controlled the fire but slightly different because it allowed him much more leeway when it came to how is intent was interpreted.

Finally, he succeeded. He made double sure that the fire mana was equally distributed throughout the pan. There were still slight imperfections, but honestly, that might have more to do with the material of the pan than himself. He wasn't expecting perfection, but this was much better than any other attempt.

He glanced over at Johan who was observing every motion he made. Johan stroked his goatee and examined the pan closely. After a moment, he looked up at Julius and gave him a proud nod. "There are still some things to be worked on, but it is definitely good enough to try it out," he said to Julius.

Getting permission, Julius reached over and poured a good amount of oil into the pan, letting the heat leech into the oil. Afterward, he stretched out to grab the pan that held a piece of meat that came from a Tier 1 bird, called a Rusty Chicken. It was kind of an odd name, but once he saw what the chicken looked like it made sense. The meat had this weird rusty looking color to it when it was in raw form. However, once you cooked it, the color would turn white, just like normal chicken.

It was also extremely delicious compared to a normal chicken as long as you cooked it properly. It was so succulent that one didn't even need to add any salt or seasonings. The innate mana within the chicken did a better job than most spice mixtures.

He laid the Rusty Chicken breast skin side down, hearing a satisfying sizzle crackle from the pan. The smell already wafting to his nose with a tantalizing aroma.

However, he prepared himself. This next part was always the hardest part.

The chicken itself was at a lower temperature than the pan. That meant the chicken was siphoning away some of the heat. This forced Julius to continuously feed fire mana into the pan, maintaining the same temperature he had worked so hard to achieve.

As predicted he messed up in a few places. He wasn't able to accurately assess where and how much heat he should have been adding. It wasn't too bad though, just something that he would be able to work on with some practice.

It was going pretty well and he was over halfway finished at this point. Of course, things couldn't have just gone smoothly, something needed to happen. As he was using his willpower and aura to control the intensity of the heat, he made a simple mistake.

He was so used to using his Fire Concept with his constructs that when he was completely in the zone, that was what he reverted to naturally. That was good news for his fighting abilities, but not so much for his poor chicken.

His Phoenix Concept rushed into his fire and the heat soared. This inevitably led to the pan getting scorching hot, to the point that in a matter of seconds, his chicken went from beautifully seared to blackened.

By the time he managed to pull back his fire mana and his Concept, it was too late. He just stared blankly at what had been his best attempt with a lost gaze. He then turned to Johan who had a similar look on his face, Johan was staring at the chicken like it held the secrets to the universe.

Julius knew it was just a piece of chicken, but his stomach dropped to his legs and he felt an immeasurable sadness wash over him. He had been so excited to eat it. In his mind, he was already imagining the taste and the juices coating his mouth.

Such a waste, he sadly rebuked himself.

***

The next time went much better. After he cleaned up and restarted his attempt, he ended up with something he was proud of. The chicken skin was perfectly golden brown with fat still glistening on the surface. The juices of the chicken were slowly oozing from the meat onto the wooden cutting board. The aroma of savoriness had him salivating.

Would you like to learn the skill, [Heat Control]?

Huh, what do you know? That was the skill that Johan mentioned was a good skill that many chefs try to learn.

Julius didn't know if he wanted to learn it though. He was getting close to his maximum skill amount and didn't want to clutter his already chaotic skill spread even more. Not to mention that he was already feeling the limitations of being in Tier 2.

Although, he could see the potential use for a skill like this. It was probably not just useful for controlling the heat of a pan, but also for controlling the heat of higher-intensity flames. Perhaps the skill would enable Julius to have a more refined grasp on his violet or blue flames. His violet flames were pretty good, but the blue flames were still like riding a wild bull.

However, he shook his head. This wasn't the time to be thinking about it. He could worry about it later. Right now he had something more important in front of him.

He had spent the last couple of hours waiting to eat this delicious morsel in front of him. So with an excited gleam in his eyes, he began to chow down on the Rusty Chicken.

He didn't know if it was because he worked so hard, but it was the best damn chicken he ever had. He almost cried tears of joy as he used his fingers to tear it apart.