NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 - Home-style Stir-fried Pork
In the early morning, deep within the Dragon Mountain Range.
The mages surrounded a two-meter-tall [Flame Yak], which was enraged. It stomped its front hooves and roared, flames erupting from its body, soaring into the sky.
This was a formidable high-level monster. Mages at levels 40 to 50 would only dare to team up for a challenge. To take it on solo would likely require the best knights from the royal city.
“Roar!!” The yak’s front hooves slammed down heavily, shaking the ground. It lowered its head, breathing heavily, with a swirling cloud of smoke and heat enveloping it. Several mages kept a careful distance, closely monitoring its every reaction.
After a few breaths, the yak raised its enormous head, partially obscured by the grass.
Amid the green grass, a pair of crimson eyes emerged.
“It’s going crazy! Run!!!” The quickest mage screamed, causing the entire party to feel goosebumps, as if a switch had been flipped, and they all screamed and fled for their lives.
The enraged Flame Yak didn’t rush to chase them. Instead, it raised its front hooves again, and a ball of flame began to brew in its belly. Even through its skin, an orange-red glow was faintly visible.
Then the glowing orb rapidly moved upward, soon hovering at the yak’s mouth.
“Boom!!!” The fireball hurled towards the fleeing party members. Although everyone managed to narrowly dodge it, sparks flew, and flames shot up from the mountain grass, causing the temperature in the area to soared.
Fortunately, the Flame Yak was a stationary monster. Although its attacks were fierce, it didn’t actively pursue the players, and its attack range was limited.
Several agile mages quickly sprinted out of the burning zone, and just as they breathed a sigh of relief, they heard a companion shout, “What the heck?!!”
Everyone turned back abruptly to see the wood mage at the back of the group on fire, flames were shooting up from his cloak, and his health dropping rapidly.
In this world of mages, there were different “specializations.” The wood mage was a melee tank with lower agility and moderate attack power, but he had high health and defense.
So now, even though he was hit by the enraged flames, the wood mage’s health only dropped in small increments, appearing negligible. However, this didn’t stop his mindset from losing his mind. The enraged flames caused a powerful debuff: [Burning Armor Break], lasting for two hours, reducing defense by 50% and lowering maximum health by 20%.
For a tank, having both defense and health reduced essentially rendered him useless!
Even though it lasted only two hours, he could encounter many monsters during that time!
The wood mage howled in agony, and even though the water mage extinguished the flames the moment he exited the attack zone, his cries didn’t stop.
Until…
“Hey, I noticed your maximum health seems unchanged?” The team leader glanced at his info panel and questioned, “7300? Isn’t that what it usually is?”
“Ahhh… huh?” The wood mage’s wails took a bizarre turn. With tearful eyes, he clicked on his panel and stared at the data and various colored bars for three seconds, his gaze became blank.
—His defense and maximum health had not changed, and there were no icons indicating buffs or debuffs, showing that he hadn’t suffered any negative effects.
How was that possible?
The [Flame Yak] was slightly above his level, and it was considered a mini-boss, meaning that as long as he was hit by the enraged flames, the chance of suffering a negative effect was 100%.
Unless he had first consumed potions or food that could resist negative effects.
But both were quite expensive, potions sold for thousands of coins, and ordinary adventurers like them wouldn’t dare spend on them, even when fighting more dangerous big bosses.
As for food…
“Hey!” The wood mage suddenly slapped his forehead, jumping up excitedly. “I know! Sugar-coated tomatoes!”
His teammates exclaimed, “Huh?!”
The wood mage continued, “The sugar-coated tomatoes I had this morning, the ones I got as a bonus when buying fried rice yesterday! They restore health and mana continuously for two hours and have a 3% chance to resist negative effects! It must have been activated!”
“…No way!” His teammates gasped in amazement, both envious of his luck and incredibly tempted by the sugar-coated tomatoes.
—
At the Brave Inn, Ye Mu was excitedly experimenting with the potions she had bought last night.
Just as she had imagined, the three intermediate potions not only restored higher values than the primary potions, but their flavors were also an upgrade from the primary versions.
—[Primary Mana Potion] was just simple salt, while the [Intermediate Mana Potion] was a dark soy sauce with coloring effects,
—[Primary Health Potion] was coarse white sugar, and the [Intermediate Health Potion] was fine white sugar,
—[Primary Stamina Potion] was ordinary rice wine, while the [Intermediate Stamina Potion] was rice wine flavored with green onions and ginger.
This conclusion left Ye Mu deeply puzzled: if common potions were just various seasonings, why were they all such “dark cuisine” in this world?
Then she recalled a certain star-gazing nation in the real world, and it didn’t seem so unusual after all.
With the better fishy odor-removing properties of the green onion-ginger rice wine, Ye Mu took out the pork belly that Xibel had given her.
The piece of meat weighed about two kilograms, with an even distribution of fat and lean meat, complete with skin. Ye Mu hesitated between a few simple home-style dishes and ultimately went to the market to buy green and red peppers, as well as ginger and garlic.
The red peppers were small, the most common millet peppers, while for the green peppers, she chose a longer, softer variety called spiral peppers.
Back at the inn, Ye Mu sliced the ginger and garlic, chopped the millet peppers, split the spiral peppers, removed the seeds, and then cut them into small pieces. She sliced the pork belly, skin included, into thin pieces and marinated them with the [Intermediate Stamina Potion]—the green onion-ginger rice wine—for fifteen minutes.
Once the pork belly was marinated, Ye Mu heated a pot and rendered some fat from a piece of fatty meat. When the oil was ready, she added the ginger, garlic, and millet peppers, which only needed a few seconds to become fragrant. The rich aroma wafted from the hot pot, and Ye Mu couldn’t help but take a deep breath before adding the marinated pork belly, flipping it into the pot.
As the pork belly hit the pot, the oil temperature dropped significantly. Then, as the temperature gradually rose again, the unique aroma of the pork mingled with the previously rich fragrance, rolling out in waves.
Ye Mu had no doubt that even in this world filled with dark cuisine, she could sell this dish well right after taking it out of the pot.
But this was only a half-finished product.
Once the pork was slightly browned, Ye Mu added the sliced spiral peppers and picked up the [Intermediate Stamina Potion] again. The bottle contained enough for about three adult servings. She had used most of it to marinate the meat, leaving less than a quarter.
Ye Mu poured the remaining potion along the edge of the pot, then sprinkled an appropriate amount of salt and soy sauce.
To enhance the flavor, this dish should actually use no salt and instead include light soy sauce and oyster sauce. But if Ye Mu guessed correctly, the light soy sauce and oyster sauce were likely high-level potions in this world, which she couldn’t afford yet.
As for cornstarch, she didn’t have any at the moment. Otherwise, adding a bit at the final step to coat the tender and slightly spicy sauce evenly over the meat would be ideal, perfect for pairing with rice…
But for now, settling for a not-so-perfect simplified version would be fine.
Ye Mu sniffled in frustration, reminding herself not to be too greedy.
Once the spiral peppers softened and were infused with flavor, turning from green to brown, the dish was ready to be taken out.
Ye Mu divided it into eight small portions, putting one portion into her backpack. The system immediately began automatic recognition, generating a panel a few seconds later.
[Home-style Stir-fried Meat]
—Consuming this dish will continuously restore health, mana, and stamina,
—It can restore up to 5000 health, 500 mana, and 500 stamina (the total amount restored is affected by the quantity consumed),
—After consumption, immunity to the “Cold” effect lasts for 2 hours,
—After consumption, defense increases by 10%, lasting for 1 hour.
Ye Mu stared at the panel: Whoa—!
Looking only at the restoration values, the dish’s recovery for mana and stamina was quite average, while health restoration was strong, essentially making it a “health recovery dish.” Its overall ability was far inferior to the fried rice from yesterday.
But adding the two buffs below made it amazing!
A 10% defense increase could make tanks stronger and lessen the vulnerability of fragile players,
As for immunity to the “Cold” effect…
Ye Mu glanced out at the falling leaves, thinking that this dish should sell well as winter approached.
At 4:50 in the evening, Ye Mu finished her work in the kitchen and began packing her things into her backpack.
…The game world is great, she could stuff anything into her backpack, and all she needed to go out and set up a stall was one bag.
Tonight, the foods she was officially selling were the same as yesterday: Fried rice with sausage and sugar-coated tomatoes.
She had eaten one portion of the [Home-style Stir-fried Meat] with rice, reserved two portions for Xibel’s team, and meticulously divided the remaining five portions into twenty small samples each, with just one or two slices of meat, three or four small pieces of chili, and a tiny bit of sauce per sample.
These were the “tasting portions.” Although this reduced all the values to a very low level, everyone could estimate the total amount and understand what kind of dish it was.
After securing her backpack, Ye Mu hummed a little tune as she stepped outside. This time, she planned to leave the small alley behind the Brave Inn and set up her stall by the street to avoid crowding.
However, when she pushed open the inn’s door…
The small alley was already filled with people.
Ye Mu took a deep breath. “Thank you all for your support… Please line up! Otherwise, I won’t sell!”
The adventurers outside, eager and hungry, stirred for a moment before quickly forming a line.
Ye Mu stepped outside, hugging her backpack to her chest. She clicked the floating interface and created a public announcement board visible to everyone: “Fried rice with sausage: 300 copper coins per serving, limited to one per person, Sugar-Coated Tomatoes: 50 copper coins per serving, limited to one per person.”
“Home-style Stir-fried Meat Tasting Portion: Feel free to take one, limited to one per person.”
“Eh? Tasting portion? What’s that? Can I have one?” The first in line was a nature-type female mage, her eyes sparkling as she asked Ye Mu. Then she added, “I also want one each of Fried rice with sausage and Sugar-Coated Tomatoes.” Before she finished speaking, she handed over 350 copper coins.
“Sure, here you go. This is the tasting portion,” Ye Mu replied, accepting the money and handing over the three food items.
With only two types of dishes available, the purchasing process was quick. Most people opted to buy both dishes, while a few only chose one.
The first five or six buyers, driven by curiosity, didn’t leave immediately after their purchases but instead began tasting their portions on the side. The nature-type mage took a bite of the meat and exclaimed in astonishment, “This meat… is spicy?!”
In this world, no one uses chili peppers to prepare meat.
“Not only is it spicy, but it’s also not fishy—so fragrant!” a previously unfamiliar wood-type mage chimed in, enjoying the meat with the fried rice.
The pork belly slices with skin were tender and juicy, the usual strong meaty smell that accompanied them was magically replaced by a perfectly balanced freshness.
“Yes, yes, yes… wait a second!” The nature-type mage quickly opened her status panel. “And there are buffs?!”
Since she had only eaten one slice, the buffs she saw were quite short-lived:
—Immunity to Cold Effect: Lasts for 3 minutes after consumption.
—Defense Increase: 10% increase in defense, lasts for 3 minutes.
As a healer in team battles, the nature-type mage did not fight monsters in the front line, so the defense increase was not particularly relevant for her.
However, the immunity to cold effects was very enticing!
Winter is approaching, and they couldn’t afford the expensive warm gear that nobles wore. Ordinary cold-weather clothing wasn’t warm enough when worn less, and too many layers affected agility. Therefore, if they wanted to fight effectively in winter, warm food was a necessity.
In every previous winter, countless adventurers had to eat raw chili peppers while shedding tears or drink spicy pepper soup and water. Alternatively, they would spend money on cold-resistant potions, which were small in dosage but far spicier than eating raw peppers, leaving everyone except a small number of adventurers who were insensitive to spiciness in tears during the cold season.