r18novel Page 285
Page 285
Serfar put down the tree stump from his shoulder, scratched his head, and asked:
"But the elves haven't returned yet, and Serfal doesn't know how to make afternoon tea!"
"A piece of cake."
Latis raised an eyebrow, picked up a large pile of tree fruits and grass leaves, weighed a mushroom that looked exactly like a bull in it, laughed, pointed to his own nose, and said:
"Using the fruit leaves we just picked, I'll show you what the legendary Eastern cuisine is all about: using the original broth to digest the original food!"
……
……
"So these things really exist..."
Frico sat under a flower trellis next to the mage tower, with a large wooden box beside her. She rummaged through the box and pulled out a flower bud that looked like a bun. After a moment's thought, she took out a laboratory dish, lifted the bud, and squeezed it slightly. A stream of milky white plant juice fell into the dish.
She moved closer to the vessel, waved her hand above it twice, and smelled the liquid.
A rich, milky aroma wafted over. After a few seconds of discerning it, a look of understanding appeared in her eyes. She rubbed her nose and threw the flower buds and the liquid in the container into the trash can.
"It really is a bud flower seed. Luckily we found it quickly, otherwise a large portion of the mage's territory would have been taken over by the mature, giant buds..."
Recalling the scene of the Mage Association clearing away these flowers that she had seen before, Friko shuddered and a look of fear appeared on her face.
This flower is actually very popular in the wild because it's full of highly nutritious, milky-white sap that's non-toxic, harmless, sweet, and delicious, and also has excellent healing properties. One bud is enough for a team of three or four people to replenish their supplies. Encountering such a flower in the wild is practically like getting a health boost.
Unfortunately, it's possible that because the bud flower is an ancient variety, it can only grow normally under the concentration of magic energy during the magic surge period in Lundia.
In Lundia, this flower is extremely troublesome. Its buds are too large and heavy; a slight mishap could damage a mage tower. And when it explodes from a violent impact, the scene is...
Frico shuddered, snapped out of her daze, quickly wiped her sweat, bent down and threw all the bud seeds in the wooden box into the trash can.
After finishing these tasks, she breathed a sigh of relief, then looked at the wooden box, her gaze sweeping over its contents as she fell into deep thought.
The box contained items she had cleared from the ground during her inspections of the Herod Mage Territory, serving as its logistics manager. The vegetation in the Mage Territory had already begun to take shape thanks to Atelius's initial efforts over the past few days, so Frico needed to manage the new plants very carefully to avoid disrupting the existing ecosystem.
"Um...this is?"
Her gaze paused, and she reached out and took out a mushroom plant about ten centimeters long from the box. Unlike other mushrooms, this type of mushroom did not have a wide, extended cap, but rather a small, slightly protruding cap, looking like an enlarged version of the straw mushrooms that can be seen everywhere after the rain.
Frico examined the distinctive vertical groove on the top of the cap for a moment, then placed it on the table and began to consult the "knowledge manual" beside her.
"The 'Ghost Head Mushroom' is suspected to be a degenerate species of the 'Giant Mushroom,' but this hypothesis has not yet been confirmed..."
She silently read the description on the page and began to assess the plant's harmfulness in her mind in order to decide whether to leave it within the mage's territory.
"Currently available methods include: First, making it into 'Demon Medicine' to enhance magic power and increase attack power by about 3%; second, drying it, grinding it into powder, and sprinkling it in the wild to attract specific types of small monsters; third..."
Note: Do not take directly unless necessary. "Ghost Head Mushroom" is hot in nature and easily absorbed, which can easily cause muscle arousal in living organisms...
Upon reading this, Frico's expression changed, and she immediately thought of the gluttonous dragon in the Mage's Territory who would sneak into the restaurant every day to steal food.
"No, we should destroy this plant. I don't even want to think about what might happen if a dragon gets agitated... By the way, where is Miss Serfa?"
She was startled and immediately stood up. Just as she was about to look for him, she remembered that she seemed to have seen Latis leave with Serfal.
"Oh right, the boss is in charge of Miss Serfa today, thank goodness, that way she won't eat anything she shouldn't..."
Frico breathed a sigh of relief. After thinking for a moment, she decided to dispose of all the trash in the box first, lest things get complicated.
Just as she was working diligently, the wind chimes in front of the mage tower suddenly rang. She stopped what she was doing in surprise and looked towards the entrance of the mage's quarters.
This wind chime is the magic array of the mage's territory, indicating that someone is coming. As the shopkeeper, Frico naturally has to prepare to greet the customer.
However, when she saw the person who came, she was surprised and her eyes widened. Then she smiled with relief. The person who came was not a guest, but a good friend of a monk.
"Miss Jennifer, it's been a long time, welcome!"
"Huh? You're looking for the boss? I think I saw him taking Miss Serfal to find a place to build some kind of dragon's lair..."
"Hmm, this seems to be the way? It's okay, see you later!"
Chapter 288 Cream of Mushroom Soup (Is that right?)
"You may not know what it means to make a Manchu Han Imperial Feast using only locally sourced ingredients..."
Latis stirred the broth in the pot with a bamboo stick, patted Serfar's head as he squatted on the ground beside him, constantly spitting fire under the boiler, and shouted loudly and passionately:
"We usually only use two words to describe this kind of person: a newborn, no... a culinary genius!"
He lowered his head and took a deep sniff of the aroma of the soup. A strange heat surged into his head instantly, thick with a slightly fishy smell, which was very intoxicating.
Latis frowned, glanced at the silly dragon diligently tending the fire, hesitated for a moment, and decided to cook it a little longer.
“I often say that if she could make a layered Herod-style grilled fish from the fish I caught using wild plants, then making a lasagna soup with mushroom spores from the forest would be no problem for me.”
The milky white broth in the pot bubbled with slightly yellow foam. In the boiling broth, cut mushrooms rose from the bottom of the pot to the surface, emitting a rich aroma.
"hungry."
Serfa breathed a small puff of fire towards the bottom of the boiler, and seeing the fire blaze up again, she couldn't help but touch her soft belly and say:
"Little La, when can we eat?"
"Don't rush, let the cook try it first."
Latis looked down at the bubbling soup, pondered for a moment, then took out a ladle and scooped out a small bowlful.
Even if it's an unknown mushroom, after stewing it for so long, it shouldn't be poisonous anymore...
He hesitated for a moment, thought about the ingredients he had used, and after confirming that there was no danger, he drank it all in one gulp.
Since it was a spontaneous cooking session, the ingredients were naturally picked on the spot while clearing out the small valley. As a warrior with various digestive abilities, he didn't think about spending time checking whether the things he picked were edible. He simply relied on his experience from his previous life to select the ingredients he thought were edible.
The main ingredient is a flower bud that looks like a crabapple. The juice inside the bud tastes quite like milk, so Lattis simply used it as milk.
In addition, he found a kind of green, round berry. The fruit was very small and looked a bit like pepper from his previous life. It tasted quite similar, but the taste was a bit astringent. He collected it and planned to ask Ate to help him improve the variety when she returned.
There was also a strange plant with a long stem bearing large buds that looked so heavy that the entire plant drooped to the ground. Latis tore it open and found that inside were corn-like kernels, only longer and sharper, and densely packed together.
After selecting these ingredients, Latis immediately decided to make a pot of corn chowder. Although he didn't have any meat like bacon to enhance the flavor, he was surprised to find that a handful of mushrooms he grabbed from the ground made up for the lack of meat.
Latis knew that mushrooms could indeed produce a meaty flavor, but this particular mushroom seemed to have an even more pronounced characteristic. Its stems had a muscular, almost muscular texture, and just cutting it open released a rich, meaty aroma. It's conceivable that this plant might be quite effective in addressing the meat-consuming needs of vegetarians.
A few seconds later, Latis frowned, as if a burning sensation was rising from his abdomen and slowly spreading throughout his body.
"I feel a bit hot inside..."
He looked up, gazed at the slightly dim autumn sky for a while, and suddenly smiled with relief, remembering the large handful of pepper he had put out.
"Sure enough, you need to warm yourself up when it's cold!"
"Ow?"
Serfa looked at Latis, who was laughing heartily, with a puzzled expression. After thinking for a moment, he decided to burn Latis's bed when it got cold.
Latis was very satisfied with the rich flavor of the cream of mushroom soup. Although there were still a lot of unground peppercorns in it, he felt that his cooking skills had improved significantly. He now believed that he could compete with Ateliers.
"These mushrooms are great ingredients for cooking..."
He glanced at the remaining mushrooms, and his brow twitched involuntarily.
"Aside from the fact that his appearance is somewhat similar to Brother Niu, which makes me feel a little disoriented..."
However, apart from this mushroom, the other mushrooms were either too big or too colorful. He seriously suspected that eating them would cause dozens of dancing little demons to appear in front of him. In the whole valley, this mushroom that resembled Brother Niu seemed to be the safest one...
"Anyway, let's take it out of the pot!"
Latis shook off the jumbled thoughts in his mind, laughed heartily, picked up the soup pot, placed it on the last remaining tree stump in the clearing, then waved to Serfar and called out:
"Hey, come and eat!"
……
"Ugh... Ugh!"
Serfar lifted the pot lid, and was immediately showered with a burst of golden light.
"What, what is this?!" she exclaimed in surprise, throwing down the pot lid and asking in astonishment, her eyes gleaming with intense curiosity.
"Could this be the legendary radiance that naturally emanates from the surface of food whenever a masterpiece is prepared..."
"It's the Dance of Light spell; I added the Dance of Light spell."
Latis ruthlessly shattered Serfal's illusions, extinguished the magic he had been secretly maintaining, and pushed the now-dulled cauldron in front of Serfal.
"Oh."
Serfael calmed down instantly. She sat cross-legged on the ground, brought her head close to the soup pot to sniff, hesitated for a moment, then grabbed the handles with both hands and resolutely stuck out her tongue into the cream of mushroom soup.
"Hey!"
Just as she was about to savor the taste of this delicacy, her vision blurred and her dragon body trembled. The next second, she saw a huge fist standing in front of her, and behind the fist, Latis, with veins bulging on his forehead, was staring at her with dead fish eyes.
"La la (small la)..."
Serfal moved his mouth, only to find that his tongue was somehow being held in Latis's hand.
"You have to be polite while you eat!" Latis pointed to the soup pot with her other finger and said angrily, "How am I supposed to drink it if you stick your tongue in there?"
Serfael tugged at his head, only to find his tongue wouldn't budge, before poking Latis's hand with a mournful expression.
"After I let go, you're not allowed to stick your tongue in the pot again, understand?"
Latis said seriously, and only after seeing Serfal nod very sincerely did he sigh and release Serfal's tongue.
"Ugh!" Serfar covered his tongue and collapsed to the ground, thrashing about like a salted fish before obediently sitting up and saying:
"Serfar understands!"
"As long as you know."
Latis shook his head, then suddenly felt his palms were wet. He looked down at his hands and couldn't help but rub them together.
"Strange, why do I suddenly feel a soft, melancholic feeling..."
He raised his hand, then opened and closed it again, puzzled, as if a soft sensation had flashed by unnoticed.
What is it?
"Then Seifer won't need to use his tongue to eat!"
Serfar's voice came from beside him, and Latis immediately realized what was going on.
"Oh, it's Serfal..."