Chapter 40: It Really Works
After the village chief’s wife and Yasi departed, Lu Yunxi returned to her usual daily rhythm: working her shift and teaching her apprentice by day, and venturing up the mountain to hunt monsters by night.
Thanks to her relentless efforts, she soon managed to defeat even the most ferocious and cunning predators in the mountains. However, as a consequence, the experience points she could harvest from them dwindled to a meager trickle.
By this time, Lu Yunxi had just crossed the threshold of level 40.
“Master, what are you doing?” Shen San asked, watching with a puzzled expression as Lu Yunxi meticulously washed several duck eggs and nested them one by one into a large earthenware jar. “Is storing the eggs in a jar like that the pickling method you mentioned before?”
Lu Yunxi nodded. “Yes, I’m pickling a batch of salted duck eggs. They’ll need to cure for about a month before they’re ready to eat. You can try them then. Personally, I don’t care much for the egg whites, but the salted egg yolks are absolutely spectacular!”
Shen San’s mind immediately drifted to the elusive century eggs that couldn’t be found anywhere on the Star Network, and a look of suspicion crossed his face. “Master, are century eggs made from duck eggs too?”
“They certainly are! If you want to learn, we can whip up a jar of century eggs next!” Her apprentice had proven to be incredibly diligent and quite talented throughout his culinary training. Now that he had mastered the vast majority of the foundational techniques, she no longer needed to watch over him every second of the day. Instead, she had plenty of free time to casually pickle duck eggs or experiment with side projects just for the fun and flavor of it.
Half a month later.
Lu Yunxi stood in the kitchen, observing a simple bowl of clear-soup noodles that Shen San had prepared entirely on his own. The noodles were neatly and uniformly arranged in the porcelain bowl, submerged in a broth that was crystal clear and beautifully seasoned. A delicate scattering of finely chopped green onions floated on top, releasing a rich, inviting fragrance into the air.
She gave an approving nod and took a bite. The texture was smooth, the flavor was perfectly balanced, and a crisp green system notification shimmered across her vision.
Smiling with genuine satisfaction, she happily finished every last drop of the noodles.
“Excellent work! You’ve officially mastered every dish I have to teach you. From here on out, it’s up to you to practice independently and refine your own culinary path!”
Shen San immediately opened his system menu and found that his primary quest line had formally updated to ‘Completed.’ He let out a massive sigh of relief. He had attempted this specific apprenticeship quest numerous times across various servers, failing spectacularly every single time. He had honestly begun to believe that unlocking the profession would take decades of brute-force grinding!
To his utter amazement, he had actually succeeded this time.
Thinking of his younger brother, who was still trapped in the grueling trenches of his own quest line, the corners of his mouth curled into a smug smile.
“Shen San, you are fully capable of preparing meals for your grandfather on your own now,” Lu Yunxi said, her expression suddenly turning incredibly solemn. “I have my own matters to attend to, so I will be permanently departing from this town in a few days.”
Shen San froze in shock, staring at her in disbelief. Although the advanced NPCs in Ancient possessed an astonishing degree of artificial intelligence, they were fundamentally bound to their localized daily routines. They almost never traveled across regions, choosing instead to remain anchored to a single spawn location.
“You must rely on your own merits from now on. Work hard, and we shall cross paths again if destiny allows!” She offered a supportive pat to her apprentice’s shoulder, then turned on her heel to bid her farewells to the rest of the town.
By the time Shen San fully snapped out of his daze, his master had already cleared the regional borders and vanished into the horizon.
Meanwhile, in the real world—Interstellar Capital Star, Fu Family Estate.
“Third Brother, I thought you said your master was incredibly strict? But lately, you’ve just been hanging around the estate kitchen cooking all day. I haven’t even seen you log into the game to shadow her!” Fu Jinxi grumbled, watching his older brother gracefully move through the kitchen. His tone was thick with envy and jealousy.
Jinxi was currently completely bottlenecked by his own apprenticeship quest! The master chef he had meticulously selected was a rare, high-tier culinary specialist established in a prominent regional hub, but the enrollment criteria were astronomically difficult. He was so thoroughly overwhelmed by the mandatory trials that he didn’t even want to log into the simulation anymore just to get stressed out.
Fu Jinheng rolled his eyes at his younger brother, entirely speechless. “I’ve already graduated from my apprenticeship. Besides, my master is embarking on a grand journey across the world map, so there’s absolutely no reason for me to hover around her avatar every single day.”
The moment his master declared his training complete, Jinheng had temporarily stepped away from the simulation to focus his energy on cooking real-world meals for their grandfather. Because the chemical properties of ingredients available in the interstellar market varied slightly from the virtual database models, he had to constantly experiment with the ratios. Once he perfected the real-world execution, he could write the exact parameters into the domestic robot’s central processing unit, allowing the machine to perfectly replicate the dishes moving forward.
Jinxi’s envy only mounted as he tracked his brother’s seamless, practiced motions. Why hadn’t he been blessed with the fortune to stumble across a high-level chef willing to pour her heart into mentoring him?
If Fu Jinheng knew the absurd thoughts running through his little brother’s head, he would have fiercely objected. What did he mean by stumbled across her easily? He had invested an immense amount of blood, sweat, and strategic maneuvering just to convince his master to take him on as a student!
Thanks to Jinheng’s culinary breakthroughs, the Fu family’s dining table featured an entirely new, decadent menu every single day. Unless an emergency required their presence in the outer sectors, every member of the main lineage went to extreme lengths to sprint home just in time for dinner.
In this manner, half a month slipped by.
Eventually, the Fu family’s personal physician arrived at the estate, bringing a array of medical diagnostic instruments to conduct a routine checkup on Old Master Fu. As the processing unit hummed, analyzing the data, the family members clustered in the corridor, waiting anxiously and pacing back and forth.
Ding!
The machine let out a sharp tone, signaling the completion of the scan. Every eye in the room instantly locked onto the doctor’s face. Although the veteran physician was accustomed to high-pressure scenarios, being intensely scrutinized by a room full of elite military officers caused cold sweat to break out across his brow.
He parsed the metrics rendered on the display screen, and his eyes suddenly flared with absolute shock. He let out an incredulous gasp. “The values… they’ve actually dropped!”
The family members swarmed forward, their faces thick with breathless anticipation. “Doctor, what exactly dropped?”
True to their wildest hopes, the physician offered a brilliant, stunned nod. “Yes, it is exactly what you are thinking. The general’s internal mental pollution metrics have significantly decreased! Though it is only a minor drop, the variance is undeniable!”
Throughout his decades of medical practice across the star systems, this was the absolute first time he had ever witnessed an individual successfully reverse the regression curve of mental instability!
“General, what specific nutrients have you been incorporating into your diet lately? What manner of neurological exercises have you been practicing?” the doctor pressed eagerly. How on earth had the old man achieved this? According to established interstellar medical science, once a soldier’s mental sea began to collapse into a violent riot, there was no cure—they could do nothing but wait for death!
“Doctor, didn’t you explicitly state past checkups that consuming pure, natural foods could alleviate mental pollution?” the eldest brother asked, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
The physician froze. He had indeed issued that baseline advice, but the organic output of pure, natural ingredients was so fundamentally unstable that the therapeutic effects were historically negligible to the point of being unnoticeable. The raw materials required extensive molecular processing and precise heat configuration to yield any medical value—and the resulting synthetic meals were not only notoriously foul-tasting but also astronomically expensive, making them entirely inaccessible to the wider public.
He couldn’t help but look at the old general with a surge of profound professional respect. “General, your mental fortitude truly remains as ironclad as it was during the campaigns!” To routinely force down such repulsive, processed natural foods for the sake of his health… it was no wonder the man had successfully risen to the rank of Supreme Commander!
Old Master Fu was entirely bewildered by the diagnosis, but he maintained a poised, knowing smile and nodded along. Since the medical professional was eagerly singing his praises, he might as well just play along and take the credit!
The rest of the family was filled with immense joy. The moment they politely escorted the ecstatic doctor out of the estate, an animated strategy session erupted in the lounge.
“Thanks to Third Brother’s rapid assessment of the simulation’s value, our entire lineage secured premium gaming cabins ahead of the market curve,” the eldest brother noted. He was an active-duty officer in the federal military who had already earned the rank of Major General; thinking of the immense tactical advantage this technology would offer his active battalions, he couldn’t contain his excitement. “I will personally escort my vanguard divisions into the server for specialized training starting tomorrow morning!”
“Feel free to mobilize the troops into the simulation, Brother,” Fu Jinheng chimed in, easily hoisting a massive, heavy designer sofa with a single casual hand to clear a path. “We aren’t merely absorbing authentic historical data within the game matrix. By rigorously drilling our avatars inside the simulation, our biological bodies in the real world will experience a corresponding physical optimization.”
The family stood paralyzed, staring blankly at the casual display of superhuman strength as he held the sofa aloft. Hearing his explanation, a wave of profound revelation washed over them, and they resolved to log into the network immediately to investigate the mechanics for themselves.
The only individual who remained hesitant was their biological mother.
Madam Fu offered a gentle, diplomatic smile. “My personal health metrics are perfectly stable, children. I have no intentions of deploying to the outer frontlines, nor do I possess any desire to subject myself to grueling physical drills.”
“Mom, the geographic landscapes rendered across the various servers are breathtakingly unique,” Jinheng advised warmly, setting the furniture back down without a sound. “Don’t you and Dad love traveling across the pristine sectors of the galaxy? Treat it as a luxury vacation.”
Having personally extracted such world-shattering enhancements from the simulation, he deeply desired for every member of his family to immerse themselves within the system, ensuring they didn’t squander a magnificent opportunity.
