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It seemed that my cooking actually can… heal? Well not exactly heal but it could maintain the people's health! I never expected that, I mean, real life food didn't do that, right? Well, kind of, it could maintain people's health with calories, vitamins, proteins, and more… But it was still not the same as this, right? There was certainly something magical about this whole situation. I asked the Guide about this, and he quickly answered.
"I have never seen this happen before with a Quest," he said. "Nor I've seen this happen in a character that cooks… But I think your food gained some healing power because you used Green Magic on it, didn't you?"
"Oh, I did," I said.
"Well, that must be it!" He said. "You must have used some healing spell on it… I had not thought about it because actual people that pick a Job Class that can learn the Cooking Skill are very, very rare… Like, I think there are less than 40 in the whole server."
"W-What? That's a lot… Anyways, where do you get all this info from?" I wondered.
"I have some partial access to the database, and also I was loaded with basic info." said the Guide. "Nothing strange, all of us Guides are like this, but there is a large quantity of the players that completely ignores us, as they find us annoying, another part of them end up selling us as an item in a random shop."
"EH?! That can happen?" I wondered. "Why would they do that?"
"Well, they feel like they know everything because they read forums online or something," said the Guide. "They also dislike our presence… People are often not like you, Planta. You have a lot of patience."
"Haha, it comes with being a mother, I guess." I said. "I had to get used to my baby crying, getting hungry, having to breastfeed her, changing her poopy diapers, and more… So that really fortified my patience…"
"…Mothers are truly monsters of their own," said the Guide.
"What?!"
"N-Nothing!" He said. "A-Anyways, check which spell ended doing this to the food…"
"Okay…"
I had gained some new Spells after Green Magic was raised to Level 3, but I had not checked them yet, although I had used Wood Shield Before, and while I made the food I randomly conjured whatever "healing" spell I had, sprinkling it on the food like a spice.
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[Plant Boost]
Cost: Varies.
Cooldown: 30 Seconds.
A Special Spell that every being connected to nature can easily conjure, with this Spell you're able to boost the growth of plants comparably to the amount of MP you utilize. However, there is a certain limit per day.
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[Wood Shield]
Cost: 150 ~ 500 MP
Cooldown: 5 Seconds.
Gather your Magic and channel the connection with Nature that you have, as long as there are nearby trees within 20 meters of you, you're able to conjure a wooden shield to protect yourself from upcoming attacks. This shield durability is based in your INT and WIS Stats. The More MP you use, the larger the shield becomes.
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[Seed Creation]
Cost: 200 ~ 1000 MP
Cooldown: 1 Hour.
Utilize your great connection with nature to plants to generate new seeds from the plants you have raised previously, these Seeds will have the lowest possible rarity rank, but will grow at twice the speed of other seeds.
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Huh, all these spells seemed useful but none of them was the one that helped at cooking. If there wasn't any of the new ones, then the Spells that I ended up conjuring were… Verdant Recovery Light and most likely Accelerated Growth! Those two were supporting Skills that enhanced a target's regeneration and stats and growth, so there wasn't any other alternative than these two…
"I think it wasn't anything new, I used Verdant Recovery light and Accelerated Growth," I said.
"I-I see…"
The guide looked at the Elder and Acorn's Status, as he found they had a status that said "Satiated" and another that said: "Accelerated HP Recovery"
They seemed to last for a long time, not just a few minutes like the raw spells… I think they emerged because of the food. Well, I should check the stew then, there was still a bit left on the pot, maybe the item info was still there?
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[Delicious Catfish, Walking Mushroom, and Acorn Stew (Rare Rank)]
A delicious stew cooked with love and care by a great cook using freshly caught Catfish, Walking Mushroom Caps of various colors, and Acorns, it has a delicious fishy flavor that is combined with the earthy flavor of the mushrooms and the nutty flavor of Acorns, making for a perfect combination of flavors converging together.
This Plate has been enhanced with magic and can increase the recovery of health and mana for 48 hours upon consumption, alongside increasing the growth speed and the resistance to negative status ailments.
Eat while it's still warm!
Recovers: 50 of Satiation and 200 HP, and MP.
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I see! So everything in this game has its own status, it was kind of fun, wasn't it? This one stew got its own description and, just as I thought, it said that it can enhance and heal people! That was wonderful, wasn't it? With this we could really help the Squirrel-folk resist the disease while we searched for the items.
I am so happy… It meant that if I work hard, I won't see anyone dying… Hopefully.
In fact, we should make stew for everybody right now. I wanted to prioritize people's health while I could, to think that my cooking would be able to do something good for others… It only made me very happy.
Now, I should get to cooking. I guess I was going to make a massive stew using the giant fish I got! Well, I wouldn't use it all, but I'd chop it down into pieces! Meanwhile, I could also get some goat milk from Belle, so I can leave some cheese in the making.
"Let's cook something together, Acorn!" I said.
"B-But what about going to gather the materials?" He asked.
"We'll do that after everybody eats their fill!" I said. "Don't worry, we'll do it!"
"O-Okay then!" said Acorn. "Your cooking is really amazing, so I trust you!"
And like that, we moved towards Acorn's house again and I immediately asked him to take out Belle's milk. Acorn was very nervous while Belle looked at him with her menacing goat eyes. For an instant he couldn't really grab her tits because he was too scared of getting attacked.
"Belle, allow Acorn to take some milk."
"Meee!"
Belle let Acorn do it as she licked his face, it seemed she was friendlier than he thought she was. At the end, Acorn gained the courage and began forcing her milk out. The white-colored liquid began to quickly come out of her tit, and fell over a wooden bucket.
"Do that for a few minutes while I am busy here, okay?" I asked.
"O-Okay! I got it…" said Acorn nervously.
I moved to the kitchen as the giant blue Pike was atop the table, I took out my washed knife and quickly began butchering it out. I slit open the stomach with a single slice and let out all the innards, and after that, I began cutting down on the fatty meat directly, it was almost as big as a Tuna, so they could be cut down into large chunks of pure meat, the bones of the Pike were very big as well, so it was easy to detect them.
Like that, I ended up piling dozens of chunks with a large bone piece attached to them. I also cut the entire head into four chunks and added them to the stew to add a lot of flavor. Lastly, I added the shrooms, acorns, and the spices. Pepperine was the way to go as well, I guess it was the same as the others. I wished we could have potatoes, carrots, and other things too, but maybe I could plant some or something one of these days.
I left the large pot boiling. There was more meat to work with, of course, I wasn't going to just leave it at that. I decided to cut steak-shaped slices of the pike's meat, and poured some salt on them, and a few other spices and left these steaks resting for now. After the stew was almost ready, I would fry them over a pan using some acorn oil.
"How is the milk extraction going?" I asked.
"G-Good, I think I got a few liters now…" He said.
"Nice, now that's enough," I said. I looked at Belle who was eating a big pile of grass I picked for her beforehand. Taking milk out of her takes out her Satiation, but that was easily resolved by letting her eat grass while milk was taken away.
That way, Acorn gathered around 8 liters of goat milk while she still had satiation above 60! And it was slowly increasing as well.
"Excellent! Now, want me to teach you how to make goat milk cheese? It is very tasty and goes well with bread—Ah well, you guys don't get bread." I asked.
"Y-You know how to make goat milk cheese, Lady Dryad?" asked Acorn. "It is impressive how much you know about everything!"
"Ahaha… Well, I guess," I said.
I used to live in the countryside with various farm animals, so I naturally learned how to make cheese out of cow, sheep, and goat milk.
Now it was time to prepare cheese and even butter while we were at it! It was a good thing to do as the stew boiled~!
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