He hoped there was a skill for this problem, so he again opened his skill tree and searched for something to rectify the situation. And low and behold, he did find it! A little skill known as Multi-Tool, and luckily for him, it only costs five skill points! So he quickly unlocked it before going back to work. He returned the flour to the bowl and retrieved another water bucket.
Once he had the two things, he needed to figure out how to prepare them. He sat down and closed his eyes to remember all the times he spent reading cookbooks in his free time, and after a bit, it finally came to him. So he added a 2:1 ratio of water and flour before sprinkling in basil and kneading the dough. After he finished, he spread more of the basil on top and let it rise.
After around an hour, the dough rose, and he manifested a bread pan to place it inside. From there, he realized his new issue: the need for an oven. He did remember that his Magic Cooking gave him an oven, but in what way, he didn't know. Then, as if on cue, the front of a wood fire oven appears in front of him, made of the same blue light his other magic things were made of, with the warmth of a magical fire radiating from within. Not thinking about this too hard, he opened the door and slid the bread inside. As he brushed himself off, he immediately prepared another loaf as the other cooked.
After finishing the next loaf and letting it sit, he sat back and enjoyed this blissful time. He found a comfortable spot on the grass with a moss-covered boulder for him to lean against as he looked up through an opening in the trees to watch as the clouds rolled by and drifted off into his imagination. In his mind, he saw himself inside a grand bakery handing out and making the most delicious and mouth-watering foods and baked goods alive. People lined out the door just to get a whiff of what he made, as anyone within, felt like they were tasting a small slice of heaven. It was an incredible sight, and he couldn't wait to accomplish it! Taking a break to admire and smell a fresh loaf of bread, he breathed deeply through his nose, only for the bread to smell like…burning fire?
Song Joong Woo quickly opened his eyes as he shook himself out of his daydream and smelled fire, only to see his magic oven burning, but not in the correct way! So he ran over, manifested oven mitts, and pulled out the bread pan within! He threw the hot and black thing that was on fire and stood back to ensure it wouldn't explode. Which it didn't but instead set fire to some nearby grass. Acting fast, he grabbed the water bucket and threw it over the fire! Once everything looked safe, he went over to inspect the bread, or what was left of it, using his Appraisal skill, which told him exactly how the "bread" turned out.
Charred Food- Ew! Why would you let this happen? Now it's hard as a rock and completely inedible.
So, with a heavy sigh, he caused the bread pan to vanish and threw the blacked stone away. When it hit the ground, it made the same noise a stone would, and when it landed, a field mouse came up to inspect it. It only took one sniff of the stone before running away. Song Joong Woo slapped himself for this failure and wondered what had gone wrong. His magic cooking would've given him some indication of something going wrong with his food or even spitting it out when complete. But then he realized that his magic cooking skills only granted him baseline tools and one cooking device at the lowest level possible. He was given an oven that appears out of thin air, not a conscious object that does things on some magic autopilot.
He had to watch the food this time, no matter what! The only problem was keeping track of time without a clock or knowing how to measure it with the sun. So he would just have to sit there and watch till it turned into how the directions in his cookbook described it. From here, he placed the new dough, which had finally finished rising, into the oven while preparing another loaf to sit and rise. If he would learn through trial and error, the least he could do was be prepared for it! So he sat in front of the oven and watched the new loaf like a hawk! And watched! And watched. And…watched some more.
Surprisingly, the heat didn't bother his skin or dry his eyes from watching. If anything, it was just a nice comfortable kind of warmth. Eventually, he saw the bread back to how it was supposed to in the books he read and quickly took it out while placing it in his work area to let it cool down. Once cooled, he took it out of the pan and set it before himself for the final test. Picking the loaf up to his ear, he squeezed the bread until it began to make a crunching sound. He could hear a symphony of fresh crusty bread, perfectly cooked from the inside out, ringing throughout his ear. Now, it was onto the taste test, and without summoning his cooking knife, he bit straight down into the loaf and tore off a sizable piece.
He only chewed it for a moment before the flavor of the bread mixed with the basil began to tickle his tongue with tastes he thought were long gone from his mind! The taste was so amazing that he began to cry! So he sniffed back his tears and swallowed his mouthful of food before proclaiming how delicious it was, holding it in the air as he did so! When he did this, he felt what almost sounded like a notification noise in his brain. When he turned to his side, a small window had opened, and within it held a message.
Sub-Skill unlocked- Recipe Book has been added to the list of sub-skills within Magic Cooking. Bread with Basil has been added to the Recipe Book.
Looking over this a few times, he wondered what the "Recipe Book skill" was as he clicked on it. The window brought up a page with the word "Recipe Book" in the corner and a very long and empty page of bullet points with nothing except one that reads "Bread with Basil" on it. So he clicked on the only one there and was surprised when the page brought up the recipe he used to make the bread! It was everything he had used to make the bread with perfect measurements for ingredients, temperature for the oven, and timing for how long the bread should cook.
It read: Bread with Basil.
Add a 1:2 ratio of water to wheat flour, then add 3 tbsp of finely ground basil to the dough in a medium-sized bowl (add yeast if none is already applied). Knead for 15 minutes and cover to let rise for an hour. Remove the dough and sprinkle more basil before transferring it to your chosen pan. Put into a wood-fired Oven at 170 degrees for 1 hour or until bread is toasty. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan and eating.
So now he could make any food without remembering every recipe. But then again, it's strange as opposed to writing down the actual recipes. He then looked at the description of the Recipe Book and saw it was a sub-skill of Magic Cooking and that he could record any successful food item he produced or from an already present recipe he learned. With this in mind, he knew he could only record things if he made them correctly, which would be a lot of trial and error.
Then he noticed something else on the Recipe book page: his bread had an F rating. Confused by this, he Appraised the loaf in his hands and saw it also had an F rating! Why was the rating so bad? Had he done something wrong? It tasted so good to him, so what was it F? With his Appraisal still active, he briefly glanced at the pile of wheat flour where he noted how it too had a rating of F. Confused by this, he looked at the ground, noting how the also basil had a rating of F. Taking note of how his ingredients had ratings, he next looked at the water where it did not have a rating but just the description.
River Water- fresh, cold water from a flowing river. It is not purified.
From this, he realized that anything he put into his food, no matter how insignificant, would affect its rating depending on its current state. So, even something like unpurified water would determine the outcome. He'd have to figure out how to increase the rating of his ingredients at a later point, which was no problem for him!
He was young and full of energy once again! He could do this! He will do this! Cause this is what he wanted and what he's going to do! So, with newfound determination, he set forth on making as much bread with all the materials he had! And so he worked like an animal throughout the day, night, the next day and night, and the one after that until he had exhausted all his resources and himself.
Upon waking up in the early morning sun on the third day of his mass cookout, for the first time, he was thrilled and content with himself on something he did. Making so much bread that he had lost count of the many loaves. Using his Magic Cooking skill so much that he didn't realize it had gone up to level 4, and didn't realize his skill point had gained over a hundred extra, putting it at 110 skill points! All before slowly coming to the realization that he hasn't eaten, drunk, or slept in over five days! Upon knowing this, he made sure he was still alive and that he was not having a slowly dying fever dream. After a few hard pinches to his face and body, he confirmed he was still awake and alive. But then…how exactly did he go so long without every creature's natural biological need? He had to find out if this was a skill he didn't know before!
So he looked through his stat block once more and realized he had overlooked a skill. He remembered seeing four skills when first exploring the stat block and skill chart. There was Appraisal, then Magic Pocket, next was Magic Cooking, and then he stopped after those two before divulging what they did and then going down the rabbit hole he was in now. So, looking it over, he saw that it was titled Biological Storage, then clicked on it to see its description.
Biological Storage- when the user is fully fed, hydrated, and rested, magic will accumulate in their guts, allowing them to go days without food, water, or rest and using the magic as a substitute until it is drained and natural functions take hold.
Song Joong Woo started to break out into a cold sweat with every word he read until he nearly felt like vomiting! But he controlled himself as he thought it might make his situation worse! So, after quenching his stomach, he wondered how much time he had left before he ran out of juice when dehydration and starvation took hold. As if on command, a new window opened, showing what looked like a nearly empty health bar. Looking at the title on top, it read: Food Storage Reserves. In his mind, he realized that this was all he had left before nature took its course, so he went to work on fixing it, but not before a bit of experimentation.
First, he took out a single wheat grain and ate it. Looking back at the Food storage Bar, he saw it hadn't even gone up by a smig. He'd have to eat hundreds if not thousands before the bar got full again! So he ate a still-fresh loaf of bread from his Magic Pocket within a few minutes. Nearly choking, he grabbed his water bucket and chugged it down until he could breathe again! Once he regained his breath, he wiped his mouth and rechecked the bar, seeing how it went up much more than before, nearly a quarter of the way with the added water.
So he came up with several conclusions; firstly, depending on the food he consumed directly affected the bar's increase and, most likely, its rank. Second, the same effect goes with what he drinks. It would increase faster if he had something purified or something more tasty. And the third was sleep. The bar would most likely double if he slept, precisely what he did next. After eating more loaves and drinking his fill, noting that he could only eat as much as his body naturally could, he curled up under a shaded tree, covered himself with his cape, and fell asleep faster than expected.
After several hours of peaceful rest, he awakens again and sees that it is the early evening. After stretching and rubbing his eyes, he looks back at his food storage and sees that it has gone up to nearly full! A full meal, clean water, and sleep did help a lot! After feeling much more assured about his situation in life while taking extremely unnecessary risks, he got up, dusted himself off, and decided to do the thing he probably should've been doing this whole time.
Finding civilization.
After looking around and wandering about aimlessly for hours, watching and becoming more and more stressed as the daylight began to wind away, he realized he had no idea what he was doing until he remembered the survival shows he'd watched. Nine times out of ten, animal track should lead him to a civilization of any kind. So, using his Appraisal skill, he searched the ground until he found what he was looking for; deer tracks. With success at hand, he continued using his appraisal to follow the tracks until the night covered him! From here, he realized it was much harder to use his skill that required sight when he couldn't even see what he wanted to. In hindsight, he should've made fire or a torch.
He thought he could use his Alchemist tool to make something, but he needed to figure out how to do alchemy, what ingredients he should use, how to get them, or where to find them. So, that was a dumb idea on his part. He thought about using his magic Cooking and used the light from the oven to light his path, but he quickly found that the stove was stationary from where it was summoned and wouldn't follow him. So he tried to use a branch and light it with the oven's fire, only to discover that the magic fire couldn't set things on fire. Then he thought he should just hunker down for the night and continue to make more bread as he waited for morning light. But then he realized he had used up all the resources he had gathered and could not make anything, let alone find anything to experiment with in the dark. He thought about making a torch but then saw how he had nothing to wrap around the branch to burn or even a way to light it. And worst of all, the moon was covered by clouds, so there was no light at all!
He sat down next to his oven for light and warmth as he tried to keep calm in the darkness of the expansive wilderness of a world where, most likely, monsters who ate humans on the regular were lurking around. Shaking these thoughts from his head and wiping his eyes of filling tears, he tried to think critically! This was a new and robust world, and he had to be just as strong, if not more so! His only saving grace was his Skill Tree, and he hoped it had something to help, like making light or some form of magic camping.
Opening the window, he looked feverishly through it for anything that could help! Until he found one thing amidst the many different trees: Light Magic. Once unlocked at the very first level, he could cast a spell, unsurprisingly, called Light. Not thinking about it too hard or how much it cost, he bought it, and another window opened as it congratulated him on unlocking Light Magic and the ability to wield it. Which he thought strange since he thought he had been using magic this whole time? Not thinking about it for now, he noted how a new window opened in his stat block called Spells List. Inside is only a single spell called Light. The description told him precisely what he wanted to see.
Light- upon touching an object, it will glow with white light for over 24 hours in a 10 ft radius.
Smiling at the description, he touched the branch he was already holding, and it began illuminating! Song Joon Woo was so excited he began to bounce up and down! After getting all his excitement out of himself, he looked for the deer tracks again with his Appraisal Skill and followed them for several hours until he hit a dirt path. Looking up from the track, he saw that it wasn't just a dirt path but a road! It was not what he wanted, but it was a step in the right direction! So, still trying to decide which way he should go, he followed one side of the road until he found any form of civilization and hopefully made some money on the way. Smiling, he knew this was finally the start of his great adventure into becoming a baker! And so he happily skipped down the road with his light stick until the morning sun arrived, where he threw the stick away, no longer needing its light, and walked on with newfound determination as his mind ran wild with how he thought his new life would go on for him.
However, Song Joong Woo's imagination was much more fun and easy than real life. He walked the road for two hours in the day, then three, then five, then six, until night fell again, and he had to sleep on the side of the road throughout the night. Upon waking up, he quickly found his excitement and joy draining out of him like water through a sieve. He had walked this seemingly endless road for longer than he cared to remember, and still, he hadn't even found a roadside inn for directions and an actual bed. However, he met three people on the road and tried to sell his bread, only to be ignored. And those were the only three people he found throughout his struggle. None of them had stopped or looked at him, not even when he asked for directions!
Now, he was just aimlessly walking this road; any human or intelligent life was ignoring him; he was no closer to finding a town direction or even knowing what kind of currency this world used! He was so nervous and high-strung that he swore he would start to break out into a panic rash! And it didn't help when dusk began to settle in once again! So he continued his now sulking walk, hoping and praying to the One Being to help him find anything! Then he saw it. Just in the distance as night began to fall over him.
The dim glow of a fire. A camp! With people! Without thinking about what it could be, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the soft and inviting glow! He ran and ran with newfound joy and enthusiasm until he broke through the dense foliage and finally came across a camp with a roaring fire and what seemed to be people living there! He was so overjoyed at finding something on the road of vast nothing that he didn't even note what was settling this camp. Not that he could since their forms were obscured by the glow of the fire and the black night background.
That is until one of the campsite residents saw him and stood up, showing their silhouette to be anything but human. When Song Joong Woo saw the perceived person get up and move toward him, he briefly thought some friendly faces would greet him. Until that same friendly face, he thought he would see, ended up not looking so…friendly. Instead of another human standing before him now stood a monster! It was huge, broad at the shoulders, covered in thick hair, with tusk-like fangs and piercing yellow eyes! These were just the first few things that Song Joon Woo noticed as he looked at his greeter.
Now fully taking in the fact this…thing was anything but human, his flight or fight response kicked in, and it was telling him to freeze! The monster was huge and had a mix of yellow to dark brown fur with thick, long, dark eyebrows. Wore only a loincloth of pelt with a spiked forearm and shin guards, and had very short legs with a heavily built body! Then his eyes were drawn back to the arms, which were not only so disproportionately long that they reached the ground, but also were extraordinarily muscular and had a second joint, making them look as if they had two separate forearms! Trying to stay calm in the face of something probably thinking about eating him, he used his Appraisal skills to find out what in the world he was looking at! The window popped up, and he nearly shit himself upon watching what appeared in front of him.
Bugbear Chieftain- 25 Strength, 30 Stamina, 54 Health, 8 Charisma, 15 Fortitude, 2 Knowledge, 0 Magic, and 28 Speed.
Bugbears- the member of the classification known as Goblinoid is the largest class of Goblin! Known for their brutish strength and lack of higher intelligence, they are great raiders and berserk fighters in addition to their disproportionate 10ft arm length. Approach with caution!
Well…Song Joong Woo just broke that last rule quickly, and now he needs to act fast, or else! If storybooks were anything to go by, he'd either be killed, eaten, made a woman, or all three simultaneously! So, with his mind abuzz and his body shaking like a leaf as he began to sweat like a waterfall, he uttered the only thing he could hope to say at this time…like a fool.
"H-Hello s-sir. Would you care to t-try some of my delicious homemade b-bread? F-Fresh from the oven and f-full of lovin'.", he babbled out stupidly as he pulled a hot loaf from his Magic Pocket, presenting it to the chief.
The Bugbear looked down at the fresh loaf and putting his nose wet beastly near it, took a few sniffs. After smelling it, he heard the creature make a noise in its throat that Song Joon Woo couldn't make out, only for one of its highly long arms to reach out and grab the loaf before taking a bite out of half of it. The Bugbear chewed his food briefly before his gruff and menacing expression softened into bliss. He stood there and mindlessly ate the bread bit after bit until it was all gone. After swallowing the remnants, his gruff expression reappeared as he stared down at Song Joon Woo, still shaking like a leaf and white as a ghost.
Then he arched his neck down to the young man's face and snorted a puff of wet yet warm air from his broad black nostrils as he asked him in a broken accent, "What be your name, man scrimp?"
Song Joon Woo opened his mouth to answer with his name but stopped as he realized something important. He wasn't Song Joon Woo anymore; this wasn't his world, a new and clean slate for himself. He could be anyone he wanted to be, not the person he once was. If he were in a different situation, he would have had more time to think about what he wanted to call himself, but staring at what could be his undoing in the face, his fear-struck mind could only think up one thing as he looked down at the second loaf of bread with basil he pulled from his Magic Pocket.
"My…My name? My name is…Basil. Yeah, my name is Basil.", he answered the chief.
A new name has been added to the Stat Block sheet. Thank you, Basil, and welcome to the Empty Lands, located in Eadatria.