Green Monster Epic

Chapter 968: Oversight

“Aren't you afraid I'll destroy your lair?”

Alan's culinary skills became increasingly refined. Before long, he had cooked up several new dishes in front of the dragon, attracting the creature's drool.

Once everything was ready, the two sat down at a makeshift table made from local materials, facing the desolate black mountaintop scenery, and began to eat. Alan couldn't help but joke with Figglas.

“It's just a temporary volcano to stay in. It wouldn't be a pity even if it were destroyed!”

Figglas, in his bear-earth-spirit form, sat with rare formality, holding a golden knife and fork, properly savoring the delicacies in front of him, while nonchalantly responding to Alan's question.

“With my current strength, it doesn't make much difference where I hibernate. It's just that I'm used to dwelling in lava, and I don't have to worry about being disturbed.”

“If this volcano lair can help improve your cooking skills, then it's worth it even if it's destroyed!”

“Heh heh, I hope that's what you really think!”

Alan smiled slightly, indeed quite satisfied with the scene Figglas had shown him earlier, of the volcano crater containing fire elements.

Compared to constantly chasing after those drifting cumulonimbus clouds, this volcano, which could never grow legs and run away, was indeed a place worth Alan staying to try out his new cooking skills.

Although now it seems that it also has its inconveniences, such as the fact that after a fire element riot, the volcano will take a relatively long time to reabsorb the fire element. But it also gives Alan time to summarize after the experiment.

“You might as well tell me first, if you want to replicate the previous cooking skills, besides this elemental gathering phenomenon, what other materials do you need? I'll see how I can help you procure and collect them.”

Figglas seemed very enthusiastic and proactive about this matter, perhaps because it concerned the improvement of his own strength, as well as preparations for the next three thousand years of scale molting.

“That must be in terms of ingredients. I need fire element ingredients above the high-grade, and of course, preferably legendary grade.”

Alan wasn't polite. Anyway, if he really succeeded, the first to benefit would be this dragon Figglas. This could be considered a mutually beneficial thing.

Moreover, the reason Alan came to this volcano lair wasn't just to apologize to Figglas. He had already calculated that his cooking would attract this dragon, so he could just use this guy as a free laborer to search for various ingredients.

A legendary dragon's treasures contain many good things. As a fire-type dragon, its treasures will naturally have fire element-related materials. As long as it is sincerely moved by Alan's cooking, then in the end, it will definitely part with its treasures and contribute the materials to Alan for disposal.

He could obtain precious materials without spending a penny, have an extra free laborer, and at the same time hone his cooking skills, making the other party owe him a favor. Alan's abacus was really clever, but the dragon, currently immersed in beautiful illusions, hadn't yet figured out the key to it.

“No problem, I'll go out and search for the traces of fire-type magical beasts starting tomorrow.”

“I remember there seems to be traces of fire lizards deep in the Tagan Desert…”

The two feasted on the delicious food while happily completing the allocation of each other's tasks for the next period of time.

From the day the anomaly occurred in the deep night, this volcanic cluster area deep in the Catoer Mountains became a forbidden zone for adventurers.

In fact, even without the sudden strict ban issued by the high-level Green Field, those adventurers who usually drilled around in the Catoer Mountains rarely set foot in the volcanic cluster deep in the mountains, because they all knew that the legendary dragon had already taken that volcano as its lair.

It's just that now, with the ban issued, that volcano would occasionally make quite a bit of noise, sometimes accompanied by dazzling aurora shining across the entire sky, indicating that there was some kind of magical event, or that some kind of natural treasure was about to take shape.

There have been countless versions of rumors circulating privately among the people about such anomalies, saying that several master-level craftsmen of the Green Field tribe are cooperating to create a semi-divine artifact; or that the Green Field tribe is mining the volcano because precious metals such as gold essence and mithril have appeared in the lava flowing in the mountain; or…

However, the actual situation is not as mysterious and beautiful as everyone imagines. Alan, who is located at the lava pool entrance on the summit of that volcano, is covered in smoke and fire. The hair that he had finally grown out is now messy and不堪, and many places have been burned off again, bald and somewhat comical.

Relying on his powerful physical strength, Alan directly plunged his hands into the scalding, crimson lava pool and stirred it for a while, and bubbles popped up from the bottom of the pool, making a噗嗤, 噗嗤 sound.

Along with the lava flow, a vortex gradually rose at the mouth of the pool. The hollow at the core of the vortex gradually sank to the bottom of the pool as the lava rotation became faster and faster.

A vast amount of orange-red gas fluttered out from the air column formed by the vortex rotation, gradually forming a faint, orange-yellow mist above the volcano crater.

It's just that as the mist gradually thickened, the temperature above the mountain also began to rise sharply. The thin ice layer, which had just condensed on the surface of the mountain with the help of the chilling temperature at night, has now re-vaporized and began to generate a white mist on the summit.

Seeing that the vortex column in the center of the lava pool reached six or seven meters wide, and the orange-red mist escaping from it became more and more dense, Alan pulled his hands out of the stirred lava, and then he had an iron pot and a spatula in his hands.

The Food God Domain had already been deployed early. Alan held the iron pot in his hand and constantly swayed it towards the red mist above the sky. Then the layers of red mist seemed to be drawn by some mysterious force, and they fell from the sky, obediently hovering above Alan's iron pot.

As Alan's right-hand spatula rubbed against the iron pot like a symphony conductor's baton, the red mist swirling above the iron pot danced, transforming into infinite shapes.

Alan's heartstrings were tightly stretched. Besides the red mist above the iron pot that was constantly being pulled closer and more condensed, he could no longer tolerate other things.

This cooking of the fire element had reached a critical moment. In countless previous attempts, Alan had ultimately failed to incorporate the fire element into the iron pot. As long as he could successfully condense the fire element into a liquid and compress it into the iron pot this time, then he would be one step closer to his success.

Just as the red mist gradually turned into a drizzle and was about to fall into the iron pot that had been prepared for a long time, Alan's brain suddenly twitched, and the originally stable output of mental power became weak, almost unable to control the shape of the red mist.

The red mist, condensed into a sphere more than a meter in diameter, constantly contracted and expanded, as if a living creature inside was resisting and writhing. Sweat beaded on Allen's face as he used a spatula to repeatedly pat and tease the irregular parts of the sphere until, after a long while, he finally managed to stabilize it again.

After all, he wasn't a spellcasting professional. His perception, affinity, and control of natural elements were far from sufficient. Even with his relatively strong mental power, Allen couldn't achieve the effortless ease of a spellcaster.

Sometimes, Allen even considered delving into how spellcasters cast magic, hoping to find some clues. However, when he thought about the vast differences between his profession and spellcasters, as well as the profound mysteries of magic, Allen rationally gave up.

It couldn't be that every magic chef, to improve their skills to the highest level, would need to study magic-related knowledge to go further on this path. This would obviously create a huge barrier to entry for the magic chef profession, hindering its promotion and development, which didn't align with Allen's future plans for this profession.

Looking at the neighboring professions of alchemy and forging, those artisans didn't have the requirement to deeply study magic, which meant that magic chef cooking techniques must also have their own correct path.

As the founder of the current magic chef profession, even if there were many difficulties and obstacles ahead, Allen had to have the courage to face them and solve them so that magic cooking techniques could have a vast world.

“Huff!!”

Taking a deep breath, the several legendary specializations he had chosen to compensate for his mental power deficiencies finally came into play at this moment. He forcefully suppressed the various discomforts and feelings of depletion in his mental world, and painstakingly squeezed out a few more wisps of mental power, using the spatula in his right hand to deftly and carefully whip and sculpt the edges of the red mist.

Another half a magic hour passed before the red mist finally turned into a drizzle of starlight, dripping without missing a drop into the iron pot held steadily in Allen's left hand, eventually condensing into a shallow layer of crimson liquid at the bottom of the pot.

Huff!!

Allen's left hand, holding the iron pot, suddenly burst into flames, directly burning the bottom of the pot with raging fire. At the same time, his right hand wasn't idle, continuing to skillfully wave in the air along the edge of the pot, drawing mysterious patterns according to his inner feelings.

He didn't know how long had passed, but Allen felt that his mental world was withered and dim, with no possibility of squeezing out even a wisp of mental power. Finally, in the pot that his tribe had spent a great deal of effort and materials to forge for him, a red bead the size of a broad bean took shape.

The surface of the bead still had a layer of illusory flame, constantly spitting out tongues of fire. The pure fire element condensed into the bead seemed small, but it was the element gathered from a hundred-mile-long volcano's lava over several days. Its power was definitely not inferior to a full-force strike from a legendary spellcaster.

Just as this fire element bead was finally shaped, Allen finally stopped all movements. He tossed the iron pot in his left hand upwards, and the bead lightly flew two or three meters into the air. When it landed, the cooking utensils in Allen's hand had already been put away, and a right hand wrapped in raging flames steadily caught the fire element bead.

“.Uh…”

Everything had reached the final stage. Just as it was only one step away from becoming the final successful experiment after countless attempts in recent years, Allen suddenly found himself in a kind of speechless embarrassment.

Even if Allen used cooking techniques to condense the element into a substantial existence, it couldn't really be regarded as an edible ingredient. Instead, it should be combined with real cooking ingredients to complement each other and exert its effect.

Even a saint as strong as Allen didn't have the confidence and courage to put this bead, burning with flames, into his mouth and eat it like a real broad bean.

However, he had spent too much energy condensing the element, and only focused on breaking through the most difficult barrier, but forgot to prepare a suitable carrier for this element aggregate.

At this time, there were no suitable, cooked dishes around Allen to hold this element aggregate that could improve the quality of the dishes like the finishing touch. He could only helplessly hold the hot potato-like bead between his fingers.

Boom!!

The mental power wisp restraining the fire element finally exhausted, and the element ball became unstable again and began to riot. Forced by the situation, Allen painfully threw it away. As soon as the element ball left his hand, it directly exploded, and the manic and fierce fire element, like a wild horse, instantly enveloped the entire mountain peak.

All the flammable objects on the top of the mountain were burned to ashes, and a piece of crystal glaze appeared on the ground. Allen, with a gray face, ran out of the clusters of sparks, and after finally escaping the dangerous sea of fire, he turned around and slapped his cheek fiercely!!

“I’m really an idiot!!”

An experiment that was about to succeed was abandoned because of his lack of preparation. He didn't know how long it would take to do what he did today next time!

What Allen felt most distressed about was the waste of a fire element aggregate. For the tribe, it meant the loss of a talent of at least a high-level fire mage. How could Allen not feel distressed!

But he couldn't blame himself for this. After all, he had been constantly trying for so many years, and it had always ended in failure. Who could have imagined when success would come.

Magic dishes are different from potions and magic scrolls. They will produce magic consumption due to changes in temperature, taste, etc. Even the best preservation methods cannot ensure their long-term preservation. Generally speaking, a dish will begin to show magic dissipation at most half a month after it is successfully made. After two or three months, the magic will dissipate, and the dish will become useless waste.

Therefore, Allen never puts magic dishes on his body. Anyway, with his strength level, he can cook corresponding dishes for consumption as long as he has ingredients at any time.

Allen spent some time barely calming himself down, and then busied himself tidying up the explosion he had caused. Then he sat back on the glazed ground and began to summarize his attempt this time.

Although he failed in the end, at least this time Allen saw the dawn of victory. At the same time, he also thought of a problem that he had always ignored because of this failure.

Although the magic that was treated as an ingredient during the last cooking came from nature, there was also the magic that escaped from the ingredients, which meant that there was actually an internal connection between the seemingly unrelated magic and the ingredients.

Perhaps, he only focused on condensing the elements, but ignored the potential connection between the elements and the ingredients?