"Yup~" He Yi giggled. "You can’t play games forever, and you gotta find something to do after you retire, right? It’s better to have a skill than to have no skills at all, right?"

"But GGS is a software company, and I’ve long since sacrificed all my C++ and Java programming skills to the almighty calculator. What could I possibly do in GGS?"

"It’s fine, I won’t ask you to work on software." He Yi giggled again. "All I ask of you is to conduct yourself and fulfill your responsibilities, and in this regard, I have full confidence in you. Also, did you forget that Xu Yang is a GGS employee himself? If an oaf like him can work for GGS, then why can’t you?"

I rubbed my palms together. "Okay then. I feel much more confident now that I know that someone will always perform worse than me!"

He Yi: "..."

……

Well, it looked like I would be working for GGS starting tomorrow. I had no idea what kind of job He Yi had planned for me, but it didn’t matter either way. He Yi was the boss of the Asia Region of GGS, and there was nothing she couldn’t do in the company. Even if she made me a security guard, I would be a security guard captain at the very least.

I teleported back to the city after that. It was time to make some Rank 9 Magic Consumables!

Swhoosh!

Sky City was bustling as usual, and the moment I arrived at the square I immediately shouted for Green Pepper, Garlic and Salt. They were incredibly cheap, of course. Anyone who was still gathering low-level food ingredients like these at this stage was just trying to make enough money to survive the day. Seriously, it took a whole day for the average player to gather around 40 stacks of Garlic or so, and even if they sold everything at the market, it only amounted to less than 50 gold, or 50 RMB. There were plenty of people who would like to make money through gaming instead of working, but the actual percentage of those who made it was less than 1%. If you didn’t possess any natural talent or advantage that would put you above your competitors, you just wouldn’t make it to the top of the food chain. Survival of the fittest was just the natural law of our world.

I began cooking after buying a bunch of Green Pepper, Garlic, and Salt. First, I opened the cooking window, tapped the Rank 9 Magic Consumable and selected 20 Dragonfish Meat, 25 Green Pepper, 25 Garlic and 25 Salt. Then, I started cooking in earnest!

Light filled the space between my palms, and the next moment a purple pot with what looked like mini sushi in it appeared. It was both easy to carry and tasty!

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have made Dragonfish Soup x5!

5 Dragonfish Soup in one go? Not bad at all!

As a Rank 9 Magic Consumable, the Dragonfish Soup could restore 1500 MP to its user instantly. It was better than most Magic Consumables to say the least. However, considering that you could consume only 1 Magic Consumable per 60 seconds, it was nowhere enough to satisfy the needs of many high-level priests and mages at all.

For example, Murong Mingyue had over 7000 MP right now. Greater Heal X would cost her 200 MP, whereas Restoration X would cost her 120 MP. A 1500 MP Magic Consumable wasn’t even close to making up for the MP consumption, especially during boss fights and PvP. A priest or mage without MP was useless, so they really wanted to get their hands on Rank 10 Magic Consumables as quickly as possible. This was my chance, of course. While most chefs were still cooking Rank 7 or Rank 8 Magic Consumables, I was going to make as many Rank 10 Magic Consumables as quickly as I could, make a shit ton of cash while I was still the sole seller, and make my Air Force One utterly famous all in one go!

After grinding Crystal Dragonfish for the entire day, I had over 300 stacks of Dragonfish Meat sitting in my bag. I had more than enough main ingredients to level up my skill to Rank 10, and the sub ingredients were not a problem whatsoever since I could just buy them cheap from other sellers. It was honestly quite fun to create Magic Consumables without pause as if I had unlimited supply of ingredients. Also, cooking a Rank 9 Magic Consumable cost 90 MP, and I had a total MP of 2000 or so. So every time I ran out of MP, I just ate a Dragonfish Soup and enjoyed first dibs on my own products.

An entire half an hour later, 334 stacks—each containing 20 Dragonfish Soup— sat snugly in my bag. I set their retail price to 5 RMB per Dragonfish Soup, so 1 stack was worth around 100 RMB, for a grand total of over 33k RMB per cooking session. Once again, I proved that making money was easy if you were ahead of all your competitors.

……

Making Dragonfish Soup was dirt cheap to say the least. I didn’t need to pay a hunter for my ingredients since I was my own hunter, and all the Green Pepper, Garlic and Salt I bought just now didn’t even total up to 50 silver. What this meant was that a single Dragonfish Soup cost less than 1 gold, and yet I was going to sell it for 5 gold each. I could hardly stop myself from grinning at the massive profit I was about to make.

It was at this moment I received a system notice: Congratulations, your Cooking has reached Rank 10. You have gained the title "Cooking Master"!

……

Fuck, my Cooking is finally at Rank 10, and it looks like I got a title out of it. Not bad! In the future, I could wear this title whenever I went out to grind levels or PK and mislead people into thinking I was a production player. I could almost imagine the flabbergasted expressions of my enemies, and the looks of admirations from all the girls I’m going to impress!

Very pleased with myself, I walked to the center of the square and shouted, "Selling Rank 9 Magic Consumable, Dragonfish Soup, in stacks. It’s the kind of good shit that restores 1500 MP in one go! 5 gold each, 20 per stack, so 100 gold per stack! Players who would like to establish long-term business relations, please message me your contact info!"

All nearby players immediately shot me astonished looks. There were even a couple of players with the "Chef" title staring at me in shock. "Holy shit, that guy’s a Cooking Master? That’s incredible! How did he even get the Dragonfish Meat? Did he have a super expert grinding the food ingredients for him?"

Very soon, a young mage walked up to me and passed me 500 gold with a smile. "I would like 5 stacks of Dragonfish Soup, brother. Thank you!"

I nodded and traded him 5 sets of Dragonfish Soup. Just like that, 500 RMB entered my pockets. For the n-th time, I was overwhelmed by the pleasure of making and spending my own cash. [1]

……

A short while later, a beautiful Level 106 female warrior walked up to me and asked, "Hey there, chef. I would like to establish a long-term purchase agreement with you. Is that okay?"

"Sure!"

I smiled at her and shot her an extra look. Purple Wind Chime? Hmm, where have I heard this ID before? I looked at her again, and this time I saw that she had The Monarch Descends’ insignia on her shoulder! Fuck, no wonder she looked so familiar. She was one of the participants of the Who Will Rise tournament!

Are you buying for your guild?" I asked.

"Oh? How did you figure it out?" Purple Wind Chime was curious because I had hidden my level and ID.

I simply said, "So, how many Magic Consumables do you want, and when do you want them?"

Purple Wind Chime smiled. "We would like to buy 200 stacks of Rank 9 Magic Consumables right away. It’s a good deal, right?"

"It is. Which also means that it must come with a condition. What is it?"

"Hehe, you’re a smart one for sure!" Purple Wind Chime smiled again. "It’s simple. We would like to book your Rank 10 Magic Consumable, the Dragon Soup, when you have it. You know, the good stuff that adds 2500 MP in one go? We want you to supply us with 200 stacks of Dragon Soup per week, and we’ll pay you 10 gold for each Dragon Soup. Is that a deal?"

I nodded. "I like straightforward offers. It’s a deal!”

"Hehe. Can I add you as friend?"

"Sure."

I sent her a friend request myself, and Purple Wind Chime’s mouth immediately turned into an O-shape. Staring at me in shock, she murmured, "Holy shit, you’re the new MVP? Why the heck are you even hiding your ID, Lu Chen?"

"To keep a low profile, duh!" I smiled before changing the subject. "So, is it just me, or is Monarch Descends planning something huge in Sky City? You don’t need that many Magic Consumables usually, do you?"

"I’m just the runner, so I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Xueshang yourself!"

"Haha, true. Come, let’s trade!"

"Mn!"

I opened the trade window and selected 200 stacks of Dragonfish Soup. On Purple Wind Chime’s side, she selected 20k gold. The trade was over in one second, and I could almost fill my imaginary pockets swelling up visibly. During the tournament, I won 500k RMB for being the runner-up and 2 million RMB for being the MVP, so that was 2.5 million in total. In total, there was almost ten million RMB sitting in my bank account right now. Normally, this was enough money to buy a house and marry me a wife, but… that was only if the girls I wished to marry were normal girls. Otherwise, ten million wasn’t even close to being enough...

Well, nothing I could do except work harder and earn even harder. This was my life’s passion and hobby!

I still had over 100 stacks of Dragonfish Soup in my bag after that big sale, but I had to stop. It was one thing to make money, and another to make money at the expense of my own people. I sent Murong Mingyue a message: "Sis, do you need some Rank 9 Magic Consumables? If you do, come to the eastern square of Sky City!"

"Of course I do! Wait for me!"

A short while later, the beautiful priest entered my sight and walked up to me with a smile. "You finally found the time to rank up your Cooking skill, Lu Chen?"

"Yeah, my Cooking is at Rank 10 now. Starting tomorrow, I’ll gather Rank 10 food ingredients and begin mass-producing Rank 10 Magic Consumables."

"Hehe, not bad, not bad. I look forward to it…"

While speaking, I opened the trade window and selected 100 stacks of Dragonfish Soup. However, she turned bright red in the face and said, "Ahh! No more! I’m overflowing! I only have 80 slots in my bag, you bastard…"

Me: "..."

Oh well. I supposed I needed to wait until Murong Mingyue stashed some of the Magic Consumables in the warehouse.

I finally gave away all the goods after two trade attempts. Beaming with joy, Murong Mingyue suddenly wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a light kiss on my cheeks, saying, "Thank you for everything, handsome chef. Now, I’m going to go back to grinding…"

"Mn."

I watched Murong Mingyue calmly as she let go of me and walked away. I might seem indifferent to another person, but if you were "sexually harassed" by the same girl every day in real life, you would have grown used to it like me...

……

I checked the time and noted that it was getting late. I needed Dragon Meat to make Rank 10 Magic Consumables, and clearly I couldn’t target high-level holy dragons with my meager strength unless I wanted to die like a dog. So for now, the plan was to hunt some low-level land dragons for their Dragon Meat. These things crawled all over the place like lizards, and it probably wouldn’t be easy to grind them. I also didn’t know where they could be found yet. Oh well, that was for tomorrow me to worry about. It was almost time for bed!

I entered Air Force One and managed things for a bit. Then, I taught my beautiful fox attendant my Rank 9 Cooking skill. Now that she knew the skill, she would start purchasing the relevant ingredients and sell Rank 9 Magic Consumables on her own, and as the boss all I needed to do was… nothing. I’m the boss, why would I need to work when my underling could do the job for me?

It was midnight by the time I was finished with everything. All the girls in the workshop had gone to bed already.

Mn, it’s time for me to go to bed as well.

1. Author’s Note: I know that some readers are troubled by the fact that a single blue pot costs 5 RMB, but don’t be. Anyone who can afford these is rich, and spending habits of rich people will always exceed your or my imagination. Just a while ago, I was playing a browser game with a gacha that costs 10 RMB per click, and I saw with my own eyes some people spending over 5000 RMB in a single morning. So calm down, just because you don't know of something doesn’t mean that it can’t possibly exist in this world.