I awaken in a dark space, my eyes straining to find light. A flash of light temporarily blinds me, and then I see white text.

‘You received the Blessing of the God of Chefs!’ The text says, I continue on reading.

‘Blessing of the God of Chefs (LEVEL 1):

Ability to have a small stall, summoned from the Chefspace.

Any ingredients to make a Level 1 Dish can be summoned for free, higher ingredients must be hunted or bought via the shop interface.

A small boost in your strength and magic power.

Level 1 Chef Magic unlocked.

Magic can be used to aid in personal cooking.

Magic cannot be used to aid in shop cooking.

Stall is summoned via thought, ingredients, and cookware are summoned via shop/storage interface on the stall.

Congratulations Rordon, you’re on your way to becoming the next God of Chefs! Keep up the great work!’

I read on, beginning to get more intrigued as I scan the white text. What piques my interest the most, however, is the line reading ‘Level 1 Chef Magic unlocked’. I wonder what this means, but I save my questions for later, for when I experiment with this magic stall and ingredients thing. Another line pops up, ‘Exiting blessing screen in 5 seconds!’. My vision goes dark again and I pass out.

Light shines through a window as my body rises up in my bed, a wave of tiredness and slight pain hits me as I awaken. Sitting against the backboard of the bed, my eyes wander to the corner of the room, where an almost divine light shines. My eyes adjust to the light, and I see a figure inside it. The figure walks towards me, and the light follows it, slightly hurting my eyes as I continue to stare. “Hey, Rordon! How are ya doin man!” the figure says. I reply, “Jim? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me! How have you been? I saw you just leveled up, and wanted to check up on you!”

“Thanks for checking up on me, but could you tune your fucking divine light or whatever that shite around you is? It’s kinda blinding me.”

“Oh, I forgot! My bad Rordon, I completely meant to turn that off, but I guess I forgot. It is a bit hard being a divine, all-seeing god and all that!”

“It’s fine, so why are you here other than to check up on me?”

“I’m also here to retcon a bit, fix some mistakes, and explain some stuff.”

“Retcon? What do you mean by that?”

“You’re not experienced enough in this world to understand what retcon means yet.”

“Oh alright, so by explaining some stuff, what did you mean by that?”

“So, you know when I said you’d ‘May as well just be reincarnated as a god’? Well, I did mean that.”

“Oh shit, so that explains the text I saw earlier. “

“Yes it does Rordon, you’re on your way to becoming the next God of Chefs. Technically, you’d be the first in all reality. The first one that has a physical body, and can do a bit more than just grant a single person a blessing anyway. Anyways, I wish you luck on your journey, by the way, don’t show others that money wallet of yours. While I do say this is an RPG like world, with individual statistics for others, that wallet is essentially a divine item with an endless supply of money. That can’t be used for the Chefspace, unfortunately. Anyways, I’m out of here, have fun on your adventures, I’ll check in some other time!”

“Alright then, have fun with your being God and all that. See you later, Jim!”

Jim starts to float, rising towards the roof of the building, and phases through it. I proceed to leave my bed and feel a bandage wrapped around my arm. It’s very slightly stained with red, and it aches a fair amount. But, I put the sensation of pain in the back of my mind, and instead focus on heading out, and finding some alleyway to summon my stall at so I can experiment with it. Heading down the stairs, I hear a voice call out to me, “Rordon are you all right? A party of adventurers came in here and carried you up to your room! They said you protected them from a party of kill-stealers, and got hurt for them!”

I recognize the voice as Gwali, the inskeep, “Yes Gwali, I’m quite fine now. Just a few scratches ha-ha!” I chuckle slightly at the end of my reply, hoping that Gwali won’t carry on the talk for too long.

“Ha ha, that’s my boy!” Gwali laughs loudly, before continuing, “You need food? It’s on the house!”

“No thanks, Gwali. I’m actually about to head out to find somewhere to set up a stall to sell some food at. I may be an adventurer, but I am a cook at heart you know!

“Alright right Rordon, keep in mind you do have a free meal on the house though, so do come to eat it at some point!”

“Alright, Gwali! By the way, do you know of any good place to set up a stall at?”

“Actually, I do! I have a friend down on the street that’s two behind us. There’s always a large number of stalls there selling food, you’ll fit right in Rordon!”

“Alright, thanks, Gwali! I should be back in about 4-5 hours, and I’ll be wanting some food!”

“Of course Rordon! See you then!”

I end my conversation with Gwali and head out to an alleyway near the street Gwali mentioned. After checking to make sure nobody was around, I summon the stall. It materializes in front of me, with a small flash of light. After looking around again to make sure nobody notice the light, I begin to check out the surprisingly large stall. It’s about the size of a slightly large desk, with a space cut out in the middle to fit someone in. Under the countertop, there are shelves with various spices, and a small refrigerator, which doesn’t contain much yet. I see a button under the counter, I press it, and a window pops up in front of me.

‘Welcome to the Chefspace Shop Interface! You can purchase ingredients, cooking tools, and various other items related to the art of cooking here! You can purchase on a per recipe basis, or individual ingredients to make your own foods and recipes! All level one ingredients and items are free for you for now! Go out there and make the God of Chefs proud!’

I finish reading the window and start to browse through it. I see a section with various tabs that read, ‘Ingredients’, ‘Knives’, and many others. I go to a tab called, ‘Recipes’ and start to browse through it. Under the recipes tab, there is a section called ‘Street Food’. I browse through it and find a recipe from Earth for Cağ kebabı. I decide to purchase it, and since it’s a level 1 recipe, it costs nothing. The items for cooking it materialize in and around my stall, a spit for the meat appears on the counter next to me, and a wood fire underneath it. The meat also appears on it, pre-marinated and pre-cooked thankfully. To my right, a series of bamboo skewers appears, and various tools for slicing the meat off the large roast appear as well. My stall seems ready to go, so I wheel it out to the street filled with stalls. A lot of traffic occurs here, so I prepare to get ready to sell immediately and start to decide on a price. As I am thinking, a sign appears that reads, “Cağ kebabı, 5 stone Denarus per serving.” I hang it out front, and await customers.

Around 5 minutes after setting up my humble stall, my first customer arrives. Drawn by the rich fragrances wafting from the Cağ kebabı, he finds himself at my stalls counter. “Hey cook, whatcha got here?” the man asks, with a slight accent.

“Ah, I have something called, Cağ kebabı. Essentially, just lamb that’s marinated in basil, black pepper, salt, and sliced onions for about a day, then roasted. 5 stone denarus a serving.” I reply back to the man, who’s now observing the meat on the spit, slowly turning over the fire.

“I’ll take two servings, here’s 10 stone, chef.”

I receive the money and begin to cut off two servings of the Cağ kebabı for the customer. After placing the serving onto their respective skewers, I hand them to the customer, who immediately takes a strong whiff of the smell emanating from the skewers. After that, he goes to try out the food given to him. He takes a bite, and juices from the meat begin to slightly leak down his chin, as he stops chewing to savor the burst of flavor that just entered his mouth. He quickly scarfs down the rest of his first serving, before pausing to say something.

“Chef, this incredibly flavorful meat is just simply delicious! It’s so incredibly juicy and mouthwatering. As soon as I bit into it, an explosion of strong flavor that can only be acquired by careful watching and cooking of the meat. The meat was just so well cooked, it nearly melted in my mouth when it first entered! How did you do this, I must know!”

“Well sir, it’s quite simple really, as I said earlier. I just let the slices of the meat, and most importantly, large amounts of tail fat, to marinate in a mixture of basil, black pepper, salt, and sliced onions for about a day. After that, I just stacked the meat and the fat tightly together on a spit, and let it roast. The reason it’s so flavorful is because of the fat specifically. Due to the fire, the fat melts all over the meat, essentially covering it in the flavor from the marinade, and having the meat suck it all up.”

“This Cağ kebabı as you call it was simply amazing. I am honestly willing to employ you in my restaurant as head chef, you will get a salary of 10 silver denarus a week, and a small house nearby. Please join my restaurant!”

“No thanks mate, I’m good just being free to cook whatever I want whenever! I plan on traveling around the world, and gaining more knowledge about cooking, and hopefully spreading knowledge too! Eventually, when I want to settle down, I’ll probably start up a restaurant of my own! But, thanks for the offer, valued customer.”

“Oh, well, if you ever change your mind, the name of my restaurant is, The Silver Roof. It’s off in the middle of the city, you can’t miss it either, as it has a silver roof! You are always welcome here!”

“I’ll have to drop by some time, may I get your name?”

“Ah yes, I am Ned Stone. Ask for me if you ever get to the restaurant. I, unfortunately, must take my leave now! I hope to see you again!”

“Alright, see ya, Ned! By the way, my name’s Rordon, it was nice to meet you. I’ll definitely come to see you unless something major comes up!” We finish our conversation, and I watch Ned walk off. After he turns a corner, a few more customers are intrigued, and come to line up. I start to get to work to serve the customers their Cağ kebabı.

A few hours after receiving my first customer, a group of people in black shirts start walking towards my stall. Feeling scared, my hand on the carving knife for the Cağ kebabı tightens as they continue their advance to me. The customers currently in line, start to scatter quickly after seeing the men walk up to me. They finally arrive and start to speak to me.

“Are you the owner of this stall? Seems you’re new around here! I’m Mick, and we’re part of a local… security force that protects all the stalls in this area! You give us about 15% of your total daily profit, and we’ll protect you from ne’er-do-wells. How about it?”

“Well Mick, I think I am quite capable of protecting myself. How about instead, you purchase some food, and see if my stall is worth protecting in the first place huh?” I reply back sharply, intending to cause some irritation. Mick slams his hand down on the counter and bites back with, “Well you want to do it that way huh? Then bring it on, your food can’t possibly be that fucking good!” As I’m about to reply, a loud ding sounds off in my head, similar to back in the forest.

New Quest: Show these fat cunts just how good your cooking is!

Rewards: Blessing of the God of Chefs XP. Access to use of Chef Magic to use in cooking!

Temporary access is granted to usage Chef Magic to use in your cooking to show these people that your cooking is good!