If this was Christmas, Kit would rate it the best one ever. The magic tent and camping kitchen inspired in him the same feelings he’d had as a kid when he would open the presents under the Christmas tree. Excitement and anticipation thrummed through his body. Just like a kid he couldn’t wait to play with his new toys. Kit brushed his fingers over the smooth surface of the stove in reverence.

‘What should I make first? I don’t have many ingredients, so… something simple.’ Mars interrupted Kit’s pondering.

“Kit before you ignore me completely for the camping kitchen, can you give me the rest of the camping gear and I’ll finish setting up the camp.” Mars still had laughter in his eyes as he spoke, they were a little puffy around the edges. If Kit didn’t know it was from laughter, he would have thought Mars had been crying.

‘He really does get a kick out of my magic obsession. I’ll find his weakness one day and exploit the living day lights out of him. Just you wait Mars. Just you wait, I will get my revenge.’ Kit had a maniacal cackle inside his head.

‘Sometimes I feel a bit like an evil villain, I think Kat is rubbing off on me. If this keeps going, I’ll need to come up with an evil catch phrase.’ Kit returned from his internal pondering to the conversation at hand.

“Oh, of course Mars, sorry.” Kit face did not betray his internal monolog. He gave the camping equipment to Mars.

To Kit’s surprise Mars also handed him a package.

“What’s this?”

“I figured you wouldn’t think to buy these, so I got them for you.” Mars grinned. He looked very pleased with himself as he handed the package over.

Kit looked inside the package and realised Mars had gotten him salt and pepper.

“Ahh yes, how could I forget something like this. Thank you, Mars.”

‘I’ll put my revenge plans on hold. Who can stay mad at such a thoughtful mortal. Really, he is the best friend to have.’

“Its fine, plus I want to eat tasty food on the way. If you’re well stocked, I won’t have to worry about eating dried meat or bland tasting stuff.” Kit had a feeling Mars was going to be a foodie.

Kit left Mars to finish setting up the camp, he pulled up the inventory for his pouch.

Kit looked at the new ingredients he had collected. Pink crunchy loaf, fluffy dragon head, speckled white dove, common snow daisy, monkey brain nut and the Six Limbed Apelop meat.

He still had the Spectral Nile Reptile meat, but he didn’t want to experiment with that yet. He decided to make a simple three ingredient meal with the meat.

‘I can grill some Apelop meat. Make a salad with the pink crunchy loaf, it looks like lettuce. It has the same texture and feel as iceberg lettuce. It is just a bright pink colour instead of green. Some pears from Iris’ basket will top it off nicely. Pity I forgot to buy some cooking oil, maybe I can make some from the nuts we collected.’

Thankfully, I went through a period of wanting to make everything from scratch to try to save money. I even know how to make oil. If the Six Limbed Apelop hadn’t thrown that nut at me, we would be having a bland dinner tonight. We could’ve missed collecting all those nuts, I know I wasn’t searching in the trees for things to harvest.’

Kit took out a monkey brain nut and examined it.

Ding!

Identify Novice upgraded:

[Identify Advanced Novice]

Player can identify common objects and receive basic information. This is immensely helpful for brainless players.

+ 7 Intelligence

‘YES finally, hopefully I can get some more useful information now than just a name. I can see CAL is still having fun with the descriptions.’

[Monkey brain nut]

A large nut yellow-brown in colour with a hard and wrinkled shell that forms two halves. Divided into four sections that contain orange kernels of irregular shape. Kernels are wrapped with a bright orange skin.

‘It’s a lot better skill now. It still doesn’t say anything about the taste or if it will have a chance at making stats. I’ll still need to work on upgrading the skill further.’ Kit sighed, still not satisfied with the amount of information available.

Kit examined the large, wrinkled nut to see how he could open it. The two halves of the shell were held together by a seam. Kit used his rusty knife handle to hit the top of the shell where the two halves connected to break apart the shell. The shell was roughly the size of his clench fist.

Once the shell was split in two, he turned the shell upside down. Two orange nut kernels fell into his hand. They looked to Kit like little brains. They were irregular orange wiggly nut shapes. ‘Is this why they are called a monkey brain?’

He repeated this task until he had deshelled fifty nuts. Kit’s hand hurt from the constant hits to the nuts to break them apart. ‘They were tough little brains to get out, hopefully I can find a magic object to make this easier in the future.’

Kit was thankful he had collected so many of the nuts. He still had over 200 left in his inventory. ‘If the oil tastes nice I’ll have to collect some more tomorrow.’

Kit went to the camping kitchen and pulled out three baking trays. He then filled them with the orange nuts. The pile next to where he had been sitting reduced by a third. Kit then took them over to the oven to start the process of drying them out so he could make his own oil.

Kit slid the three trays filled with the nuts into the oven and closed the door. ‘Oh no! I don’t know how to use the equipment. How do I turn it on?’

Kit looked over the oven to see if it had any knobs to turn or buttons to press, there wasn’t a knob or button in sight.

Kit turned to look for Mars to see if he could start the oven. When he turned towards the camp, he saw that Mars had almost finished setting up. He was currently digging a shallow hole in the ground. Next to him was a pile of stones and wood in assorted sizes.

‘Looks like he’s about to make a campfire.’

“Mars I need your help for a moment” Mars stopped his motions and headed over.

“What’s up?”

“I don’t know how to turn it on, there isn’t any knobs or buttons.” Kit had a helpless look on his face.

“Haha, Kit it’s magic, remember! Just tell it what you want. For someone who loves magic, you really are clueless about it.” Mars patted Kit’s shoulder and walked off to finish his task.

‘Ahh how could I forget, that’s how I did it in Iris’ kitchen. No wonder I keep getting teased by Mars. I think the excitement of the magic reduces my IQ by at least half.’

Kit tried to start the oven “bake until dried” nothing happened.

‘Why did that not work? Did I give it too much information?’

“Oven on?”

A soft golden light appeared from the oven and lit up the inside, Kit could see the nuts on the tray through the glass door.

‘I don’t have a clue about the cooking temperature of this oven. I’ll have to keep a close eye on them, so they don’t burn. After this first batch I’ll have an idea of how long they will take to cook.’

While the nuts were baking Kit decided to see if he could use any of the flowers, he had collected to flavour some water. When he was picking the Fluffy dragon head Kit noticed it looked like a dandelion, it was a bright yellow flower. Multiple thin yellow petals were arranged singularly on top of the green stem giving it a fluffy look.

He remembered dandelions could be used as a substitute for coffee. They had a similar taste. Hopefully these would be the same as dandelions from earth. He put some of the yellow fluffy flowers on the bench so he would remember to make a drink to go with dinner.

He then glanced down at the oven. The nuts were already starting to have a crisp look. ‘O. M. G. Lucky I looked, or I would have burned them. How fast does this oven bake?’

Kit looked in the drawers for an oven mitt, what he found was a bright pink mitt covered in tiny little white hearts.

‘Ahh, was Boots playing a joke on me. What sort of oven mitt is this, whatever, as long as it does the job.’

Kit pulled the nuts out of the oven and placed the trays on the remaining bench space. A mild nutty aroma filled the air. Kit pulled out a big white ceramic bowl to place the nuts in. Once he had finished, he refilled the trays and put the next batch in to cook.

Once all the monkey brain nuts were finished baking, he had three large white ceramic bowls filled with crisp orange nut. It was a nice visual contrast of colours.

‘Hmm I don’t know whether to press them out or boil them to produce the oil.’

Kit decided to experiment, he picked up one of the nuts and placed it on top of the thick wooden cutting blocks. Using the flat side of his rusty knife he pressed down on the nut flesh. The nut split apart and flattened but didn’t produce much juice.

‘Ok, that didn’t work so well, and I wouldn’t get much oil from them doing it this way, I’ll try boiling them.’

Kit first had to make them into pulp, he didn’t have a blender. He decided to chop them up into fine pieces, that was the best he could do for now.

Kit cleared one of the chopping blocks and spread the nuts out on top of the cutting block. He didn’t need to be precise with his cutting. They just needed to be cut up into as finer pieces as he could manage. Kit held his knife with his hand flat across the tip on the dull side of the blade, he then used a rocking motion to chop the nuts.

Kits knife started to fly across the chopping board. The nuts turning into what looked like orange crumpled dirt. He already had a lot of practice cutting ingredients for meals. His skills were already above standard.

Ding!

[Skill learnt: Advanced Beginner Chop]

Player has a natural ability with knives, competent at the basic Chop skill.

+ 35 Agility

+ 40 Speed

“Flying cucumbers! How did that happen? I skipped Novice rank altogether and I am even at advanced beginner stage. Is it because I already have some skill in this area? CAL didn’t even give me a scathing description.”

Kit felt elated. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to achieve a skill higher than novice. He felt little thrills spread throughout his body. His heart was thumping in his chest, he could feel his face flush from all the excitement. His mood was soring. Kit’s silly grin was back on his face.

After Kit had calmed down from his pleasant surprise, he resumed chopping the nuts. His speed had increased dramatically as well as the control he had over the knife. Kit figured he had more than doubled his efficiency. Once he was finished, a pile of orange nut pulp was ready to be boiled to extract the oil.

Kit placed a large pot on the stove, he then realised he didn’t have any water.

“Flying fudge sticks!” Mars heard his curse and came over.

“What’s wrong, did you burn yourself?”

‘Why does he always think I’ve hurt myself?’

“No, I forgot to get some water for cooking. I don’t want to go anywhere near that river to get some.” Kit scrunched up his face at the thought of the raging river.

“It’s ok, we don’t need to go to the river, water was on my list.”

Mars pulled out a wooden barrel almost identical to the alcohol barrel. He unscrewed the lid and placed a small bucket into the barrel. Once it was full, he handed it to Kit.

“At least one of us knows what we need for camping. I would have never thought of half this stuff.”

“Well, you will have experience now so you’ll also know what we’ll need in the future. I’m sure we will expand on what we need as we go.”

“True, you can’t get experience if you don’t try out new things.”

“I’m finished setting up, want me to do anything to help?”

“Want to deshell nuts?” Kit asked hopefully, he didn’t want to finish that task.

“Sure, hand them over.”

Kit took out all the nuts he had in his pouch. Mars took the nuts then walked over to a camping chair set up next to the fire.

Kit returned to the pot and filled it with water.

“Stove on.”

All four elements emitted a soft glow. ‘Ahh, I only want one on, how do I do that.’

“One element on?” Three of the circles extinguished their light.

‘Nice, I wonder if I get a more advanced camping kitchen what the functions would be. Well, that will be a pleasant surprise in the future when I can afford more luxuries.’

Kit placed the pot on the glowing element then poured the bowl of nut pulp into the large pot. While he was waiting for the oil to rise to the surface, he collected a smaller pot and a large spoon. As the heat rose in the large pot oil began to form on the surface of the water. Kit used the spoon to scoop the oil and then empty it into the smaller pot.

He continued scooping and emptying until all the oil was collected. He then put on his oven mitts and emptied the large pot a little away from the camping ground so they wouldn’t step in it. He moved the smaller pot onto the glowing element to boil off the water leaving just the oil.

As it was nearing completion a soft blue light started to mix with the oil.

‘What is that? O M G! Is it a magic meal? Will it have stats? Ahh, I should add some purple heart for a prolonged duration just like in the beer Iris makes.’

Kit quickly crushed up a purple heart stalk and added it to the oil, it dissolved on contact. The soft blue light soon spread until the oil had a soft blue sheen.

Ding!

[Monkey brain oil created]

A delicate, nutty flavour perfect for sweet or savory dishes.

+ 20 Intelligence for 1hour

Reward: 1000 EXP, 10 culinary points, 20 silver crowns.

Ding!

[Chef sub class available]

Visit the culinary guild for acceptance into Chef profession or find a master Chef to apprentice under. (Locked until level 10).

Kit quickly took the oil off the stove, so it didn’t burn. Kit’s heart was thumping hard inside his chest. His palms were starting to sweat. A blissful feeling was spreading all through his body. Kit had never felt like this before. There were so many feelings burning to surface all at once he couldn’t decide what to feel.

“MARS! GET OVER HERE!”

Mars was next to Kit in an instant. Even though he had just called out to Mars, Kit couldn’t think of what to say now, there were too many happy emotions. He couldn’t get any words out. All he could do was grab Mars hand and start to jump up and down.

“Kit what is it, did something go wrong. You’re acting strange.” Kit didn’t reply, but an enormous smile appeared on his face and he all but started to glow.

Mars re-assessed Kit. “Something good happened?”

Kit started to nod frantically.

Finally, words burst from Kit “I DID IT! I DID IT! I AM THE WORLDS GREATEST MASTER CHEF.”

Mars raised his eyebrows, Kit gestured towards the oil. “Did you make oil, that’s cool,” said Mars

‘What kind of response is that. I made a stats creation on my first try. Where is my praise, there is not even an excited look on his face, Kit felt that was a lacklustre response to his creation. Kit’s joy was slowly starting to fizzle.

‘Wait I forgot to tell him it had stats.’ Kit’s emotions soared once again. Kit finally got his tongue under his control.

“Mars take a closer look at the oil.”

Mars peered into the pot, slowly his expression started to change to one of shock, then surprise, then excitement. “Ki-it h-how?” Mars stuttered.

‘This is the response I was looking for. I’ve shocked his socks off.’ Kit cackled to himself. He was so pleased he couldn’t wait to make a meal with the monkey brain oil.

“I don’t know if it’s because I made it from scratch or I’m just lucky. Either way this is fantastic. I also got a notification that I can choose Chef as a sub class now. I just have to visit a culinary guild or find a master chef.”

“This is great news Kit I’m so happy for you.”

“Us Mars, not just me. You are a part of the restaurant goal too, remember.” Mars grin was just as wide as his now. The two basked in their happiness for a while longer. Kit soon realised the sun was setting and it was time for him to cook a meal before he lost the light to be able to see.

“Mars do you have any more of the glass bottles?” Mars handed Kit five glass bottles. Kit filled all five bottles with the monkey brain oil.

‘If fifty nuts fill five bottles, I have enough monkey brain nuts to make another 20 bottles of oil. We are going to need to collect loads more nuts unless they are common everywhere.’

Kit put four bottles in his pouch and left the other out. He then turned towards the meat on the bench.

“Time to start dinner.”