8 Cooking For The Masses
Jim's plan was to set up near the bridge underpass, several homeless people live there and are underfed, he felt a little bit of kinship with them, a lot of homeless people get to that point due to mental instability. Well, there's that, and he also doesn't have the capital or connections to set up an actual restaurant, he also felt he'd be dedicating a lot of time to training skills in the future, tying himself down to a shop was a bad idea.
Carrying his backpack filled with purchased meat, veggies, disposable bowls and spoons, he carried the portable stove to an open area near the underpass, without saying anything he started cooking, thinking the smell of the soup would bring others over. 1 Buflan Steak and 1 Magic Carrot were enough for approximately 10 bowls of soup, so long as he didn't skimp on the contents of course.
Sure enough, the allure of the magic ingredients was enough to lower others guards, people started gathering after assuming his intentions, the first batch of soup was done and he started ladling it out.
[Congratulations Host, Someone Has Enjoyed Your Cooking, 20 Points Awarded]
[Congratulations Host, Someone Has Enjoyed Your Cooking, 19 Points Awarded]
[Congratulations Host, Someone Has Enjoyed Your Cooking, 21 Points Awarded]
[Congratulations Host, Someone Has Enjoyed Your Cooking, 20 Points Awarded]
A string of messages started appearing, is it selfish that he felt better about this than filling the bellies of these people? Yeah, probably, but he felt it was alright anyway. A couple of hours passed, all the ingredients were used up and there were dozens of people nearby with looks of satisfaction on their faces, he packed up and left without saying anything, inwardly he was ecstatic from gaining hundreds of points in one day, this was more profitable than maxing out a few skills...Oh, wait, the Skill Max Gift Pack gave tens of thousands of points, but he can't max out a skill every day, there was an additional benefit.
[Cooking Level Up]
[Cooking Has Reached Level 7]
Heading home, he cleaned up the pot and utensils before starting his training routine, it occurred to him that he had hardly been on his computer in more than a month, this was almost unthinkable to the Jim of last year, who's life basically revolved around watching videos and playing games for most of his free time every day. After waking from his rest, he checked his status.
[Strength: 82]
[Dexterity; 75]
[Vitality: 98]
[Agility: 81]
[Magic: 0]
Seeing the status rise, he looked down at his body, he had become muscular, he stomach flat showing a six pack, each part of his body looking firm and strong, perhaps it was vain but Jim was delighted at the change in his looks, he felt this was enough of basic training and wanted to move on to something better, he opened the shop.
[Copper Body Outer Technique Obtained]
[Jade Crane Inner Technique Obtained]
[Snow Treading Steps Obtained]
[Lower Dark Fist Technique Obtained]
The abilities he purchased were all cultivation techniques, they were among the cheapest available at only 1,000 points each, his points afterwards turned out to be 28,862, most of the points used up on feeding himself had been made up by cooking near the underpass, he felt it was good to keep some points in reserve in cash he urgently needed something, and obtaining a cultivation technique that was too profound at such at early level of training would just have him wasting time without getting anything out of it.
And so, Jim started training the Copper Body Technique, immediately after purchasing it an image appeared in his head of how to circulate his qi, it was similar to a bent figure 8 crisscrossing the heart and lungs, he didn't know the names of meridians and acupoints, he just used the senses gained from training Reiki to move the qi in the prescribed order.
It was difficult, it felt like trying to grasp a splinter with his fingers, constantly slipping out of grasp, if he was too gentle then the qi wouldn't move at all, but too much force caused the qi to stop moving forward and either deviate or tremble, he felt that either would be disastrous, starting and stopping repeatedly, he eventually was able to complete a full circulation of his qi. Jim was drenched in sweat from the heavy effort. He was a bit disappointed at not seeing any effect despite completing the circulation, but decided to keep trying, the control was slightly smoother this time, but he still felt no effect after completing the circulation.
Jim tried again, but about halfway through the circulation he suddenly couldn't push the qi anymore, it felt like he was all dried up, both mentally and in qi, he decided to just do another training routine sans the Reiki, eat, and sleep. Upon waking he found himself able to circulate qi again, he tried again and again, three full circulations were made, but he still felt no effect, he was absolutely puzzled by this, shouldn't he be hearing his bones and muscles popping as a massive increase in strength and vitality occurred? Shouldn't his skin be changing color and toughening like armor? He wasn't about to give up though, Copper Body soon took Reiki's place in his training routine.
Four days passed, Jim was disheartened, he kept circulating his qi, but it felt completely useless, was he missing something? It was the lowest level technique he could find in the shop, the simplest and shortest circulation route among the four he purchased, there wasn't any mantra or special body movements to perform, but despite practicing the circulation over a dozen times per day, his stats didn't change and he didn't feel any different, he had grown more used to moving the qi, it didn't deviate or tremble anymore and he could move it smoothly, and a little faster than before, he could complete five circulations before resting, but there was still no tangible improvement, what could he do?
It was approaching lunch time, so he packed up his cooking gear and headed to the underpass again, a crowd of close to 70 people had already gathered and were patiently waiting, seems word of his cooking has spread, every day more and more people showed up, yesterday someone actually stopped driving by the side of the road to come and take a look, after smelling the soup they lined up to get a bowl, he purchased more ingredients and disposable utensils to go along with with the increased demand, with over a thousand points gained over the last few days he was feeling great about this.
Thigns were normal until he was about to start cooking the third batch of soup, suddenly he heard police sirens, the homeless men scattered and he packed up the ingredients and bolted, Jim wasn't able to tell the truth on where he got his ingredients, if they wanted to do some kind of formal health inspection he was sure he'd end up getting a fine. "Argh!" since he left behind the cooking pot, portable stove, and disposable utensils he had a considerable loss today, moreover he had six large steaks and six magic carrots just sitting in his backpack now, he couldn't eat all of that before it would spoil.
"What do I do now...?" He couldn't accept the sudden loss of profits, his cooking skill had reached Level 8 over the past few days and he was getting clost to 30 points per person eating his food now. Arriving home, Jim started browsing the shop, eventually he checked out the system functions which he hadn't checked since getting [Level Up] and [Improved Rest]
[Inventory Lv. 1]
[Extradimensional Space In Which Time Does Not Pass, Items Can Be Deposited And Withdrawn Freely]
[Price - 1 System Upgrade Module]
Are you joking? He didn't see this here before, why did it show up now? Is it because of getting Level Up? Inventories are common RPG mechanics, so he felt that assumption was accurate. The low cost and high utility made him purchase it immediately. With 3 Modules remaining, he started looking over other functions.
[Inventory Lv. 2]
[Extradimensional Space In Which Time Does Not Pass, Items Can Be Deposited And Withdrawn Freely]
[Price - 2 System Upgrade Modules]
[Stat Allocation]
[Level Up Now Provides Distributable Stat Points]
[Price - 1 System Upgrade Module]
Yes please, Jim used up his remaining modules and grabbed both of them, but he had a feeling and went back to check the function list again
[Inventory Lv. 3]
[Extradimensional Space In Which Time Does Not Pass, Items Can Be Deposited And Withdrawn Freely]
[Price - 3 System Upgrade Modules]
[Additional Stat Allocation]
[Stat Points Can Be Distributed To Additional Stats]
[Price - 5 System Upgrade Modules]
Additional Stats? This intrigued Jim, well, he went ahead and placed the Meat and Vegetables in the Inventory, it was amazing seeing something in his hands suddenly vanish, he started taking a slab of meat in and out until he got tired of it. Now that the problem of the food rotting was taken care of, he needed to think of another stable way to gain points, if he tried another location with the same stuff, something similar would likely happen again, even if he could carry all his gear away with him he didn't want to have the law on his tail. "What to do?"
