Chapter 1

Going from a thirty-year-old body to an eight-year body is brutal. I have never bumped into more shit in my life. These short legs and arms really make traveling any distance a challenge. It has been a month now, at least I stopped stumbling out of my bed. Another challenge is not cussing, what eight-year-old bumps their toe for the tenth time that day and yells "fuck that hurts." I simply can not pass off cussing like I would a fart, simply letting off the f-bomb and pointing at a dog does not hold a lot of clout. But like all things, with the bad comes the good.

My life here was outstanding, I may have a new 'dad,' but my god the man can cook. He throws out 8 point dishes like they are candy in a bowl. That's a weird phrase, candy in a bowl, but not as weird as telling my new parental figure his food score like it was natural, like everyone saw numbers next to dishes. My old man gave me a look when I explained what I saw. I told him I had a system, it wasn't a complicated system, it gave me basic stats on any individual person or dish. For a person, it showed their tasting, cooking, and food plating levels; dishes showed a number, typically the higher the number the better the food tasted, and lastly, it should all the dishes ingredients.

The old man, now formally called Tenshu Yamagata, headed to the kitchen to prove me insane. I probably shouldn't have mentioned this system, but I simply thought everyone had it, I mean this world doesn't seem to be known for its logic. A couple of minutes later, Tenshu walked back in the room carrying six dishes. He lined up six identical-looking dishes, "rate them for me," Tenshu said, pointing over all the dishes. "Uh" I stuttered as I pointed to the dish furthest on the left and said, "one point, the system has four different salts listed in the ingredients, is that right?" Tenshu sighed, nodded, and motioned me to continue all in one body movement, I wanted to ask how he did that. "4,7,7,8,3" I said, pointing to each corresponding dish, "speaking of these numbers, do you think its out of ten, like that score is one out of ten?" I ask, pointing towards the first of the six dishes, as Tenshu looks into the distance, thinking. "I don't know, I guess you will have to just try to make an eleven point dish," he replied.

"Welcome to Nekoya, a western restaurant," I mumble in my most enthusiastic voice. The smiling woman nods in response while walking to her usual table. She doesn't even look at the menu, "one minced meat cutlet please," she orders as I nod "no problem Sarah, ill put the order in," as I walk over to the kitchen.

The kitchen is always a quiet place, Pops likes to hear the food, he says food is always talking, telling you just how it wants to be prepared, you just have to listen and follow its directions. I may never love the dude like my dad, but damn if I don't respect him, I've never had someone so dedicated to teaching me, and ill be grateful for everything he is offering. He handed me an onion to cut and prepare for the meat cutlet, it's ok I have a lifetime of experience doing just that. If only I could move my short arms and hands in a coordinated manner while holding sharp objects.

It has been three months since I have come to this world; I did a lot of testing what this new system is capable of. My current stats haven't changed, even though I am getting better at cooking. The system still shows my cooking, tasting, and food plating at level four. What I learned through my experiments, is that any dish I taste that is equal or lower to my tasting level, I learn not only the ingredients used but also the recipe to make the dish. When I close my eyes and think of new recipes, the system will give me an estimated score, while I am cooking a dish, the system would show the current dish score. It took a while to get used to a constantly changing number while cooking, a little salt could bring up the estimated number, a lot of salt would crash the number.

I convinced Tenshu that I needed to order food from new restaurants once a week to see the cooking levels of different places. I learned that most diners sold around four-point dishes, an average restaurant would deliver five-point dishes, and once I dragged Tenshu to a two-star Michelin restaurant that served an eight-point dish.

It was depressing to learn that all my previous years of experience have only brought me to a diner level chef. I would not get discouraged, I have a teacher; I have a system and I will conquer people's mouths....with food. So I worked, I may not have a talent for cooking, but I have determination for it. So when I was in math class and was supposed to be learning about addition and subtraction like all the other eight-year-olds, I was reading cookbooks. When I was supposed to be learning about how to read and write, I was reading about molecular gastronomy. When I was supposed to be learning about the history of the world, I had my history book cracked open and was following along, cause all of this world's history was new to me. When I got off school, I didn't do my homework; I changed into my mini chef uniform and walked into the kitchen. This is how I lived for the next five years. My name is Rhys Yamagata, and my life's goal is the domination of people's mouths. Dammit, I mean, the domination of the culinary world.