Grinding EXP By Cooking?!

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While the large pot of stew currently boiled in its place, I decided to move into another recipe and make some cheese. Of course, making cheese was not something instantaneous, it took a lot of days for it to get ready, and we also needed specific bacteria for it, so I was mostly trying it out for now to see if it works. This game was very realistic, but I don't know if they added cheese-making mechanics into it, so it was worth a try!

First of all, I decided to filter the milk out of any crumbs it might have, and then, I put it to boil, for a few minutes until it boiled. After that, the goat milk was going to be left resting and that was where you're supposed to cover it with this bacteria, which separated the proteins of the milk and other things. The idea was to leave it until the goat milk slowly separated from the liquid and the solid, and this solid part was what was concentrated into making some cheese.

For now, I left a few liters boiling for cheese, while the rest was boiled in a smaller pot so we could drink it with some tea later, it must be pretty good just like that! As I waited for the milk, I moved towards the stew and sprinkled it with my magic. The spells that I used were Verdant Recovery Light and Accelerated Growth! That was more than enough to make the food glow with a mystical color. After that, we sat down over the table as we discussed a few things about our journey and where we should go after this was done. However, the stew was getting ready, so our discussion was interrupted midway through.

"Lady Planta, I think the stew is ready!" said Acorn.

"I know! Let's turn off the fire then," I said.

When the stew was done, I took out the steaks of Pike I had saved and began to roast them over a pan with some Acorn oil, which was good enough to fry these thick chunks of meat shaped as steaks.

"Uwah, that smells so nice!" said Acorn.

"Acorn you already ate before, this is for the rest of the people, remember that!" I said.

"I-I know that!" He said, a bit embarrassed that he let himself get so tempted by the food.

When the steaks were done, we quickly served them in a small plate and then the stew in a larger wooden plate, and we began to distribute it around all the houses, it was convenient that I was able to make the plates and they instantly turned into a singular item, so I stored them all inside my Inventory and then just had to take them out to distribute them to the people.

Many of the Squirrel-folk had been eating just acorns lately because they couldn't even wake up to cook anything for themselves, and they were also not that good at hunting either, so they had nothing to eat other than water and dry acorns, which perhaps wasn't the best for people that were not really like normal squirrels.

There were a lot of families in quarantine inside their homes, and we entered them leisurely, as we distributed the plates and made them eat the stew and the steaks. Some seemed a bit dizzy and we didn't even know if they should eat or they might throw up. Luckily it turned out to be a pointless concern because these Squirrel-folk ate happily and at the end, they didn't throw up anything, so it was all good and dandy!

"After this, it seems everybody ate a lot and are pretty happy, aren't they?" I wondered.

"Y-Yeah, it's all thanks to you, Lady Planta, everybody feels way better and might be able to resist the disease a bit better…" sighed Acorn. "It really means a lot what you've done!"

"Ah, don't worry about it, it is nothing," I said with a smile.

I looked at the System windows showing what I had earned.

Ding!

[You have prepared a [Blue Spike Stew with Walking Mushroom and Acorns]!]

[You have prepared [Blue Spike Steak Fried On Acorn Oil]!]

[You gained 450 EXP]

[You gained 200 EXP]

It seemed that they gave me all some EXP, the steaks were various, but they all counted as the same food preparation interestingly enough. And with that, I had prepared even more food and gained some EXP in the process! Like this I didn't even need to fight anymore, I could just continue cooking and… No, wait… I still needed to hunt monsters for food, fishing is also like… technically hunting monsters, fish monsters at that. So… Ah, I guess I was not really escaping this at all, aren't I? Yeah, it was still pretty much the same! I still needed to hunt monsters and other things to gain materials and cook them.

Damn… Oh well, that was how life is, you couldn't really expect it to be all made, you sometimes still had to keep working hard and everything else. Even in a game! I just had to deal with it, and just think of these monsters as food… Ah, I guess this game was helping me surpass this fear I had from taking another animal's life better than my actual real life. I was about to continue our journey with Acorn, but suddenly, the alarm clock sounded within the game settings. It was possible to put an alarm clock in-game too, so when a certain time came, you could log out.

Acorn was inside of the Elder's home as of now. I was watching him preparing some concoctions he wanted to make to help us out on our journey, but now that I have to leave, I will have to sadly leave him behind for a few hours.

"Sorry Acorn, I must go do something right now, can you wait a few hours? I promise I'll come back as early as I can!" I said.

"O-Oh! Sure, I am busy here so don't worry, whenever you come back the potions should be ready then!" said Acorn. "Please, take care, Lady Dryad!"

"Thank you! You too!" I said.

I quickly logged out and then took the VR Helmet out of my head. That thing could get a bit hot sometimes, and when you took it out after playing for a few hours, your head got all heavy.

Ah! I forgot something important while I was in the game. I needed to research my daughter's player avatar… I knew her name… It was Reaper? Dark Reaper, I think? Well, I remember that the Guide said that he could research players as long as he had the names.

I should do that later though. I had to go make lunch now. Today I'll make croquets and… Hm, what else should I add? Perhaps mashed potatoes? That sounded nice… I could also make some salad and so on, and that should do it! Even though Mark was coming to eat, I told him that I wasn't really going to cook anything too fancy, so I hope he didn't expect a big fancy dinner or something.

I walked outside my room as I found my daughter and her friend inside my daughter's room. The two girls were sitting over the bed while resting with these helmets on, they seemed too peaceful, as if they were sleeping, Full Dive VR was really something else… I remembered that my husband always dreamed of Full Dive VR like in his fantasy novels like SAO, but that never became a reality while he was still alive, sadly… It only was around four years after he passed away that it finally became true.

I smiled sadly.

I wish… you could be here to enjoy one of your dreams, dear.

It truly became real and… It was as fantastic as you always thought it would be. I remembered that he always followed the Twitter of all these big game companies to see how the progress of Virtual Reality continued, but aside from head-set VR, there wasn't the "true VR" that he had seen from his novels and anime. However, who would have known that the true VR would become a reality but not by any of these big gaming companies but by another completely different and new company named Nexus Corporations… It wasn't Sony, nor Nintendo, nor Microsoft, and certainly it wasn't Valve.

Now all these old games based in the old VR and the game console had received a pummeling hit in the market, their games were not selling as much as before and most of their clients all moved to Full Dive VR, buying Nexus Corporations products and even games they themselves made, such as Brand New Fantasy Online, their most popular game so far.

These other gaming companies have announced that they have managed to make some contracts with this corporation and they'll produce games for their console, but it seems that they have yet to even be capable of replicating their consoles… Nintendo was the only one of them that was refusing to embrace Full Dive VR and it was still producing games on their Nintendo Switch V2… Nintendo would always stick to old school, even now when they're earning less than 10% of what they used to earn five years ago.

Full Dive VR has really hit the gaming market pretty hard… I was never an addict for games, but my cousins always brought their games to my house when I was a little girl, and my husband also had a big collection of gaming consoles and games, which he loved to play, so I kind of know all of that, he also made me play with him and I eventually liked a lot of the games, sometimes I ended playing some all by myself, but I enjoyed them the most when we played cooperative games. I suppose Nintendo was still pretty good with those sorts of games, most of my memories were about playing such games with him.

Sigh… I miss him.

Now all his gaming consoles were collecting dust, and so were his video games too, but I couldn't really bring myself to throw them or sell them, they're… the treasures of my husband, I would never do such a thing. All of his anime figures and everything else… I kept them inside of his room and cleaned them once a week. In the future, I was going to give it all to Elena and leave it up to her to decide what she wanted to do with them, but I was sure that she'll take care of her father's collection. She loved him a lot after all, and always played games and watched anime with him.

… Anyways! I needed to get ready and prepare some lunch for my precious little princess and her friend, and Mark too, my good friend from work, which I inadvertently invited to eat with us… I was a bit dummy there, but he seemed to be happy to come, so it was a good ending.

I took out the croquets from the freezer, they were as fresh as always. I eyed the appliance with a smile. This freezer was the latest generation one and possessed a technology that seemed to be able to neutralize bacteria inside, which makes it possible for food to not rot for a while, these croquets were as fresh as yesterday, even more as I wrapped them with plastic foil. This freezer was also made by Nexus Corp, they're the biggest corporation as of now, even beating Sony, Samsung, and Android, and they make most of the "Next Gen" technology, although it didn't have the most affordable prices, they're not completely expensive that only the rich can afford.

I took out some fresh potatoes and began to peel them nicely, after that, I cut them into medium-sized chunks and began to boil them in a pot to make mashed potatoes. Meanwhile, the croquets were covered in flour and a bit of more spices and salt, and then, I left the oil to heat up in order to deep fry them. While doing that, I cut some onions, lettuce, and tomato to make a nice and fresh salad, and of course, we couldn't forget the lemon!

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