Chapter 12: Expert Cooking Mastery

Darkness. It is a world of pure darkness. Just by being here, it induces fear and detachment.

Sakura Matou was confused for a while until she saw the boundless worms in the distance.

Run. Just Run.

That is what her instincts had told her, and that's what she did. Unfortunately, it seemed as if these worms are boundless. Running towards different direction became useless.

No! Don't!

A worm was set ablaze just as they were about to touch her. The fire spread out faster and faster, until all of them are burned to ashes.

Sakura saw a young boy look at her before saying, "It's over."

The darkness converged as her consciousness woke up.

*****

"That's how it is..."

The morning after the fight, Shiro decided to try out his acquired Cooking Mastery. He doesn't have much to do right now except to read those books, so he viewed these as a form of relaxation.

Right now, he is trying his hands on a japanese dish called "Omurice". Truly, it was overkill.

He could've become a good professional chef just with his mastery alone. It made him wonder as to why someone with such skill wandered around the dessert which is practically filled with dangers.

'Wait, will this work?'

He suddenly had thought of something and got two more pans from the cabinet. Then, he started two more stoves as he started cooking omurice on both pans.

Only, he used his mental power to act like "arms".

'It's hard, but still doable.'

Shiro is multi-tasking at this point. Though, the main reason why he had an urge to train his mental power is because of his fight with Zouken Matou last night.

As a spiritual entity, physical attacks can't hurt him. Magical attacks don't hurt him much since he is practically in a 'spirit' form.

He tried using mental power as well, but it felt as if there's still a certain threshold before it could effectively deal with non-physical entities. After all, he is limited by his rank, both in knowledge and in mental power.

He's only at the Rune Magician rank right now, so his mental power is limited to the said rank. It's just like how his mana quality is comparable to a 9th Rank Rune Magician while being only at 6th Rank Rune Magician.

Shiro's mental power is so strong that it could be compared to one rank above him, but it's still fundamentally at Rune Magician Rank.

The effects that it could have at Grand Magician Rank would not be available, even if his mental power is already comparable to one at Circle Magician Rank.

As for his knowledge, new knowledge would just pop up after he crosses up a major rank.

"Aniki, you're the one cooking? There's the chef for that."

Shinji, who caught the smell of the food, went to the kitchen, only to find out that Shiro is the one who's cooking. Unlike his previous attire, the clothes that he wore right now is much more casual, consisting only of a plain white t-shirt and blue pants.

"Just wanted to try my cooking skills. Turns out, I'm actually quite good for this."

"Oh. Can I have a bite?"

"I'll give you an entire dish. Do wait for a while."

Shinji watched him cook. He was surprised to find out that the other 2 pans beside him are moving by themselves. Since he received Shiro's guidance for the last two days, he knew that it has something to do with mental power.

After placing the chicken rice in three different plates with a metal shaper, he began frying the eggs. This is actually the most important part as it can affect the final quality of the omurice.

It's better if the omelet doesn't get overcooked for the dish to taste better.

As for Shiro, he stirred the eggs on the pan lightly with chopsticks. He did the same to the other two pan with his mental power.

It didn't take long before he positioned the three pans on top of the plates. Then, he carefully put the now cooked omelets on top of each chicken rice before slicing it in the middle, causing the omelet to cover the chicken rice.

Lastly, he poured in some kind of sauce that he made earlier.

"Traditional omurice for 3 servings, done."

The dining room is just near the kitchen, so he carried all three of them at the same time to the Matou's dining table. It is very large, but he chose to place all three of them side-by-side.

"You can also join us here, Sakura-chan."

"Sakura?"

The door to the dining room opened, revealing Sakura Matou behind it.

Shinji ran over to her before leading her to the table. Unlike his original counterpart (who still has his air of arrogance), Shinji is more amicable after knowing his future.

Even if he's not the one who had done those things to Sakura, the guilt and loathing that he felt with himself is deep enough. He hoped to at least make up with the sins that he had done in his futures.

"Sakura, this is Shiro-aniki."

"Yup, you can call me just like how Shinji does."

"N-no. How could I do that?", she replied. Calling her savior without any honorifics felt uncomfortable to her.

"Is that so? Then, you can just call me Shiro-nii."

"Shiro-nii, Onii-sama, thank you for saving me. "

She said words of appreciation to the two of them, making Shinji feel warm. Right now, he detests those future Shinjis even more.

How dare they treat a younger sister like that!

"Now, now, let's eat first. You two must be tired from what happened yesterday night."

The two of them acknowledged his words since they truly felt hungry. Though they had some awkwardness at first, they ate their breakfast more comfortably after tasting the first bite.

'Shiro-aniki/Shiro-nii is the best!'