COOKING SHOW

Carl's surrounding were dark for a very long moment. Even his enhanced eyes couldn't see anything, since there was nothing to see.

Bright lights from all angles suddenly lit up at the same time he felt a solid floor under his feet; and in that moment Carl knew he had been transferred into the world. He could once more feel the world around him. The bright lights temporarily blinded him, but even if he couldn't see he could sense a group of people positioned around him.

He tensed for a moment, wondering what was going on. But he didn't feel any danger from the people around him, they felt like normal people.

"And, action!" A figure sitting in a folding chair yelled from behind the cameras.

Carl's vision cleared up and he could see the building he was in and the people around him. Apparently there was no time to wait or prepare, as his cooking show was starting right now.

He immediately put on a smiling face, so as not to appear too flatfooted, now that they had started filming.

The Drop In option was really not wasting any time, getting him started. In order to regain his equilibrium and get a bit of knowledge of what was expected of him, he reached out with his mind scan the surface thoughts of those around him, especially of the man who had shouted "action".

A moment later, while Carl's smile stayed plastered on his face, it turned a little strange and strained. The information he had gotten was a bit…irritating.

The last chef who was hired for this specific late night slot for a cooking show had gotten into a huge fight with the producers over what equipment he was allowed just 30 minutes ago. The argument was so bad, and the chef was so irritating, he had been fired on the spot by the producers.

According to what was in the mind of the director, they had grabbed Carl from the crew and thrown him in front of the camera just in time to film, since the show was supposed to be broadcast live. They didn't have much hope for Carl to do much, but they needed to broadcast something since they had already paid the network for the slot.

In addition to the previous chef being 'blessed' with a gift to inflame people's dislike and irritation, the previous chef had, in a fit of anger, stolen or destroyed all the cooking ingredients and equipment before leaving the studio.

So now Carl was in a bit of a quandary. The filming had already started, he had no time to purchase new equipment. No time to get assistants. There were no ingredients. And if he didn't pull something out of his ass in the next minute, the show would be cancelled. Which would equate to failure and death for his jump chain adventures.

"Well, shit. Look at this place!" Carl loudly exclaimed. "Apparently the last chef the studio had working here got canned. And he did not take it well. The rat bastard, who doesn't deserve to call himself a nincompoop, let alone a chef, had no respect for the ingredients and spoiled them all before he left."

The camera was focused on Carl's scowling face. Apparently the camera men didn't get his message to pan over the mess left in the studio kitchen, since he kept the camera steady on Carl.

Carl angrily stalked up to the nearest camera man who had a shoulder mounted camera so he could move around and get close ups.

"I said look at it!"

He dragged the confused camera man over to where the fridge was. He made sure the camera got a good shot of the ruined ingredients that were splashed around the inside of the fridge and spilled out on the floor.

"Look what that mad man did to my precious ingredients. Those poor, poor ingredients! Especially the butter. What a tragedy! You can never have enough good butter!" Carl pointed at the wall that had globs of butter splattered all over it. "What was the bastard trying to do, create some impressionist art with my precious butter?!"

Carl made sure the camera had a good shot of his scowling face. It helped that he was able to keep light contact with the camera man's mind so Carl knew exactly what he was seeing. Ensuring that even the "great tragedy" was photogenic couldn't hurt his chances of reeling in the audience members.

"And over there! Look what he's done to my range!" Carl stomped over to the multi burner stove, dragging the camera man behind him to highlight the mess. Somehow the grills and hose connections to the gas lines had been bent and slashed, respectively.

"What did that asshole do, take a sledgehammer to it? If I ever see that rat in person, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind for disrespecting the food!"

Carl adjusted his stance and body language to show his aggressive anger. It wasn't enough to just rant. He had to sell it with every line and expression on his face and body. He had to suck in the audience members so they too felt the anger he felt.

"That asshole majorly screwed us over here guys! There's not an intact utensil in this place." Carl turned abruptly to look directly into the camera. "But I promised you a cooking show, and I'll give you a cooking show, by damn!"

His face lit up with a grin of determination. He straightened up, prepared to move forward.

"You, follow me. I want you to document every second of this historic moment, where we shall labor to save dinner! You and you." Carl pointed to two studio workers off camera, nudging the mind of the camera man so he panned over to get the surprised looks on the two workers faces. They were surprised and flatfooted to be put in the limelight.

"Get over here. What's your names?" Carl ordered. The two men hopped to with alacrity, standing in a line in front of Carl.

"Marco."

"Johnny."

"You're drafted for a glorious cause! Follow me!" Carl started marching off, but paused after a moment at the words that interrupted him.

"We're key grips, not cooks." Johnny had a nervous look on his face.

"I don't care if you're a rhesus macaque! I don't care if normally you manage to burn water! You will follow my instructions to the letter, and you will give it your best effort, you got me?"

Under Carl's intense grip, first Johnny, then Marco gave in. They nervously nodded agreement.

"I can't hear you? When I give you an order, you say loudly 'Yes, Chef!' Now, you will follow my instructions, won't you?"

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

The two nervous key grips shouted out together.

A smile bloomed on Carl's face.

"Excellent! With your assistance under my instructions, you will be instrumental in saving dinner from this treasonous sabotage! From now on, you'll follow my instructions and do your part for the glorious meal! Follow me."

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

The two key grips and the camera man followed along behind Carl as he exited the studio. Carl ignored the frantic bustle of work as the studio workers hastened to keep the camera cords from tangling up as the camera man followed him.

While Carl was exiting the studio, he mentally arranged for a delivery of food and items from his farms to appear in a delivery truck outside the studio. Once Carl, his two draftees, and the camera man arrived outside, Carl dramatically threw open the doors to the truck, showing the refrigerated back of the truck full of ingredients.

"Behold! Dinner is not lost to us!" Carl grabbed a bag of tools that he handed to the two key grips. "Okay, while I'm getting some ingredients from my delivery truck, I want you, Johnny and Marco, to take these drills. Find those ruined pans that that monster destroyed. Straighten them up as much as you can, then you will drill holes in the pans in this pattern. You'll take these wire hangers and attach them like so."

In order to make his meaning clear, Carl drew on a pad of paper what he wanted. "Do you understand your instructions?"

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

Carl smiled at them in approval.

"Good! I expect that to be done when I get back. Can you handle that?"

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

"Good men!" Carl patted them on the shoulders in approval and sent them on their way. Meanwhile, Carl hopped up into the back of the refrigerated truck. The camera man kept focused on him and the ingredients in the truck as Carl picked them out, all the while talking about the ingredients, where they came from, how they were prepared and cooked.

The ingredients he needed to make a hanging barbecue meal. Bratwurst, steaks, and chicken, as well as the ingredients for shish kabob were all piled into a basket.

Carl talked about the intricacies of a good barbecue to the camera while he gathered his ingredients and all the spices and sauces that he would need, before making his way back into the studio.

Due to the previously mentioned bastard's ruining of the gas lines, Carl had to make a jury rigged burner that the hanging grill sat over. Since he couldn't adjust the size of the flames with his jury rigged system, he adjusted how far the grilling surface was from the flames. And if he cheated a bit with magic, no one knew.

Over the next half hour Carl spent the time talking about what went into making a good barbecue, and what went into making a great barbecue. All the while he was adding the proper spices and sauces as he arranged a veritable barbecue feast

Carl naturally had no way to tell at the moment just how many people had tuned into the show, or what their reaction was. But he gave his all to make himself personable and entertaining to attract viewers.

"Marco! Johnny! Front and center!" Carl bellowed out once the barbecue meal was complete.

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

The two men had gotten into their role and they called out loudly as they stood in front of him.

"You've done good! We have saved the dinner! Be proud! Now, Marco. Do you know the most important part of cooking a good meal is?"

"Uh….no, Chef." The man scratched his head in confusion.

"Why, eating it of course!" Carl laughingly said. "No matter what kind of art piece you create out of your meal, the most important part is consuming it. For only on the journey to the belly can the meal serve the purpose for which the chef put in so much effort and time! So, dig in men!"

"Yes, Chef!"

"Yes, Chef!"

The two men enthusiastically fell on the meat like starving wolves. Carl saw the envious looks of the other workers in the studio.

"Don't be jealous men!" Carl called out to them. "Come and feast with Marco and Johnny!"

Carl didn't have to ask twice. The smell of grilling meat had gotten everyone hungry. The director had enough presence of mind to set up a camera to capture the lot of them eating before joining in himself.

The last few minutes of the broadcast was simply a view of everyone chowing down on the food Carl had made, while praising the flavors through their full mouths.

The first show finally came to a successful close, and Carl sagged in relief.

Carl certainly wasn't afraid of his long term prospects in keeping his show on the air. He had plenty of methods to do so. But it was that first note from the jump document that caused his nervousness.

Your show getting canceled is the equivalent of death in this world.

Carl had been put on the spot the moment he arrived with no time to prepare. If the producers had made a snap decision to cancel his show based on his poor performance before he could get to them and influence them to not cancel him, then it would be game over right after world entry.

He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, relieved that he was now in the clear.

While he had been out gathering his ingredients from the van of food he had pulled out of his Warehouse, he had sent out the Yamato and ordered it to track down the producers of the show and ensure they would do no such thing as cancel him.

He had just gotten word from the Yamato VI that it had been successful in putting the majority of the producers on ice so they couldn't cancel his show. The only one it hadn't gathered was the one who was working as the director at the moment.

But since the director/producer didn't have a majority stake in the production and couldn't make decisions like cancelling the show, the Yamato VI had left him in place.

"That was decent show for a newcomer, Chef Carl." Once the cameras finished filming, Rob Steen, who was the director/producer, approached Carl.

Despite the man's words, Carl knew he was excited about the show and spectacle Carl had put on, but was getting ready for negotiations and wanted to low ball the offer.

Until the Yamato had grabbed up the producers, they had been following the show's social media feed and had seen the good comments. "They" had sent word to Rob Steen that the show was green lit. Or rather, the Yamato VI had just sent word to Steen that the show was to remain on air.

Steen obviously had no idea that the producers that contacted him was actually the Yamato's VI. Or that Carl knew how Steen didn't want to give him a big head for doing such a good job in order to assume a dominant position in the negotiations. Too many people that Steen had seen in the industry had turned into Prima Donnas with just a bit of praise, making it hard to take advantage of them.

So Steen didn't want to inflate Carl's ego, or let on just how well the live audience had reacted to the show. They still had to negotiate a contract for Carl, after all.

Carl simply snorted a bit inside and smiled politely at the man who gave off all kinds of sleezy vibes. "Thank you there, Mr. Steen. So, I've got the job?"

"Now, don't be too hasty there, young man. We've still got to negotiate some things. Why don't you come with me back to my office, and I'll have the lawyer join us there while we hash out a contract." Steen almost ordered Carl, full of the attitude and prestige of the boss with the money.

Steen was thinking he had Carl hooked. And the more money Steen saved from low balling Carl, the bigger his cut would be.

With a light mind scan, Carl easily saw through all of Steen's tactics. While Steen didn't have a large amount of money tied up in the show, he would still get a decent cut. And the bigger the better, in his mind.

Steen was fully expecting Carl to be so excited for the job and a chance to get famous that he would sign anything, which would lower Steen's costs to produce the show and earn him plenty of money.

"Sounds great, Mr. Steen." Carl played up to Steen's expectations, and acted completely overwhelmed and excited as he followed the man back to his office.

Carl was already reaching for his magic to influence Steen. He couldn't afford for Steen to do anything that could jeopardize his life and prospects in the Jump Chain. And he certainly wasn't going to allow his life to be in the hands of a bunch of producers whose only concern was a return on their investment.

The moment his ratings dipped after two years due to the drawback, they would likely try to throw their weight around and annoy the hell out of Carl. They may even try canceling him, even if the show was still profitable, just not as profitable as it was before.

They arrived at Steen's office just as Steen's lawyer did. If there were no other indications than this meeting, Carl would already know that Steen and his lawyer, Gerry Hill, had bad intentions for him. The two men had no intention of letting Carl get his own lawyer or agent in on this negotiation. They planned to use him as a work horse and milk him for everything they could.

Carl paused for a moment. Maybe he shouldn't put those two analogies together. It made a weird mental image.

Steen and Hill sat down across the large desk from Carl, and started pressuring him to sign the contract they presented, with no time to review.

Carl only had to scan over the contract they presented to see how bad of a deal it was for him. The contract would give him no legal protections, no decision making power in the show, and his work hours would be determined by others. His pay was minimal, and he would owe a large fee if the contract was broken by either side.

He scowled inside, because the cooking show remaining on air equated to his very life and death. If the show was cancelled, or he was fired, Carl's journey on the jump chain was done for. There was no way Carl was going to rely on this sleazy man to be his life line. Spending the next four years sucking up to such a scum in order to survive was not something he would put up with.

Carl looked across the desk at the two men with sleazy smiles of superiority on their faces, and Carl had had enough playing along. With a wave of his hand, the two men were affected by compulsion spells that Carl wandlessly cast.

If the two men had been willing to give what they saw as "fresh meat" in the industry a decent contract and a fair chance, Carl would have been happy to work with them. Not with them as his boss, by any means, but he would have been more than happy to include them in the profits of the show.

But since they were trying to pull one over on him, Carl wasn't going to play nice.

A couple hours later, a smiling Carl left the office with a notary that he had engaged the services of. He left behind a group of very confused men. The other producers that the VI had grabbed had been teleported down, and under compulsion spells a deal was made and signed off on.

Over the next several weeks as the producers watched the rising popularity of Carl's Cooking Time show, they would constantly ask themselves why they made the decision to sell the producing rights to the cooking show that looked so promising to someone else. And why they did it so cheaply. They didn't even recoup their costs, and in fact lost money on the deal.

But when they looked at the contract that was notarized and signed by themselves, they knew they wouldn't get anywhere by trying to sue Carl. And a little voice in the back of their minds told them to just let it go and get on with their business.

Carl also went about his business, pleased with himself as the new owner and producer of his very own cooking show.

He was once more very happy to have available the bank accounts that followed him from world to world that he got from the Monopoly Gauntlet, as well as the properties that was constantly making him money.

Having immense personal power or advanced tech often made Carl's problems easy to solve. But with a simple application of money (and compulsion charms), he had insured his next four years would be a relaxing vacation. Since he certainly wasn't going to be firing himself or cancelling his show, he just needed to keep filming and he would be fine.

Now to break the news to the crew and organize things for the next episode. Carl was pleased it was only a weekly show, so he would have plenty of time to organize everything. He was going to have fun with this.

XX

Several weeks later, the camera zoomed in on Carl as he stood at a large counter. The counter top was filled with various ingredients that had been chopped, sautéd, sliced, and prepared in various ways for the final assembly.

He had his own crew trained well by this time and they knew how to zoom in on the food to make it look good!

"See, the issue with a making a delicious burger is that you have a limited canvas to make your art. There are so many good ingredients, that you are simply swamped with choices." Carl waved showily at all the ingredients that lay on the counter. "But if you try to throw ingredients on willy nilly, you'll fail to make a fusion of flavors that transcend the sum of the parts. And if you try to overload it with too many ingredients at once, it simply becomes a huge mess and insult to the craft, as the diner will fail to fit it in their mouths. Remember that! As a chef, you are here to make a transitory item of beauty that is overflowing with flavor. Everything you do is to please the palate of the eater, not to glorify your huge egos as artistes!" Carl joked in a tone to let his audience know that he was simply joking, and not trying to be insulting.

"And how you prepare the ingredients is key too. On some burger builds, you want some lightly fried onions. On other builds, you want raw onions. In this build, we're thinly slicing the onions, and placing them strategically like so, so that we can use the guacamole we've made as a kind of mortar to keep the burger together. Then we layer the lettuce, and then tomato on top. If we tried to put the guac between the cheese and lettuce, for example, then when the burger is being eaten, the pressure exerted will just squeeze the guac out the back, making a mess. These are the things you need to keep in mind as you build a better burger!"

Once Carl had finished crafting the burger, he displayed the plating. The audience members started drooling when they saw the finished product. Carl may or may not have had something to do with making the burger look magically delicious.

"And thank you for tuning in!" Carl began wrapping up the episode. "Remember to keep experimenting and trying new things. We can take great comfort from foods in our daily lives. Remember to treat yourselves well, and thanks for watching. Until next time, this is Chef Carl, signing off." Carl then picked up one of the burgers he had assembled and took a big bite. He made sure to show the audience on his facial expressions just how damned delicious the food was.

And as usual, as the credits rolled, in the foreground, the studio workers and audience members joined Carl on stage and grabbed some of the food, also showing the audience just how damned good the food was. The ratings were doing pretty good, and the comments on social media of people jealous that they couldn't eat the food through their screens always cracked Carl up, but it kept people coming back for more.

XX

After the second show, Carl had determined who were the decision makers at the television network and had a talk with them. When he left that meeting, he was satisfied that no one anywhere would be canceling his show for any reason.

He continued to have a weekly show, since that gave him plenty of time to prepare for the show. He always used the ingredients from his farms, which made the dishes that much more flavorful.

At first he went through all the basic American dishes, since that was the country he was dropped in. But he soon moved on to other ethnic foods. There were really so many dishes in each countries recipe list that he could cook a single dish each day and not run out of dishes by the end of his fourth year.

Ramen, Sushi, Bulgogi, Yukgaejang, Yangzhou Fried Rice, Sweet and Sour Pork, Curries, Moules Frites, Burritos, Chimichangas, Kebabs, and much more were featured on Carl's weekly show.

The audience for his show continued to grow, as they enjoyed his ardor for the food he made, and enjoyed seeing what kind of tips and talk of food he would have each week.

After a year of filming his show, Carl was getting a bit restless with the routine and boring world he was stuck in. His mind kept going back to the Toriko comic that he had read so long ago.

In that world there was the profession of Gourmet Hunter, which was a highly celebrated profession where one needed a great deal of strength to hunt for very dangerous animals that would provide the best ingredients that were packed with flavor and energy.

The animals and plants of that world seemed to be designed specifically for a cooking world. The rarer the animal or plant was, the more tasty it was and the more energy packed inside it. The Gourmet Hunters were able to use energy attacks and fantastical martial arts because of the incredible energy provided by those animals and dishes. They packed their DNA, their gourmet cells, full of energy as they ate the energy rich foods.

Chefs were another celebrated profession in that world, due to their ability to commune with their ingredients and bring out the maximum flavor and energy from their dishes. A bad chef could ruin the most robust and perfect ingredients. A top class chef could transcend boundaries and elevate the dish above what it could normally attain.

Thinking of that world that Carl had only seen through the pages of a comic book, he started thinking about how he could transform the world he was in right now to be more like the world of Toriko.

He had all kinds of magical and profound beasties and plants that could provide the energy needed to enhance the physiques of humans when they ate the food they hunted.

But he needed to be very careful in how he started the whole thing. If he just plopped everything down on planet it would destroy the ecosystem, and the strong beasties would immediately drive mankind into being an endangered species.

So while Carl was filming his second year of his cooking show, he began working with the Yamato VI on how to slowly change the normal world into one that was like the Toriko world. He spent a lot of his time through the week inside the Virtual Reality world that he had built from the World Seed he got from the SAO world, testing the effects of introducing various plants and animals to the world.

It was really more of an exercise in breaking his boredom, more than anything. He wasn't going to be on this world for more than four years, so he had no long term plans to do much. But if he ever did come back to this world, he could easily implement the plans he came up with. Or if he was ever in any other normal world he could do so.

In the beginning of his third year, just like his drawback Twice as Bright described, the audience that grew quickly in the first two years started complaining about the quality of his show. He wasn't worried about it, since he knew it was just the drawback causing it. It wasn't like he was going to fire himself.

And since he had total control over his show, he didn't have any arguments with himself over the list of random or rare ingredients that he felt compelled to include in his dishes due to his Exotic Cooker drawback. With the rare and varied ingredients in his Farms, his need for exotic ingredients was well supplied.

After a few weeks into the third year, Carl noticed that there was a curious effect which amused him to no end. While the viewers of the show complained vociferously online, the numbers of viewers never dropped and continued to rise steadily.

Carl himself was confused about the strange phenomenon at first. He was sure the drawback was designed to make him lose viewers so that he had to work hard to keep on the air. He had been confident that even if no one watched him, he could remain on air with a simple application of money (and compulsion spells if necessary). But now he found that he was even gaining viewers.

After some thought, the only thing that made sense to Carl was that two perks were influencing his viewers. From the ATG world there was the Ludicrous Loyalty Enforcement perk that ensured no matter what he did, the people that follow him would harden their hearts and stay loyal. And from ASOIAF, A Quiet People perk ensured that the people under his authority would be exceptionally unlikely to rebel.

So with those two perks working together, the people who were viewers of his show somehow counted as his followers and so they were under his authority. Despite vocally complaining, they remained loyal and continued to watch the show.

And when the people who hadn't ever watched his show saw the online complaints, they decided to check in on the spectacle, like people who couldn't look away from a train crash. But once they actually saw the show, they were impressed and decided to continue watching, which put them in the category of followers, also highly unlikely to rebel.

Despite his perks counteracting the drawbacks, Carl decided to change things up. It was time to have some fun in this world.

The first thing he did was to change his show, which added on six months of time in the world, but it reset the two year timer for when people would start complaining about his show.

Then he took off the stealth and hiding spells that kept the Gourmet Grounds hidden from the rest of the world.

He had taken the ideas he got from the Toriko comic about how there were different grades of hunting grounds. The low danger level had animals, plants, and other culinary ingredients that were low level but also low flavor and energy.

Still, compared to normal food the low level flavor was still top quality. But compared to the medium and high danger areas, the flavors from the low level areas were weak.

Through experimentation in the virtual world, he had figured out the best methods and locations to set up each of the hunting grounds, as well as setting up a department of people that administered the areas, including issuing of hunting licenses and patrolling to prevent poaching.

The hunting grounds were basically separated into different levels of danger and had magical, profound energy, and technology enforcing the separation, keeping the various animals from roaming outside their areas. The high danger but highly delicious animals could only remain in the high risk areas. The lower risk animals also stayed in their areas.

Carl didn't bother putting any restrictions on where the humans could go. If they were stupid enough to risk their lives in places they shouldn't go and couldn't handle after all his precautions and warnings, then he wouldn't care for their fate. It was their life, and they had the agency to choose suicide by food if they were so inclined.

With his hunting grounds set up and now visible, Carl began the advertisement that spread the information about the hunting grounds. The fun thing was that the people he recruited and trained to be administrators were already powerful enough to absolutely destroy modern armies. And the defenses he set up on the hunting grounds made it so no nation on Earth could take them over and monopolize them.

The information about how the energy packed animals inside could be eaten to evolve a person's individual strength spread. At first there was a great deal of disbelief. It was too fantastical for the modern person to truly believe it. But Carl's show and others that filmed live the incredible strength and abilities of the evolved people were eventually accepted as truth.

Naturally there were still people out there that couldn't accept it. They continued ranting about "cheap tricks" and "light shows". They did continue to have a following. But they also didn't dare enter the hunting grounds after their own close calls with death when they were trying to prove it was all a hoax.

Carl didn't really care if they continued to rant or not, since it didn't affect him.

And so by the end of his third year of his time in the world, he had successfully transformed the Cooking Show world into a mock up of the Toriko Gourmet World.

It was pretty fun seeing the whacky things people came up with when they interacted with his Gourmet World.

XX

Because Chef Carl was the one who first broke the news about the new Gourmet World, not to mention he built the whole thing though no one knew that fact, he was acknowledged as the world's foremost cooking expert with regards to the dangerous animals that inhabited the Gourmet World.

As a result he got many invitations to do guest appearances on other cooking shows. Carl took up several invitations, since it was interesting to see what other people came up with.

So it was that one day in the beginning of his fourth year in the world, he arrived at the studio of one particular chef who had made a name for themselves by experimenting with unusual combinations. Chef Rhom-C was known for being very avant-garde.

Carl had just walked in the door, when he was met by a most unusual sight.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Carl asked his guide.

Now, it must be noted that Carl knew every single animal, vegetable, herb, and fruit that was living in the Gourmet World. So the fact that he wasn't just expressing outrage at something he was seeing must be emphasized. He was genuinely baffled by what he was seeing.

The thing Carl was pointing at was a gelatinous mass that was slurching around the counters of the kitchen where he would be cooking with the chef on the show. The gelatinous mass was a glistening bright green. If anything it looked like a giant four foot tall slime from an JRPG. It was an enormous animated Jell-O.

The guide looked where Carl was pointing and gave a little chuckle.

"Oh, that. I guess you haven't watched Chef Rhom-C's latest shows. No one knows how it came to be, but he was mixing a bunch of different items into a sauce he was simmering, and it caught fire. I think he caught his eyebrows on fire. In his spastic flailing, he threw the pot of sauce and it collided with some electrical outlet."

Carl's eyebrows were raising more and more the more of the tale he heard.

"So, I guess like Frankenstein's monster, the electricity seemed to give life to the sauce. And, well. There you go." The guide waved at the animated Jell-O that was created from some sauce.

"So, he just lets it hang around his kitchen?" Carl disbelievingly asked, watching as the thing continued making circuits of the kitching.

Shluuu-urch. Shluuu-urch. Glop.

The sounds it was making were…unique.

"Well, a lot of people from the government and the colleges have come to study it. But since Chef Rhom-C owns it, they can't really take it away without getting bad publicity, cause his audience loves the thing. So, he named it Sauce." The guide shrugged. "It's harmless. He throws it the scraps when he's cutting up the ingredients, and it seems to stay happy. It's grown a bit from when it was first created, though."

Carl nodded. Then he shrugged. Then turned to follow the guide to where he could chill until it was time to start the show.

A half hour later he and Chef Rhom-C were in the middle of prepping the meal while the camera crew were filming.

"Bring me the lamb!" Chef Rhom-C called out.

Carl looked over at the burst of whispers by Rhom-C's assistants when he noticed none of them had brought over the lamb like they were supposed to. Rhom-C was a very dour looking tall blonde man and Carl could tell his assistants were terrified of him.

"You! Fatty! Where's the lamb?!" Rhom-C yelled out.

"Uh, it's gone, Chef." The so called "Fatty" that Rhom-C singled out said nervously, while showing the chef an empty metal bowl.

"What do you mean, 'it's gone'?" Chef Rhom-C bellowed out as he was advancing on the scared assistant. "How can it be gone? Did Mary come and take her little lamb, little lamb, little lamb away? Did PETA come to protest the unethical eating of good meat and released it into wild? How can it be gone?"

By this point Chef Rhom-C was nose to nose with the unfortunate individual who was the focus of his ire.

"Uh…" The chubby man looked to the side where the Frankenstein Slime was Shlu-urching away. "I'm pretty sure that Sauce got a hold of it, Chef."

Chef Rhom-C looked down at the green jello residue in the bowl the lamb had been in, then glared over at the unholy gelatinous creation. He saw the remnants of the lamb inside the green mass. His face turned red. He stormed over to the gelatinous mass and began bellowing at it.

"I'm here to cook lamb, Sauce! Why the hell would you eat my lamb, Sauce?! Where the hell am I going to find more LAMB, SAUCE?!!"

Shluu-urch. Shluu-uurp.

The green animated Jell-O ignored Chef Rhom-C as it kept doing it's thing.

Buuuuurp.

Carl raised his eyes to the sky at hearing the burp from Sauce. What a strange day.

He then turned to the camera and shrugged helplessly to the audience while Chef Rhom-C continued bellowing about his missing ingredients.

"While Chef Rhom-C continues bellowing at Sauce about his missing lamb, let's see if we can replace it with another meat and still make a decent meal."

In the end, they made some decent pork chop sandwiches. Sauce kept eating all the ingredients when they weren't looking. So they had to jealously guard the cooking pork chops. At least he didn't get those.

XX

When Carl had only six months left in the world, the Twice as Bright drawback kicked in again. He wasn't willing to chance something happening to his show through some convoluted plot due to someone blowing up his studio cause they didn't like the show, or some such unusual happenstance that would cause him to be canceled, so he switched his show once more.

At that point he only had a single year left in the Cooking Show world.

Aside from his selected Gourmet Guards that protected and regulated the Gourmet Hunting Grounds, no one else in the world had gotten strong enough to hunt the more dangerous areas. So the general world didn't know much of what was in the high danger areas.

Some of the more avid cooks, hunters, and martial arts enthusiasts only ate the energy rich food they could gather themselves from the cooking grounds, so they ended up getting strong enough from the food in the low danger level hunting ground to move up and hunt in the medium danger level area.

Other's only worked hard enough to gather common ingredients in the low level areas to sell to the high class restaurants, since they made a lot of money doing so. They never wanted to go any higher, since they could make plenty of money just doing that.

But seeing as he was going to be leaving the world soon, Carl moved his show to the high danger area to show off. Hey, he wanted everyone to be able to appreciate his creation!

So his show became more of a wilderness hunter/gatherer show. Each week he would show off some of the amazing foods he could find, trying to engender a desire to go there in more people to drum up enthusiasm.

There were cows that were 10 stories tall that gave blue milk that made the most amazing butter.

Bushes that had licorice growing off them instead of fruit, that when added to certain drinks raised the flavor to amazing heights.

Trees that dropped nuts the size of a truck. And the squirrels that ate those nuts.

And the most amazing of all, celery that actually had flavor. He could soak that celery in plain water and an hour later would have the most amazing beef or chicken broth, depending on the celery breed.

He even took his show underwater to capture some of the amazing fish in their native habitat. Tuna the size of whales, for example, whose flesh remained amazingly tender and delicious when made into sashimi.

Carl's last year in the world was quite fun. He would have to bring the girls back to this Gourmet World he created so he could show off.