Mental Time Chamber.
Mo Bai stared at the replicated Hell Ice Bass on the cutting board, lost in thought.
Although he guessed that the First Emperor was inclined to taste "Shattered Mountains and Rivers! Raging Tempest", if he were to serve a dish that was merely nine stars, he feared that by this time next year, Ryougi Shiki would be visiting his grave.
Using Hell Ice Bass to replace the sardine, Mo Bai was more worried about whether the seafood soup could sustain the flavor of the Hell Ice Bass.
The magnitude of changes to the recipe would definitely not be small.
Of course, another difficult problem currently before Mo Bai was the characteristics of the Hell Ice Bass.
Containing cold energy within its body, the Hell Ice Bass would remain a block of ice if undercooked, but melt instantly if overcooked.
"Don't think about so many useful or useless things; let's just get started first." The ingredients simulated by Little Bai were all in place. Mo Bai cut the Hell Ice Bass into correspondingly sized pieces and placed them in the steamer, while having Little Bai calculate the time as he began making the seafood soup.
===
"Shiratori, how are Highness Mo Bai's preparations going?" Having spent the better part of the night finally soothing the group of frightened mikos, the Great Miko hurriedly dragged Yukikawa Yukie to the kitchen, only to be surprised to find Yukikawa Shiratori standing in attendance outside the kitchen door.
"Highness Mo Bai is still preparing."
The Great Miko closed her mouth and listened for a moment before asking anxiously, "Why is there no sound?"
"Highness Mo Bai's preparations are somewhat special." Yukikawa Shiratori understood the Great Miko's stubborn personality of drilling into dead ends; without saying more, she turned to push the door open, but a pair of hands grabbed her.
"Wait, isn't it a bit inappropriate for us to peek at a senior while they are cooking?" Yukikawa Yukie was a bit nervous; although she was young, she understood some of the unspoken taboos among chefs.
Yukikawa Shiratori glanced at Yukikawa Yukie and pushed the door open.
What entered their view was not the bustling kitchen atmosphere they had imagined. In the center of the silent kitchen, a person was sleeping on a recliner, covered by a blanket.
"Highness Mo Bai is resting?" the Great Miko asked carefully.
"No, he is preparing the dish."
A sparkling question mark and a sparkling exclamation mark instantly popped up above the Great Miko's head.
"Preparing the dish?" The Great Miko looked at Yukikawa Shiratori as if she had seen a ghost, beginning to suspect in her heart that her daughter was hallucinating due to excessive stress.
Yukikawa Yukie felt the same; she shrank her neck timidly and asked cautiously, "Mom, are you okay?"
Seeing that their psychological activities were written all over their faces, how could Yukikawa Shiratori not know what they were thinking?
Thus, after enduring a loving iron fist, the Great Miko and Yukikawa Yukie both squatted on the ground, holding their heads with tears in their eyes.
"This afternoon, I was just like you, thinking that Highness Mo Bai was resting."
"But after standing at the cooking station for several hours, he perfectly completed the dish on the recipe the moment he made his first move."
"I suspect Highness Mo Bai's 'rest' is him simulating the cooking steps of the ingredients in his brain and performing deductions." Yukikawa Shiratori closed the door and shared her conjecture with the two.
"Simulating cooking steps and performing deductions? But how can the senior determine the changing tastes of the ingredients during each cooking stage?" Yukikawa Yukie felt extremely shocked; this kind of talent was simply unheard of!
"Yes, ordinary people indeed cannot control the flavor changes of ingredients during each cooking stage, even when actually cooking."
"But, if it is an extraordinary person, perhaps they can do it."
"...You mean?" The Great Miko's expression became serious.
"I have heard that with the God's Tongue, one can find a dish's defects just by tasting a mouthful. Then what about other God-level talents? God's Hand, God's Ear, God's Nose, God's Eye..."
"If one possesses multiple God-level talents, it may not be impossible to simulate cooking steps and perform deductions." Yukikawa Shiratori's speculation was well-founded and convincing.
If Mo Bai heard this, he would have laughed out loud.
"So that's it! No wonder Highness Mo Bai can be knowledgeable about that terrifying existence." Thinking of the Black Dragon's massive body hidden in the dark clouds, the Great Miko could not help but shiver.
After the chill passed, wondering what she had thought of, the Great Miko's eyes became incredibly bright. "If that is truly the case, perhaps the sealing of Nasuno can welcome a turning point!"
The three at the door were unaware that inside the Mental Time Chamber, Mo Bai had encountered his biggest problem.
Mo Bai propped his hands on the cooking station, his face gloomy.
Lying clearly before him was the steamed fish meat.
The snow-white fish meat looked so tender, and the tactile sensation on the tip of the tongue was just as Yukikawa Shiratori had described—a delicate texture like melting first snow.
The problem was—"The flavor of the Hell Ice Bass is unexpectedly so... austere."
"How exactly should I remove this austere lingering charm?!"
Concentrating the seafood soup—failed!
Stewing the fish in seafood soup—failed!
Grilled Hell Ice Bass with seafood soup as sauce—still failed!
This austere charm, which remained in the mouth even after the umami dissipated, seemed to Mo Bai simply rebellious; it could not be covered by the seafood soup nor integrated into it.
Changing the seafood soup ratio several times yielded nothing.
To use fresher phrasing, the Hell Ice Bass's austere aftertaste was like the tsundere personality inherent to a Dream Ingredient, not giving a damn about ordinary ingredients.
What left Mo Bai most helpless was that he had no other Dream Ingredients to substitute for the Hell Ice Bass.
He had already tried the meat of the Supreme Walking Shark; the fat-rich fish slices lost their shape as soon as they were scalded, completely failing to absorb the flavor, and instead losing a lot of their collagen and meat juices.
"What should I do about this?" Mo Bai looked up; the alarm clock in the Mental Time Chamber showed it was already 2:00 AM, with very little time remaining until dawn.
Little Bai was still struggling to calculate a way out within the infinite loop, to the point where smoke was starting to rise from the knife.
"Sigh~ What exactly should I do?" Mo Bai opened his eyes and gazed at the kitchen ceiling, his chaotic thoughts unable to calm down for a long time.
"In that case, why not ask for the ingredient's own opinion?" A breeze brushed past, and sitting on Mo Bai's cooking station was Ryougi Shiki in a moon-white kimono, her beautiful eyes darting about with brilliance.
"Shiki-san!?" Mo Bai hurriedly scrambled up.
"It took quite a bit of effort not to let that Emperor discover me; hurry up and get down to business." Ryougi Shiki took Mo Bai's hand and pressed it onto the ice block encasing the Hell Ice Bass.
"Eh, eh? What do you mean by the ingredient's own opinion...?"
Before Mo Bai could finish speaking, the scene before his eyes changed abruptly.
In the waters of the estuary of the cold Ice Continent, a small silver-white fish hatched from a roe!
"This is the image of the ingredient!?" Amidst Mo Bai's astonishment, the small silver-white fish had already grown to the thickness of a forearm.
Food in the estuary waters was very abundant: krill, nutrients from Ice Continent corpses, other fish, etc. But conflict was also inevitable, both with other species and its own kind.
After several narrow escapes from the tiger's mouth and battles to the death, the Hell Ice Bass successfully became a tyrant of the estuary waters. Now the length of an adult's thigh, it resolutely followed its instinct, going to devour the dangerous Ice Worms for the sake of a broader world.
"...Gone?" Just as Mo Bai was getting interested, the scene before him flickered and returned to the kitchen.
"Did you really think you were watching a movie?" Ryougi Shiki laughed, tapping her toes lightly and vanishing. "I'm going first; it would be a troublesome matter to be discovered by that Emperor."
Recalling the images he had just seen, Mo Bai withdrew his hand from the ice block.
"Is this fish spirit hinting to me about the ingredients it can merge with?"
His gaze met the Hell Ice Bass inside the ice block; its dead fish eyes shone with a bizarre light.
There was no time to think about whether it was scientific or not; Mo Bai entered the Mental Time Chamber again and scooped up the scalding kitchen knife.
"Little Bai, respawn the ingredients for me; I want to remake the seafood soup."
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