Chapter Six: Cooking

The situation went much more smoothly than expected. With their former teacher-student relationship as a foundation, the collaboration between Lan Fu and Ningyu Shi required little time to find their rhythm.

By Sunday afternoon, they had already begun preparing the solution needed for drawing the magic array. Ningyu Shi wore a gas mask and watched carefully as Lan Fu delicately added mercury into the test tube.

Back when he was a tutor, he taught physics and occasionally helped her with English, but now she felt confident he would handle chemistry just as well.

Unlike the tutoring center, there were no tedious endless worksheets here—only this intriguing experimental process.

The place they worked in was less a garage and more a bicycle storage room. The garages attached to the old residential buildings were nowhere near as spacious as those in modern complexes. At best, they were used for storing clutter or as chicken coops favored by the elderly.

Even though he had converted one room into a refining chamber, there were no ventilation or fire safety facilities whatsoever.

Therefore, Lan Fu’s current operations were clearly in violation of regulations, and understandably, he was quite tense. Soon, his gas mask became damp inside, making it uncomfortable to wear.

Ningyu Shi, however, seemed to relish the novelty and excitement, humming happily while heating the reagents.

“This room might be ruined after just one use. You don’t have to rush like this. We could wait until I set up proper ventilation,” she said, glancing at the only small ventilation window in the room.

To prevent mercury vapor from escaping, the window was tightly shut.

Lan Fu shook his head. He always felt pressed for time now.

Ningyu Shi’s original formula didn’t contain so many toxic substances, so the bicycle room was sufficient. But installing a ventilation system capable of handling the fumes would be an unnecessarily large operation.

“I know a purification spell meant for neutralizing beast venom. I’m not sure if it works on these fumes, but I’ll handle it after we finish,” he mumbled.

“That’s great. But next time, we won’t use this place anymore.” Ningyu Shi set the used bottles upright, her eyes behind the goggles betraying a trace of nostalgia.

“This place was where I started out—very rudimentary. I only came back these few days to lay low and didn’t even plan to cook. Once the heat dies down, I’ll take you to my main base.”

“Seems your business is doing well if you have another kitchen. How long have you been at this?”

“Over half a year, I guess. Including magic studies, it’s been more than two years.”

As they chatted, the solution was ready. Lan Fu cleaned the floor and began drawing the magic array with the dark green liquid.

Ningyu Shi watched his movements and slightly furrowed her brow, but said nothing in the end.

Once the array was complete, they tossed a spherical beast into its center.

Lan Fu took a few steps back and said to Ningyu Shi, “Follow the original procedure for the next steps. Don’t change too many variables at once.”

Ningyu Shi replied, “Me? Oh, I thought the teacher would demonstrate. I wanted to see your technique firsthand. Could you perform that again, Teacher Lan?”

Behind his mask, Lan Fu pressed his lips tight. Of course, he couldn’t demonstrate—he nearly faltered just drawing the array. If it hadn’t been too time-consuming to have Ningyu Shi copy it from paper, he wouldn’t have done it himself.

Now that they were partners, sharing techniques made sense, and he shouldn’t refuse her request. But he was still just a mortal; there was no way he could use magic.

And if he transformed in front of his student, how would she react?

Wiping the sweat from his cheek, he forced himself not to think about the flashy transformation pose—that alone made his heart race and toes curl.

Fortunately, he had a prepared excuse.

“Sorry, I can’t do it,” he said with a rehearsed explanation. “Once you master advanced mana output rhythms, you can’t go back to your original level.

“It’s like learning to balance on a bike—you can’t go back to the clumsy way you rode as a beginner. If I did it, I could only produce transparent crystals.”

“Wow, that’s such a fitting description!” Ningyu Shi agreed wholeheartedly. She had experienced that feeling but found it hard to describe.

Lan Fu looked at her with mixed feelings—lying to a student never sat well with him...

Though disappointed, Ningyu Shi stepped up to the array and stretched out her right hand.

She nodded slightly, murmured an incantation, and her open palm emitted a faint glow.

Gradually, the array resonated with her, the intricate patterns brightening as an invisible force lifted the fallen beast’s corpse into the air.

With the girl’s faint chanting, countless sparkling particles rose from the array, weaving into several glowing vines that wrapped around the floating beast.

When its spherical body was fully covered by white light, it suddenly dispersed, transforming into a swirling, multicolored nebula.

Ningyu Shi carefully rotated her wrist, causing the nebula to spin, gather, and scatter, its colors shifting constantly. Whenever a patch turned white, she extracted it to the ground, condensing it into powder, refining it bit by bit.

This was the most crucial step in the refining process. The nebula’s unpredictability required the caster’s intense concentration to control mana output in rhythm with its changes—much like managing the heat while cooking.

This is where the slang term “chef” originated.

After more than ten minutes, Ningyu Shi lowered her aching right hand, exhaling heavily beneath her gas mask.

“That nearly suffocated me. No more refining with a mask,” she said, eagerly grabbing the tools to collect the magical ash from the array’s center.

Following Lan Fu’s instructions, she waited a while in the adjacent room. When she heard him say it was ready, she reopened the refining room’s door.

Seeing Lan Fu remove his mask, she yanked hers off too, grumbling as she placed the box of magical ash on the table.

“The quality dropped—this is at best just salt,” she said, picking up a handful and weighing it in her palm.

Inside the industry, magical ash was nicknamed according to its quality. The lowest grade was called “slag,” mid-grade “ash,” and high-grade “salt.”

Ningyu Shi’s pure white top-tier product was naturally “snow,” though she didn’t much like this name despite being dubbed “Snow White.”

She named Lan Fu’s product “ice,” which he disliked. He proposed renaming his grade “crystal,” but Ningyu Shi said it would ruin the overall harmony and sounded a bit cheap.

Of course, that referred to the crystal-grade magical ash from last time, not today’s experimental batch.

Compared to Ningyu Shi’s previous samples, this batch was indeed inferior—not only was its color closer to grayish-white, but its texture was lighter and thinner, like flour, easily blown away by a heavy breath.

After weighing, Lan Fu summarized, “Unit yield increased by 54%, which meets about half of our target. Adjusting the mercury ratio should boost it further.”

Though it was only the first experiment, he wasn’t fully satisfied—the yield increase was somewhat modest.

Before the experiment, his goal had been to increase output, while Ningyu Shi refused to sacrifice quality.

“This kind of product will ruin my reputation,” she said gloomily.

“If we keep the original purity, the yield can only improve by around 20%—too little. For most consumers, salt-grade purity is sufficient; anything higher is surplus. Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?”

Ningyu Shi waved a finger with a mature air. “You don’t get it, Teacher Lan. This is a battle for dignity! Output matters, but if purity falls below what the old junk had, how can I maintain my standing?”

“You’re already way ahead. A slight drop won’t matter. I’ll figure out how to balance it better…”

“No way. I haven’t even reached the top tier yet. I’m your student, after all, expecting you to help me surpass the Crazy Old Eight!”

Lan Fu gave a helpless smile. The nicknames in this field were just wildly different in tone.

He didn’t care about the Crazy Old Eight. To make money, increasing yield was key, because the supply of sphere beasts as raw material was always limited.

“Alright then,” he compromised. “Let’s run two product lines—one for your high-end route, one mine for volume.”

Ningyu Shi reluctantly agreed. Judging by her expression, one might think she had suffered a great injustice.

“One more thing, Teacher Lan,” she said, peeking toward the chicken coop near the door. “We’re running low on sphere beasts.”