Too Stubborn to Die

Stepping through the doorway into the Crafting Station, Aaron’s eyes widened at the room that just went on and on. It was by far the largest of the rooms so far, and looked like a huge warehouse, or a jumbo jet hangar, and the same ominous purple torchlights from the hallway dotted its walls.

So, these were the options I had?

His jaw fell agape. He hadn’t actually had any issues becoming some kind of monster chef when he was first offered the Profession, since he hadn’t had one on Earth, and didn’t really drift toward any. But seeing this room made him doubt his choices.

Before the integration, Aaron was a free spirit and had spent his entire adult life moving about. He traveled, picked up odd jobs here and there (thank the gods for the gig economy), and sought excitement. That was how he had injured himself in the first place. A cross-country biking trip, one that ended early because he got a little too excited zooming around some tight mountain bends. It wasn’t that he was necessarily a daredevil, or anything, but he enjoyed life, and importantly, the living part of it. And in Aaron’s mind, living meant experiencing. Being stuck in one town, or even worse, a cubicle, sounded like a nightmare. However, vagabonding wasn’t really a profession. So when he was offered to become an ogre chef, that was perfectly fine with him, even though he might have been a little skeptical.

That was before he was standing in the Crafting Station. It wasn’t just anvils and looms. Or alchemy cauldrons and woodworking benches. This thing had everything. Things he didn’t even know existed, like sci-fi shit. Some machine was humming with a purple glow, while another looked like a series of stasis chambers and a small computer console. It was a multiverse, after all, and he was starting to wrap his head around just how grand that really was.

“I could have been anything, and I’m an ogre cook,” he groaned as he made his way through the countless aisles dividing up all the different stations. And with each step he took, he was more amazed.

“Correct. I hope you like cooking. On the bright side, ogre herbs tend to go cheaply. Now, shall we continue?” Douglas said, leading him through the maze of crafting stations until he brought Aaron to a stainless steel, professional-looking kitchen.

“You’ll find ingredients in the fridges and pantry. But since the Crafting Station is only a stage one unlock, you’ll only find Common ingredients. Though whatever you find should be satisfactory for level 1.”

“Wait, can I level just by cooking with this stuff?”

“I don’t see why not. That is how Professions work. You didn’t think you’d need to complete quests or kill things to level up cooking, did you?”

“No,” Aaron replied sheepishly. “I totally didn’t.”

Looking around at the equipment, Aaron’s somber mood was brightened a little. Sure, maybe he could have been a spaceship engineer or something cool like that. But he could cook delicious food to grind levels, then he was perfectly fine with that, too. After all, getting stronger was the most important thing right now. Every minute brought him closer to the Tutorial’s end, and he needed to be prepared for that.

“Well, knock yourself out,” Douglas flashed a curt smile and turned to leave.

Aaron, on the other hand, charged into the kitchen like some kind of TV chef contestant and pulled out every food item that looked half decent, which wasn’t actually that much. There were pulsating chunks of meat, giant eyeballs, and various other kinds of disturbing food items, none of which he particularly wanted to eat. But that wouldn’t stop him from giving them a try.

It quickly became painfully clear that he couldn’t just cook with anything. At first, he tried throwing vegetables and meat together in a pot, but nothing happened when he attempted to activate his Skill. Sure, he was still presented with food at the end, but like the regular kind, pre-integration stuff. And since he had a Profession, Aaron had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to it than that. Then he remembered the description that came with the Class.

Deciding to take it back to basics, he fetched the plasteel skillet he had gained from the quest. He had left it in the hallway by the orc banner, and was back spinning the skillet in his hand a short moment later.

With the skillet in hand, he grabbed the meat most closely resembling a steak and a bunch of random herbs. His Profession didn’t actually come with any instructions, so he was going to have to work with a little trial and error.

He didn’t really know what he was doing, but it was a steak. He put it in the pan and fried it, hoping for the best.

Three-Headed Bovine Rump Steak [ Common — F Grade ]

Provides: +1 Strength for 5 minutes.

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Despite being arguably a success, Aaron groaned at the notification. At least he was on the right track, since his creation actually provided something. But still, +1 Strength for 5 minutes was not much. Certainly nothing to get excited about, so he went back to work.

Aaron was no cook, struggling to put together two-minute noodles before the Integration, but he had seen people cook on TV and social media enough to have some basic idea of what to do. Finding a string in the kitchen cupboards, he strapped the herbs to the meat and threw a knob of butter in the skillet. Once it had melted a little, he threw the steak on and seared it to a crispy brown on both sides before throwing it in the oven. Of course, he was an amateur and burned the butter, and his first steak was blue on the inside and charcoal on the outside, but he had plenty of ingredients to practice with.

The air was pungent with the smell of burnt steaks, and a pile of the desecrated remains of his failed dishes was quickly piling up. But then, he did it. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was by accident or if he was getting better, but he had a near-perfect steak.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Herb Infused Rump Steak [ Common — F Grade ]

Provides: +1 Vitality and minor Health regeneration buff for 5 minutes.

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Aaand it still sucked. It sucked a little less than his first attempt, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to help him traverse the multiverse.

Aaron was disappointed. Both because he didn’t gain a level despite getting experience, and because the steak was below his expectations, that was, until the notifications popped up.

Elvinian Pepper Leaf [ Common — F Grade ]

The Elvinian pepper leaf provides a mild spice with a hint of lemon zest. It is best served with white meats and most commonly provides Strength buffs.

Zarzack Thornfruit [ Common — F Grade ]

The zarzack thornfruit is considered a foul weed by most throughout the multiverse, but a delicacy by some who enjoy its pungent flavor, which has been compared to mucus. Zarzack thornfruit is most commonly served with beast testicles. It most commonly provides Vitality and healing buffs.

Three-Headed Bovine Rump Steak [ Common — F Grade ]

Three-Headed Bovine Rump Steak is found in the outer rim of the Hidvidos Sector and pairs well with subtle herbs and spices like the Cavia Valinia. It most commonly provides Stat buffs when paired with the correct herbs.

This… this is interesting, he thought, and must have been his Skill in action. By cooking with these ingredients, he had unveiled some details on how to use them. Whereas a normal Inspection just told him what the ingredients were. He also wondered if the uses were universal, or specific to his Profession. Since none of the cooking tips mentioned fruits or vegetables, he figured it was a safe bet to assume that the tips were specific to his Profession.

His immediate thought was to keep throwing things together, expanding his knowledge of the ingredients, and from there, he could try creating more complex dishes.

With the same vigor he threw into his combat training, Aaron got to work cooking. He tried everything he made, and most things tasted pretty damn good, considering he had no idea what he was doing. Even the burnt stuff tasted decent. He had a feeling that his overly generous taste buds were thanks to Oozagh’s blessing. If he enjoyed every meal he had for the rest of his life, that in and of itself wasn’t a terrible gift to have. In fact, it made him wonder why ogres even particularly cared about cooking if they liked pretty much everything they ate.

It wasn’t long before he started to create more dishes, but most were, quite frankly, shit. Just like his first few attempts, they were mostly dishes that increased a Stat by one or two for a couple of minutes, and maybe another minor benefit. It was better than nothing, he supposed, but only barely. A single Stat point already didn’t mean a lot, and he was an infant of the multiverse. From what he understood, even E grade was a huge leap forward and would make his current grade look amateur, and even that was basically just the starting point in the greater multiverse. It wasn’t until D grade that entities started to gain a modicum of respect throughout the multiverse.

Most intelligent races were essentially gifted E grade, at least if they put in the effort and legitimately attempted to level. They still had to gain experience and level up, and just like on Earth, there were plenty of slackers. But if determined, it was easy enough given time and all the different paths available. It was at D grade that bottlenecks started to appear for most races. So even if Aaron wasn’t talented and destined to play a minor role in this multiverse, his current level and Stats would still be seen as weak. In other words, what he had achieved with his new cooking Profession so far was essentially worthless. However, despite having yet to discover anything of value, he was gaining experience for the first time by any means other than completing trial stages.

At first, it seemed kind of slow. Any time he cooked anything, he got an experience notification, but he certainly wasn’t leveling up every time. Comparing that to a single notification he got from a quest stage that had given him multiple level-ups, it felt kind of tedious. But when he finally got his first level up and considered the actual time that went into the two activities, he had to admit it was undoubtedly quicker.

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

1 → 2

Aaron wasn’t oblivious to how much he had honed himself and grown stronger during the trials, despite leveling relatively slowly. But he also needed to level. Sure, the delicate control he had mastered over his body would bear fruit, he believed, but he had to consider that the monsters in the trials were stage one, and even if they were much higher levels than himself, they were meant to be easy for top-ranking Tutorial takers.

Some of those guys he had seen in the Viewing Room were straight up scary, and they were going to be the people he would need to compete with after this was all said and done. And he had to ask himself if fine-tuning his control over his body would be enough to close the distance between him and someone like the necromancer. That just wasn’t something he could be confident about with pure skill alone. His inherent skill was great, but he still needed Stats and System Skills. Already, Stats like his Vitality had increased by an impressive amount, so he kept grinding and combining everything in every way he could think of. If the experience gains dipped too much, then he could think about going back into the trials.

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

2 → 3

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

3 → 4

Before long, he had hit level 4 and had 10 full free points to spend. That said, he was still gaining experience and had yet to discover a dish that was actually somewhat helpful, and so, he kept grinding.

Experience rewarded for efforts toward your Profession!

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

4 → 5

New Skill Available for [ Ogre Taste Tester ]

By the time he hit level 5, his experience growth seemed to have fallen off by quite a bit. It had taken him as long as all previous levels to hit 5, and he had combined every ingredient available. And still, he had failed to create a dish worth using. Honestly, despite the decent Stats he had gained from it, it was pretty damn frustrating. So far, the Profession felt like a bit of a dud.

But Aaron remembered what he had learned about the rooms and how they upgraded and became more difficult the more stages you passed. Perhaps his kitchen would be stocked with better ingredients if he took out another trial stage. And if it had better ingredients, maybe he would get more experience and better dishes out of it.

With that thought in mind, he went to see how difficult stage two of the Trial of Endurance was, though not before picking his new Skill.