The Queen of Scrolls never admits defeat

Chapter 1073 Moran's Daily Life as Dean 6
The breadfruit was far too sour.

After tidying up the weeds in the yard in the afternoon, the four hungry little witches squatted at the dormitory entrance, looking at each other, none of them wanting to eat another meal of sour breadfruit.

“Let’s go check out the food distribution point at the West Dorm!” Tessa stood up first, brushing the grass clippings off her robe, and confidently calculated, “I can’t guarantee anything else, but roasted meat and fried rice will definitely be no problem! I’ve roasted meat many times when I went hunting in the forest with my mom, and it smelled amazing. As for fried rice, it was Fried Rice that taught me how to make it—yes, that zombie in my house named 'Fried Rice'—Mom said I make it even better!”

She got more and more excited as she talked, and started counting on her fingers which ingredients she wanted: "Meat is a must, eggs too, and some rice..."

Sylvia nodded and joined the discussion.

During the years she traveled with her mother in the wilderness, she was exposed to a lot of cooking-related matters.

Especially during the time she ran a restaurant on Delicious Island, she watched her mother's kitchen utensils bustling about every day, and she became quite familiar with the types of {Food Cards} in the card shop, even though she had never cooked herself.

“We can look for hot pot base,” she suggested. “If we do, it’ll be easy! We can take it back and make a pot of soup, then just throw in whatever we want to eat. We won’t have to worry about seasoning, and it won’t taste bad.”

Dorella and Evelyn exchanged a silent glance and wisely refrained from speaking.

They had eaten ready-made food made by their mother using {food cards} since they were little, and knew nothing about cooking. They had never even seen what a kitchen looked like.

At this moment, they all decided to follow Sylvia and Tessana; whatever they took, they would take too.

The four little witches quickly found the red house near Dormitory No. 1 in the West District.

It was a striking two-story building with a warm brick-red exterior and a wooden sign that read "Ingredient Pickup Area" hanging at the entrance.

Pushing open the door, I found the interior to be much more spacious than I had imagined.

Rows of shelves are neatly arranged and filled with all kinds of ingredients: fresh vegetables, packaged meats, whole bags of grains, bottles and jars of seasonings... There is even a special refrigerator for keeping magical ingredients fresh, where you can vaguely see deep-sea ingredients shimmering.

Tessa easily found the ingredients she wanted—a large piece of rib meat suitable for roasting, a small bag of rice, a net bag of quail eggs, and a few basic seasonings.

She gathered the things in her arms with satisfaction and looked back at Sylvia.

Sylvia, however, was still lingering in the condiment section.

She tiptoed, her eyes carefully searching among the rows of bottles and jars, scanning from left to right and then from right to left, but found nothing.

I searched again, but still couldn't find it.

Hot pot base, the "all-purpose cooking solution" she had been longing for, was completely absent from the condiment section.

"No?" Tessa leaned closer and asked.

Sylvia shook her head regretfully and had no choice but to give up on cooking hot pot. Following Tessa's example, she obediently took a small bag of rice, a bag of quail eggs, a few pieces of raw meat suitable for grilling, and some seasonings.

She dared not take more than one item.

Since none of the ingredients here are {ingredient cards}, they can't be easily taken away; you have to carry them back to your dorm bit by bit with your own small frame.

There are too many things missing, and we definitely can't take them all at once. We can only take a little of each item and go back to test the waters first.

On the way back to the dormitory, the four little witches carried bulging bags, switching hands every few steps, which gave them a certain air of self-reliance and pride. As it turned out, Tessa wasn't exaggerating.

Her grilling skills are indeed quite good.

The meat is marinated with skillful technique, and the heat is just right when turning it over. The roasted meat is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the aroma can waft out of half the yard.

Sylvia, Dorella, and Evelyn gathered around the makeshift grill, helping to flip the meat while learning how to make the marinade, and they did a pretty good job of it.

But the fried rice didn't go so smoothly.

Tessa stood in front of the stove, staring at the pot of raw rice, puzzled. She only knew how to stir-fry cooked rice, but she had no idea how to turn raw rice into cooked rice.

Add water? How much? How long to cook? What kind of pot to use? A series of questions swirled in my mind, and in the end, I could only helplessly shrug and admit, "This... I really don't know."

So the four of them made do with roasted meat and a few boiled bird eggs for their first dinner of the semester.

As night fell, the four little witches sat at the dining table, touching their slightly swollen bellies, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Sigh!" Tessa suddenly let out a long sigh. "When will I be able to learn cooking magic? I can't just eat grilled meat every day, can I? Even the best food gets boring after a while..."

Sylvia took out her student card, opened the academic year plan, and looked at it carefully: "It's definitely something we have to learn in the first year. The academic year plan says there's a cooking magic class. But..." She scrolled down the screen, "It seems like our first week is all about introductory alchemy classes, and cooking classes aren't on the schedule yet."

She paused, then her eyes lit up: "How about... we message our year's dean of academic affairs? Didn't the dean say yesterday that if we have any questions, we should send them to our respective dean of academic affairs, and that they'll give us a unified response at the academic year orientation meeting tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Tessa sat up straight in a flash. "I'll send it right now! I want to ask when I can learn to cook!"

Evelyn slowly raised her hand: "I have questions... Are there really no breadfruits that aren't sour? And is filling the water tower really something we have to do ourselves? Can't the ingredient distribution center just import {ingredient cards} directly?"

Even after learning how to grill meat, she still felt that breadfruit, which could be eaten directly, was the easiest to prepare.

If it weren't so sour, she would be perfectly happy to eat breadfruit with every meal, saving herself all the trouble of cooking.

The same goes for filling the water tower and collecting food supplies. It was the first time she had realized how much effort these things required, and she just wanted to save as much as possible.

"Me too!" Dorella chimed in. "I need to ask—where do we get the seeds? I want to plant some flowers in the dorm yard. Without the scent of flowers, I feel uncomfortable all over..."

Her voice grew softer and softer, because she felt a little embarrassed to say it herself. While others were worried about eating, she was preoccupied with planting flowers.

But Sylvia nodded seriously: "Okay! I've written it all down. I'll organize it and send it to the dean together."

She opened the [Contacts] app, found the section for the Dean of First Year Academic Affairs, hovered her slender fingertip above the light screen, and looked back at her three friends:
"Then I'll send it?"

"hair!"

The four little heads huddled together, watching the message on the screen being sent out with a "whoosh," and then they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Hopefully, their questions will be answered at tomorrow's briefing.