In another world, Lu Mingfei is learning card making.

—Well, Lu Mingfei's first egg wasn't ideal.

He simply didn't have the fine control of a halfling. The moment an egg was broken and separated, let alone using the shell to hold the yolk, all the egg liquid inside immediately fell into the oil pan, even splattering oil onto Lu Mingfei's arm.

Then he thought for a moment and immediately decided to give up frying and instead picked up the spatula, sprinkled some salt and started stir-frying.

The final product... well, I'd say it's barely edible.

"But it's not enough to just eat it. After all, this egg isn't meant to be eaten alone. It's meant to be placed in some dishes with broth, soaked up all the broth, and then taken out..." The halfling placed his fried egg in front of Lu Mingfei for him to taste. Lu Mingfei took a small bite and found it to be incredibly tender.

Well, it's purely the texture of egg white, because the yolk is placed in the middle, so you can't taste it unless you bite into the whole thing...

Lu Mingfei devoured it in no time, then turned his gaze to the halfling:

"So how is it made? Are there any techniques involved?"

"The trick is practice." The halfling thought for a moment. "If you're worried about wasting food, then practice separating the egg yolks first—and don't fry them one by one, just crack them into a bowl so we can use them when we make bread."

"Pound this egg hard, the force should be 'penetrating', and the egg should crack neatly without the shell breaking... Hey, don't be sad, it's not uncommon for people to practice this for half a month."

"After you've mastered cracking eggs, we'll learn how to prepare the ingredients, then how to monitor the oil temperature, and only then will we learn how to cook. If you'd like to learn how to make pastries or similar dishes, you can tell me. Although I don't know how, there are people here who do—"

"Alright, you can start practicing now."

The halfling hummed a song and left, leaving Lu Mingfei alone to struggle with the egg. One tap, two taps, three taps—unable to control his strength any longer—Lu Mingfei closed his eyes and threw the last spark of the day into the flames.

Let's get started!

Success! But Lu Mingfei couldn't help but frown.

This shows the difference between cooking skills and music theory. In music theory, no matter how complicated the pieces are, they are all played on instruments. Even if the variations are complex and the sounds are varied, they can never escape the basic tones of dorma, mifa, solla, and ti.

But cooking skills are a different story—eggs have their own way of being cooked, and meat has its own way of being cooked. A chef can't just know how to cook eggs and not know how to cook meat. In terms of skills, things like "learning to crack eggs" are simply not enough for Lu Mingfei to master the skill of "cooking"...

"Even cracking an egg—which might not even be an egg—requires me to use a spark to find the feel for it. How long would it take to master cooking?"

Lu Mingfei cracked another egg and fell into deep thought.

It's not that 'Lu Mingfei kept cracking eggs because his master didn't teach him anything else,' but rather that one successful attempt at cheating with sparks is not enough to prove that he has learned it, since the burning of sparks itself provides a comprehensive boost to the body.

He wants to ensure that he can successfully separate the egg white and yolk even without a spark!

Lu Mingfei was full of fighting spirit.

……

Naya Phili went down the stairs and ran into the kitchen.

Even now—though it's probably no more than a week in total—she still remembers what happened in that alternate dimension on Halloween. The perfectly coordinated, fearless Holy Church legion, the magic circle they guarded…

These days, she studies the materials she obtained from the magic circle as soon as get out of class is over, and as a result, she even forgets about dinner. She can only run to the kitchen to ask the halflings for something to eat when no one else is around.

Then, as soon as she stepped off the stairs, she bumped into someone who was very famous in the college:

"Hmm... Lu?" Naya Fili looked at the two bowls in front of Lu Mingfei, one with egg whites mixed with yolks, and the other almost entirely egg yolks. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm learning to cook here." Lu Mingfei put down the egg in his hand. "Well, I'm just starting out, so it's not very good."

Upon hearing this, she immediately understood. Judging from Lu Mingfei's expression, he was clearly very dissatisfied with the eggs he had cracked.

"Is that right? It's just cracking an egg, it should be simple, right?" Naya Fili found a seat and said to Lu Mingfei, "Just tap and break it along the rim of the bowl, isn't that enough?"

"You also need to separate the egg whites and yolks." Lu Mingfei picked up another egg and waved it at Naya Phili. "Watch closely—"

The eggshell tapped against the edge of the bowl, making a crisp sound, and then a clear, neat crack appeared. Lu Mingfei held the two halves of the eggshell with both hands, flipping it back and forth between them. The yolk remained in one half of the shell, while the egg white flowed into the bowl.

Naya Phili clapped enthusiastically to show her admiration.

"How's it going? Got it figured out?" The sturdy halfling approached from a distance, peering into the egg yolk in Lu Mingfei's hand. "Oh, you really did it! You're very talented!"

"Uncle Alton! Make me something to eat!" Naya Phili immediately raised her hand and called out. The halfling smiled gently and kindly, then pulled a stool from the side to the front of the stove.

"Now that we've learned how to crack eggs, let's move on to the next step: preparing the ingredients." The halfling brandished the cleaver a couple of times in the air. "Preparing the ingredients means chopping them—this cleaver is different from other knives. You see, it has a curve on it. We can press this curve against the cutting board, creating a gap between the cleaver and the board..."

"Then, press the vegetable under your palm, use your knuckles to hold the blade of the knife, and then just cut and lift the knife, and the vegetable will be cut."

"Once you're proficient, you can do this—"

The tapping sound continued incessantly. Lu Mingfei only saw the half-human's other hand quickly sending the washed vegetables under the cleaver, while shredded vegetables kept emerging from the other side.

"The other vegetables, like radishes, tomatoes, and onions, are all based on the same principle, except that some of them require some pretreatment."

The half-human cut the tomato in half—well, Lu Mingfei didn't know if it was actually a tomato or not, but that's how it was translated on the internet, and it looked pretty much the same—while still holding the vegetable with one hand and a knife in the other, and sliced ​​the tomato into pieces.

"This is really just hard work from practice. That's all I have to say—Little Naya, what would you like to eat?"

While Lu Mingfei was still savoring the memory, Naya Filip had already started ordering: "I want the fried one from last time!"

"Oh, okay—Lu, why don't you come and take a look too? I'll also tell you about the oil temperature..."