Kairos started that very same day, heading to Laksa’s kitchen accompanied by an entourage of apprentices.

Most of them are kitchenhands; those without at least a year’s experience of being around knives and flames were not allowed to touch the kitchenware.

Those that had graduated become station chef, taking care of individual dishes. Each is trained in a specific ingredient or technique, meat, seafood, vegetable, saucier, fry, pastry, Purifier, Runes Engineer, and Venomancer. After mastering one station, they will rotate, until they become well-versed with all sections.

A few of the station chefs were famous cooks that had come from all over the empire seeking an apprenticeship with this master chef, and any who show good aptitude were immediately recruited. The ones that were rejected were definitely not in the least, and none dared to question Laksa’s decisions.

In the eyes of chefs, he is the absolute god of cooking. If he says no, that means they are truly undeserving. Those that successfully joined his kitchen were so proud they might burst if a pin stabbed them.

Within their ranks, the best of them challenged each other to become the second-in-command, a sous chef.

Unfortunately, because of how picky the head chef is, this position is still empty after a year.

When Kairos walked into his kitchen, Laksa immediately brought him to his side. Eyes flared up in the place, each of them stared daggers at Kairos. That place he is standing is the Sous’ station.

Kairos, of course, did not know anything about this, and being next to Laksa is far more convenient to learn things after all.

He noticed their hostility and glanced at the people in the room, but they immediately shrunk back.

Then, Laksa, with a great hearty laugh, patted him on his back.

“Young master! You’ve made the right choice coming with me first! Where else would you get delicious food in this city? No… in this entire Empire. Peh… those other restaurants don’t even serve food. What they are giving the bravura folks is animal feed!

No no, that won’t do. We shall change things together, between the two of us, won’t we?”

“U.. uncle Laksa… you’re giving me tremendous praise that I don’t know if I can live up to.”

“Nonsense. Young master will do well. With your creativity alone, you would be a tremendous help. I know you plan to learn, but I am a stickler for traditions. For me to impart anything, you will need to have me as your master.

Of course, this means that you may not learn the culinary arts from anyone else. Would you accept?”

The others in the kitchen stared in absolute silence. None of them had managed to become the head chef’s direct disciples. At least, while they had an apprenticeship, none of them had their abilities recognised.

Kairos thought for a moment. He wanted to agree immediately. The chance to learn such high-level skills is a rarity, and cooking meals will be a tremendous help for him in the future when they are out on a journey. Just thinking of what he could do with this skill makes him tremble with excitement.

However, he knows that some masters are extremely jealous. They would give all they have for their disciple, but in return, they would not share with anyone else, and that includes the disciple’s time.

If Kairos spends time cooking, he might miss out in the future. He did not realise that his delay had offended half the kitchen.

He nodded his head, offending the other half of the kitchen that felt that he doesn’t deserve it.

Laksa beamed with a great smile, then immediately turned serious, “For today, I’ll be making the dish that made me aspire to become a chef. Help me out wherever you see fit and learn all you could.”

“Yes chef,” Kairos said with a smile. The carefree, even mellow person turned into a strict and firm leader in the kitchen.

Laksa immediately issued out commands to the kitchen hands, and all sorts of ingredients are gathered, washed, and prepared, in the blink of an eye.

Their cleanliness and order were commendable, no less than what Kairos had seen in Helena’s apothecary and Siegfried’s forge.

If the three masters have one thing in common, it would be their adamant stand about having no impurities allowed in their workshops.

As they started up their kitchenware, Kairos noticed that they use a series of runes to create both heat and freeze effects.

He carefully observed everything, down the smallest details, without posing questions or giving any suggestions.

Laksa added spirit herbs and beast meat to the mix from his Time-space ring. The Venomancer took a glance at the ingredients and came over immediately to check for toxicity and to remove any harmful parts. Depending on the type of beast, there might be different poisonous effects.

Magical beasts are especially notorious for coming with all kinds of enchanted venom that cause ridiculous effects like shrinking a body part, turning someone’s skin pink, or even making a person speak backwards.

Most of those effects are temporary and usually meant for deterring natural predators.

Where the ingredient was found is essential as well. Some creatures that are ordinarily harmless could become lethal after brushing their fur against poisonous plants, or if the food they consume is dangerous.

For instance, there is a Hawk-faced Sea Turtle that is exceptionally toxic with near incurable poison from eating venomous cnidarians. The difficulty to save victims that ate its flesh unknowingly comes from each Hawk-faced Sea Turtle possessing unique toxin composition that depended on its diet.

The Venomancer scanned the ingredients with a strange artefact to identify any dangers within and began neutralising them in an effective order. He applied some odd-smelling dust to a human-looking spirit herb, the Mandrake, causing it to squeal immediately.

Kairos paled when he heard the terrible noise, but it turned into a series of coughs when the Mandrake inhaled the dust before the living plant fainted again.

“Don’t worry young master. This is fairy dust, complimentary of Tinkerbell Co., it is the best counteragent against Mandragoras,” the Venomancer explained, and at the same time he took out a large transparent crystal and placed it on top of a bundle of wendigo meat.

The crystal looked as if ink stains were dropped into water as the poisons were drawn out of the magical beast’s flesh.

The meat quivered terribly, as though it was muscle spasm on a living thing.

After a short while, when the object finally stopped moving, Kairos stared at it for a moment longer. Just making sure that it is truly dead.

He realised something important. Throughout their cooking process, he could hear the voices of the ingredients, similar to how the Spirit Ores and Spirit Herbs had beckoned him.

It wasn’t coherent thoughts that he received, after all, including the Mandrake, they are not sentient beings but things that came from the earth.

They called out his name joyfully, regardless of how the chefs were processing them.

Even chopping a plant into pieces incurred no special response or changes.

Granted, these ingredients did not have any sense of pain nor do they require one.

Instead, they chattered with him, easily telling him their secrets like they are children who wanted to introduce themselves to a new friend.

Kairos frowned a little. He could tell from their words, that many of the ingredients do not enjoy the company of each other. Not only that, there are things he wouldn't dare to put in a meal. The stock bones and meat scrap were especially frightening. When the kitchenhand washed them, he could hear the blood crying out for vengeance.

The beast it came from, the Wendigo, had its life was taken by a terribly blunted chopper.

Kairos was not an advocate for a vegetarian diet, but the sight was too horrifying.

Heck, from his upbringing, he had seen how important meat is. There were many from his village that passed away because of the hardships from their poor living condition. There were many times that he thought, if they had even a small salted piece of meat, there will be many people who could be saved.

When he was younger, there was an uproar for passing a law that forces everyone on a plant-only diet. For the nobles, and those wealthier commoners, it was a thing of frivolity, but for them, it meant death.

Fortunately, the law was never passed. Nevertheless, he can’t help but think that their direction is better taken against the brutality of the slaughter farms. If regulations to cause companies to act more humanely, it will be far more effective than forcing ideas of compassion onto people who might not have a choice.

Haven't they heard of the phrase that 'One man's meat is another man's poison'?

Meanwhile, Laksa had started cooking as well. His hands moved in a blur as he took different ingredients apart while he looked at Kairos with a smile.

“Young master, this food I am making you is a dish I grew up with. The Wendigo and Mandrake stew with Diamond Dust sauce.

It is made from ingredients procured from the deep north and things that you would seldom see in this place.

I only had the blessings to taste this dish because my parents were hunters. They’d often roam the mountains, looking for monsters that threaten our villages. They would often bring back the herbs they gathered, and if we are lucky, we might have Wendigo for dinner.”

He paused and slid a knife and some carrots over to Kairos.

“Help me chop them up, young master.”

Seeing him given a knife and using the Sous Chef’s station, the other looked at him with pure spite, but they dared not refute their head chef.

Kairos nodded, and without thinking, he took the chef’s knife.