B.F.HUUPS
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Chapter 24
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 19:44:19 +0000 UTCFast Food [ Common ] Some like to take more time and care with their culinary pursuits—you’re not one of those people. Passively, decreases the preparation time and cooking of all ingredients of E grade and below.
Dubious Mixture [ Uncommon ] You might think your creations are edible, but few others do. When activated, all dishes cooked of D grade and below provide additional buffs to the chef, while providing additional negative debuffs to anyone who consumes them.
Picky Eater [ Uncommon ] You’re not one for variety; you would rather stick to what you know. Select one ingredient to gain a large buff to dishes when cooked with it, at the expense of a debuff to all other ingredients.
Well Trained Gut [ Uncommon ] Your gut has undergone training that few others have, hardening it against things most would find harmful. Passively provides resistance to all harmful poisons and toxins you ingest.
Conductive Gut [ Uncommon ] Your gut is special. Like really, I mean it. It doesn’t just consume food for energy, but can conduct that energy directly into you. Passively converts the energy of food consumed, immediately turning it into a small amount of SP, MP, and HP.
Aaron read over the options a couple of times. As he had previously, he crossed out anything that had grade limits. Although being limited to D grade wasn’t so bad. D grade seemed some way away, and getting bent out of shape about a Skill that was limited to it seemed silly. However, Dubious Mixture still sounded rather average, anyway. After he got out of this place, he hoped to do some socializing, and now that he could cook, he hoped that it would come in handy. Who didn’t enjoy a nice home-cooked meal? However, that probably wouldn’t go down so well if he were harming those who consumed his food.
Picky Eater sounded like it could be okay, he thought. Suppose he had a very clear idea of where he was going and what path he was taking, it would probably be very strong. But he didn’t. How could he possibly make a decision on what ingredient to tie himself to when he knew so little of what he was getting himself into? Besides, even if he did, it sounded rather restrictive. The last thing he wanted was to become some kind of specialist who could only handle specific situations.
Well Trained Gut sounded better; it would be nice knowing nobody could poison you in the multiverse, which was sounding crazier every time he learned more about it. And he had learned enough to know that many people would be out for themselves, and going by what he’d seen in the Viewing Room, that had proved true even in a short period of Tutorial time. But how often was he going to find himself in a situation like that?
Conductive Gut, on the other hand, was far more flexible. This was not situational, and whilst cooking better food with better ingredients would no doubt provide better buffs, it didn’t immediately heal him, and he had been given no reason to believe that would change. Though if he was being completely honest, he had no idea when or how he would find time to devour a meal in the middle of battle. It sounded simply impractical to eat while fighting. Ridiculous.
But it wasn’t just long-term benefits he was after. He wanted to beat the trial he was stuck on, and perhaps he could use this Skill for mid-trial SP regeneration. And who knows, maybe he’d get the chance to sneak in a snack during longer fights? Aaron was far from certain. The idea sounded far-fetched, but nonetheless, it still sounded handy and flexible to be able to treat food like healing pots and mana pots, so he chose it.
He had upgraded his Cassarian Bird of Nimble Movement recipe during his cooking rampage, and inspected its attributes after picking his new skill.
Spice Tarnished Cassarian Bird of Nimble Movement and Longevity [ Elite — F Grade ]
Provides: When eaten, the Spice Tarnished Cassarian Bird of Nimble Movement and Longevity loosens the joints and allows the user to flow with the grace of the Cassarian Bird itself. Loosening of muscles may have unexpected side effects.
+20 Strength, +20 Dexterity, + 30 Agility, Moderate SP Regeneration Buff. Duration: 10 minutes. Aftereffects: Moderate
“Spice Tarnished?” Aaron repeated aloud as he read. Was that meant to be good? It certainly didn’t sound appetizing. Then again, he couldn’t complain with the results. Not only was it elite now, but he had increased the Agility bonus by 10 and gained a regeneration attribute. Basically, it was exactly what he needed for the trial. He also put his free points into Fortitude as he originally planned.
Eating his cassarian bird, and activating Relentless Scourge, he reentered the trial. Gorgan’s Time Dilation might have provided some aid in dodging the worm attacks, but he had already figured that part of the trial out, and there was no need to waste additional mana. Saving it to power Foxstep as a backup was far more useful.
The difference between this attempt and the previous ones was night and day. The additional Stat points didn’t just help his stamina, but cassarian bird helped his Agility and Dexterity significantly enough that it made copying the shadow’s movements noticeably easier, his steps lighter, and most importantly, allowed him to keep jumping with gusto.
However, as he made it further than he had before, dodging ten worm attacks whilst maintaining a somewhat decent reserve of stamina, the trial threw another challenge his way.
Only a moment after sailing away from a massive snapping jaw, thousands of scarab beetles took flight from the beneath the surrounding sands and swarmed toward him.
The beetles blackened the sky above, and when they reached him, they began to shoot down like a machine-gun. Aaron attempted to dodge, activating [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ], and reading fate. But there were simply too many of the damn things.
Slamming into him, the beetles staggered Aaron. Surprisingly, they didn’t do much damage, but he found out why a second later. He was knocked over, and fell into the sand, which made him an easy target for a worm, who broke free from below and gulped um down.
Sighing as he appeared in the hallway, Aaron got the feeling that dodging wasn’t the key to passing this trial. Thousands of scarabs was just too much.
Maybe he could outrun them, he thought. After all, he had been pacing himself to so that he didn’t burn through all of his SP. What if he just rushed to the finish? Maybe the beetles would never catch up to him.
He retried the trial, and this time, he sprinted faster and jumped further than he had before, and to aid him in this, he tested out his new Skill, eating food as he charged through the trial. However, he immediately discovered its shortcomings. As long as he didn’t consume buff-providing food, eating random things didn’t remove his Cassarian bird buff, but the regeneration was far too slow to be useful. His SP ticked up gradually, but he was spending it far quick, and soon after, he was once again worm food.
The moment his SP was drained, a worm came and gobbled him up, and he returned to the hallway.
There had to be another way to avoid getting hit, he thought. The problem was, his current arsenal was lacking. He was masterful at dodging, but with so many attacks coming at him while he was running for his life, he doubted it was possible to dodge. At least not at his current level.
Out of ideas, it was time to use the focus stop again. But to make the most of it, he needed a concept in his mind. Otherwise, his meditation could drift and fail to find purchase.
What was it that he wanted to achieve though? What was the most likely means of escaping the beetles and the worms? Aaron thought on this for a long moment. He accepted the fact that he couldn’t perfectly copy the shadow yet, and so he needed something else.
Trying to run too fast and jump too far had ended his trial prematurely, since it drained through his SP too quickly, but what if it hadn’t? Aaron couldn’t get the thought from his mind. It seemed a little like bashing his head against the wall, but for some reason, he thought that there was truth to it.
Besides, he didn’t have a better idea for how to get past the beetles. So, he grasped the stone tightly, and entered meditation with that thought in mind.
By now, Aaron already had a pretty good feel for the stamina flowing through him, and so it was easy for his mind to focus on it.
He felt the energy circulating through his system, fueling his muscles and providing strength and endurance. It was more than that, though. He realized that it fueled everything within his body.
Every organ could be infused by stamina. In fact, focusing on muscles had been missing the point. He could cycle stamina into his lungs and heart as well. His skin was also an organ, and stamina could be circulated through his skin, muscles, and bones to harden himself against attacks. Of course, his Skill [ Thick Skinned ] was already doing this, albeit as a Skill, rather than pure energy enhancement. But either way, it was an important revelation.
Every second his spent exploring and understanding his stamina, the closer he got to harnessing its true power. Sensing the rhythm of its flow, and the veins that carried it.
Veins!
His stamina was circulating through his veins. It reminded him of blood. Like hemoglobin carried oxygen to the cells, giving them energy, so too did his veins carry stamina. It was what fueled every inch of him. He had been given incredible power, but when broken down, he wasn’t so different from the human he had been, pre-integration.
And it was into this sensation that he pressed his stamina, flooding his veins with the energy as he focused on cycling it. His stamina pool drained at an alarming rate, but he knew he was on the cusp of something, and so he continued on. Refusing surrender, and flood every inch of himself into his cycling, even as it threatened his life. Fortunately, Aaron wasn’t afraid of death, and if it came, it came, but he would not stop. Not until he reached what he was searching for.
Aaron’s eyes flung open as he felt the sensation of breaking open a semi-dormant organ that had always been present within. And the feeling was remarkable.
Title acquired: Stamina Control Prodigy.
The master controls and cycles their stamina and, through their veins, gains superior control over their stamina and how they can use it.
Rewarded for successfully forming your stamina veins prior to reaching E grade.
Reward: +20% Fortitude
Aaron’s eyes lit up at the notification. He knew instinctively that the stamina veins were a significant improvement, but the title was confirmation. He hadn’t had earned a title since arriving in this place, and from his understanding, it was no easy feat reaching the Shadow Trials.
Also, an additional 20% bonus to his Fortitude was no minor thing. A bonus like that would aid him for a long time to come.
But more importantly, it wasn’t just his control that had improved. His stamina felt richer and more powerful than it had before. The energy was bubbling over. It was like super-powered doping. But instead of increasing his red blood cell count, he had awoken his stamina veins.
They had always been there, but without a guiding hand, his flow of energy had been weak and inefficient. That all changed now. He felt lighter and stronger, with boundless energy.
And there was just one thing left to do. Outrun those damn bugs and wipe that smug grin from Yendal’s face.
Aaron’s brow bent definitely, and he made his way for the trial. This time would be different.
