Versatile: Alternate World

Cooking. That is an EX Job mostly for cooking food. They give buffs, heal, and fill your hunger meter. It's a very good EX Job with consistent usage.

However, I think this will the best EX Job that will be very useful in the Luminous Expedition that will be coming soon enough and I am not kidding when I said this is going to be beneficial.

In Alternate World, all players can cook even without the EX Job Chef or Cook. However, the difference between the player without the EX Job and the player who has the Chef or Cook EX Job is that the one who has no EX Job is more likely to produce a failed dish, or if they succeed, they will have a very poor quality of food. As for the players who have the necessary EX Job, it is clear they will be more likely to succeed in cooking and at times, they have the ability to produce new dishes according to how they wish.

Just like the Blacksmith EX Job, the Chef and Cook EX Job's efficiency and mastery of the craft will improve. The buffs received will be either extended, buffed or even an additional buff will appear. Not only that but NPCs eating good food will also have an increased rate of happiness added to them which in short, will increase morale.

With that said, since managing the morale is necessary for the future, I needed to get the EX Job now and this will help raise the morale. And I can get to cook good food without relying on my mom for food.

Right now, I am standing in front of a small eatery in the Insect Kingdom. It is the only eatery that doesn't have any single customer despite being open. There's not a single display of different kinds of food and the place looked very shabby compared to the fancy restaurant nearby, it wasn't showing any signs of going to earn a dime here by anyone and even the players seemed to ignore the place like it didn't exist in the first place.

Inside is a human currently sleeping, waiting for customers that seem to have no chance of happening. It was a rare sight to see someone who isn't an insect running a business in the game. However, I already knew who this guy is and he is not here to run a business, his true purpose here is to find an heir to his cooking abilities. He is there to just test out who is the rightful people who can learn his EX Job. From what I learned, this guy will only teach 5 players on his EX Job before disappearing and will not appear again

Since he is here, that means he is still available to teach someone his EX Job.

"Hello? Is this place open?"

When he heard someone talking, he raised his head and frowned.

"Huh? A customer? At this hour?"

He sounded rude and brash like some sort of yakuza thug. But he didn't really yell, his mannerisms and the loudness of his voice just changes the impression of everyone meeting him for the first time.

I haven't interacted with him at all in the past timeline but I do know he is indeed someone who can give out an EX Job related to cooking.

"Are you selling food here?"

"Ha... look at the place you are now, kid. Now look at the restaurant over there, the difference is obvious kid, why would you need to ask a very obvious question huh?"

As expected, he has the same grumpy attitude. I have already been informed in the past about his irritable personality. He might be like that but he was easy to persuade at times. And for him to teach you about his EX Job, you need to cook terribly first.

"If you are not cooking food, can I use the kitchen? I am famished and I don't have any money to spend on to that restaurant. Don't worry, I will pay for it as soon as I can finish eating."

"You don't have money to buy food there but you have the money to pay me for using my kitchen? What a weird kid. Alright, fine. Use it, don't worry about the money, you can keep that. I don't need it."

"Thank you very much."

After he has given me the permission to use the kitchen, I started to do the work. As expected of a cook, his kitchen is loaded with utensils and tools for cooking. But it was also clear that the kitchen has barely used. There are signs that it was used recently but not for big cooking, more like cooking casual food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I pulled out my ingredients that I keep on keeping inside my inventory and started preparing them. Even though I am trying to make a bad dish that would cause the old man to retort, I will still make the best food I can make without the EX Job itself.

As I started to cook, I saw the old man peek at what I am cooking. I made sure that I am just glancing at him so that he wouldn't notice but the moment he saw my cooking, his eyebrow creases and his eyes squinted. I can see the judgmental look of the old man's face as he saw the food I am creating.

Even though I am cooking the food just fine, without proper EX Job, your chances of obtaining a good food is less and unless you have already learned the recipes, the food you will cook would turn into something that cannot be eaten.

As I continue cooking, the face of the old man started to look more grim than usual. I continue to prepare all of the things I needed to keep cooking.

However, the old man didn't take long to keep himself up.

"UGH! That's it! I cannot tolerate this any longer. My whole body is aching the moment I saw you create food that seems to be going to jump alive any moment. Come on boy,move aside,let me teach you how to cook and be sure to imprint that inside your tiny mind! Pass me the cleaver!"

I grab the cleaver and toss it to the old man who easily catches the cleaver without looking and immediately chopped the meat so fast that one lump of meat has been reduced to different kinds of meat cut. All of his movements are precise and decisive. He didn't hesitate on his one hand and he didn't even think twice about creating multiple variety of meat cut in a few seconds.

Even though he don't like one, based on his skill, I can easily tell that he has already surpassed the mastery a master cook should have possessed.

"The wok and the frying pans."

I handed him all of it and he just throws them to the stoves and he snaps his fingers, lighting up the stoves one by one. He then started cooking food in a fast pace that my eyes did not even follow his movements as he accurately cook all of the food that he has prepared.

"Did you see all of those kid? Even if you are bad at cooking, there is still hope to salvage things. Are you sure you know how to cook? Because the way you cook will increase the risk of you getting poisoned due to the food that you have eaten."

Even though he hasn't taught me anything about cooking, just by looking at it, I slowly got some understanding on what to do and what is the proper way of cooking food. He continues to babble about the ways on how to properly prepare fish, meat, vegetable and stuff to just finish and create food that has harmonious ingredients that would make very good dishes.

In the end, he even salvaged all of the food I created that was meant to be bad and ended up creating a new dish that not only tasted good, but it also removed the bad aspects that occurred to it when I was cooking it. Before I knew it, all of the food he created  is done and he put all of them in the table behind us, lining them up.

He didn't talk but it was also clear that he wanted me to taste the food. I didn't hesitate and eat the food and to my surprise, the food was really good. In fact, even if I want to say that Mom's cooked food in the Alternate World tasted good,  the food this guy makes are superior in every aspect that even if I am biased to Mom for many reasons, I can't find a way to put any reason why her food is good when the real good food is just before me.

As I was enjoying the food, the EX Job that I was waiting for has finally been granted to me.

[You have gained the EX Job, Master Chef]