Chapter 9 - The Ingredients From Mysterious Places

Panda Novel

Amy looked at the absent-minded Mag, who was still holding the plate by the table. “What’s wrong, Father?” Amy asked, not understanding her father’s behavior.

“Oh, nothing, Amy.” Mag shook his head quickly, smiling. “Here, drink some water and play in the restaurant. Father will make fried rice.” He pushed the glass to Amy and walked towards the kitchen at a fast pace.

“What a pretty crystal glass!” Amy held the transparent glass in her hands happily. She leaned on the table and looked at the glass from left and then right, not bearing to drink from it.

When Mag had just entered the kitchen, the calm voice of the system sounded again. “The ingredients in the kitchen are all from system’s farm, fishery, and pasture, which are located across the continent. Their price is the same as at their source. No transportation cost is charged. The price is absolutely reasonable. You can rest assured of that.”

“How is it reasonable that one green pea costs one copper?” Mag curled his upper lip. If he didn’t worry about the malicious punishment that might come from displeasing the system, he would have started criticizing it with his vicious tongue.

The monetary system on the Norland Continent was being improved over the past hundred years. In the time of the war among species, the trade had mainly been done through barter, and after the peace treaty was signed, economy had been developing, and the currency had emerged again. After a lot of fierce competition and rivalry, the currency issued by the Roth Empire came out on top because of its abundant supply, reasonable exchange rate, high stability, hard devaluation, and universal popularity.

The most worthless currency was copper coins. Mag searched in his memory and found that, in this Chaos City, the purchasing power of a copper coin was more or less the same as one yuan. 10 copper coins could be changed into one silver coin, 10 silver coins was the same as one gold coin, and 10 gold coins equaled one dragon coin.

If it were his previous life, a bowl of Yangzhou fried rice that cost 296 yuan would have been nothing to him, but he was the owner of this restaurant now. The ingredients alone cost him as much as 296 copper coins, so he should sell the Yangzhou fried rice for 500 copper coins each? If so, the customers might tear him to pieces. After all, all kinds of species were living here in this Chaos City.

“The green peas come from an uninhabited plain in the interior of the Twilight Forest, which belongs to orcs. The sunlight there is present for as long as 16 hours every day. Each head of the green pea can only produce 100 grains, in which only 10 best grains are selected to be sold. They have a sweet taste and are very nutritious.

“The shrimp come from the Staro Sea northeast of the Roth Empire. They are purple-striped shrimp that only exist on the Soro Islands. The waters there are very complicated, and a haunt of sirens. No humans fished there yet. Only 100,000 shrimp are produced each year. Their meat is very delicious.

“The rice comes from the interior plain in the Wind Forest, which belongs to elves. It is irrigated by the underground branch of the Spring of Life. No chemical fertilizer or pesticide is used. Each mu[1.Mu is a Chinese unit of area. One mu equals 0.165 acres. One acre is roughly 4000 meters square.] of land can only yield 300 jin ¹ of rice.

…

Mag listened as the names of places that were far apart came out of the system’s mouth one by one, and also all sorts of strange farming and breeding methods. His mouth slowly widened.

Leaving aside growing green peas in the lands of the orcs, whose territorial consciousness was so strong, the place near Soro Islands was famous for being deadly waters, more or less like the Bermuda on the Earth, perhaps. People said that even giant dragons would get lost in it, and the system was raising shrimp in those waters?!

As for the Spring of Life, it was elves’ holy spring, and the system was using it for irrigation?! Though the water was guided from just an underground branch, it still was such extravagance that perhaps elves hadn’t tried it themselves.

As to others, the tree mushrooms were planted indigenously on demons’ Ghost Islands; the ham was made from shadow boars, which only existed in forest trolls’ land; the winter bamboo shoots were dug from the black soil on Vic Mountain, which was goblins’ holy land; the eggs were produced in the hennery near Issen Castle, which was dwarves’ place of habitation; even the green onions were planted on the saline-alkali farm near Lordamere Harbor—their taste was said to be better than the normal ones’.

Mag’s predecessor had been a general of the Roth Empire’s vanguard, so he knew very well about the landscape and important regions of the continent. He didn’t inherit his family business in his previous life, but he got influenced a lot growing up, so he could easily figure out how precious these ingredients actually were by comparing them with his memories.

Were the purple-striped shrimp that cost 50 copper coins each expensive?

No, Mag wouldn’t have found it expensive even if the price increased tenfold.

These ingredients couldn’t cost this little even at their source. They were the best of the best that couldn’t be bought by money.

Besides, bringing them here made their price even higher—the technologies in freshness retaining and air transportation were not very advanced here.

People living in the inland cities had no chance to eat fresh seafood unless they had magic casters keep them alive with magic during the whole transportation. However, this was even more extravagant than the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang’s lychees ² . Mag seemed to recall that the royal family of the Roth Empire had a group of people exclusively responsible for seafood transportation, and they used a large bird known as red hawk to carry the seafood; it could be called the air transportation in this world. A fresh sea fish in the capital city could fetch a hundredfold more than in the harbor.

A shrimp, which was also the precious purple-striped shrimp, in this inland Chaos City was not exactly overpaid if some wealthy customer wanted it for 1,000 copper coins.

“Now, do you still suspect that system’s ripping you off?” asked the system.

“No, no, no. System, you’re too kind. Perhaps you’re the kindest man I’ll ever meet,” answered Mag sincerely. In fact, it could be said that doing business like this was a little too kind. Looking at those ingredients in the fridge, Mag came up with a bold idea all of a sudden. He asked tentatively, “System, maybe I could sell ingredients instead of opening restaurant. I think I can make money quicker this way.”

“The ingredients supplied by the system can only be used in the restaurant, and are not allowed to be sold,” answered the system calmly, and then it said, “New mission: the host has to buy 3,000 gold coins’ worth of ingredients with cash in 10 days. Completing the mission will unlock the new recipe—la zhi roujiamo ³; failing it will lead to strength -0.5.”

“Three… three thousand gold coins!” Mag had expected that system would not allow him to sell the ingredients, but the new mission almost made him cry out.

3,000 gold coins, that was 300,000 copper coins—a huge amount of money!

Besides, that was not turnover, but expense on ingredients!

The ingredients of one plate of Yangzhou fried rice cost 3 gold coins, which meant he had to sell 1,000 plates in 10 days. If he failed, his strength would decrease by 0.5, and he would go back to being half-disabled again.

“System, are you trying to make me a cripple again on purpose?” Mag couldn’t refrain from complaining.

Although he was very confident in his Yangzhou fried rice, still, for a restaurant that hadn’t opened yet, it was simply impossible to sell 1,000 plates in 10 days.

On the Norland Continent, fried rice was not a prevalent way of cooking; at least he didn’t remember eating this thing in his predecessor’s memory.

“The mission has been issued. Please complete it as soon as possible.” The system had no intention at all to negotiate with Mag.

“Well, we can leave that aside.” Mag realized that there was no room for negotiations, so, smiling, he said, “System, right now I have no money at all and haven’t had any breakfast. What do you say to giving me some more free ingredients? If I starved to death, it would be an end to our God of Cookery quest.”

“Given the host’s situation, system has launched the ‘Elephant Check Later’ project,” answered the system. “You can spend 3,000 copper coins in advance based on your credit, and pay it back before 10th of the following month. You can also choose to pay by installments, but there will be certain interest.”

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