Chapter 133 – How Did the Gap Get Even Wider?

Iris believed what Mo Lan had said.

For the next week, she spent every spare moment she had grinding away at Culinary Magic.

As for Mo Lan… Mo Lan prepared lavishly abundant three meals a day for herself every single day.

Each dish was small in portion, but the variety was extensive.

Under the premise of not wasting anything, she managed to slightly increase her Culinary Magic training volume.

Her Culinary Magic level was climbing rapidly. Before the week was even over, her maximum mana output had already surpassed 2%, breaking through the Apprentice rank to reach Beginner.

With her total mana pool of 1,650 Mana, she could now channel 33 Mana at once to control kitchen utensils for cooking.

According to the textbooks, this level of mana output was enough to control half a kitchen’s worth of utensils without any issues.

Many Advanced Culinary Witches only had about twice this amount of mana output for their Culinary Magic.

Mo Lan’s own rank wasn’t lacking at all—she was already an Advanced Sorceress. It was only her Culinary Magic rank that had been lagging far behind.

Controlling a single utensil to cook was completely effortless for her now, and she’d practiced quite a number of dishes already.

It was time to try controlling multiple utensils simultaneously.

She started by practicing controlling a knife to chop vegetables while keeping the cutting board steady at the same time.

Then she practiced tossing a wok while stir-frying; holding a serving plate floating beside the wok while scooping food out with a spatula…

At this point, splitting her attention to do other things while performing Culinary Magic became impossible again.

The concentration required for Culinary Magic had risen another notch.

But Mo Lan was already well-accustomed to this. With more practice and familiarity, the required concentration would gradually decrease.

Her original Culinary Magic concentration had already been sufficient for multitasking, but she hadn’t rushed ahead in order to build a more solid foundation.

Now it was simply going from controlling a knife while reading a book, to controlling a knife while also controlling a cutting board—the increase in difficulty wasn’t that significant.

Mo Lan mastered it quickly, advancing to controlling both the knife and cutting board while reading a book.

Her cooking speed picked up, and her meal preparation efficiency improved. With the extra time, she could even spend some of it Attuning her kitchen utensils.

Meanwhile, Iris had been training desperately for a week. Every day she could see the green in her progress bar inching forward ever so slightly, with the numbers ticking up by 0.01% at a time.

She had to admit, it really was satisfying. The more she practiced, the more motivated she felt—she didn’t feel tired at all.

Before, she loved Culinary Magic because she enjoyed the process of transforming ingredients into delicious food, savoring the taste when it reached her lips.

Now there was something else to add: watching the progress bar grow!

Sometimes when the progress bar wouldn’t budge, she knew her learning state was off and she wasn’t making progress, signaling that she needed to adjust.

And yet… she had been so close to Mo Lan, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the progress bar to turn red.

Unable to hold back any longer, she went to ask Mo Lan about her progress again.

“What? You’re at Beginner rank? How much mana output?”

“Around 2.5%, I think. But honestly, I can’t even use that much yet—my concentration hasn’t caught up,” Mo Lan said.

The difference between an Advanced Sorceress’s 2% and an Apprentice Witch’s 2% was absolutely enormous.

Iris was dumbfounded. “How did the gap get even wider?”

She had just reached 1.9%.

Truly, thanks to the progress bar, she had even meticulously calculated her own magical power output ratio. The calculation alone had taken her over an hour to complete.

“Moira, you haven’t been grinding Culinary Magic like crazy this week too, have you?” Iris asked.

Mo Lan held up her finger, indicating a tiny segment of her pinky. “I increased my practice time by just this much! I just made a few extra different dishes with each meal. Don’t worry, nothing was wasted—I reduced the portions by a lot.”

“Is this about whether things are wasted or not?” Iris’s vision went dark. She understood where the gap lay now.

Her dormitory was so stuffed with stockpiled meat that there was barely room left—all of it the product of Culinary Magic practice. Every day she had to ask Vasida to help eat the excess so it wouldn’t go to waste.

Later, when she couldn’t stand carrying food back and forth anymore, she simply started practicing her Culinary Magic right there at the Ingredient Collection Station, with Vasida going directly there to help her eat.

But all her practice had been focused on the same few dishes—the ones she was best at. She simply didn’t have the time or energy to learn more recipes.

Vasida had gotten so sick of the same food that she’d started using her Devouring Stomach to help dispose of the excess dishes.

But Mo Lan? She had already cooked who knows how many different dishes.

That was it. Setting magic aside entirely, just in terms of cooking skill alone, Iris was far behind Mo Lan.

What Mo Lan needed to learn was Culinary Magic. What Iris needed to learn, besides the magic, was also the cooking itself.

With a gap this large, it wasn’t really that surprising.

Iris suddenly felt that her hopes of surpassing Mo Lan in Culinary Magic were terribly slim.

“Hang in there! I’ve been feeling like I’ve hit a bottleneck lately—the difficulty of controlling multiple utensils at once is increasing exponentially,” Mo Lan said.

Iris: “…”

That was not comforting in the slightest, thanks!

Her problem wasn’t an inability to multitask. It was that even though her magic rank was approaching Beginner, her overall rank was only Apprentice. Her total magical power was too low—even at 2% output, the amount was pitifully small, nowhere near enough to control two utensils at once.

She silently walked over to where the other young witches were gathered and said with grave sincerity, “I’m done for. Moira’s Culinary Magic is basically unbeatable among all of us. It’s up to you now!”

The other young witches: “…”

Alba, who specialized in light-element magic yet whose Light spell was still only at Apprentice rank, and Cheryl, who specialized in fire-element magic yet whose Flame spell was still only at Apprentice rank—they were supposed to be the ones to step up?

Word was that aside from Household Magic, the only spell Mo Lan still had at Apprentice rank was Levitation Spell!

“No, look—in other types of magic, everyone started from the same point. You’re all specializing in what you’re best at. Don’t you have confidence that you can beat Moira, who’s trying to learn so many different types of magic at once?” Iris asked.

“Who says we don’t? Just because we can’t surpass her this year doesn’t mean we can’t next year. And just because we can’t next year doesn’t mean we never will!” Cheryl declared, refusing to back down.

Her monthly exam scores had been getting closer and closer to Mo Lan’s—why should magic be any different?

“Moira, is there a time limit on the gacha rewards?” Cheryl asked her.

“Nope! They’re valid forever,” Mo Lan said. “Even after we graduate and everyone goes their separate ways, the rewards will be sent to you through Sorceress Magic!”

The young witches: “!!!”

They refused to believe this. They had all enrolled at the same time—even if they couldn’t match Mo Lan in overall ability, there was no way they couldn’t beat her in a single type of magic!

Vasida and Sylph: “\u03c8(*\uff40\u30fc)\u03c8”

Mo Lan was going for all-around development! They couldn’t afford to fall too far behind either!

Mo Lan: “!!!”

This was bad—the young witches were getting serious!

She needed to work even harder!

Every other young witch had a progress bar motivating them to study. She was the only one without one.

Her progress bar was the young witches chasing right behind her!

Not letting the young witches’ progress bars turn red—that was one of her driving motivations to keep pushing herself.