Chapter 1074 – Mo Lan’s Daily Life as Headmistress 6

The Breadfruit was simply too sour.

After finishing a rough cleanup of the weeds in their yard that afternoon, the four famished young witches squatted by the Dormitory entrance, exchanging helpless glances. None of them wanted to gnaw through another tooth-achingly sour Breadfruit meal.

“Let’s go check out the Ingredient Collection Station at the West District Dormitory!” Tessa was the first to stand, brushing grass clippings off her robe as she planned with full confidence. “I can’t promise anything fancy, but grilled meat and egg fried rice are absolutely no problem! When I went hunting in the forest with Mom, I grilled meat tons of times—it came out so good. And the egg fried rice was taught to me by Egg Fried Rice—yes, the Zombie at our house named ‘Egg Fried Rice’—Mom says mine tastes even better than his!”

The more she talked, the more excited she got, already counting off ingredients on her fingers. “We definitely need meat, eggs too, and some rice…”

Sylvia nodded and joined the discussion.

During the years she’d traveled with her mother outside the Wilds, she’d had no shortage of exposure to cooking matters.

Especially during their time running a restaurant on Delicacy Island—she’d watched her mother’s kitchen utensils bustling about in full swing every single day, and she knew the varieties of gourmet cards in the Card Shop like the back of her hand, even though she herself had never actually set foot in a kitchen to cook.

“We could look for hotpot base,” she suggested. “If they have it, things would be easy! Just bring it back and boil a pot of broth, toss in whatever you want to eat, no need to worry about seasoning, and it won’t taste bad either.”

Dorella and Evelyn exchanged a silent glance and wisely held their tongues.

The two of them had grown up eating ready-made delicacies that their mothers materialized using gourmet cards. They knew absolutely nothing about cooking—they’d never even taken a proper look at what a kitchen looked like.

At this point, both had decided to simply follow Sylvia and Tessa’s lead. Whatever those two picked, they’d pick the same.

The four young witches quickly found the Red House near West District Dormitory No. 1.

It was a conspicuous two-story building with warm brick-red walls and a wooden sign reading “Ingredient Collection Station” hanging by the door.

Pushing the door open, the inside was far more spacious than they’d imagined.

Row after row of shelves stood in neat lines, categorically stocked with all manner of ingredients: fresh vegetables, pre-portioned meats, whole bags of grain, bottles and jars of seasonings… There was even a refrigerated cabinet specifically enchanted with preservation Magic for special ingredients, where faintly glowing deep-sea ingredients could be glimpsed inside.

Tessa found what she wanted with practiced ease—a large slab of rib meat perfect for grilling, a small bag of rice, a mesh bag of Dodo Bird eggs, and a few basic seasonings.

She gathered everything contentedly in her arms and turned to look at Sylvia.

But Sylvia was still lingering in the seasoning section.

She stood on tiptoe, her eyes carefully scanning the rows of bottles and jars, sweeping from left to right, then from right to left. Nothing.

She searched again. Still nothing.

Hotpot base—her long-coveted “universal cooking solution”—was completely absent from the seasoning section.

“They don’t have it?” Tessa came over to ask.

Sylvia shook her head with regret and had no choice but to abandon the hotpot plan. Following Tessa’s example, she dutifully picked up a small bag of rice, a bag of Dodo Bird eggs, a few cuts of Raw Meat suitable for grilling, and some seasonings to go with them.

She didn’t dare take too much of anything.

Because none of the ingredients here were ingredient cards—they couldn’t be carried away effortlessly. They had to be hauled back to the Dormitory on their own small frames, one load at a time.

There were too many things they were missing. One trip definitely wouldn’t be enough, so they could only take a little of each item, head back, and test the waters first.

On the way back to the Dormitory, the four young witches carried their bulging bags, switching hands every few steps, yet somehow managed to walk with a certain swagger of “self-reliance.”

As it turned out, Tessa hadn’t been boasting.

Her grilling skills were genuinely good.

Her marinating technique was practiced, her timing for flipping was spot-on, and the meat came out perfectly crispy on the outside and tender on the inside—the aroma wafting across half the yard.

Sylvia, Dorella, and Evelyn gathered around the makeshift grill, helping flip the meat while learning her marinade ratios, and actually picked it up quite well.

But the egg fried rice didn’t go nearly as smoothly.

Tessa stood at the stove, staring at the pot of uncooked rice, completely stumped. She only knew how to stir-fry with cooked rice, but how to turn raw rice into cooked rice—she had absolutely no concept.

Add water? How much? Cook for how long? In what kind of pot? A string of questions swirled through her mind, and in the end, she could only spread her hands in defeat and admit: “This… I really don’t know how.”

And so, the four of them got through their first day’s dinner on grilled meat and a few boiled Dodo Bird eggs.

As night fell, the four young witches sat at the dining table, rubbing their slightly rounded bellies, each lost in her own thoughts.

“Ahh!” Tessa suddenly let out a long sigh. “When are we going to learn Culinary Magic? We can’t just eat grilled meat every day, can we? No matter how good it is, you’d get sick of it…”

Sylvia pulled out her student card and opened the 《Academic Year Plan》 for a careful look. “We’ll definitely learn it in first year—it says right here in the 《Academic Year Plan》 that there’s a Culinary Magic course. But…” She scrolled down the light screen. “According to the schedule, our first week seems to be all introductory Alchemy classes. Culinary classes haven’t been scheduled yet.”

She paused, then her eyes suddenly lit up. “How about… we send a message to our year’s Teaching Headmistress? Didn’t the Headmistress say yesterday that if we had any questions, we should send them to our Teaching Headmistress, and they’d be answered collectively at tomorrow morning’s orientation meeting?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Tessa bolted upright. “I’m sending one right now! I want to ask: when can we learn to cook!”

Evelyn slowly raised her hand. “I want to ask… is there really no Breadfruit that isn’t sour? And do we really have to fill the water tower ourselves? Can’t the Ingredient Collection Station just stock ingredient cards directly?”

Even after learning to grill meat, she still felt that the kind of Breadfruit you could eat straight off the tree was the most convenient option.

If only it weren’t so sour—she’d be perfectly happy gnawing on Breadfruit for every meal, eliminating all the hassle of cooking entirely.

The water tower and ingredient collection issues were the same story. It was the first time she’d realized how draining these things were, and she just wanted to save effort wherever possible.

“Me too!” Dorella chimed in hastily. “I want to ask—where do we go to get seeds? I want to plant some flowers in our Dormitory yard. Without the scent of flowers, my whole body feels uncomfortable…”

Her voice grew softer and softer, because even she felt a bit embarrassed saying it out loud—everyone else was worrying about food, and here she was thinking about planting flowers.

But Sylvia nodded earnestly. “Alright! I’ve got it all noted down. Let me organize everything, and I’ll send it to the Headmistress all at once.”

She opened her 【Contacts】, found the entry for the first-year Teaching Headmistress, her slender fingertip hovering above the light screen as she turned back to her three companions:

“Should I send it?”

“Send it!”

Four little heads huddled together, watching the message on the light screen get whisked away with a “whoosh,” and then they all let out a collective sigh of relief.

They could only hope that tomorrow’s orientation meeting would bring answers to their questions.