Chapter 58 – The Senior’s Culinary Magic

Chapter 58 – The Senior’s Culinary Magic

Lilith sat in a chair beside the stove, wand in hand, fully focused on preparing a meal with Culinary Magic.

First, washing the ingredients, then chopping vegetables.

When washing vegetables, she could only clean one at a time, and whenever she turned the faucet on or off, she had to set the vegetable down first.

She chopped the vegetables one by one.

When moving ingredients, the knife had to remain still.

When she began cooking and was moving the spatula, she couldn’t add seasonings.

And when adding seasonings, she couldn’t move the spatula.

Four steaks, four servings of mashed potatoes, a pot of tomato bisque, and a small basket of baked bread — the whole thing took over two hours.

It was as if there were an invisible one-armed person cooking in the kitchen.

Cooking by hand, you at least had two arms, and could even multitask on occasion!

“Now I finally understand why my mother never uses Culinary Magic when she bakes bread or makes soup…” Sylph said. “When you look at it this way, Apprentice-level Culinary Magic is actually slower than just cooking by hand!”

“That’s one way to look at it! But you can only improve through practice! Sometimes using Culinary Magic in place of your hands does save a bit of effort, and you don’t have to stand so close and smell the cooking fumes — one whiff and I lose my appetite entirely.”

Lilith said, “Moira, do you understand now how to practice Culinary Magic?”

Mo Lan nodded. “I suppose I should start by controlling a single vegetable to wash itself!”

Every Culinary Witch is a master chef — but that statement only worked in one direction.

Culinary Witches were all master chefs, but master chefs were still a long way from becoming Culinary Witches.

“Exactly!” Lilith was relieved to see she understood. “You must all be starving! Time to eat!”

“That was really something! If even Culinary Magic is this hard to learn… and here I thought I’d be able to achieve food freedom through Culinary Magic in no time!”

Vasida sighed between large bites of steak.

Mo Lan wasn’t the only one who’d had misconceptions about Culinary Magic.

“There’s no need to be so discouraged — we’re Sorceresses!

Many witches, no matter how hard they try, are limited by their Talents and can never master magic they don’t have an aptitude for.

But we Sorceresses — as long as we want to learn something, there’s nothing we can’t master. And that’s not limited to just magic! It’s already an enormous advantage.

Besides, Sorceresses are guaranteed to break through to Peak rank, and we’ll live long lives. As long as we master the right methods of learning, we’ll have plenty of time to slowly study whatever we wish.”

Lilith consoled them.

“The senior is right! We just need to study steadily and diligently — we’ll get there eventually!”

Mo Lan had already absorbed the lesson and resolved to start over, practicing Culinary Magic from scratch.

While she’d been observing the senior cook, she had even summoned her Grimoire and made annotated notes on the page containing *《Learning Culinary Magic from Scratch》*.

“Um, Moira, I’ve been meaning to ask — that book of yours that looks a bit like the Book of Cards, the one with the purple gemstone… what is it?” Vasida asked.

“It’s my new Grimoire,” Mo Lan said.

“So that’s what you were doing all day yesterday? Making that?” Sylph asked in surprise.

“Mm-hm! I spent the whole day in the Castle and didn’t get back to the Dormitory until well past midnight. Oh, and thank you both for bringing in my laundry,” Mo Lan said.

“Wow! That’s incredibly fast! Did you actually finish reading all fifteen volumes of *The Birth of an Exquisite Cover*?” Vasida asked in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you stayed up all Friday night reading again! You really need to get proper rest!”

“I didn’t!” Mo Lan said. “You don’t need to read all of *The Birth of an Exquisite Cover*. You just pick a cover design you like from the collection and follow the steps to make it.

I selected several designs that resembled the Book of Cards, read through the crafting methods, then combined them into a comprehensive design of my own. I finished it all in one day.

Of course, being able to work that quickly also had to do with experience from my previous life.”

“Really? You don’t have to read all of them?” Vasida was tempted now. “I’ll infuse a few extra blank pages tonight and go copy that whole set of books tomorrow!”

“Let’s go together!” Sylph said.

If she didn’t need to study all fifteen volumes before she could make a beautiful cover, then she wanted to get herself a pretty new Grimoire as soon as possible too.

Lilith — who hadn’t rushed to upgrade her own Grimoire until three months before the end of first year, when she’d happened to read the author’s foreword on the title page of Volume One of *The Birth of an Exquisite Cover* — ate in silence, not daring to make a sound.

After a moment, seeing the conversation about Grimoires growing more and more animated and about to sweep her into it, she hastily changed the subject:

“How was Friday’s wand-crafting class? Did you end up remaking your wands over the weekend?”

“I did! I went through three different pieces of wand wood before I was even somewhat satisfied!” Vasida said.

“I switched mine twice too,” Sylph added.

“Ha! I knew it! Amisha has been going to greater and greater lengths to make us practice wand-crafting! Back in our day, we only had to redo our wands once,” Lilith said.

Vasida shook her head. “It wasn’t Amisha who made us redo them. It was mainly because after seeing the wand Moira made, we all wanted to make ours prettier and more elegant.”

“Wait — prettier? More elegant?” Lilith grew more and more confused. “Wasn’t your first wand the wrong size? Didn’t it feel awkward in your hand?”

Had Amisha had a change of heart? Was there any class of young witches she hadn’t tricked?

“No!” Sylph realized what Lilith meant. “Senior, are you talking about how the Headmistress deliberately doesn’t tell us what the branches we prepared are actually for? Moira figured that out ages ago — we all brought wand wood that suited us to the Alchemy Classroom.”

“…” Lilith was green with envy. “Moira, how did you figure it out?”

“I happened to read *Wands, Wands* on Thursday night,” Mo Lan said.

“You girls are so lucky!” Lilith said dryly.

“By the way, Moira, I didn’t get a good look before — what does your wand look like? What about it made the other girls want to redo their own?”

Mo Lan pulled her wand from her School Robe pocket. “I just did a bit of work on the wand wood.”

Vasida jumped in eagerly, producing her own wand. “Lilith, look at mine — how’s the polishing job?”

“I only polished half of mine. I left the handle in its natural state so it’s easier to grip,” Sylph said, pulling out her wand as well.

“…” Lilith quietly tucked her own wand from her waist into her School Robe pocket.

She was the senior? Did she even deserve the title?

Thinking back to how she’d been brandishing her raw, unworked tree-branch of a wand in front of her juniors while demonstrating Culinary Magic — she wanted to sink into the floor!

She was pretty sure the Second-Year Reading Room had a copy of *The Birth of an Exquisite Wand*?

She was going to copy it first thing tomorrow!