“Huh?”
Mag, who was busy cooking in the kitchen, was taken aback when he heard the system notification. He quickly raised his brow, and asked, “System, what on earth is this dark cuisine?”
“What era are you living in? Do I still have to explain the term ‘dark cuisine’?” The system sounded a little annoyed.
“No…” Mag rolled his eyes. He didn’t think that there would be a day when he would actually be mocked by the system. Of course he knew what dark cuisine was. It was just that the whole seven ‘Good Person Cards’ in exchange for a dark cuisine recipe gave him a shock.
“Dark cuisine has always been a slippery slope in the world of delicacies. It is also very mysterious, and might differ from area to area. However, that did not affect it from taking a special spot in the world of delicacies, and making people shudder from the sight of it,” the system continued expectantly. “And your current mission reward is to pick a recipe from the dark cuisine reserve.”
“Can I refuse?” Mag asked with a frown. He didn’t want to add things like stargazy pie or surströmming to his menu.
“No.”
“Heh, so what if you said no? Even if I accept it, I can always leave it out of the menu.” Mag pouted.
“…Host, you are challenging my authority! I am giving you a stern warning right now—”
“Alright, I’ll give you a five-dollar tip. Go aside and keep quiet.”
“Alright.” The system became respectful and disappeared immediately.
“Chowhounds of the alternate world, let’s see what kind of dark cuisine I’ll pick for all of you.” A mysterious giant wheel appeared in Mag’s head. Mag rubbed his hands together, and clicked start.
The giant wheel started spinning wildly. Mag could make out some of the names of the dishes on the wheel: deep-fried cicadidae, fermented soya-bean milk, stargazy pie, roasted moth, surströmming…
Just seeing the names of these dishes alone made Mag shudder. These dark cuisine recipes are really extreme.
“Ding! Congratulations. You’ve chosen the special dark cuisine recipe: roasted pig’s eyes!
“Roasted pig’s eyes are a specialty of Guangxi Province. It took a spot in the world of dark cuisine with its wild cooking and eating method. It even skewered its way to become an internet sensation.”
The system’s voice sounded.
“Roasted pig’s eyes?” Mag looked at the three glittery words on the giant wheel, and thought for a long time. “Can pig’s eyes be roasted too? What do you mean by skewered its way?”
“This is a new favorite of the world of dark cuisine. If it’s just skewering a stick of pig’s eyes on a stick and putting it on a grill, that would not be dark cuisine anymore! That’s horror cuisine!”
Mag looked at the golden experience bag in his head. It was the first time he felt repelled by a recipe. It felt as though he would be assailed by something very bloody and disgusting after he clicked it open.
“Aright, alright. I’ll just take it as I didn’t get this reward.” Mag was already about to leave.
“Wait a moment,” the system said.
Before Mag could even react, the golden experience bag that was suspended in front of him suddenly rushed towards him, and crashed into his head. In an instant, Mag saw stars everywhere.
Information swarmed into his brain, from cleaning and seasoning the bloody pig’s eyes to skewering the staring eyes, hearing the eyes sizzle on a grill, and seeing the moment the pig’s eyes squirted when bitten into…
Every scene was a shock to Mag.
Although the information could not be compared to the complicated dishes he learned in the past, the bloody and shocking scenes caused Mag to take a very long while before he could recover from the shock.
“System, f*ck you!’ Mag could not help but curse. He was caught off guard when the bloody scenes were thrown into his head.
“According to the system’s principles, once the host receives a reward, he has to claim it. It’s not something I could control,” the system said innocently.
“Still, f*ck you!”
Mag rolled his eyes.
As an adventurous foodie in his past life, Mag had tried food like stargazy pie and deep-fried cicadidae. To him, those dark cuisine recipes were still in acceptable range. If he found a place selling good deep-fried cicadidae, he would even sit by the roadside stall, and have a few rounds of drinks.
However, roasted pig’s eyes were of a higher tier than deep-fried cicadidae. It tested the chef’s courage when dealing with the big bucket of pig’s eyes and the customer’s courage when putting the piping hot roasted pig eye into their mouth, and feeling the liquid squirt out when they bite into it.
After watching all those scenes, Mag felt that the Great Old One seemed… not much of a big deal?
“If pigs could grow so many eyes, wouldn’t they be the perfect supply for pig’s eyes?” Mag was reminded of the stone statue that had numerous eyes on its tentacles in the stone box.
“The system has yet to discover a wild Great Old One. Taking the numerous-eyes genes and using it to modify that of a wild boar to increase productivity is something worth considering,” the system agreed.
“Forget it.” Mag pressed his lips together. He couldn’t be bothered with the system anymore. After he had claimed the experience bag and been through that process, his fear for eyeballs was basically gone. Even the trypophobia that he had had for years was cured.
“Ding! The host has picked the special dark cuisine recipe, roasted pig’s eyes, and triggered a hidden mission: please make the roasted pig’s eyes gain some fame in Chaos City within a week. The goal: sell 3000 skewers of roasted pig’s eyes!
“Mission reward: One set of super fusion recipe!
“Punishment for failing the mission: eat 10 pig’s eyes sashimi.”
Just as Mag was about to leave, the system’s voice sounded again.
“Huh?”
Mag froze instantly.
“Wait, what is pig’s eyes sashimi?! Can pig’s eyes be made into sashimi too?”
Mag felt like tearing that system apart right now.
He had heard of pig’s intestine sashimi, but was the pig’s eyes sashimi something real? Would the liquid in the eye squirt out the moment it was cut open?!
“Please complete the mission on time,” the system said calmly.
“Also, what is that super fusion recipe?” Mag asked, putting the pig’s eyes sashimi aside for a while.
“Because of the limited ingredients, the foodies on Earth could only produce food made from whatever ingredients that were available on earth. In Norland Continent, we have better ingredients. After organizing the experience of all the chefs, the system had fused and recreated the ingredients on the Norland Continent to produce a batch of super fusion recipes,” the system replied.
“It sounds like… the dark cuisine.” Mag frowned.
“Nonsense! As a God of Cookery Cultivation System, no other system is more professional than I am in this aspect!” the system said seriously.
“Haha.”
