Chapter 58: Senior's Cooking Magic

Chapter 58: Senior's Cooking Magic

Lilith sat on a chair by the stove, wand in hand, concentrating intensely as she used cooking magic to prepare a meal.

First, she washed the ingredients, then she chopped the vegetables.

When washing, she washed only one vegetable at a time; whenever she turned the faucet on or off, she had to set the vegetable aside.

When chopping, she cut them one by one.

When moving ingredients, the knife remained stationary.

When she began cooking, she couldn't add seasonings while the spatula was in motion.

If she wanted to add seasoning, she had to stop moving the spatula.

It took a full two hours to fry four portions of steak, four portions of mashed potatoes, a pot of thick tomato soup, and bake a small basket of bread.

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

At least when cooking by hand, one has two hands and can occasionally multitask!

"Now I finally know why my mother never uses cooking magic when she makes bread or simmers soup..." Sylph said. "Looking at it this way, apprentice-level cooking magic isn't even faster than cooking by hand!"

"That's one way to put it! But you only improve through practice! Sometimes, using cooking magic to replace your hands can save a bit of effort, and you don't have to stand so close to smell the oil smoke, which can ruin your appetite."

Lilith said, "Moran, do you know how to practice cooking magic now?"

Moran nodded. "I suppose I should start by controlling a single vegetable to wash itself!"

The saying "Every gourmet witch is a culinary master" could only be said forward, not backward.

Every gourmet witch is a culinary master, but a culinary master still has a long way to go before becoming a gourmet witch.

"Exactly!" Seeing that she understood, Lilith felt relieved. "You must be hungry! Let's eat!"

"That wasn't easy! Even cooking magic is so hard to learn... I thought I'd be able to achieve 'eating freedom' through cooking magic very soon!" Vasita lamented while taking a large bite of meat.

Moran wasn't the only one who had misunderstood cooking magic.

"Don't be so discouraged. We are witches! Many witches, no matter how hard they try, will fail to master magic they aren't naturally talented in due to innate limitations. But for us witches, as long as we want to learn, there is nothing we cannot master—and that applies to more than just magic! That is already a huge advantage. Furthermore, witches are destined to break through the peak stage and live long lives. As long as we master the method of learning, we will have plenty of time to slowly learn whatever we desire," Lilith comforted them.

"Senior is right! We just need to study steadily and earnestly. We'll master it one day!" Moran had already learned her lesson and decided to start over and practice her cooking magic.

While observing her senior cook, she had even summoned her Witch's Book and made annotations in the margins of the page for *Learning Cooking Magic from Scratch*.

"Um, Moran, I wanted to ask just now—that book of yours that looks a bit like the Card Book, the one with the purple gem, is it..." Vasita asked.

"It's my new Witch's Book," Moran said.

"So you spent all of yesterday making that?" Sylph asked in surprise.

"Yes! I stayed in the castle all day and didn't return to the dormitory until the middle of the night. Oh, and thank you for helping me collect my clothes," Moran said.

"Wow! You're too fast! Did you really finish all fifteen volumes of *The Birth of a Beautiful Cover*?" Vasita asked in disbelief. "You didn't stay up all night reading again on Friday night, did you? You need to get enough rest!"

"No!" Moran said. "I didn't need to read the whole thing. I just had to pick a cover design I liked and follow the steps. I picked several designs based on the style of my Card Book, and after reading the production methods, I designed a composite one and finished it in a single day. Of course, being able to do it so quickly is also thanks to my experiences from my previous life."

"Really? You don't have to read it all?" Vasita was tempted. "I'll enchant a few more blank sheets of paper tonight and go copy that set of books tomorrow!"

"Let's do it together!" Sylph said. If she didn't have to study all fifteen volumes to make a beautiful cover, she also wanted to upgrade to a prettier Witch's Book as soon as possible.

Lilith, who had hurriedly updated her own Witch's Book after accidentally seeing the author's dedication on the title page of the first volume of *The Birth of a Beautiful Cover* three months before the end of her first year, ate her meal in silence, not daring to speak.

After a while, seeing that the topic of Witch's Books was getting hotter and was about to involve her, she quickly changed the subject

"Was the wand-making class on Friday pleasant? Did you remake your wands over the weekend?"

"Yes! I had to change three different wand materials before I was finally satisfied!" Vasita said.

"I changed two materials as well," Sylph added.

"Haha! As expected! Ms. Amisha is certainly going to extremes to make us practice wand-making more! We only had to remake our wands once back then," Lilith remarked.

Vasita shook her head. "It wasn't Ms. Amisha who made us do it. It's mainly because after seeing Moran's wand, we all wanted to make ours more beautiful and aesthetic."

"Wait, beautiful? Aesthetic?" Lilith became more confused the more she listened. "Wasn't your first wand just the wrong size or awkward to hold?"

Had Ms. Amisha changed her ways? Which batch of little witches hadn't been tricked by her?

"No!" Sylph thought of something and said, "Senior, you mean the Headmistress intentionally didn't tell us what the prepared branches were for, right? Moran already figured that out long ago. We all went to the alchemy classroom with wand materials that were actually comfortable to use."

"..." Lilith was dying of envy. "Moran, how did you find out?"

"I happened to read the book *Wands, Wands* on Thursday night," Moran said.

"Then you are truly lucky!" Lilith said dryly. "By the way, Moran, I didn't notice before—what does your wand look like? How did it make the other witches want to remake theirs?"

Moran pulled her wand from her school robe pocket. "I just processed the wand material a little bit."

Vasita joined in the fun, pulling out her own wand. "Senior Lilith, look at mine. How is the polishing and sanding?"

"Mine is only half-polished; the handle is still in its original state so it doesn't slip out of my hand easily," Sylph said, producing her wand.

"..." Lilith silently tucked the wand at her waist into her robe pocket.

Was she a senior? Did she even qualify?

Thinking back to just now, when she had ostentatiously brandished her raw branch version of a wand to demonstrate cooking magic in front of her juniors, she felt like she wanted to sink into the ground!

She remembered... wasn't there a book called *The Birth of an Exquisite Wand* in the second-year library?

She would go copy it tomorrow!