Chapter 57: It's Over, I Messed Up

Chapter 57: Oh No, I Messed Up

Moran set out with full confidence, carrying a basket and preparing to gather more ingredients to show off her skills by making some Blue Star delicacies.

She planned to invite Vasidda, Sylph, and Senior Lilith over for a feast once she was done.

Food is always twice as delicious when shared with others.

Moran had seen her mother use cooking magic to prepare meals, and it looked incredibly effortless.

She wanted to have a good, relaxing night with her friends before facing the academic challenges of the new week!

However...

"Moran? Do you have a Mischief Maker in your dormitory?"

Lilith, Vasidda, and Sylph, who had come to dinner by invitation, hadn't even knocked before they heard a series of crashes and bangs. Then, the door swung open right before their eyes.

The room was a scene of chaos; pots, pans, cutlery, meat, eggs, and vegetables were scattered everywhere.

Moran stood outside the stove with her back to them.

From behind, she looked utterly desolate and helpless.

"Where is the Mischief Maker? If we don't catch it immediately, there will be no peace! There are no magic circles in the dorms; I knew a Mischief Maker would show up sooner or later!"

Lilith marched in aggressively, clutching her wand. "Is there any candy? Mischief Makers love candy most of all. Once they come out, I'll shave them into actual potatoes."

A Mischief Maker was a creature that looked like a small potato. They loved sneaking into homes to steal candy, and if the candy jar was locked, they would jump around angrily, turning the house into a mess.

There were only two ways to deal with a Mischief Maker in a home.

One was to leave candy in a corner or leave the jar open to bribe them; once they ate the candy, they would quietly leave.

Before leaving, they would leave a mark that only other Mischief Makers would recognize.

For a short time, a household that had hosted a Mischief Maker wouldn't be visited by others, but the specific Mischief Maker that was hosted might return one day in the future—not just to eat your candy, but to throw small stones, twigs, and dead leaves into your house.

Compared to that method, it was much more permanent to use candy as bait and kill the Mischief Maker when it appeared to eat.

A dead Mischief Maker would turn into a real potato. Smearing the potato juice in the corners of the house would scare away other Mischief Makers and effectively prevent them from visiting.

The more potato juice applied, the more effective it was at scaring them off.

Some poor families actually wanted to catch and eat Mischief Makers, but unfortunately, Mischief Makers never visited homes that had no candy.

In Valen, Mischief Makers were as inexhaustible as cockroaches on Blue Star.

Seeing that Senior Lilith and the others had already begun searching everywhere for the creature, Moran slowly turned her head. "I did it..."

Though it was a bit embarrassing... she couldn't let a Mischief Maker take the blame for her!

"What?" Lilith froze.

"I just... tried cooking magic? The result... well, you see it..." Moran said, feeling like she could cry.

A few minutes ago, she had stood confidently outside the kitchen, channeling her mana and using her will to command the ingredients and utensils to move.

The ingredients and utensils did move, but instead of organizing themselves as she had envisioned, they had broken out into a riotous collision.

And then... it turned into this.

"..." Lilith pressed a hand to her forehead. "Just how many ingredients and utensils were you trying to control at once! You can't rush cooking magic; rushing leads to trouble.

Don't let its status as the first spell a little witch learns fool you; it isn't easy. It requires not only proficient cooking skills but also very strong control.

Multitasking—controlling so many ingredients and utensils to cook several dishes simultaneously—is something only a high-level Gourmet Witch can achieve!"

Moran felt like crying. "I'm sorry, I messed up..."

She finally understood why *Learning Cooking Magic from Scratch* only taught how to use cooking magic to make bread, vegetable soup, and steak individually by the end of the book.

Furthermore, those three dishes were stripped of any extras; from the tools and ingredients to the preparation steps, they were incredibly streamlined.

She had originally thought it was because the book was aimed at little witches who had never cooked before, so everything was kept at the most basic level.

Since she already had a foundation in cooking, she thought she didn't need to follow the steps and could start practicing with those three dishes.

She hadn't realized that those three dishes were chosen because they had simple steps, single ingredients, and were easier to control with magic.

"Moran, it's your first time, it's normal!"

"The food isn't ruined; we can just pick it up, wash it, and it's still edible," Vasidda and Sylph comforted her.

Lilith waved her wand, and the items on the floor hopped one by one back into the basket or onto the stove.

Moran noticed that they moved one by one—one would return before the next one started.

They didn't all move at once to fly back.

"I'll do it today!" Lilith said. "Let me show you what apprentice-level cooking magic actually looks like!"

Moran nodded. "Thank you, Senior!"

She realized she had vastly underestimated Mama Shana's level of cooking magic, to the point where she had developed a completely wrong perception of it.

Mama Shana always said her first specialty was mental magic, her second was cooking magic, and she never claimed to be a Gourmet Witch.

But in reality, her cooking magic was definitely at a high level, worthy of being called a Gourmet Witch.

Moran needed to see what low-level cooking magic actually looked like.

Vasidda's family involved a zombie dad teaching a zombie chef how to cook, while Sylph mostly ate bread and soup made by her witch mom and fruit picked by her dad.

Both were extremely curious.

Under the expectant gazes of her three juniors, Lilith tucked her wand into her waist and picked up the basket of ingredients.

"Let's go! To my place! My cooking magic won't be as responsive in a different kitchen."

Moran and the others: "???"

"Aren't all the dormitory kitchens identical? Does cooking magic care about the location?"

Lilith led her three little followers back to her own dormitory.

"Exactly! Common utensils, especially those that have been imbued with your own mana, are much easier to control.

If you could precisely control and command absolutely anything, then cooking magic and housekeeping magic would be the best combat magic!"

Moran thought about it carefully, and it was true.

From controlling utensils to controlling weapons—a large number of weapons attacking enemies, each with its own order and without any chaos—what else could that be if not combat magic?

She wasn't surprised at all that her attempt today had failed; there were simply too many things she hadn't noticed.

Now that she had the chance to learn from her senior, she heightened her focus to the utmost to observe.

After placing the vegetable basket on the stove, Lilith sat on a high stool placed next to the counter.

"When you're a beginner, you must be able to clearly see everything happening in the kitchen!"