Chapter 952: Chapter 951: Ingredients and Recipes

“Rumble, rumble…”

The vibrations roamed from far to near, making the bed shake. Xia Yu couldn’t sleep in the yurt, disturbed by the noisy exterior, and simply sat up, deciding not to rest anymore.

Beep.

With a thought, the map of the Benchagan Lake surrounding area popped into view.

This was a reward for completing a mission, a system-provided ingredient marker, which could be zoomed in and out. A stationary red mark was a few hundred meters left of the lake center, and the coordinates hadn’t changed since Xia Yu arrived at the Hunter Camp at dawn.

“This lake area is surrounded tightly by the Hunter Camp, something is definitely keeping a close watch around the clock,” Xia Yu paced inside the personal tent.

Hunting ingredients alone?

Not to mention the besieged environment now, Xia Yu had little confidence regarding “its” combat prowess.

If it was easy to hunt, IGO’s elite group and the eight leaders of the Gourmets Club would have already subdued or eliminated its resistance to capture it alive, rather than taking nearly two months to corner it in this lake area.

Going solo for the loot is impossible; the feasibility is too low, so much that Xia Yu dares not dream.

Besides.

What Xia Yu coveted was the ‘Gourmet Cells’ in the ingredients. He didn’t need to hunt the whole thing, just a few pounds of meat to successfully cook a dish, wake up the Food Tyrant’s Stomach, and absorb the cell energy.

After several absorptions, Xia Yu had confirmed that from Golden Wheat to Merck’s Stardust, even if it’s forbidden golden ingredients, they can only be absorbed once.

In other words, each ingredient only offers one cell upgrade progress! No matter how much you eat, you can only absorb it once!

“How to minimize the risk and obtain at least a few pounds of ingredients?” Xia Yu pondered.

Rumble.

The sound of artillery was still dense outside. According to Jintan Shun, that artillery battalion was a force at the national level from Russia. With national powers involved, the situation in the Benchagan Lake area was undoubtedly complex, it’s no wonder Singh’s squad left early, saying there was no chance.

“Since these large groups and organizations cannot locate ‘its’ coordinates right now, can I exchange intelligence information for a portion of the ingredients back?” Xia Yu thought, eyes brightening.

“I don’t need much; getting a few pounds of meat counts as a bounty for this trip!”

Sitting cross-legged in front of a basin of charcoal fire.

A hot water kettle was clamped above the charcoal stove, water boiling and steaming. Xia Yu took down the kettle and kept staring at the blazing pile of charcoal, his mind shifting from making profit to the recipe.

Could the charcoal grilled alpaca leg recipe lead directly to perfection?

Xia Yu muttered: “Is it the fruitwood charcoal’s long-time roasting effect that makes the meat absorb the scent of fruitwood? This is like a blemish of charcoal black on a colorful palette for Fantasy Ingredients and Rainbow Wine, and to erase this blemish, it should start from the charcoal.”

Find smokeless, flavorless natural charcoal.

Or, minimize the charcoal roasting on meat ingredients like the alpaca leg.

“Hmm…” Xia Yu rubbed his brow.

His eyes were full of fervor.

Undoubtedly, the “perfect” recipe is his accumulation towards the Lin level.

He faced Wei Zhong with three golden arrows, initially consolidating a perfect key and confirmed how to use such a key to unlock the door.

Hence, the improved Golden Smiling recipe is the foundation of his Lin level.

Recipes are often the chef’s summary of experience and learning over a period. Creating and possessing more perfect recipes is strengthening one’s foundation. For example, wasn’t Liu Maoxing’s creation accompanying him on his travels worldwide?

“The mysterious ingredient currently under much attention is the key on my Food Domination path to the Lin level, while a perfectly glowing recipe is the foundation for my Gourmet Justice path’s transformation!”

Xia Yu murmured: “Once I accumulate a solid foundation, I believe the so-called ‘Gourmet Spirit’ will appear before me and be captured by me—!”

Finishing these words, he continued gazing at the fiery pile of coals.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded outside.

“We’re back…” Jintan Shun and Tulip entered the yurt one after the other. Jintan Shun sat down on the ground mat, noticing Xia Yu staring intensely at the charcoal basin, and teased, “Are you thinking about perfecting the recipe again? Aren’t you interested in hearing about the news we’ve gathered?”

Tulip didn’t bother with suspense, and with a serious face, said, “Benchagan Lake has already been contracted by IGO, the Gourmets Club, and various national forces, leaving no qualification for hunter teams or mercenary groups to penetrate the lake area!”

IGO and the Gourmets Club were fine, but nations’ governments’ involvement indeed made many hunters with no background hesitate.

If it were the original world of ‘Toriko’, government organizations would be considered trivial by hunters, but from the reality that IGO organizations and the Gourmets Club cooperated with various governments, it was evident that the so-called superpowers had not reached the level of recklessly destroying the White House.

To put it simply, this isn’t a world of highly elevated brute strength.

Xia Yu secretly thought, unsurprised.

“By the way!” he suddenly asked, “Who’s the person in charge from the IGO here?”

Tulip gave him a strange look, “It’s Luther and Adelaide; do you remember them? The heads of the IGO research institution and a high-level representative of the internal noble forces within IGO, both are Lin Chefs.”

“Oh—”

Xia Yu lowered his head.

…

Meanwhile, at the IGO camp.

“Are those Russian brute bears still trying the foolish approach of a carpet bombing to force that thing out?”

In a yurt serving as a temporary conference room, a blonde young man sat on a chair, rubbing his forehead in distress.

A white-haired, professor-like head of the IGO research institution said helplessly, “Our frogmen have been searching this lake area for a week, but to no avail. The Russian method is stupid, but it might be effective. If that thing is injured and forced to hide, it’s really troubling.”

These were none other than Tulip’s mentioned Luther and Adelaide, who had served as judges for the finals at the Sapporo International Competition and were quite renowned.

At this time, outside the yurt,

Lei Zhe and Tiqie Ji were brought here by a female secretary.

“Please come in—” The female secretary reported in and came out again, bowing slightly.

“After you, Lord Tiqie.” Lei Zhe, with a mocking smile, said to his former subordinate, Tiqie Ji, who shot back a cold glare and stepped inside ahead of him, with Lei Zhe following suit.

Luther and Adelaide welcomed the Gourmets Club guests.

Especially Tiqie Ji; Luther and Adelaide noticed a golden badge carved with a raven on his chest, showed solemn expressions, and slightly bowed, showing respect for the Golden Raven Badge.

This badge represented a Heavenly King of the Gourmets Club, and only the close confidants of such a King could hold it, like a special envoy.

“I brought something new from North America.”

Tiqie Ji said, “It will bring a breakthrough to our current searching efforts.”

Upon hearing this, even Lei Zhe cast an excited look at the silver-colored metallic briefcase in Tiqie Ji’s right hand.

Luther and Adelaide caught Tiqie Ji’s emphasis on “our,” hearing the emphasis clearly.

This undoubtedly represented the attitude of that Heavenly King.

We? Isn’t that Heavenly King always domineering? Since there’s a way to locate the prey, why wouldn’t the Gourmets Club consume it alone? Why the special trip? After sending off the King’s envoy, Luther and Adelaide discussed this for an entire morning in a closed meeting, calling several times via satellite phone to report to the Three Sages at headquarters.

Approaching noon, Adelaide received a friend’s message on his phone.

“Is he here too?”

Adelaide checked the friend’s signature, displaying a friendly attitude.

However, after glancing at the message content, the handsome blonde youth’s expression turned subtle, “Director Luther, I think you should see this message—”

He handed his phone to Luther, and the two exchanged glances.

First, it was that Heavenly King.

Then, that young chef who had been gaining fame domestically and internationally over the past year also claimed he could bring a breakthrough to the search efforts?

“Since he’s here too, let him come over to talk.” Luther chuckled and said, considering that if it were anyone outside IGO or the Gourmets Club, his attitude wouldn’t be this friendly, but that young man was different. Luther had once visited Xia’s Farm and brought back many things, and he had a significant wish to befriend Xia Yu and obtain his Miracle Tree cultivation technology.

Around lunchtime, Xia Yu arrived as promised, but he came alone.

“Sizzle…”

Inside the yurt, colorful lights shimmered. Xia Yu looked at Luther and Adelaide’s dumbfounded faces and said earnestly, “Do you see these extending micro-millimeter-level strands? They are my searching tools.”