Chapter 42: Everyone Shows Their Skills

Although they were not in the same space, or even the same dimension, everyone looked at the high platform in unison.
Behind the two sets of tables and chairs, there was an arched doorway.
It was conceivable that the judge would appear from that doorway.

The people present seemed to hear some movement.
When they looked towards the door again, a gust of wind whistled through it, mixed with a ‘guruguru’ sound, as if something was about to emerge from the darkness.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the moment the lord made his appearance.

Who would have thought that from within the archway, a giant soft-bodied creature’s head would suddenly stick out, getting stuck right in the doorway.
The thing looked around, its two antennae on top of its head waving in confusion, like an innocent little beast that had wandered into the wrong set.

What was that?

Some of the audience were startled, thinking the venue had been invaded by an unknown species, or that it was a monster-fighting plot arranged by the officials.
Before they could react, they heard the fellow cry out “Ouch!”, and then with a ‘pop’, it squeezed out of the opening.

Only then did everyone realize that the thing that had almost scared people just now was actually a size XXXXXXXXXXL snail!
At this moment, it was as if it had been kicked from behind.
Its light golden snail shell rolled rapidly like a chariot wheel.
In the astonished gazes of the audience on the platform, it crashed into the edge of the high platform with a ‘thump’, making the whole platform seem to shake a few times before it finally stopped.

“Sykes!!” they heard the snail shout angrily.
“I told you not to always play with me like a tail ball! How come you still haven’t changed this bad habit after so many years! I just got stuck for a little bit!”

Snails can actually speak human language?!

Amidst the shock, only Hua Yibing and the others who had seen Tom’s appearance before could remain calm—an NPC who seemed to have known the lord for a long time appearing on the judging panel of the finals seemed quite reasonable?

“Shut up, Tom.”

With a cold reprimand, another figure appeared at the entrance of the archway.
As soon as the figure came into the sunlight, the eyes of everyone present couldn’t help but narrow slightly, as if they had been blinded by something for a moment, making it difficult to open their eyes.

It was a merman with silver hair and golden eyes, possessing a radiant appearance that could not be looked at directly.

Before this moment, many viewers who had not seen Sykes’s old photos, even if they had seen some of the praise in the bullet comments, were somewhat dismissive in their hearts—it was just an NPC modeled by a game company.
How good-looking could it be?
But when the merman truly appeared before his eyes, he realized how wrong he was.

This noble lord was tall and slender, his face so beautiful that it was breathtaking, as if afraid of breaking this dream-like picture.
Even the amplitude of his tail’s swing was so slow and elegant.

Right, and that tail!
Perhaps some people disliked fish, but it was hard for him to say that he would dislike such a beautiful tail.
Its color was so pale it was close to transparent, and under the illumination of the light, it reflected a flowing, colorful brilliance.

So, such beauty that could transcend species boundaries and all kinds of aesthetics truly existed.

For a time, the bullet comments fell into a rare silence.
For about a minute, in a live stream room with tens of millions of people online at the same time, not a single news appeared.

It was not until Sykes finished reading the rules of the final round of the cooking competition and sat down in his seat that the bullet comments began to cautiously become active again.

[My god, is this a model that actually exists in the human world?]

[I heard the sound of funds burning. Nuwa, besides creating humans, did you also secretly pinch out a god!]

[I’m unilaterally declaring this is my future husband.]

[? Person above, I advise you to think twice.]

[Isn’t this the rhythm of making a lookist die alone? Sob sob sob, is the 2D world really that beautiful?]

[Please, please, official daddy, open up some more slots. This child is hungry.]

[When will Sea Realm have its open beta? Are there any insiders!!]

A group of lookists cried out and rushed to Sykes’s Super Topic.
For a time, the number of fans of the official Sea Realm account doubled again due to irresistible factors.
When the Cloud Weibo maintenance staff received an emergency notification to check for BUGs, they saw the familiar account and silently approved it—it wasn’t the first or second time this account’s fan count had grown rapidly.
He was used to it.

The snail also sat in the chair next to Sykes.
At this time, the wonderful use of the defensive rune carved on this chair was revealed—if not for it, it would absolutely not have been able to withstand the pressure of such a heavy snail.
But even with the powerful rune personally made by Sykes, when the snail stepped on it with half its body, the chair also made a teeth-grinding creaking sound.

The familiar large head on top of everyone’s heads, and everyone still remembered its unforgettable roaring bell.

This time, the time limit was one hour.
The ten contestants looked serious, taking out… from their own backpacks… prepared ingredients.

That’s right,… completely different.
Not only was the time extended by double, but the ingredients were also changed from being provided by the officials to being self-provided.
There was also a… registered dish, and it had to be an on-the-spot innovation.

However, the contestants who were able to make it to the finals would not be flustered by this.
They pondered for a while at most, and already had a decision.

A wide variety of materials were taken out of their backpacks and thrown onto the cutting boards.
The audience had a new fun, which was to look at each cutting board and count how many strange ingredients there were.

[What is this thing? A rock? Wait, that seems to be a fish?]

[WOC! That—so big—octopus leg!! Slurp]

[Can gems be used for cooking? Stop it!]

[Help, how can this vegetable leaf be so blindingly blue?]

[Hey, the final and the preliminary are not the same. So much meat, meat lovers are ecstatic.]

[Ahhhhhh, I just switched the camera and came face to face with a fish mouth. Why so many circles of dense teeth!! Trypophobia died on the spot.]

The audience was either ecstatic, surprised, or crying out as they took off their holographic equipment, still in shock.
But overall, they were still quite good at enjoying themselves.

And Sykes and Tom’s side also began to communicate.

It was said to be communication, but it was mainly the talkative Tom’s one-sided output.
Fortunately, the live stream couldn’t switch to the high platform’s perspective for the time being.
Otherwise, many of Sykes’s lookist fans would have climbed over through the holographic traffic to beat up this snail.

“Sykes, this group of domain citizens of yours seems quite creative. Wow, what did I see? A one-eyed octopus’s tentacle?” He widened his eyes.
“This group of little rascals really are taking advantage of their ability to resurrect to do whatever they want. I wouldn’t dare to eat that. Although the poison can’t cause me too much harm, the taste of octopus is so disgusting.”

Following his words, Sykes turned his gaze to Ge Feifei.
He saw the short-haired, energetic girl throw out a few fresh octopus tentacles from her backpack with a ‘thump, thump, thump’, and then began to dissect it with a strange smile.
Magic power was attached to the surface of the knife.
When she chopped the octopus meat, she looked strangely out of place.

[After comparison, this scene is common in human horror movies when a supernatural creature appears.]
Ella thoughtfully gave the answer.

‘She’s actually using the one-eyed octopus she defeated before to cook?’
Although he didn’t know what she was planning to do, this bold attempt was already worthy of Sykes’s praise.

In any field of knowledge, when you say “impossible,” it means your path in that field has come to an end—true knowledge will never have “impossible,” only that you are still too ignorant.

“That girl looks quite cute,” Tom shifted his gaze to the next contestant, a hint of praise in his voice.
“Her face is round, as round as the best-looking snail shell!”

“I think I’m looking forward to this girl’s work. What is she making? It’s a plant I haven’t seen before, but it looks delicious… Sykes!!!”
Tom turned his head abruptly and looked at his old friend.

“This can’t be another specialty from your place, can it! How many more delicious foods are there in your domain that I don’t know about!”

Sykes was interrupted by Tom and also shifted his gaze over.
He also recognized that girl.
It was the player who had performed extremely well in the Sea Realm famine incident—[Contemporary Foodie].

She was holding a giant fruit that had just been broken open, and was pouring some kind of light golden liquid into the pot in front of her.

“That’s a burning fruit. The liquid inside is flammable. It was originally often used by them to light up and play with as a fire ball,” Sykes looked at the fruit with some nostalgia, remembering the energetic fellows who used to play tail ball in teams.

Roba and the others were dedicated to making all sorts of beautiful balls.
He was also the first to discover that he could ignite a burning fruit to make a strange “fire ball.”
This kind of creativity was all the rage among the little merfolk for a while.
However, this level of flame wouldn’t even leave a trace on a cub’s tail, so the adult fish just let them be.

‘But she’s using it for cooking? Can a burning ball be used for cooking?’

Sykes decided to keep an eye on her actions.

Contemporary Foodie lived up to her name as the “Shennong of Sea Realm.”
Almost every ingredient she used was a specialty from the Sea of Death.
She cut fresh fish meat from a rock monster and placed it in a bowl, then poured in several kinds of fruit juice and chopped vegetable and fruit pulp, and set it aside to marinate for a period of time.

While the fish meat was still marinating, she painstakingly scraped layer after layer of fine white powder from a fruit that looked very much like a stone, gradually piling it into a full bowl.

When the fish meat was marinated into a beautiful pink color, the foodie used two thin tree branches to pick it up piece by piece, rolled it in the white powder, and then slipped it into the boiling burning fruit juice.

A question mark appeared above Sykes’s head—what was she doing?

The merman might not know, but the audience recognized what the foodie was about to make with one glance—

[It’s that, isn’t it? It’s that! I’m not wrong, am I!]

[I think so. Shocked. I can actually see someone making this dish in the sea.]

[Won’t oil and water mix? Wait, this isn’t scientific!]

[Person above, this is a magical world. What’s scientific or not?]

[Wait, what are you guys being so mysterious about? What is she making?]

[Is there even a need to say it? Fried food yyds! This is obviously fried fish fillet!]

Frying is an ancient Chinese culinary technique that is most popular with little children and some adults with the hearts of children.
Although fried food is high in calories, easy to gain weight, easy to cause internal heat, and always not so healthy, it still does not detract from its charm—

What can you do, it’s just that delicious QAQ!!

When a fried food shop suddenly opens on a street, passing customers will never ignore it.
They might even smell the tempting aroma that wafts for ten miles as soon as they approach the street.

Tom’s antennae swayed.
He tried hard to sniff the aroma coming from the contestants’ area—”It smells so good. What is this smell? Can food have such a wonderful aroma?”

His gaze swept across the whole scene and once again settled on the contestant he admired very much.
After confirming the source of the aroma, the snail shook his head and showed off to Sykes next to him.

“As expected of the contestant I have my eye on. Old Tom has traveled north and south for hundreds of years, and this is the first time I’ve felt such anticipation for food.”

“Maybe there will be more of this kind of anticipation in the future,” Sykes said “maybe,” but his tone had no hint of “maybe.”

This time, Tom was really surprised.
“Whoa, don’t tell me those little rascals also have the outrageous talent of ‘being able to cook’? Why did you give your domain citizens such a useless talent?”

“You know, food itself doesn’t taste good… No, they seem to be able to make it delicious. No, no, even if it’s delicious, cooking is a valueless skill. Do you know what I mean?”

The big snail was really worried for his friend.
He had no idea of the players’ true identity and was only looking at this matter from the definition of a domain citizen of this world.
When a lord’s strength reached a certain level, they could create their own vassals, also called domain citizens, through special means.

A domain citizen’s initial talent determines their development height.
There have been cases in history where some lords chose talents randomly, and as a result, those domain citizens not only did not bring help to the lord, but instead caused endless trouble.

Tom couldn’t just stand by and watch his friend waste a precious domain citizen talent.
“Instead of giving the domain citizens such a useless talent, why not give them some talent in potion-making? Maybe they can learn a few recipes from you and bring you some income.”

“I know what you mean,” Sykes raised a hand and stopped the rest of Tom’s words.
“But why not wait and see, see the food they make.”

Having known Sykes for so many years, Tom knew his personality better than anyone—he was calm, wise, and logical.
He had his own reasons for doing anything and never said anything he wasn’t sure of.

Just like what Tom’s grandmother would occasionally scold him with—”You foolish snail, Sykes is more like an inspiration-type than you!”

Since Sykes said so, did that mean…

Tom thought of something and twisted his snail head a hundred and eighty degrees, startling a few viewers in the stream room who had been staring at this side.

No way, my god, that’s impossible.