Flora took out the notebook and flipped to the first page.
The pages had yellowed slightly, but the handwriting was still very clear. The emotions of the notebook's owner practically leapt off the page: “To whoever found this journal, congratulations on obtaining my food research log! Well? Are you happy?!”
Flora smiled slightly at the message and turned to the next page.
The author of the journal had recorded her daily culinary experiments in a very casual, cursive handwriting.
“Day 1: Tried using mana to ripen wheat. Success! But... it tastes like grass! Conclusion: Mana-accelerated ripening does not improve taste.”
“Day 2: Tried using life magic to make the food move on its own so I wouldn't have to use my hands to eat. Result: The bread actually sneaked away! Now I have to go outside the dungeon to buy more!”
“Day 10: Improved the recipe. The bread stopped crawling... and started jumping instead! Dammit! I have to chase it around for every single bite! Conclusion: Highly inefficient.”
“Day 15: Made the food stop running away and instead march straight into my mouth. Success! But watching the food walk over so pitifully gave me a bizarre sense of guilt. Conclusion: Dammit! I've lost my appetite...”
“She was really serious about making food walk into her mouth.” Loviki, watching from the side, was thoroughly amused by the contents of the journal. “But is it really possible to bring food to life?”
“Yes, if you go far enough in life magic,” Chen Mian replied after a moment of thought.
“How far is 'far enough'?”
“About Mythic Rank, and specializing in life magic.”
“Huh? So this eccentric person was a Mythic Rank powerhouse?” Loviki's eyes widened.
“Doesn't the name Keyins sound a bit familiar, Loviki?” Flora looked up with a smile.
Loviki furrowed her brows in thought for a moment before suddenly remembering something. “The Life Witch...”
“Yes. If it's her, then the ecosystem of this dungeon makes perfect sense.” As Flora spoke, she continued flipping through the log, reading page by page.
Most of the culinary log consisted of experimental objectives, procedures, and results.
“Day 47: Discovered that Moonlight Grass powder can stabilize mana. Adding it to tomato soup enhances the flavor.
Conclusion: Moonlight Grass powder is an effective mana stabilizer. Ratio test: Stable effects at 1:100.”
“Day 433: Invented Flavor Enhancer. Ingredients: dried mushroom powder, seaweed extract, magic tomato concentrate. Ratio: 3:1:2. Effect: Umami enhanced, but left my tongue slightly numb.
Conclusion: Needs improvement. I'll call it Flavor Enhancer 1.0.”
This Life Witch's experiments were sometimes practical, and other times completely bizarre. Most of the experimental content was born of a passing whim, and she didn't seem to care much about the results. Yet, in this state, she had written a thick journal.
Flora cradled the hide-bound notebook, her fingers gently brushing over the words on the cover: “Keyins's Experimental Log: Culinary Chapter”. The handwriting was beautiful, and a tiny smiley face was drawn at the very end.
“She must have been a very interesting person,” Flora said softly.
Loviki leaned in, her chin almost resting on Flora's shoulder. “What else did she write?”
Flora turned to the next page and continued reading.
“Day 480: Today, I tried making cookies with frost steel powder.
Conclusion: Frost steel is inedible, but the cookies are glowing. They actually look quite nice, so I'll keep them as decorations.”
“Day 502: Invented glowing pudding. Ingredients: fluorescent mushroom extract, Moonlight Grass powder, egg.
Effect: After eating it, your tongue glows too.”
Loviki couldn't help but laugh out loud. “What does a glowing tongue even look like?”
“You'd probably feel too embarrassed to open your mouth and speak,” Flora laughed as well.
She continued turning the pages. The entries in the log became denser, and the handwriting changed from neat and tidy at the beginning to a hurried scribble, as if the writer's state of mind was constantly shifting.
“Day 8,616: So boring.
“Day 8,617: I've lost interest in food research too. Eternity all by oneself is truly boring to death...”
The handwriting was very faint, as if written in a daze. But immediately following that, the style of the text suddenly shifted. The writing became forceful again, and the ink color changed from light gray to deep black.
“No! If I modify plants, it should be very interesting! Witch Keyins's Experimental Log: Botany Chapter begins!”
Flora turned another page, but the log cut off there. There wasn't a single word written after that.
“That's it?” Loviki leaned in and reached out to flip through the blank pages at the back. “Didn't she say she was going to start the Botany Chapter? Why isn't there a single word?”
“She probably switched to a new notebook.”
Flora closed the log. As her fingers lightly stroked the spine of the book, she noticed that the leather on the spine was slightly bulging. Looking closely, she discovered a hidden compartment on the inner side of the spine.
Flora carefully pried open the compartment on the inside of the spine and pulled out a neatly folded piece of parchment.
The parchment was about the size of two palms, and drawn upon it was what appeared to be a cross-sectional map of this dungeon.
From top to bottom, there were seven floors in total.
Small icons were drawn next to certain floors.
On the first floor, a glowing cookie was drawn. Next to it was a note: “To whoever got this map, you must have found the Culinary Chapter, right? I have no use for these things anyway, so they're yours. I've marked the locations, so go get them yourself.”
On the third floor, an ice-blue crystal was drawn, with three question marks next to it, along with a line of text: “I forgot where I put the log for this floor. Why don't you look for it yourself?”
On the fourth floor, a mushroom with legs was drawn, with a note: “The experimental log for the Botany Chapter is at the usual place deep in the sea of trees.”
The fifth and sixth floors also had their own annotations, but the handwriting grew increasingly scribbled, and some parts were too blurry to read.
On the seventh floor, only a small star symbol was drawn.
“She separated her logs,” Chen Mian said with a smile as he looked at the parchment. “She hid one on each floor, each corresponding to a different subject.”
“So if we want to collect all of her logs, we have to visit every floor that has a mark?”
“Yes. Are you interested?”
“Of course!” Loviki refolded the parchment and handed it back to Flora. “What are we waiting for? Let's go.”
“Wait a moment.” Flora walked over to the stone counter in the corner of the cabin, pulled out a small cloth bag from her backpack, and carefully swept the jars and bottles with leftover powder on the counter into it.
“Flavor Enhancer 3.0.” She picked up the small bottle with the faded label and said with a smile, “If I can recreate this in the apartment's garden, Keyins's experiments won't have been in vain.”
Chen Mian walked up to Flora, pulled out a handful of frost-pistil honey candy from his backpack, and placed them on the stone counter.
“What are you doing?” Loviki poked her head over.
“An exchange.” Chen Mian stood up straight. “Since we took her things, we should leave something behind.”
Flora looked at the frost-pistil honey candy on the stone counter and smiled, her eyes crinkling.
Rate on N.U.
