Divine Level Witch Doctor

”When the snake soup is done, I take eighty percent, you take twenty,” Zhao Yuan repeated what he’d just said.

A flash of anger crossed the fat boss’s face. ”Impossible! The rule here has always been that I take ninety percent of any finished dish. I was already giving you a discount by only taking eighty percent, and that was just because the snake meat is decent quality! You need to understand something. This snake meat might be good, but without my cooking methods, its full effects can’t be brought out. My culinary skill is the key, and it’s worth taking an eighty-percent share!”

Zhao Yuan nodded. ”You’re right. The culinary arts of the Tripod Cuisine School can indeed perfectly draw out the Qi contained within this snake meat. But that doesn’t mean your cooking is the most critical part. Without an ingredient that contains Qi, no matter how skilled you are, you can’t make bricks without straw. Besides, in addition to the snake meat, I also have some medicinal materials that we can add to the snake soup to elevate its effects even further.”

With that, he flipped his hand over and produced several medicinal herbs from his Storage Ring, all picked from the Chinese herbal garden.

The fat boss didn’t immediately inspect the herbs. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and stared at Zhao Yuan. After a long moment, he glanced around before asking with a grave expression, ”How did you know I’m a disciple of the Tripod Cuisine School? And how did you know this snake meat contains Qi? Don’t tell me... you’re a Cultivator too?”

Zhao Yuan just smiled, not answering the question.

The fat boss took his reaction as a silent admission.

The fat boss’s expression immediately shifted to a warm, friendly smile. He asked tentatively, ”I had no idea you were one of us. May I ask which school you belong to?”

Before Zhao Yuan could answer, the boss’s gaze suddenly landed on the herbs in his hand. He froze for a second, then exclaimed, ”Are these... Mutated Medicinal Materials?!”

He was right. In terms of age, the herbs Zhao Yuan had picked from the Chinese herbal garden were only average. After all, he hadn’t been in charge of the garden for long. Even with the Chinese Herbal Cultivation Technique he learned from the Information Leaf, the herbs were equivalent to being only a dozen or so years old. Of course, they had actually been planted for a mere ten days. But strangely enough, a batch of them had mutated, producing Qi and becoming true Spirit Medicinal Materials!

’Was it the good feng shui at West Hua Medical University? Or an issue with the garden’s soil and water? Or maybe it was a bonus effect from the Peach Blossom Spring?’

Even Zhao Yuan himself had been shocked by this development.

He certainly couldn’t let these Mutated Spirit Medicinal Materials go to waste on someone else. Besides, in the hands of a layman, such precious things would be squandered. That was why Zhao Yuan had picked some of them, planning to cook them with the snake meat to boost the soup’s effects.

As for the rest, he left them to continue growing; it wouldn’t be too late to use them for Alchemy when the need arose. To prevent anyone from stealing them, he had even set up traps all around the herbs. It was a trick he’d learned from a mountain hunter as a child, more than enough to deal with petty thieves.

The fat boss stared at the Mutated Medicinal Materials, his eyes practically bugging out of his head.

In the Ancient Era, Spiritual Qi was abundant. Animals and herbs containing Qi were practically everywhere. That was a golden age for Cultivators. But as time went on, the world’s Spiritual Qi gradually waned and thinned. By now, animals and herbs containing Spiritual Qi had become incredibly rare. Zhao Yuan wasn’t surprised at all by the fat boss’s expression of ecstatic shock.

”Just the scent of these herbs is intoxicating! If they’re cooked together with the Qi-containing snake meat into a medicinal snake soup, the effects will be several times greater than a normal snake soup, if not more!” The fat boss’s voice was a little muffled. A closer look revealed that his mouth was so full of saliva that it was starting to drool out.

Dark lines formed on Zhao Yuan’s forehead.

’Does he really have to drool like that? People from the Tripod Cuisine School really are gluttons!’

Overjoyed, the fat boss’s gaze fell on Zhao Yuan once more. He said with a broad grin, ”So you’re a disciple of the Elixir School! Come to think of it, our Tripod Cuisine School and your Elixir School have a lot in common.”

Zhao Yuan had already learned about the Elixir School from the Information Leaf. It was one of the many Cultivation Schools, one that focused on cultivating medicinal materials and then refining and consuming Elixirs to advance their Cultivation. It was an incredibly difficult school to master, so it had very few disciples. However, every Pill Master held an extremely high status, simply because in a world with such thin Spiritual Qi, Elixirs were a massive help in advancing one’s Cultivation!

It seemed the fat boss had mistaken him for a disciple of the Elixir School because of these Mutated Spirit Medicinal Materials.

Zhao Yuan decided to go along with the misunderstanding and didn’t bother to explain. He just asked, ”Well? You should agree to my eighty-twenty split now, right?”

”No, no.” The fat boss waved his hand dismissively. ”Since you’re one of us and you’ve brought Mutated Spirit Medicinal Materials, I can give you a bigger share of the medicinal soup... How about this, we split it fifty-fifty!”

’A fifty-fifty split wasn’t bad, but Zhao Yuan knew he couldn’t keep something this good all to himself. He planned to share some with the White Cat and his friends, as well as store a batch in his Storage Ring to take home to his family for New Year’s.’

The Storage Ring Space was a special environment where items could be stored indefinitely without spoiling.

’So a fifty-fifty split simply wouldn’t be enough.’

”Eighty-twenty,” Zhao Yuan insisted, adding, ”If you agree, I can provide your Lakefront House with a long-term supply of medicinal materials in the future.”

The fat boss’s eyes lit up instantly. ”Will they all be Mutated Spirit Medicinal Materials like these?” he asked eagerly.

”How could that be possible!” Zhao Yuan rolled his eyes at him and said, exasperated, ”Mutated Medicinal Materials are a matter of luck; you can’t just cultivate them on demand. I can provide you with large quantities of ordinary medicinal materials, but I can guarantee they’ll all be wild-grown and decades, even a century, old!”

The fat boss looked disappointed for a moment, but then his interest was piqued.

’Even if he couldn’t get Mutated Spirit Medicinal Materials, wild herbs that were decades or even a century old had a chance of becoming Qi-containing food after he cooked them! If he could consume that long-term, his own Cultivation would surely take a huge leap forward!’

”How about the price?” the fat boss asked.

Zhao Yuan smiled. ”The price is negotiable, and I definitely won’t rip you off. But I have one condition: whenever I come here to eat, you have to be the one cooking.”

”No problem!” the fat boss said with a grin. ”As long as you can keep me supplied with high-quality wild medicinal materials, you can come by for a free meal every day for all I care.”

Zhao Yuan shot back immediately, ”You said it, so I’m holding you to it!”

The two of them looked at each other, then burst out laughing together.