Chapter 11: Rapid Progress (Patreon)

Then Stephen Chow paused.

He tossed out a question that left Ramsay baffled: “Do you know that even if you perfect Inner Force Infusion, Tendon-Shattering, and the Fire Cloud Palm Fried Egg, this bowl of rice would score eighty points at most in my book? And that even that isn’t good enough?”

Ramsay shook his head blankly. He had no idea why.

Stephen Chow’s gaze turned solemn. Word by word, he laid out the scoring rules that applied to Sorrowful Rice alone: “Strictly speaking...”

“This dish is one of a kind in the world.”

“There’s never been a range from sixty to ninety-nine. There are only three tiers.”

“Below sixty is a fail. Exactly sixty is a bare pass. Only the flawless earns the full hundred. Anything in between doesn’t count.”

“Because...”

“Sorrowful Rice.”

“It’s the most special kung fu dish under heaven.”

“The two words of its name are the core. First comes sorrow, then comes the soul-melting bliss... And in my original world, it was acknowledged as an unsurpassable, supreme delicacy!”

“But.”

“Many people.”

“Crave only the savory fragrance of the char siu and the egg.”

“They never grasped the true essence hidden beneath the flavor.”

“To make a perfect Sorrowful Rice, you must meet two indispensable innate conditions at once. Miss either one, and you’ll never touch the realm of true soul-melting bliss.”

At the stove. The aroma hadn’t faded yet.

Ramsay looked down at the rice on the plate, the dish he’d recreated in a few short minutes.

Then he looked at the God of Cookery before him, who saw straight through everything. A clear direction suddenly took shape in his mind.

More than ten years of imitating behind closed doors had only scratched the surface. Today’s guidance had finally pushed open the door to the true meaning of the culinary way hidden inside Sorrowful Rice!

…

“Alright.”

“I understand now.”

“I know what I want to chase through cooking.”

Ramsay raised his eyes to Stephen Chow. There wasn’t a trace of confusion left in them.

Hearing that, Stephen Chow’s mouth curved into a faint smile, and his slightly sharp eyes softened. “Good. Since your mind is made up, our formal lessons begin today.”

Then he walked over to the stove.

He rapped a fingertip against the heavy iron wok. The sound came back dull and deep.

“I told you before that what I study is a one-of-a-kind kung fu cuisine.”

“To master this craft, cooking fundamentals are only the foundation. The kung fu training that goes with it is just as essential.”

Ramsay was about to ask more, but Stephen Chow raised a hand to calm him. “The kung fu methods can wait. First, settle your mind and polish the most basic cooking skills.”

…

Yes.

Stephen Chow’s teaching had no flashy shortcuts. He used only the plain, stubborn methods left over from his early years of hard training, yet every one of them struck at the heart of the matter.

He had learned his craft in the kitchens of Shaolin Temple, where cooking meals was never separate from martial practice. Training in the kitchen was training the body, and wielding a ladle was like wielding a weapon!

An iron wok filled with sand. Toss and lift it again and again to temper the stir-fry technique. The strength in the wrist and the judgment of each flip couldn’t be off by even a hair.

And holding a horse stance on iron-wood stakes, keeping the lower body steady, trained the endurance to stand at a stove for hours!

Now. Ramsay finally understood.

He understood what kind of hard years Stephen Chow had endured in the Shaolin kitchens back then.

Legs rigid in the stance, arms held out and shaking a wok full of fine sand without pause, the dull clatter of iron grit ringing in his ears nonstop. Shoulders, back, waist, abdomen, legs... every inch of muscle was strained past its limit!

In the end. Soreness and exhaustion. Spread through his limbs and into every bone!

Even though Ramsay could enter the Study Space and train with his consciousness submerged, the sensations weren’t dulled in the slightest. The ache in his body and the drained exhaustion were etched into his senses, and none of it was fake!

But. Ramsay had the temperament to bear hardship.

His whole body was limp and sore, and sweat kept sliding down from his temples to soak his clothes.

Yet he didn’t utter a single complaint. He just clenched his teeth, held his stance, and repeated the dull motions over and over!

Stephen Chow watched from the side, a trace of approval in his eyes as he looked at Ramsay, whose stance held firm and whose wok never stopped. He spoke up with a pointer: “Being a chef is a job that drains the body.”

“During the rush, you stay at the stove, and standing there takes the whole day.”

“So.”

“Without a strong waist.”

“You can’t sustain long stretches of stir-frying.”

Ramsay quietly committed it to memory.

…

The world of Shokugeki. Never lacked young chefs of outstanding talent.

Those darlings of heaven had extraordinary gifts and had soaked in kitchens day and night, honing their skills since childhood.

Ramsay. Had started halfway through.

If he wanted to catch up to them, or even surpass them. There were no shortcuts to cheat his way there. Only several times, even dozens of times, the hard work.

Stephen Chow could pass on cooking techniques without holding anything back, but the insights into the culinary way built up over decades couldn’t be poured into his head out of thin air.

Even if everything were explained, digesting it and making it his own would still take a long time to settle! Ramsay understood that well, and he wasn’t the least bit impatient. He calmed his mind and polished his foundation step by step.

…

The next morning.

Ramsay had just woken from sleep. A tearing soreness ran through every muscle in his body. The slightest shift sent an aching swell straight up to his skull.

When he got to the ONLY kitchen for the start of the shift, the cooks on his line saw at a glance that something was off, and couldn’t resist teasing: “Ramsay, where were you fooling around last night?”

“You’re wobbling when you walk.”

“You look completely weak in the knees.”

“I did some extra conditioning last night. It’s been ages since I trained that hard, so my muscles haven’t adjusted yet.”

Ramsay. Kept his explanation simple!

The moment he said it, a mischievous glint flashed in the eyes of the cook beside him.

“Conditioning? I heard plenty of pretty girls from the service team were privately asking you out last night. Don’t tell me you were ‘training’ with them and that’s why you’re wrecked?”

Ramsay rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Stop imagining things.”

“Get to work!”

All day long. The kitchen ran nonstop.

Frying, deep-frying, stewing, boiling, prepping, plating, one round after another. After closing that evening, Ramsay entered the Study Space as usual for Stephen Chow’s lesson.

…

Inside the space.

Stephen Chow had long been waiting.

Today’s training continued the same mode of uniting cooking and martial arts: stance work, wok tossing, and weighted arm drills to temper basic cooking skills.

The days. Flowed by steadily like that.

Day after day, the horse stance and the iron-sand wok never stopped.

With three forces working together, Stephen Chow’s precise, strict guidance, Ramsay’s unwavering hard training, and the Study Space’s boost to his practice, his cooking fundamentals leapt forward!

His rate of progress. Could truly be called a thousand miles a day.

Even his physique transformed just as fast. The strength of his waist and legs, the endurance of his arms, and the control of his core all far surpassed what they had been.