It's hard to piss someone off as long as you were respectful at the end - though someone had evidently managed to.

  No, I couldn’t just go ahead and blame their opponent for this kind of behavior - that was ‘blaming the victim’ in a way. Whoever had lashed out needed to get a better hold on their temper.

  From the gossip I overheard, the lizardman who had lashed out was the son of Arconia’s governor. That was likely why they had felt entitled enough to do something like that, but their position would not end up pardoning them.

  They were still out of the tournament and barred from all future tournaments until further notice.

  The grimoire I had just made gave an ability called [Homing] fittingly enough. It let you select a target you thought of as ‘home’ and no matter where you were in the world, you would know in which direction to travel and exactly how far away it was.

  Basically it was a terrible version of a homing beacon you would see in many video games, which often manifested in a big arrow over your head, though this was entirely something you would be able to ‘sense’ innately. The fact that it only worked on one target made it pretty terrible - if a map in an actual video game only showed that people would’ve definitely complained about it. That said, I also guess it sort of worked as an innate compass as well, if you knew which direction your house was in.

  I still had no use for it and sold it to the first buyer I could find.

  When I went back home, Granny Qi saw that I had brought some fresh fish and a bunch of Rikela fruit.

  “What happened? Why the long face?” she asked when she saw my facial expression. I think she could tell that my mood was down in the dumps, even if she didn’t know why. “Did you lose a match? There’s no need to be disheartened. You still have a chance to make it up even if you did - you only need to win three out of five the first-”

  “-No, I won both matches,” I said and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I just uh, thought I’d make dinner tonight. I got an interesting idea.”

  I knew I couldn’t go on sulking - I had to do something else to get out of this funk I had landed myself in. And cooking, which was entirely new to me but also something that I had found to be surprisingly satisfying, seemed to be a welcome reprieve. I had an idea on how I could use the Rikela fruit along with the fish I had bought, boosted with my [Poissonnier] skill to make something truly spectacular.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Much like with before, I found my hands suddenly working on their own. I decided to use the fruit juice to marinate the fish before cooking it.

  Behind me, Granny Qi watched with an expression I couldn’t read. I was probably doing something she had never seen before, but at the same time, she had tasted my ‘experiments’ before and so was not complaining about me possibly ruining dinner.

  Which is why I sorely hoped that this would work out.

  Once the fish was done marinating, I started cooking it, adding some of the Rikela fruit’s juice for flavor. I was used to doing these steps by now, but something crossed my mind. Despite how odd a choice it seemed, I decided to add a small sprinkle of fresh milk to what I was making. It was ’t enough to be considered full-on poaching, but I just somehow knew that it would add a creaminess to the fish that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

  I was pretty sure that stroke of inspiration came from the [Poissonnier] skill, because I would have definitely not have thought of that before. Granny Qi also thought of the decision as quite odd given that was usually not something you’d do, but by now, she wasn’t questioning my decisions.

  “Alright, we’re done,” I said, as the fish was done cooking. I sliced up the remaining Rikela fruit to serve on a platter next to it.

  The whole exercise was not overly complicated, but did help in somewhat taking my mind off of things.

  And hey - it also reminded me that not everything was terrible in this new world. There was some small benefit of being here. I wasn’t sure how much of what had resulted in the kitchen was from my own short experience and how much of it was

  Granny Qi took a bite.

  “How is it?”

  “Good,” she said. She then turned to look at the Rikela fruit. “Not worth all the money spent on the fruit though…”

  I waved her concerns away. It had been a tad expensive, but I had also been able to sell two Rank One grimoires today. I was not breaking the bank, but she had a point - there was no way that we could go on eating something like this every single day.

  I tried it myself - I had to admit, considering how much it cost to make it, it was kind of disappointing. Not that it tasted bad per se, completely on the contrary, it was just that I had eaten similarly tasting things for far cheaper.

  But, I guess that’s what you get when you experiment. And a ‘successful’ experiment can mean all sorts of things to different people. I did feel marginally better after that, so I couldn’t think of it as a failure, now then could I.

  I think Granny Qi could still tell something was off though, and after she had asked it the second time I just decided to tell her the incident with someone getting into a fight after losing a match. It wasn’t the whole reason as to why I was down in the dumps, but it was a plausible enough explanation to get her off my back.

  “And yeah, it was a big deal,” I told her once I’d finished.