Eager to finish my quest and hopefully get another hit of the energizing buzz, I opened up the property manual and scrolled all the way down until I found the furniture section, which remained empty. I then clicked on the plus icon, expecting to open a catalog of items I could buy, but instead, my entire point of view warped as it was ripped out of my body and suspended in the very center of the kitchen.
'Okay, this is weird.'
Despite the disorienting change, I managed to keep my calm and instead tried to figure out the purpose of the shift. It didn't take me long to discover that I could freely move by directing my movements with just a thought. I also realized that by focusing on a specific item or part of the room, I could bring up the catalog I had been hoping for.
It seemed like I could customize anything I wanted, ranging from the floor to the ceiling, the walls, and everything in between. However, I could tell I wasn't meant to be giving the Grillhouse a full makeover just yet, as the prices quickly rose above the five-thousand-dollar nest egg I started with. Fortunately, I wasn't interested in customizing the kitchen, so I moved my disembodied consciousness into the dining space.
The floor area was relatively small, maybe twenty feet by fifteen feet at most, meaning I couldn't get too creative when arranging seats. Bringing up the furniture catalog with a thought, I pictured the pieces I wanted and grinned when the catalog shrank down to only two options.
[Furniture: Small Wooden Dining Table]
Cost: $ 250
Maintenance: $ 75
Slot(s): 0/5
Effect(s):
+2 Capacity
[Furniture: Faux Leather Booth]
Cost: $ 550
Maintenance: $ 150
Slot(s): 0/4
Effect(s):
+4 Capacity
With some quick mental math, I calculated the total cost and realized that just to buy five tables and two booths, it would run me about 3,450 dollars and add roughly 975 dollars to my maintenance.
'That only leaves me with 1,550 dollars plus the 2000 from the quest…but I'll probably be spending most of that on ingredients after I make the menu…though it's not like I have much of a choice.'
[Shopping Cart]
Small Wooden Dining Table [x5]
Faux Leather Booth [x4]
Cost: $3,450
Finalize purchase: Y/N
I selected yes, ignoring the very real pain of leaving so little in my wallet, but busied myself with placing my new furniture. A task that was made infinitely easy by the fact that I could drag and drop the tables and booths like props in a video game.
Like I had predicted, with the restaurant's limited floor space, my arrangement was rather straightforward, putting the booths against the walls, two to each side, with tables placed in the middle in a pyramid formation.
Satisfied for now I exited what I dubbed decoration mode and my consciousness snapped back into place as I shook my head and blinked my eyes, 'Well that was different.'
[You have completed the following Objective(s)]
1. Buy 5 [Small Wooden Table] from the property manual [5/5]
2. Buy 4 [Faux Leather Booth] from the property manual [4/4]
With the notification came another buzz, focusing my mind to a razor's edge, 'Alright, time to see what this Chef Mode is all about.'
Once more, my consciousness was sent flying, but instead of being pulled out, I felt like I was falling down further and further, picking up speed until my surroundings turned into a blur. Then everything came to a screeching stop, and I found myself standing on a cloud that stretched for as far as I could see.
For a moment I thought I had been sent back to heaven, but then an entire kitchen rose up from cloud, stainless steel countertops, massive bulk fridges, shelves displaying more kitchen appliances than I could ever name, and endless rows of crates filled with produce, burlap sacks overflowing with grains, and spice racks carrying thousands of dollars worth of exotic flavors..
The sheer volume of possibilities left me stunned for a moment, 'How am I supposed to find anything…in everything?'
Going out on a limb, I imagined a nice flank steak and was only mildly surprised when the vacuum-sealed five-pack appeared on the countertop in front of me.
[Ingredient: Flank Steak]
Cost: $ 50
Count: 5
Category: Protein
Quality: Normal
Effect(s): None
Swiping away the notification, I stared at the pack of steaks, wondering how the hell I was supposed to cook the pieces of meat when all of a sudden a slew of information flooded my mind. In an instant, I knew the rough cook times for each level of doneness, the importance of letting the meat rest after cutting, and what side dishes would complement the steak.
Thinking of only one possibility, I opened my status page and scrolled down until I reached my skills and clicked on the only one I had, 'What did the system say again? One level is equal to one year of professional training.'
[Skill: Cooking I]
Upgrade Cost: 0/1
Effect(s):
+5% to the final quality of all recipes
+10% to cooking speed
'Final quality of recipes? What does quality even mean in this context?'
Figuring that there was only one way to answer my questions, I got to cooking. With a thought, I summoned the rest of the ingredients I needed for the dish I was forming in my mind's eye.
[Ingredient: Bag of Potatoes]
Cost: $ 20
Count: 10
Category: Starch
Quality: Normal
Effect(s): None
[Ingredient: Bundle of Asparagus]
Cost: $ 12
Count: 6
Category: Vegetable
Quality: Normal
Effect(s): None
[Ingredient: Parsel of Butter]
Cost: $ 15
Count: 3
Category: Dairy
Quality: Normal
Effect(s): None
With my ingredients ready, I conjured a wooden cutting board, a peeler, and a chef's knife with a thought before prepping the vegetables. First, I cut the woody ends off six of the asparagus before laying the stalks flat on a baking sheet, drizzling them with a fine layer of olive oil, and seasoning them with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Fortunately, the oil, salt, and pepper didn't seem to be counted as ingredients, meaning I didn't have to pay for them.
Letting the asparagus sit, I moved onto the potatoes, quickly peeling three of the spuds before roughly chopping them into pieces and throwing them in a pot filled with salted water that I boiled instantly with a thought.
As the potatoes simmered, I moved onto the main star of the dish, the steak. Picking out one of the flank cuts from the package, I placed it directly on a summoned replica of the Grillhouse firepit, already lit with a roaring fire that licked at the grill.
When I flipped the steak over, revealing grill marks, the potatoes had fully cooked, becoming fork-tender. Draining the water from the pot, I added a stick of butter and a generous pinch of salt before mixing everything together, making simple but delicious and creamy mashed potatoes.
Putting a lid on the potatoes to keep them warm, I quickly took the steak off the grill and set it aside on the cutting board to rest as I finished the last component of the dish. Throwing the asparagus on the grill, it only took a few minutes for them to cook through and get a decent char on either side of the stalks. With all the parts ready, I assembled the dish on a plate and was met with a slew of notifications.
[New Recipe Discovered: Grilled Flank Steak]
Base Price: $ 25
Quality: ✦✧
Final Price: $29
Ingredients: Flank Steak[x1]
[New Recipe Discovered: Grilled Asparagus]
Base Price: $ 8
Quality: ✦✧
Final Price: $ 9
Ingredients: Asparagus[x4]
[New Recipe Discovered: Mashed Potatoes]
Base Price: $ 11
Quality: ✧
Final Price: $ 12
Ingredients: Potatoes [x3] Butter [x1]
[You Have Created a Dish: Grilled Steak with Asparagus and Mashed Potatoes]
Base Price: $ 52
Quality: ✦
Final Price: $ 58
Components: Mashed Potatoes, Grilled Asparagus, Grilled Flank Steak
Looking over the screens I found myself staring at the information listed trying to figure out how the system was calculating the quality and price of the food and what separated a Dish from a recipe. For a moment I was completely lost, but then when I looked back at the price of ingredients everything clicked into place.
'The base price of recipes is determined by the flat cost of ingredients, which I can calculate by finding the unit price. So a bag of potatoes being $20 means that each spud is two dollars, so for three potatoes that's six dollars total, add five dollars for the butter and you have your base price of $11, breaking even. But then there's the final price, what the food will actually sell for when put on the menu, which is determined by the quality of the recipe.
From what I can tell a filled-in star adds 10% of the base cost to the final price and, while an empty star adds 5% both of which are rounded to the nearest dollar. That math checks out because the only modifications to quality are my cooking skill and the grill, and since I obviously didn't grill the mash potatoes they only received the 5% from my cooking skill.
As for the dish, it seems to follow a similar formula, but instead of ingredients determining the base price it's the final cost of all the recipes that make up the whole. And the quality bonus is most likely a rounded average from the recipes as well.'
Closing my eyes for a second I let out a long exhale as I processed all the information presented to me, 'There really is no room for error with profit margins this thin, but I can see how I'm supposed to progress. I'll need to save up for appliances like the grill to increase the quality of my food. There are also probably a handful of skills I can find and upgrade that would help as well. But those are long term investments.'
Opening my eyes again there was a fire burning within them as I stood at the foot of a metaphorical mountain, 'In the short term, all I gotta do…is keep cooking!'