Cyberpunk: Monster Hunter of Night City

In the kitchen, Gloria was preparing breakfast on the electric stove. To call it 'cooking' was an overstatement; she was merely warming up pre-made ingredients and sprinkling on some synthetic seasoning.

Alex Knight stood nearby, watching the edible items being heated on the counter, his mouth twitching uncontrollably; he shouldn't have had such high expectations for food in Night City.

**[Protein Blend] Drink**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** A meat substitute produced by Protein Farm, containing all essential nutrients: protein, fat, carbohydrates, and minerals.

- **P.S.:** You wouldn't want to know its main ingredients, but Night City citizens call it milk.

**[Bread] Food**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Synthesized from carbohydrate starch with cellulose to increase satiety.

- **P.S.:** It's just a name; if you eat only this, your bowels won't be happy.

**[Synthetic Meat] Ingredient**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Made from high-protein crickets, with beef flavor molecules and meat essence.

- **P.S.:** Insect protein is also protein.

"Look at all this stuff! Is there no normal food in Night City?"

"No! Perhaps this is what Night City citizens consider normal food. Meat is meat, milk is milk, and bread is bread. Only I, from an era of peace, would find these ingredients abnormal."

"Hungry? You'll have to wait a little longer. Today's breakfast is beef sandwich with milk," Gloria said, seeing Alex staring at the counter and assuming he was hungry.

These ingredients cost her a lot of euros; if she hadn't considered that David was at a growing age and needed nutrition, she wouldn't have been able to afford them. A starch energy bar, costing five euros for several pieces, could fill her stomach by soaking it in water.

What the heck is milk!

If he remembered correctly, the Protein Farm raised crickets and earthworms; even if this stuff was processed to taste like milk, he wouldn't drink it.

"This stuff, where I come from, is only used to feed dogs," Alex said disdainfully, then felt a bit insulting. However, words spoken were like water poured, and he couldn't take them back.

"Oh, then your hometown must be quite rich," Gloria didn't find Alex's words problematic.

After all, in Night City, wanting to raise a dog meant paying a monthly dog tax of 1000 euros; only the wealthy of North Oak could afford such pets. The dogs of those important figures even had specialized nannies and bodyguards, living more luxuriously than the poor of Night City.

Alex didn't want to talk anymore. He had originally wanted to check what ingredients were in the kitchen to complete his beginner's quest. Now, it seemed better to use the materials he already had for the quest; it had already been delayed for 24 hours.

---

**[The Chef's First Meal]**

- **Description:** Perform a cooking session to begin your chef career.

- **Quest Reward:** 10 experience points, Chef Profession Skill Crystal

---

What dish should he make? Alex checked his backpack; the only edible items were a few pink alien fish caught by the Hunter and two pieces of dried meat he found in a box.

He checked the seasoning jars in the kitchen: there was only salt, sugar, and a bottle of chemically synthesized peanut sauce.

**[Salt] Seasoning**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Chemical composition sodium chloride.

- **P.S.:** A byproduct of Arasaka Seawater Desalination Plant.

**[Sugar] Seasoning**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Carbohydrate

- **P.S.:** A byproduct when genetically modified wheat is converted to CHOOH2.

Only sugar and salt could be used, so the fish was out. He'd make a Dragon Meat Soup; as long as the salt was controlled and nothing else was added, the soup wouldn't taste bad no matter how it was made. And the taste of herbivore dragon meat should be fine.

---

**[Dried Rations] Food**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Dehydrated, air-dried herbivore dragon meat chunks. Consumption can relieve fatigue and restore vitality.

---

His eyes scanned the existing cooking equipment in the kitchen.

Alex took a 3-liter cylindrical alloy pot, labeled as a soup pot, and a metal cutting board from a three-tier shelf nearby.

"What are you doing?"

Gloria flipped the frying meat patty with a spatula, looking at Alex's actions with some confusion.

"I'm going to make something to eat myself. Don't worry about it."

"Heh heh, do you have the ingredients?"

Ignoring Gloria's eye-roll, Alex turned and filled half a pot with water from the sink. Before he could place the pot on the counter to heat, the liquid inside began to glow.

?!

**[Contaminated Water] Drink**

- **Quality:** Inferior

- **Description:** Contains excessive microplastics and trace radioactive substances. Long-term consumption can lead to genetic mutations and severe health damage.

- **P.S.:** This water is much harder than English water. Drinking too much of that causes hair loss; drinking too much of this is deadly.

Alex had never seen such potent water before, so he dipped a finger in and licked a bit. His tongue tingled slightly, with a strong metallic taste of rust. It tasted just like licking the positive and negative terminals of a battery when he was a child.

Pah!

He poured the water from the pot back into the sink. Alex turned his back to Gloria, put the empty pot into his backpack, and when he took it out a few seconds later, the pot was already filled with clear spring water.

Then, Alex from Hunter World washed the surface dust off his only two pieces of dried meat and put them into his backpack. In the kitchen, Alex made a show of taking out a fist-sized piece of dried meat from his jacket pocket.

The washed dried meat looked similar to cured bacon. The dried lean meat portion was partially encased in a solidified fat layer, with clear red and white colors, looking quite appealing. Alex pulled out his Hunting Knife and cut both pieces of meat in half on the metal cutting board. Then, he placed the cut side against the board and sliced all the meat into thin, red-and-white marbled pieces.

Since the dried meat was already cooked, he directly picked up a slice and put it into his mouth to taste it first. She Tou pursed his lips; it was slightly salty, but the meaty flavor was strong.

"Looks like I'll need to add less salt to the soup later."

He sprinkled all the meat slices into the soup pot. Alex moved the pot to the stove and began heating it. As the water temperature rose, tiny bubbles emerged. The dried meat slices absorbed water and softened. Alex picked up a ladle and began stirring, preventing the meat slices from sticking together after heating.

From a perspective invisible to others, Alex saw that as he stirred with the ladle, tiny specks of light, like fireflies, appeared in the void and then fell into the soup pot. The ingredients in the soup pot underwent subtle changes. The solidified fat in the meat slices easily melted into the water, and the soup's color began to turn white. Then, the proteins in the meat slices hydrolyzed, releasing some umami-producing amino acids. A rich, aromatic scent wafted out with the steam from the soup pot.

"Is this the effect of the Chef profession talent? It accelerates the reaction between ingredients and water. It's only been a few minutes, but it feels like it's been simmering for hours!"

Alex was still contemplating the milky white soup when Gloria, sniffing, shuffled closer and peered into the soup pot. She saw meat slices tumbling with bubbles in the milky white soup, and the rich meaty aroma was emanating from it.

"Mom, what are you making? It smells so good; I could smell it from the bathroom."

David poked half his body through the kitchen doorway and saw the two people practically pressed together. The smile on his face vanished. David, with a sour expression, squeezed between the two, forcibly separating the man and woman with his body.

Alex ignored David. He scooped a little of the white, thick soup with a ladle, blew on it, and when he felt the temperature was right, he sipped the thick soup into his mouth. He smacked his lips; though the taste was excellent, he felt it was still missing something.

He picked up the salt shaker from the seasoning area and sprinkled a thin layer, about a few grams, onto the ladle before adding it to the soup and stirring to enhance the base flavor. Then he picked up the sugar bottle and sprinkled a little into the soup to bring out the freshness. He stirred it again and tasted it.

Hmm, perfect.

---

**[Quest completed. 10 experience points acquired. Reward has been sent to backpack.]**

**[Cooking completed. 3 experience points acquired.]**

**[Dried Meat Thick Soup] Extraordinary Soup**

- **Quality:** Common

- **Description:** Full of life energy. Consumption can relieve fatigue and restore vitality.

- **P.S.:** Even if the consumer is cybernetic, it will be effective. This is a rule.

---

Scooping half a ladle of thick soup, Alex blew on the steam, ignored David in the middle, and brought the spoon to Gloria's lips, smiling, "Gloria, try the soup I made."

Gloria gave Alex an eye-roll and refused his hand-feeding. She took the ladle and sipped the milky white thick soup. The meat juice lingered in her mouth for only a moment before her body instinctively swallowed it into her stomach. Gloria felt a warm current spread from her stomach, a very comfortable sensation, like taking a hot bath.

In a place Gloria couldn't perceive, a faint life energy was absorbed by her body along with the meat soup, nourishing her flesh and blood body, weakened by overwork. However, the amount was too small, far from enough to repair her battered shell.

"It's very delicious," Gloria gave a simple evaluation.

"If it's delicious, then drink more," Alex said with a smile, rummaging through the overhead cabinets for three soup bowls. He filled each person's bowl with a generous serving of meat slice soup.

David initially wanted to express that he wouldn't drink something from a stranger, but when the soup was presented to him, the continuous meaty aroma wafting into his nose broke through his psychological defenses.

Maybe just a little taste?

But once the soup entered his mouth, he couldn't stop. His body instinctively craved the nutrition and life energy in the soup.

Thus, the three of them gathered around the soup pot, bowl after bowl, until the pot was empty.

"Burp~"

"Burp~~"

"Burp~~~"

Gloria covered her mouth and smiled bashfully.

David and Alex also let out long burps, exhaling the warmth from their stomachs.

Couldn't control themselves, ate all of someone else's food.

David's face turned red; as a young man, he was thin-skinned and couldn't stay any longer. He immediately left to take the aerotrain to school.

After seeing David off, Gloria went back to the kitchen herself. She wrapped the untouched milk in cling film and put it in the refrigerator. She made three sandwiches with the meat patties and bread slices, put them in a paper bag, and prepared them as lunch for herself and Alex in the car; they were no worse than the vending machine's nutritional meals.

Then, she tidied up the kitchen diligently, washing the soup pot, cutting board, bowls, and spoons, and then wiping down the stove.

Alex, meanwhile, was sprawled on the living room sofa, taking out the skill crystal and crushing it directly.

---

**[Soup (Beginner)]**

- **Proficiency:** (0 / 300)

- **Effect:** When simmering ingredients, all nutrients from the ingredients can be infused into the soup.

---

For ordinary soups, even if boiled thoroughly, at most only 10-20% of the ingredients' nutrients would dissolve into the soup. As long as the ingredients retained their shape, most nutrients would remain in the ingredients themselves.

His freshly made Dried Meat Thick Soup was an example; he also ate quite a few meat slices while drinking the soup.

With this skill, wouldn't he just take off?

At this moment, Gloria walked out of the kitchen, holding a paper bag, and said to Alex.

"Let's go, I'll show you around Night City."

"Okay, burp~"

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