Leveling Up Through Eating

PR: MattForgenti

The First Aid Store owner, McCann, was sitting on a stool in her store.

‘Which blacksmith should I sign a new contract with? Ron was extremely skilled but……’

But because of his bad temper and his delay in the delivery, she had decided to cancel their contract.

As she was pondering over her next steps, she saw a young man peeking through the door.

“How may I help you?”

She was also one of the guardians and protectors where users could learn the ‘Beginner’s Bandaging’ and it was common for users to peek and snoop around in her place because of that.

However when the users learnt of how much recovery they would get when they learnt the skill, most of them turned their backs on her. The recovery from a wound wrapped with the bandage skill was truly abysmal. Using the skill would take a long time for them to recover so they wouldn’t give her the time of her life.

The young man who was standing in front of the store was munching on something. When she looked closely, he was munching on a hotteok from a nearby store. The man was holding a hotteok wrapped in a paper wrapper with his one hand and the other hand was holding an extremely large black plastic bag.

“Hello. I came here on Ron-nim’s request.”

“Did you say Ron?”

McCann’s expression sank when she heard his words.

“You’re not telling me to renew the contract, right?”

“Hehe, Ron-nim wanted me to tell you that he was extremely sorry about what happened before.”

“Hmph, don’t bother. I won’t renew it. There are a lot of blacksmiths that are better than him.”

“Phew…… Is that so?”

The man munched on his hotteok as he continued to say.

“I can’t believe that the gentle and beautiful McCann-nim was someone so cold hearted.”

“Huhu, that kind of flattery won’t work on me.”

“......”

The man paused and looked at her curiously, then his expression suddenly turned extremely worried.

However he was still eating his hotteok bit by bit. The sweetness of the honey in the hotteok spread in his mouth whenever he bit on it.

McCann could even imagine herself biting a hotteok and tasting that sweetness in her mouth.

‘If you bite on a freshly made hotteok, you can easily lick the hot and sweet sugar that’s inside. The sugar may be a bit hot but the chewy and soft hotteok is truly delicious……’

Guulp━

She unknowingly gulped her saliva down.

‘Huh, what’s wrong with me? Why am I salivating over a hotteok that can be bought everywhere?’

She also had some money.

I can go buy and eat it too! But why did I react like this?

“Chew, chew. Hmm, is there really no other way? I’m begging you.”

The man continued to eat hotteok as he spoke. When he finished a piece, he continued to get a few out of the plastic bag.

She was extremely surprised when she saw that.

‘Are you telling me that his plastic bag that can carry 20kg of rice is filled with hotteok?!’

McCann was left breathless as she watched the man continue to eat hotteok in front of her!

She was already on a diet!

In the end, she couldn’t resist the temptation. She ran out and went directly to the stall that was selling hotteok.

“Haden-nim, please give me 3 hotteoks please!”

“I’m sorry Miss McCann. A foreigner bought all of my hotteok today.”

“B, but I want to eat some right now……!”

McCann was astounded; however she soon realized something.

‘D, don’t tell me… Yeah, it seems like he’s the one who bought them all. He probably has a skill to make others extremely hungry. And knowing that, he bought all of the hotteok so he could make me hungry and encourage me to make peace with Ron!’

Oh my goodness!

A foreigner had such an ability.

What a meticulous man!

When McCann returned to her store, she heard the man grumble.

“Phew. There are only five hotteoks left. Chomp!”

Then the man continued to eat the hotteoks. His words tightened her nerves. Then he ate a second piece.

‘N, no! Don’t eat all of the hotteoks!’

McCann glared at him.

I’m not renewing the contract so look at least a bit bitter!

He took out another hotteok as he said…

“Chomp, well it can’t be helped. Then, I’ll go on ahead.”

When he was turning around to leave McCann could see him reaching out to the second to the last piece of hotteok in the bag!

“E, excuse me!”

“Yes?”

“Can you sell me one piece of hotteok?”

“......?”

***

Minhyuk looked at her strangely.

What do you mean by selling you this hotteok? What are you suddenly talking about?

“I lost. Your power is really amazing. You’re basically like the male version of a siren with how much you made me drool over that.”

“?”

Minhyuk looked at her blankly.

Did she want to eat hotteok that badly?

Minhyuk quickly analyzed the situation that he was in.

On a cold day while he was eating a delicious hotteok placed in a paper cup, a woman suddenly appeared after his hotteok!

“No way! This is the last hotteok!”

“Just sell me this one, why are you even saying no to me after you left me salivating over it!”

“I never made you drool over it!”

“You did! You even showed your meticulousness by buying all of the hotteok from the stall!”

“When did I ever do that?!”

Minhyuk was already upset because he ate all of the hotteok. It was just too delicious that he couldn’t stop himself from finishing everything in one sitting. But now, there was even a woman pestering him about buying his last piece of hotteok.

Then, he suddenly thought of something.

“By any chance, are you hungry?”

“Yes. I was originally on a diet but now I’m in big trouble because of you!”

“I’ll make hotteok for you. But if you enjoyed the hotteok that I made then please renew the contract with Ron-nim.”

“Ahem, I’ll think about it.”

“Then, please wait a moment.”

Minhyuk basically flew out of the store to buy hotteok mix.

‘Right, why did I never think of this way to get close with others?’

He could use his buffing ability and he could also cook more deliciously compared to others.

Since she wanted to badly eat hotteok, McCann allowed him to freely enter the store.

His preparations were easy since he had bought the ready-made hotteok mix. First, he poured the mix into a bowl and added 180mL of lukewarm water. Then he put on some plastic gloves and kneaded the mixture. Then, he set it aside for an hour.

During the time where he left the mixture aside, Minhyuk decided that he wanted to do something.

“Can I learn the Beginner\'s Bandaging while we wait for the hotteok?”

“The non-combat skills that a foreigner can learn are limited. You better think about it carefully.”

Users could only learn one non-combat skill until Lv200 while they could only learn two until they reached Lv400.

However, Minhyuk insisted since he had no restrictions and he did not care about it at all.

“I definitely want to learn!”

McCann shook her head at him.

“Then, please give me 100,000 gold.”

Beginner’s bandaging might have been shunned by most users but there were still some people who have managed to master the skill. The effects of the skill might be abysmal but it could still be clearly seen that increasing the recovery and resilience was always a good thing. Besides, learning the Beginner’s bandaging was an easy task.

[Please fill the Bandaging progress bar to 100%.]

Then, McCann approached a mannequin.

“This is a magic mannequin. If you cut it with a knife like this…”

She cut the mannequin with her knife and just like the flesh of a real person, a wound opened up from where she cut.

“Then, you can wrap the bandage around the wound like this. If you keep on repeating this then you will be able to master the skill! Well then, try it once.”

“Yes!”

Minhyuk nodded his head in understanding and cut the mannequin with a knife. A wound opened up but of course no blood came out. He proceeded to wrap around the bandage on the open wound.

He could see it clearly!

He could see the places where he needed to wind up and wrap the bandage more.

Minhyuk looked at the mannequin and the bandage in his hands curiously.

“Was this how you could master the bandaging skill? I can see the parts where I need to wrap the wound with the bandage?”

“Huh? What were you saying?”

“N, nothing.”

Minhyuk realized that what he was experiencing was leagues beyond what was normal.

He wrapped the bandage around the wound. His hands were swift and skillful like he was a paramedic trained to do this. It was as if he had faced hundreds of emergency situations!

‘Why, why can I do this so well?’

Minhyuk did really well considering that he had never done this before. He had skillfully wrapped a bandage over an open wound.

Of course it was just winding up the bandage around the wound. However, the recovery was entirely dependent on how well and how good the user has bound up the wound.

But Minhyuk really bandaged it well.

He pondered deeply on why he could do this well. He combed carefully through all of the possibilities when he finally realized it.

‘Ah……! That’s right, wasn’t my DEX around 900?’

A few days after he ate the elixir, his DEX had made a rapid increase in points.

I think it increased by 180 in the imperial palace and it also increased by 300 in the Chefs tower, right? So that’s why I can do it fast!

Just as DEX affects the taste, it could also affect a variety of things. And the amount of Minhyuk’s DEX could cover almost everything.

[You have wrapped the bandage well.]

[A +1% increase in recovery was added.]

[The recovery time has increased and became faster.]

The increase in his DEX even led to additional effects in using the bandaging skill. It was like when he saw those ‘vital points’ when he was going to attack enemies. However, the vital points would only appear due to luck.

Whenever I strike these vital points, I would always get a higher damage output, right?

It seemed like doing a better job at bandaging while following those points led to an increase in the effects just like the increase in damage when a vital point was attacked. And for someone like Minhyuk, who had a huge amount of DEX, these events would continue to happen more frequently in the future. Since his DEX was so high, he would always produce better results with his skills.

‘Hoo, the dexterity stat is much more useful than what I thought! Is this why those people always drool over this thing?’

Minhyuk nodded his head in thought as he checked his training progress and proficiency.

“It increased by 20%? Wow, it’s really true that it’s easy to learn the Beginner\'s Bandaging!”

“Yes?”

McCann looked at him as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying.

No matter how easy it was to learn to wrap a bandage, their proficiency and training progress would only increase by 2% each time they successfully wrapped a bandage. The users would need at least 50 times to master and acquire the Beginner\'s Bandaging skill.

That’s how they learn! But did he say that he got 20% in one go?

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Ah… Perhaps you got it as a special reward for wrapping the bandage really well on your first try. But…… I have never seen anyone have a 20% increase in just one try.”

It was only natural for the skill proficiency to increase when you did well!

Minhyuk once again wrapped bandages on the mannequin. The skill proficiency rose by 10%.

12%

14%

His Beginner\'s Bandaging skill proficiency increased tremendously as he kept on repeating his actions. Each and every single bandage that he wrapped could give anyone a surprise with how well he wrapped them.

[You have achieved the best bandage wrap.]

[The wound recovery has an additional 2% increase.]

[The recovery time has increased and became faster.]

[You have gained 1 DEX.]

And at the same time, he achieved a 30% increase in his skill proficiency.

Then, at that moment…

[You’ve mastered Beginner’s Bandaging.]

[You have gained 15 DEX.]

[You have achieved 900 Dexterity Points. All skills and abilities related to Dexterity will have a 10% improvement.]

[Due to the influence of the DEX, your Beginner’s Bandaging will have a 60% improvement.]

[Once you reach 1000 points in your DEX, you will receive a special dexterity privilege.]

‘Huh? A special dexterity privilege?’

Special dexterity privilege.

Currently, all of his skills related to dexterity increased by 10% for every 100 point increase in  his DEX. It was already a privilege in and on itself.

But what does it mean by a different privilege?

Minhyuk has high expectations for this.

After listening to all of the notifications, he checked the contents of the Beginner\'s Bandaging skill.

(Beginner’s Bandaging)

Passive Skill

Level: 1

Effects:

━  Wound recovery +1% +0.6%

━  +0.6 times acceleration on the very slow recovery pace.

‘It’s true that the lv1 Beginner’s Bandaging has insignificant effects, but I’m 1.6 times more powerful than others.’

The increase in recovery was a very powerful addition to his arsenal of skills. And from what he heard, when the Beginner’s Bandaging increased in level and evolved to intermediate and advanced levels then the wound recovery would increase up to 10%. Once that happened, wouldn’t Minhyuk have an advantage? His wound recovery effect would definitely be at 16% by that time.

“I’ve learnt it.”

“T, that’s fast. I can’t believe this……”

McCann looked like she was really in disbelief.

It was because it hasn’t been an hour yet!

In fact, other foreigners need at least half a day to a whole day to be able to master the bandaging skill. Others who were always in a hurry and have quick tempers would even say ‘Ah, let’s not do it anymore! Let’s just get some potions.’ and leave. This just showed how neglected Beginner’s Bandaging was. It was useful, but it also felt like it wasn’t that much useful at all!

Minhyuk decided to show off his newly acquired skill by cutting the mannequin again with a knife.

“Beginner’s Bandaging!”

Swish, fwoosh, rustle!

Minhyuk’s hands moved neatly following the proper order of bandaging. Since he had mastered the skill it was also only natural that his movements would become faster. As soon as he finished wrapping the bandage, a series of notifications rang one by one.

[You have achieved the best bandage wrap.]

[The wound recovery has an additional 2% increase.]

[The recovery time has increased and became faster.]

He stepped back and admired his work on the mannequin after hearing the notifications. McCann was truly impressed by how fast and how neat he wrapped the bandages around the mannequin.

“I want to buy five mannequins!”

His cooking would taste better if his DEX increased!

He was also thinking of raising his DEX faster by trying to learn plenty of miscellaneous skills. Even wrapping a bandage would play a role in enhancing the flavor and taste of his cooking!

Once the one hour was up, Minhyuk could see that the hotteok dough rose well.

Then, he took a sizable amount of dough, flattened it, and placed the jam mix in it. The jam mix was a mixture of cinnamon powder and sugar. He closed the hotteok and turned it into a bowl before dropping it on the well-oiled frying pan. He then pressed on the hotteok with a spatula to flatten it into a circle.

The sizzling sound produced when the hotteok and the oil met was a signal that it was being cooked well.

Sizzle!

***

Food Discussion Corner

Hotteok (호떡) : a Korean sweet pancake with a filling. Usually sold as a streetfood.

TL’s corner!!!

Well, looking forward to the special dexterity privilege. By the way. DEX is Dexterity Stat the stat where the dexterity points go.

PR’s corner!

Oh boy, I’m guessing Minhyuk’s going to be pretty terrifying once he gets that privilege.

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