ARIFURETA: Cooking to be the Strongest?

With the fire situation solved and the unusual effects of monster meat enhanced by the knife and properly cooked, Shin finally bid farewell to his former raw, bland meals. He eagerly welcomed the new, cooked ones.

Each page of the mysterious book proved to be truly excellent fuel.

A whole night had passed, yet the fire had barely consumed half of the shredded page, burning as if it were an entire tree.

Shin didn't dwell on the specifics of how it worked; he simply found it incredibly convenient, especially now that he could cook what he hunted.

He knew there was still the problem of seasonings, particularly salt, which he'd be grateful for, but Shin figured that would be asking too much at this point.

For the next two days, Shin dedicated himself to tearing pages from the book, managing to accumulate around 53 pages.

He repeatedly drained his stamina and ate the cooked skewers to replenish it, a cycle he maintained for the entire two-day period.

This continuous exertion and consumption of monster meat also increased his stamina by about a quarter within those two days. The strange, foreign energy accumulating in his body also expanded and was subsequently depleted by the process, replenishing itself with each meal.

Though the effects quickly diminished as he ate the same meat, the effect on his body was still greater than eating it raw.

By the time he was finished, the first three pages he had used for his initial fire had finally burned out.

But now, in the cave, aside from the Holy Crystal's glow, there were two additional torches fashioned from monster bones, each holding a single burning shredded page within its handle.

"Guess this is the last batch, gotta start hunting and exploring tomorrow," Shin murmured, savoring the final piece of the skewered shark-like monster.

He then began to prepare for his next phase of hunting and exploration.

The next morning, Shin woke up feeling more refreshed than he had in days.

He quickly changed into his usual hunting gear: a coat made from the hide of a chameleon magic beast that blended seamlessly with the labyrinth's darkness, the two daggers Hajime had given him, and a collection of throwing daggers fashioned from the bones and teeth of the shark-like monster he'd recently vanquished.

Stepping out of his temporary cave, he sealed the entrance behind him.

Shin then set off, his senses keen, ready to seek out his next meal and, more importantly, the entrance to the next challenging floor.

For the next few hours, Shin smoothly navigated the current floor. With the parchment numbered 29, he meticulously mapped the area he was on. But strangely, there were no other creatures here aside from the shark-like monster swimming in the tar.

"Tch, looks like this place is already empty and only has that fish as its monster," Shin complained, dragging his legs as he walked around the tar pool. He noted that the shark-like monster was likely the boss of this floor, similar to the other large ones he'd hunted, which unusually did not respawn or resummon like the smaller creatures.

This had happened on the upper floors where he'd hunted them clean, consuming every creature there to strengthen himself.

He continued exploring for another hour, mostly mapping half of the area. With no successful hunt on this floor today, Shin decided to ascend to an upper floor to hunt smaller monsters.

 These typically included insects, reptiles, and small mammalian critters, which he used to eat raw. As the day drew to a close, judging by Shin's internal body clock, he returned to his base on the 29th floor, dragging a few monster critters he'd hunted from above.

"This should last me for three days," Shin murmured as he observed the four monsters, captured alive in a makeshift cage made from bones, tied tightly to prevent any escape.

Shin reached for one: a lizard monster, around two meters long, with a one-meter body and tail, and a height of about 30 centimeters.

Pisak.

"Never cared before, but since I can already cook, I remember from the books that lizards or limbed reptiles in general store fat in their tails, let's see," he mused, swiftly preparing the lizard with his obsidian knife, butchering it into chunks of meat, removing its organs, and skinning its hide.

"Ooo~ it really is. This should be good to be used as oil when melted," Shin mused, looking at the tail that had already stopped wiggling. 

Inside, he found bright red meat beautifully marbled with a good amount of fat surrounding the tail meat.

Shin then separated the fat from one half of the tail and sliced the rest for his dinner. 

Next, he began cutting a piece of rock, cleaning it using some water from his pouch, which he'd collected from other floors. (He couldn't use the ambrosia, as the Holy Crystal no longer produced it.)

When everything was cleaned up, he set up four stones to support the flat stone he had cut and cleaned.

Underneath it, he placed a page worth of shredded paper from the old book he'd summoned and lit it.

As the rock, now serving as a cooking pan, became hot enough, Shin started to place some of the sliced tail meat onto it. A crisp, sizzling sound erupted as the meat made contact with the hot rock.

After about 30 minutes of cooking, flipping the meat every five minutes, the bright red tail meat transformed into a scrumptious meal, emitting a sweet aroma. He deemed it a lizard monster tail steak.

Though inferior to the shark monster skewer, it was still far better than eating it raw.

"Itadakimasu," Shin prayed silently as he partook in his meal. The first bite welcomed him with a sweet flavor of fat.

"Hmm, not bad, but this would be better with a slight salt." Shin murmured as he bit into his meal.

Unlike the times he ate bland raw meals, where he usually worked while eating to distract himself from the taste, Shin now sat, holding a bone fork and using the obsidian knife to cut the cooked meat.

"Oo~, looks like cooked monster meat still boosts my strength," he observed, amazed. "I've already eaten this monster many times, and I thought it no longer had the strengthening effect."

"Looks like cooking them boosts the effect. Not like I'm returning to eating raw, but that bonus is a welcome change."

Shin murmured alone, finishing his meal and resting for the day, aiming to proceed to the other floors as fast as possible.