Chapter 1019: Rescuing Classmates from Dire Straits

The next morning at 5:40, the set alarm rang, and Broly got out of bed.

After washing up and walking out, seeing the people outside, he almost thought he had mistakenly entered some necromancer's cemetery.

"Hey, didn't you sleep at all last night?"

Broly asked Marui Zenji, who had the most severe dark circles.

"Can't sleep, simply can't sleep. The moment I close my eyes, it's all scenarios of worrying that today's assignment will fail and I'll be expelled."

"Not just us, the others are about the same."

In front of the back kitchen warehouse, most Totsuki Academy students looked spiritless and listless.

Obviously, the assignment announced last night had kept many people from sleeping well.

Either they were in the kitchen trial-cooking until morning, or they finished trial-cooking and returned to their rooms, but couldn't sleep well because they worried today's cooking assignment might not pass.

However, this is normal too. After all, Totsuki Academy students are just a group of teenagers in their teens. If it were adults, say white-collar corporate slaves, and the boss suddenly sprung an elimination-style assessment, many adults probably wouldn't sleep well either.

Those who could truly fall asleep were either guys with absolute confidence in their own ability, or big-hearted, thick-skinned, optimistic types.

"Broly, do you still have stock of the energy drinks you bought last night? Can you give me another bottle?"

After Marui Zenji spoke, Sakaki Ryouko also reached out her hand.

"If there are any, I want one too."

Sakaki Ryouko's spirit was decent, but she also had some dark circles around her eyes.

Obviously, she had rested last night, just not very well.

"Last night, I bought the same kind of energy drink, but the effect wasn't very good."

Yoshino Yuuki leaned over and said, but she also wanted to cadge the special-supply drink from this master Broly's hands.

"Alright, everyone, I'll come clean with you. Actually, that wasn't the energy drink's effect, but the effect of Qi——

"

Broly gave everyone a popular-science rundown on Qi.

"So, what really restores our spirit isn't the energy drink, but your Qi, Broly?"

Iwasaki Shun asked.

"Mm."

Broly nodded.

"Then, Broly, can I trouble you to share a bit more Qi with me? I feel like without your Qi, I might not last until the end of today's assignment."

Marui Zenji pressed his hands together and bowed in request.

"No problem."

Broly agreed directly.

And while tossing Qi onto everyone, he didn't forget to remind them: "However, Qi can only restore spirit and energy, but physical fatigue still exists."

"Got it. We're like motorcycles about to run out of gas, and your Qi is like pouring gas into our tanks.

As for engine overheating and metal parts fatigue from long-term use of the motorcycle, those won't disappear just because we added gas."

"That analogy is interesting; it's pretty much like that."

Broly nodded, acknowledging this rather vivid description.

"Komekko, how's your situation?"

Broly turned his head and asked Tadokoro Megumi with concern, thinking whether to toss a healing magic onto this girl's head; that thing could

relieve physical fatigue.

What, you ask about the Dog Talisman? That thing Dad needs to use; before the shift opened, it was taken back by Xiao Yu.

"Broly-san, I'm fine. I did sleep last night."

"Those in the back, stop chatting. Hurry up and come get the ingredients you need for your assignment.

Remember, today's assignment requires each of you to sell at least 200 servings of cooking.

So when you collect ingredients, it's best to take enough all at once.

Otherwise, if you delay the assignment and fail to sell 200 servings within the regulated time and get eliminated, that's your own fault——"

The back kitchen warehouse manager responsible for distributing ingredients was like a teacher before an exam, tirelessly reminding a group of students about to rush to the exam venue to pay attention to trivialities like correctly filling in their names and exam numbers.

As for the effect, naturally there was one. Basically all students collected more than two hundred servings' worth of ingredients for today's cooking, to allow a margin of error.

"Students who have collected ingredients, go find your exam venue positions. At six-thirty, the hotel's breakfast buffet will start. Broly held a plate containing egg tofu in one hand, and carried the ingredients for simmering clear chicken soup in the other, and walked to Cooking Station No. 123 in the Restaurant District B Venue.

The Cooking Station No. 123 in the Venue.

This was the position arranged for him by the resort hotel. In terms of foot traffic flow, it wasn't great, but it was still better than some unlucky bastards randomly assigned to corner positions.

Not far away was Tadokoro Megumi's cooking station. Aside from her, the other Polar Star Dormitory guys were scattered across four different restaurant districts.

Today's assignment, everyone is fighting on their own. Before opening for business, everyone needs to do some cooking preparation work.

What Broly is making is Wensi Egg Tofu. This dish tests knife skills, and also tests the simmering of clear soup.

Egg tofu itself has almost no taste; the quality of the taste comes entirely from the soup. But the soup cannot be clear soup stock; it must be clear soup.

After the old hen and pork bones are soaked to remove blood, they go into the pot with cold water together with dried goods like ham and dried scallops. First boil on high heat; when the water is about to boil, switch to low heat and simmer slowly.

During the simmering, oil and foam must be continuously skimmed. After the soup is done, the soup residue must be fished out and filtered through gauze.

After filtering, Broly added minced chicken breast into the soup to absorb impurities, then immediately used a fine sieve to scoop out the minced meat and impurities.

After doing this, the soup in the pot was already clear to the bottom. Next, just cut the Wensi tofu well, blanch it in hot water and fish it out, then combine with this clear soup, add salt and a small amount of pepper to enhance the flavor, and Broly's cooking for today's assignment is complete.

After blanching until cooked and fishing them out, combine with these clear soups, add Salt and a small amount of Pepper powder to enhance the flavor, and Broly's Cooking responding to today's assignment counts as complete.

Lifting his head, Broly looked toward Tadokoro Megumi's direction. The twisted-braid girl had likewise finished preparations for quick serving.

And the dish she prepared today was Oden. Considering it was for people to eat in the morning, the soup base used was the lighter kind, not relying on heavy oil and strong flavors to attract people.

"Megumi, are you all prepared?"

Broly walked over and asked; this time the cooking rules didn't prohibit communication between students.

"Mhm, everything's ready."

Tadokoro Megumi lifted her head and nodded.

"Good, then give me a serving of your oden first."

Broly rubbed his belly; he hadn't eaten yet this morning.

"?"

"Is that not allowed?"

"No, it's allowed; I'll make you a serving first."

Tadokoro Megumi hurriedly shook her head, took out the already-cooked ingredients skewered on sticks from the big pot, and quickly served up a petite portion of oden.

"Considering the guests later won't only be eating my cooking, I intentionally reduced the oden portion size to a one-bite-per-ingredient small-portion mode, Broly-san; if you feel one serving isn't enough, you can eat a few more."

"Do you have a lot of ingredients prepared?"

"That's not the case; if it's not enough, I'll just go get more from the back kitchen storage."

"Forget it, I'm just tasting, not really trying to eat my fill; hmm, this daikon is really delicious."

A small portion of oden was quickly finished, and Broly suddenly thought of something, so he raised his hand and asked the proctor instructor looking over from the side.

"Teacher, speaking of which, if I eat a serving of her cooking now, can it count toward the two hundred servings needed to pass?"

The proctor instructor who was asked twitched his mouth corner and replied: "Naturally it cannot; otherwise, what would you do if you students agreed among yourselves to honestly boost each other?"

"Alright, I thought I'd found a loophole."

Broly was a bit disappointed.

"However, if you are the first to pass today's assignment assessment requirements, and there is still

time before the hotel breakfast buffet ends, then you can serve as the hotel's back kitchen staff, possessing the same tasting permit as other guests; at that time, the cooking you eat will be counted into your score."

Seeing this, that instructor added another sentence.

"So that's how it is; then I'd better hurry up and complete today's assignment assessment."

Broly nodded.

"Then do your best."

The proctor instructor didn't pour cold water, merely he didn't believe Broly could quickly complete today's assignment assessment.

Wensi Egg Tofu is quite a creative dish, but the problem is, who would come eat this kind of dish at breakfast time?

It's not that this is bad, but today's breakfast buffet, the guests coming to taste have too many other breakfast types to choose from.

The proctor instructor could already imagine the image of guests who would be attracted to stop by this kind of dish; they should all be some elderly grandpas and grandmas up in years.

Time quickly arrived at 6:28, and Dojima Gin's voice came from the broadcast: "Everyone, are you ready to serve?

Now I'll explain the passing conditions; first, introducing the judges — they are the ingredient producers who have a deep cooperative relationship with the Totsuki Resort and their family members.

Every year at this time, they take charge of judging this training camp————"

The restaurant doors opened, and among the first batch of guests surging in, there were men, women, old, and young.

"The egg dish rich in surprises, this topic has also been told to them; the judges will be very accurate————"

"In other words, if you pad the count with an uncreative egg dish, even if the cooking is made very delicious, it might still be eliminated because it doesn't match the assignment topic."

There were many guests; the children ran the fastest, and unsurprisingly, they were completely uninterested in soup/stew dishes, but all surged toward the pan-fried and deep-fried cooking stalls.

In front of Broly's stall, not a single child stopped; of course, Tadokoro Megumi's stall received much the same treatment.

"Besides them, the other batch of judges are the Totsuki Resort's Cooking Department and Service Department employees; they will also participate in today's judging.

Today's assignment passing standard has two points: whether creative ideas recognized by both the production experts and the on-site service experts can be obtained simultaneously, and whether more than 200 servings of cooking can be supplied within two hours from now.

Those meeting both above points pass; then, please, judges of each venue, fully enjoy the beautiful moment of breakfast.

Judging begins!"

Broly picked up the kitchen knife; when he placed the egg tofu on the cutting board, the proctor instructor next to him had his brain crash a bit.

【Two hours, two hundred servings, didn't pre-cut the tofu, doesn't plan to use the Wensi Tofu mold to cut, but instead plans to hand-cut on the spot with a kitchen knife — this couldn't be intending to cut it into tofu blocks, right?】

Can't blame the proctor instructor for doubting like this; it's just that a normal skilled master cutting Wensi Tofu generally takes several minutes.

Within two hours, it's fundamentally impossible for anyone to cut out two hundred qualified servings of Wensi Tofu; of course, this was until he personally witnessed Broly start cutting the tofu.

Tap tap tap — rhythmic knife-falling sounds quickly attracted a group of passing guests.

Insiders watch the technique, outsiders watch the spectacle; these people all crowded in front of Broly's cooking stall, watching Broly's pleasing-to-the-eye knife technique, and the pieces of Wensi Egg Tofu blooming like chrysanthemums in the clear soup.

Two hundred servings of freshly-cut, freshly-made Wensi Egg Tofu were sold out at an unimaginable speed.

"Good fellow, this old man has lived most of his life and never seen anyone cut tofu like this."

"Fast, accurate, fierce, young man; I'm willing to call you a Tofu Little Immortal!"

"Big Brother, cut another round; I still want to watch Big Brother you cut tofu————"

Facts prove that a chef's means to attract guests, besides the cooking itself, can also be technique.

"What's happening in Area B?"

Dojima Gin saw the abnormality on the surveillance and hurriedly used the walkie-talkie to ask the Area B staff.

"Nothing much, just a student's knife skills are miraculous; the guests want to keep watching."

"Uh, then have the other party demonstrate the knife skills one more time."

"But the other party's two hundred servings of ingredients are already all used up; there's no surplus left for him to cut."

"Already finished?"

Hearing this, Dojima Gin was stunned, and looked at the time displayed in the lower left corner of the surveillance screen.

"The breakfast buffet has only been going for less than an hour, and someone already passed this fast?"

"No way, the guests are buying like crazy."

"What dish did that student make?"

"Wensi Egg Tofu."

The walkie-talkie communication fell silent for a while; after a moment, Dojima Gin's somewhat uncertain voice sounded: "Say that again, what dish?"

And after repeatedly confirming it was Wensi Egg Tofu, and moreover hand-cut on-site, even this Totsuki Resort Executive Chef felt a bout of scalp-numbing shock.

How fast must the hand speed be to cut two hundred qualified portions of Wensi Egg Tofu in under one hour, and also finish making them and serve them to the customers waiting to taste?

"Alright, since he's already qualified, then persuade those customers to disperse."

"Can't do it."

"What now?"

"Broly has already gathered those people together, saying he's going to take them to taste other promising students' dishes."

Dojima Gin: "???"

"Tadokoro Megumi, two hundred dishes sold, qualified!"

"Let's go, everyone, we're heading to the next breakfast stall."

Broly led the way in front, behind him a dense mass of customers.

Many people unaware of the truth also subconsciously joined in under the herd effect.

"That big brother, please save this little brother from dire straits, my spot is really too remote————"

", since you already call me big brother, what more is there to say?!"

When an unlucky student assigned to a corner stall, abandoning his dignity to kneel and beg Broly publicly, wanting his foot traffic and actually succeeding, the exam area's atmosphere became somewhat subtle.

"Senpai, please come to my side, my egg dish is also delicious~"

"Don't rush, everyone, one by one, I'll eat my way along."

"Executive Chef Dojima Gin, what do we do now, that student is practically becoming the examiner of this task assessment."

Broly brought the customers from stall to stall; whichever dish he gave a high evaluation, the crowd following behind was very convinced and would eat along too.

Hard to say if they comply with creative egg dishes, but those two hundred dishes' sales figures solved things, that was truly relaxed.

Dojima Gin was also somewhat speechless; what do you call a student who already passed the assessment, mixed into the customer crowd, turned around and became the taste leader holding crucial sway on the customer side, now leading a large herd of customers to appraise dishes and save classmates from dire straits in the exam area, is this reasonable?