Chương 4: Where I Actually Stand

[Skill Shop unlocked — currently available: Basic Heat-Perception Training Manual, costs 5 Arena Points] Chris stared at the line, and felt his heart squeezed in an invisible fist. Ten Arena Points. That was the entire fortune he'd earned from finishing that bewildering "Observer" quest. And this manual, which looked like the most basic thing on offer, would cost half of it. He hesitated. What even was this thing? Was it like a video game — tap once, learn it instantly, become a master of heat from here on out?

Or was he just buying a theory book? His gaze rested on the Redeem button for a full ten seconds. Screw it. What did he have left to lose? The job was gone, the savings nearly dry, his name already rotting online. If this was a hallucination, he'd treat it as the last bit of madness before a full breakdown. And if it was real… then these five Arena Points were the only lifeline he had.

"Redeem," he said inwardly. [Confirm: spend 5 Arena Points to redeem "Basic Heat-Perception Training Manual"?]"Confirm." Almost the instant the thought landed, a vast stream of information surged into his brain. Not words, not images — more like an… infusion of experience. His mind suddenly held a wealth of knowledge about heat transfer that hadn't been there before. How wide the gap ran between the edge and the center of a cast-iron pan.

How far an oven's internal temperature dropped the moment you opened the door to load or pull food at 350°F, and how long it took to recover. How to judge the range of an oil's temperature by the sound it made in the pan — from a fine, dense sizzle to a cracking, popping snap. This knowledge wasn't a skill dropped into him out of nowhere. He hadn't become a master in an instant.

It was more like a seasoned old chef had pulled him aside and spent countless hours walking him, hands-on, through every trick and principle. He'd been handed the methodology. The practice was still on him.

"So that's how it works," Chris murmured. The system didn't give him the fish. It gave him the net. He drew a deep breath and forced himself calm. This wasn't the time to get excited. He had to understand, completely, the hand he'd been dealt. He refocused on the half-transparent panel in the upper-left of his vision.

[Host Culinary Data Panel] [Knife Work: B- (68/100)] [Heat Control: C (58/100) — weakness; targeted training advised] [Seasoning: B (72/100)] [Plating: B+ (76/100)] [Ingredient Sense: C+ (64/100)] [Stress Tolerance: D+ (52/100) — critical weakness] [Culinary Rating: C+ (62/100)] Chris's eyes nailed themselves to two lines: Heat Control and Stress Tolerance. C, fifty-eight. D+, fifty-two. So this was where he actually stood.

He'd always told himself he was just unlucky, that he'd only tightened up for one moment at the very end. But the data didn't lie. His heat control had been below passing to begin with, and his pitiful tolerance for pressure was the last straw on the camel's back. In a high-pressure environment like Burning Kitchen, a D+ stress tolerance had taken his already-failing heat control and collapsed it completely.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. So Gareth Vane hadn't been wrong. You simply don't belong here. Right. A man whose fundamentals weren't solid and whose nerves were shot to hell — what business did he have standing up there? A surge of shame and fury rose together in his chest. He wasn't angry at Vane. He was angry at himself. Angry at the smug comfort of the past few years, angry at how simple he'd made everything out to be.

He'd believed a little talent and a little love would be enough to shine on that stage. Now it looked like a joke. But— His gaze drifted slowly upward. Knife Work B-. Seasoning B. Plating B+. Those scores told him something else: he wasn't garbage. In some areas he was, if anything, good. His foundation wasn't bad — his weak points were simply lethal. Like a ship with a hole in the hull, no matter how well the rest was built, it was bound to sink.

"So that's it," Chris said, leaning back against the cold counter, feeling the strength drained out of his whole body — and yet his mind was clearer than it had ever been. The reason he'd lost was no longer a tangled knot, no longer the blurry idea of "forty seconds." It had been broken down into clean, unambiguous numbers. Heat 58. Pressure 52. Push those two numbers up, and he had a chance. He opened the Skill Shop. After redeeming the manual, he had only 5 Arena Points left.

He wanted to see what else this shop carried. The list unfolded. [Basic Knife-Stability Training (Passive) — 10 Arena Points] [Beginner Palate-Sensitivity Boost — 15 Arena Points] [Intro to High-Pressure Adaptation — 20 Arena Points] [Perfect Seared-Steak Heat Curve — 25 Arena Points] [Gareth Vane Taste-Preference Report (Basic) — 50 Arena Points] Chris looked at the rows of items, each with its number trailing behind, and sucked in a cold breath. Too expensive.

The cheapest ran 10 points, and that most tempting one — the Gareth Vane Taste-Preference Report — cost a staggering 50. With the fortune he had now, he couldn't afford a single thing. So Arena Points were the key. He closed the shop and looked again at his data panel. That D+ stuck out like a needle in the eye. He thought back to the competition, to Vane stepping in front of him, those blue eyes fixed on his face, his mind going blank, his own pulse roaring loud enough to drown out everything else.

That feeling — that was what had sent his judgment into freefall, what had driven him to the idiot decision of forty extra seconds. This had to change. But how? Intro to High-Pressure Adaptation cost 20 points. He couldn't afford it. Chris paced back and forth in the kitchen. The pre-dawn apartment was frighteningly quiet, nothing but the low hum of the refrigerator running. He stopped, picked up the potato he'd left on the cutting board.

If the system wasn't going to hand it over for free, then he'd train it himself. The Heat-Perception Training Manual had given him the theory. What he needed now was to turn theory into muscle memory. He walked to the oven and looked at the cheap dial. The oven was an old castoff the landlord had left when he moved in, and its temperature was never accurate. Before, he'd just nudge it by feel. But now there was new knowledge in his head.

He could read the true internal temperature more precisely — by the rhythm of the heating element glowing red, by the temperature of the oven glass, even by the faint sounds it made. He cut the potato into even-thickness slices, laid them on a tray, and slid them into the oven. He didn't set a timer. He just stood in front of the oven, eyes fixed on the inside, not blinking. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. He brought everything he'd just learned to bear — listening, watching, feeling for the smallest change.

When he judged it close, he took out one slice. Pressed the tip of a paring knife into it. The center still held a faint hardness. He put the rest back, counting silently. One. Two. Three. Thirty seconds later, he pulled another slice. The knife tip slid in with almost no resistance, and yet the slice held its shape, whole. That was the feeling. He put the slice in his mouth. The outer layer faintly charred, with a little chew to it; the inside soft, fine-grained, the sweet starch melting across his tongue.

Better than any slice he'd made on the competition floor. [Through independent training, Heat Control experience +1] A small line jumped up on the panel and vanished. Chris froze. So… this worked too. He looked at the oven, then at the perfect slice of potato in his hand, and an excitement he couldn't put into words rose from somewhere deep. Screw the elimination. Screw the pile-on. Screw the credit-card bills. He had something now that mattered more than any of it. A chance to get stronger.

He pulled out every remaining slice and tasted them one by one, feeling for the smallest differences. Some had baked ten seconds too long, and the edges carried a trace of burnt bitterness; others had come out twenty seconds short, the cores still raw and grassy. Forty seconds. The mistake he'd made on the floor was magnified here without limit. So a forty-second gap really was the difference between heaven and hell. The sky had already begun to pale.

Chris hadn't slept all night, but his mind was wired with strange energy. He cleaned up the kitchen and walked back to the living room. The phone lay quiet on the couch. He picked it up, unlocked it. The mocking comments, the debt-collection notices — still there. But this time, looking at them, he felt something entirely different. Not the smothering despair and rage. A cold calm. Wait for it. He told himself. I'm coming back. He opened the banking app and glanced at the last of his savings: $237. 54.

That much wouldn't even cover next month's rent. He had to find a way.