LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 250: The Cake Chapter.
Most of Heaven’s Angels didn’t spend all of their time inside Ying’s void world. Jing returned back to her cake-selling business. After the success of the few customers she did have along with the large boost in her reputation from announcing her faction, there were many more customers willing to pay up for the different types of spirit cakes. Shang and Li Li helped managed the customers while she actually directly took part in making the cakes.
She “rented out” a medium-sized shop from a disciple who didn’t want to make a fair trade for it. No one has heard from said disciple ever since Jing started up shop and no one bothered asking questions either. If a cake shop suddenly shows up in one’s sect, one’s first instinct isn’t to question where the previous owner of the shop went. It’s to ask how much do those delicious-smelling pastries cost.
Jing specifically chose this shop out of the others despite its hagrid appearance was because it had a functioning kitchen. How was she supposed to make a cake shop without a kitchen? Not to mention she didn’t know anything about building structurally solid buildings. That was something that in her ten thousand lives she did not get around to learning, believe it or not.
Since Jing didn’t have much time actually sell these cakes because the elders have yet to declare when the final part of the tournament will start, she had to be quick. With Shang and Li Li’s help, she had them do a little advertising for her store to gain some visitors who weren’t aware of her doing business in this isolated part of the sect. Her name has gained some high traction since the announcement of her faction and it didn’t take long for people to come and investigate what she was doing. But she didn’t need people investigating her, she needed customers willing to buy cakes! Thankfully, this is where those few past customers came in handy. They were completely happy to buy as many cakes as they could with the spirit stones they gathered in the tests or on tasks.
“It was because of your Qi Recovery Cakes that I survived an encounter with a Bone-Tearing Mist Tiger! Each time it tried chasing me, I would use my Furious Wind Steps technique and blast away like the wind! At first, I only planned to use this technique as a life-saving technique that would only be good for one use due to the high qi consumption rate but with the cake, I can use it dozens of times more than anyone else around my rank could! I’m quickly on my way to becoming untouchable among my peers!” A cheeky young girl at the Qi Gathering realm happily chatted.
“I never thought it would be easy for someone like me to cultivate but with your Gathering of Qi Spirit Cake, I feel like a genius effortlessly cultivating throughout the night!” A poor-looking boy with clothes that barely classified as rags smiled with blackened teeth.
“Haha! Speaking of getting through the night easily, thanks to your Physical Performance Spirit Cake I have now conquered more than twenty beauties within the past 3 days. My sex-based cultivation technique has skyrocketed my realm to heights I never would have thought possible!” A big-bellied man guffawed, showing off his Core Preparation Realm qi.
With the genuine appreciation of her cakes from those three, it didn’t take much to have those just watching to come by and take a bite. Especially since she already started the alchemy process of infusing SCP-871's cakes into spiritual materials to make the spirit cakes. Meaning, the mouth-watering smell from the pastries was now spreading outside her shop and into the noses of the soon-to-be customers. Even Jing had to take a small break every now and then to take a small bite of one of her creations despite not needing to eat or drink at all because of her refinement.
After her Heart Demon Test, Jing had to say that the standards of food within this world were sorely lacking. If a master cook from her original world came to this place and survived somehow, his creations would be head and shoulders above any other cook here. But considering that this is a world where the fist reigns supreme, she isn’t the least bit surprised by their lack of culture in anything besides fighting. She’ll just need to introduce it later down the line.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kick me every time you walked past me...” Shang muttered to the young bird in his human-like soul form.
It was rather startling how similar he looked to Jing and Shang still had trouble getting used to the similarities. Just because of how closely he looked at Jing made Shang want to scold the boy less. His heart couldn’t help but rapidly beat when he thought of the boy and someday having another child with Jing and himself. Would he accept his younger brother? Would he hate him? As of now, Shang believed that the owl would hate the little sibling wholeheartedly unless he changes Li Li’s view of him.
But something like that was a far distance in the future and not something Shang dares claim will happen in time. Love is unpredictable. He would have never seen himself in a relationship like this before taking the Golden Serpent Sect’s Recruitment Test. To him, a relationship was nothing more than a trade of benefits and cons if he admired his parents’ marriage. But what his mother and father had was not something that Shang wanted for himself.
As a genius, he had lines of beautiful female suitors willing to marry him. Marry him for his face. Marry him for his talent. Marry him for his lineage. None of these were things he was interested in just giving out to anyone. These shallow pointless things could be taken away at the drop of a coin. No, he was interested in something a little more intangible and unclear. Something that couldn’t be seen clearly until you had it firmly within your own grasp.
“Make me.” Li Li scoffed as he reached over the left part of the counter for the next customer. “What do you want?” He asked in a rude childish voice.
“Gathering of Qi Spirit Cake, please.” A girl wearing an eyepatch asked forking over 5 high-ranked spirit stones.
“Got it.” Li Li swiped her stones and placed them in the large black cauldron in the kitchen.
Those standing behind the store’s counter could see the shine from the several spirit stones stacked inside it but not just how many stones were truly inside the pot. This led to a small little contest idea for Jing. She hung up the information on the door when the idea came to her. Maybe this idea of hers would be revolutionary for the people of this age. Out of her ten thousand lives, only in her original world did any store do something like this.
By the end of the week, each paying customer has the chance to guess once about the number of spirit stones inside the cauldron. Jing will bring out the cauldron in front of the store so that everyone can get a good look at it and get a feel for how many spirit stones are inside for themselves. The customer with the closest guess to the actual number of spirit stones will win a free Breakthrough Spirit Cake and one-tenth the number of the spirit stones inside the cauldron. The more cakes one buys, the more chances they have to guess the number.
Each customer was given a “blank” talisman as proof of their purchases and recommended to keep it for the contest at the end of the week. Jing would be able to recognize these blank talismans and differentiate them from others. So, if anyone tries to cheat in the challenge, which she knows they will, she gets to set an example of what happens to caught cheaters inside her shop. Jing believed it would be too lenient if she tried saying those future cheaters were courting death by trying to take advantage of her and her belongings.
Many customers questioned what a Breakthrough Spirit Cake was, not quite able to believe the name. It was the most expensive cake in her shop, going for a reasonably high price of 5 peak-ranked spirit stones. No one has been able to buy this cake as of yet and one of those reasons was because of the disbelief surrounding its ability.
“So, you all take me for a swindler?” Jing couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. I’m willing to allow one person and only one person to take a bite of the cake and prove its effects. You all decide who that one person will be and I’ll give it to them.”
“ALL YOU MOTHER FUCKERS BETTER BACK OFF! I NEED THAT FUCKING CAKE!” Someone immediately elbowed a person next to them in the face.
“You need the cake!? Do you know how long I've been stuck at the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm!?”
“Qi Gathering Realm!? You’d just waste the cake if it was given to someone with poor aptitude like you! How far do you’d think you’d get if you made it to the Qi Consolidation Realm? The 2nd stage or 3rd?”
“Hahahaha! Leave the cake to me! I’ve been trying to reach the Core Stage for years now! I’ll kill anyone that doesn’t think I deserve it!”
“Didn’t you all refuse to believe her about the effects of the cake? Why are you all fighting so furiously to get that fake cake then?!”
“If you truly don’t believe the Breakthrough Spirit Cake is real, just choose me. I don’t believe it either, but I'll sacrifice myself for you all.”
“Tch! How is this even fair!? This chance is clearly a show for the stronger disciples to take as they please!”
Jing was enjoying the little chaos happening within her store. Without SCP-914, Jing couldn’t afford any furniture for her store at such short notice. So, she had to improvise with water-based furniture instead. Meaning, the many disciples in her shop were beating each other half to death with water-formed tables, chairs, and the like. It brought a smile to her face seeing them so eager to kill over the smallest of reasons but that person did have a point. The strong would just eliminate the weak and the strong would just fight until the strongest remained. That strongest would then get the cake. So while Jing did enjoy a little chaos every now and then, there was also balance in chaos.
“You make a good point. How about this? I’ll save an extra Breakthrough Spirit Cake for the end of the week alongside the one from the original challenge. There will be a second challenge that will take place for only a free Breakthrough Spirit Cake unless someone manages to buy the Breakthrough Spirit Cake before the week is over and prove its capabilities. I will have to warn you, it will be based on one’s knowledge of the world.”
With these words from Jing, the fighting soon stopped. It looked like many of the disciples didn’t like how it would be based on one’s knowledge but they were willing to accept it. Because if they didn’t, perhaps half of them or more would die right here. Maybe with this, Jing can somewhat put a need or want for knowledge into the heads of these meatheads. It will be like a trivia game from her original world.