Chapter 21: Exploring the township

When I woke up, it was almost noon. The past few days that I experienced were undoubtedly exhausting but now, I feel completely refreshed; absolutely better than what I felt for the past few days, or should I say years. I guess one reason for this is because I lost weight and became pretty healthy since I started cultivating my body with the use of the Heavenly Body Manual.

There’s still some time before our party starts later at sunset. When I opened my window, I saw my backyard already being prepared by folks I don’t know. Max told me that earlier, Joyce came and ordered the people setting up for the party that there is no need to wake me up. The house AI pretty much obeyed her orders since she still also has ownership of the house. Yesterday, Joyce told me I could customize the shape of the main house like how you would change a house in a simulation game, and it will change instantly once uploaded. I decided to make it look like a classic Chinese mansion with curved roofs and a square rooftop with the tiny hut in the middle to chill out without getting hit by the sun.

I then went up to the rooftop and greeted Max a good morning. The view from above is just spectacular. With all the advanced technology present in this place, I imagined it to have a dark cyberpunk aesthetic, but like the clothes worn by the Adkins couple, it looks like a western European medieval royalty place designed with runic lines and patterns. When I come to think of it, the whole place looks like a western village if it is to be described in an anime.

After infusing mana into my body and forming the Dantian, my body can spontaneously get nourishment from the mana present in the air. Technically, there is no more need for me to eat, but the sensation of eating and the act of sharing food in a social setting with people you know, offer a great deal of euphoric sense of comfort. So, to fill up the few hours left before the party starts, I decided to cook lechon, a staple dish to Filipino parties. Lechon is a suckling pig roasted on an open fire until it is crispy. If you peel off the skin of the pig, it would be crunchy and since the meat is encased by the skin, it would be juicy. And to top it all off, it is paired with a gravy sauce that will even further enhance its taste.

To accomplish the task of cooking, I asked the AI in charge of the house to give me all the cooking books bearing all the lechon recipes available. With that, I can compile a book which shows the recipe that has no flaws for lechon which would then guide me in cooking. The AI gave me eBooks and texts that could help me achieve what I wanted, but I couldn’t assimilate them since the power of my Library was set in the era before electricity and electronics were invented which means that it only works on physical books. I could flash all the text right in front of my eyes and look for flaws in the pages individually, but according to the AI, to do this even with my Rank-2 cultivation would take at least a day. I then just decided to have the nanobots print me physical copies of the books and texts available since assimilating it that way would be significantly faster. Even with the nanobots doing the work, printing all the books and texts would take around an hour.

To kill time, I decided to find the perfect pig to roast for later. I asked for new clothes from the AI which includes a dark brown robe and a mask to prevent people from recognizing me. I decided to put on the mask embedded with symbols from one of my favorite games, The White Shield Sigil and the Dark Sword Sigil, on the bottom left and upper right part of the mask, respectively. As a standalone, it looked pretty cool. I hopped out of the house with Max perched on my shoulders. Luckily, no one was outside the house when I left.

I have been to different farms and most of them are housing savage beasts, the same as Roel’s pets that I saw at the school. Each has divided functions that house spiders and reptiles for their silk and scales, respectively. Good thing that I found one farm that is raising animals of the “old world" as the owner calls it. I found a suitable pig from among the animals on the farm, much bigger than the pigs normally used for lechon. Since I’m not sure of the proper way to kill the pig, I just made the pig pass out by hitting it on the head. As I was leaving, the old woman tending to the farm asked me what a member of Franco’s 27 True Sigil Knights are doing in their small little town. After hearing this, I asked myself, "What are the sigil knights?" For me to not sound ignorant in front of the old woman, I just chuckled and said that I was on vacation and was missing the taste of pork. Just like that, I was done with my initial task and I rushed back home.

First, I assimilated the knowledge from the printed books which combine to around a few hundred thousand pages. It is a good thing that the AI and the nanobots worked really fast. Then, I compiled a flawless version of the lechon into one recipe. I started working on cutting and killing the pig. I was able to do it with one precise strike that stopped its heart from beating and cleared out its insides. I then asked the AI to help me gather some herbs that I need to stuff in the pig's belly which was instantly delivered to me through a home service similar to grab except the herbs was teleported to my doorstep. After this, I set up a fire in an open space in the backyard of the mansion and started roasting the pig.