After everyone finished their pudding and gave it their approval, Draden started seriously preparing for the restaurant’s dinner. Accordingly, the three followed him into the restaurant and continued their lesson where he could hear.

  The tzatziki sauce involved several steps but wasn’t particularly hard to make.

  All he needed to do was mix yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, salt, black pepper, and olive oil together as the base concoction. After that, he needed to add some thinly diced mint and dill to it, not too much, as he would be adding more later, but this initial batch would help to set the flavor profile.

  The last main step was to grate some cucumbers and squeeze out the juice. Then, he would dump the grated cucumber into the earlier mixture and combine it all. Take a little taste test, maybe add some of the cucumber liquid if he wanted it less thick, but mainly concentrating on the mint and dill flavors.

  That was it.

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  He wasn’t sure how authentic it was, but it was good. More importantly, it was relatively easy to make.

  The salad that he would be making for the gyros was also easy. It wasn’t a traditional salad as there was no lettuce, but it was the detail that really made the gyros so exquisite, in his opinion. The ingredients were just diced or chopped, then thrown in a bowl and sprinkled with salt and pepper. It didn’t get much easier than that.

  That was it. Those were all the steps to making a delicious gyro, for the most part. Outside of cooking the meat, and its final construction, but those were sort of self-explanatory, in his opinion.

  The chicken wraps were even easier. Dump some black beans and corn into a bowl with tomatoes that have been cut to your preferred size. Then prepare some large romaine lettuce leaves and cheese. The last step was the sauce, which was simply mixing some ranch, salsa, and taco seasoning together. That was the main reason he had faith in this dish. There was nothing like those three items here, at least not that he had seen in his memories.

  Making taco seasoning wasn’t hard; he’d been forced to do that more than once in the past. Making salsa… he knew the theory, at least. He had never done it, but he had watched a few YouTube videos on the process when he was bored. Ranch dressing was going to be the problem for this particular dish, as it wasn’t something he would be able to replicate anytime soon.

  By the time Emilie, Alice, and Eowin made their appearance, he had everything ready.

  Leah’s eyes had grown slightly glassy as the two adults kept talking at her, while her attention waned. As soon as her friend appeared, she jumped from her chair and made her escape without waiting for them to say anything.

  Marcus scratched at his hairy chin with a chuckle. “I guess we went a little overboard there. She seems far more interested in the practical applications than the theory.” He sighed and cracked his back. “It may take us some time to adjust our teaching methods for someone as young as her.”

  Coradine nodded, a pad of paper in her hand as she made a few notes. “Indeed, it has been a while since I spent time with children. I will need to relearn how to interact with them.”

  Draden snorted. “Kids are easy. You just have to keep them engaged. Talking at them doesn’t do that. You need to have puzzles and demonstrations. Items that constantly keep her mind on what you’re talking about and showing her. Besides, people learn best by doing. Have her practice whatever you’re talking about, even if it’s too advanced for her.”

  At least, that is how we would teach her if he were given the opportunity. It might not work on everything; he didn’t know the specifics of magic after all. However, he did know how to best keep aberrant minds engaged, of which young children naturally fell into that group.

  Emilie nodded. “I might not know anything about magic, but I know my daughter, and what he said is pretty much spot on for young kids. You have to keep them engaged in some form, otherwise their mind will drift off.”

  Coradine and Marcus shared a look and slowly nodded. “We will need to rework the lesson plans we had come up with, it seems.” He admitted after a moment. “I knew she was rambunctious. I just hadn’t realized it was to this degree. I don’t spend much time with children.”

  His companion nodded and together they headed to a table in the corner of the restaurant, where they would be out of the way.

  Back in the kitchen, Draden ate a quick almond snack ball, feeling the surge of energy that coursed through his body along with it. The amount of energy was almost as dense as he had hoped it would be. Definitely more than the meals he had been cooking.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The energy coursed through his body, strengthening his muscles, and then it touched upon the damage that had been done to the primary meridian in his spine. That meridian was the main vein that fed qi to a cultivator's dantian from the upper body. There was a second one for the lower body.

  However, the upper body meridian was called the primary meridian for a reason. When someone cultivated, they did so through their mouth, breathing in the qi from the air. That qi would then be transported to the dantian largely through the primary meridian along the spine. Some would go through other routes, but only a small percentage.

  Cultivators didn’t start to use their entire body to cultivate until the higher tiers.

  The food Draden had been making and the healing energy it contained had been hitting the damaged meridian from the beginning, and making little progress. More progress had been made in reviving his dantian than in healing the damage which had caused it.

  It was different this time, as the snack ball contained far more energy than anything else he had made. The surge of energy bashed against the damaged portion of the meridian, causing it to bulge as a thin stream of qi forced its way through the gnarled mass. It wasn’t much, and it was incredibly painful, but it was progress.

  Draden made his way to the sink and spat out a mouthful of blood, his face having gone pale within the last few moments. The snack balls might not have been as strong as he hoped, but that might actually be a good thing in this case.

  Anything stronger would have actually damaged his body instead of healing him.

  Now he just needed to figure out how often he could eat one of those snack balls.

  Looking out the back window of the restaurant, he spotted Leah and Eowin playing next to the pond they had made. He made a note to include more fish recipes in the future. Then he made another note to build a jungle gym, slide, swing set, and other items out back for Leah and her friends.

  After opening the window so he could hear their voices, he got to work cooking dinner for the upcoming customers. Emilie appeared in the doorway of the kitchen as he was cutting some of the cooked chicken into strips.

  “The delivery of juice for the next couple of days has just arrived. Do you want to come out and check on the quality?”

  He glanced at the stove and wiped his hands on a nearby towel. “Um, yeah. Here, can you make sure none of the chicken burns? Just flip them every thirty seconds or so. Once they look like the ones I just cut, put them on the cutting board.”

  Emilie nodded hesitantly as he grabbed six small cups and hung his head out the window. “Leah, Eowin, come here. I need your help.” He winked at the young girl’s mother and headed to the front of the restaurant.

  Waiting for him were two people; an older man and his teenage daughter. The man was around fifty and had a slight stoop to his back, but looked otherwise healthy. His daughter wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and was around the same age as Alice.

  Draden nodded to them both and followed them outside to the cart they had arrived on. It was filled with casks of juice, just as he had worked out with them earlier. There were three types, apple, orange, and grape juice. There were two casks of grape juice, and three each of the other two. It was meant to last three days, which was when the next delivery would arrive.

  The two little girls, both of whom were dripping wet and laughing, burst around the corner of the building and joined him at the cart.

  “What is this, daddy?” Leah asked, jumping up to hang off the corner of the cart, her little feet kicking at the air beneath her.

  “This is the restaurant’s juice delivery for the next few days.” He informed them. “We need to taste a little from each cask to ensure that they’re good.”

  With that, he passed out the small cups, putting the extra in his pocket. He hadn’t been sure how many people would be coming with the juice, so he had grabbed three cups for them when he only needed two.

  The older man held the first cask in place while his daughter removed the small cork stopper on the lid that was there for this exact purpose. She grabbed the first cup while he carefully tilted the cask. A minute later, five small sipping-sized cups were lined up on the top of another cask, and the cork was back in place.

  “Shall we?” Draden asked, after giving the two a moment to rest.

  They nodded, and everyone grabbed a cup. The first cask ended up having grape juice, and a brand on the cask itself also identified what its contents were.

  The two little girls enjoyed the juice, bobbing their heads happily. Meanwhile, the adults took a few moments to slowly savor the drink, ensuring there was nothing wrong with it. Draden’s standards weren’t exactly sky high; he didn’t have the trained tongue or desire for that. All he wanted was something pleasant to drink, and that wasn’t sour.

  “I’m not tasting any sourness or unpleasant flavors. How about you two?” He asked the sellers.

  The man swished the last of the juice in his mouth and then spat it to the side, a thoughtful look on his face. “It should be fine for the next few days, but it’s beginning to turn. Do you feel that ever-so-slight tingle on your tongue? That’s the precursor to the sour taste you don’t want. I would say crack this one first and place it somewhere cool if you can. A shaded area in that stream out back, maybe. Though that might dilute the juice somewhat.”

  His daughter nodded, already kneeling and taking note of which farm they had bought the juice from. “Due to it still being usable, but on the edge, five percent of the total purchase cost will be taken off as an apology this time. In the future, we’ll be testing any products we buy from this farm personally.” She told them as she finished writing.

  Draden was fine with that; he hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the juice. Still, he glanced down at the girls. “What do you think? How was the juice?”

  “Tasty!” Eowin shouted.

  Leah nodded, then tilted her head. “My tongue is all tingly, though.”

  He sighed. “This isn’t going to get my daughter drunk, is it? I’m not interested in serving alcohol here.”

  More than likely, it was from the citric acid in grapes, but if they had already started fermenting…

  The two merchants shared a look and then nodded. “It’s hard to say. That said, if you want to play it safe, we can take this one back.” The daughter offered.

  As he was dithering on the choice, Leah grabbed his hand, her bright green eyes looking up at him, and he had his answer. “Yeah, please take it back. I’d rather not risk it.”

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

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