Chapter 190: Underground Sandwich
Chapter 190: Underground Sandwich
The next two months were relatively peaceful.
Adrian did not involve himself in the monster attacks and nor did he go around socializing. He took Aria straight down to the underground training bunker. They spent practically their whole day down there. They trained hard, meditated in silence, sat around talking and eating whatever Adrian cooked up.
Sometimes they didn’t even bother going back up to the mansion and just slept right there in the basement.
Adrian did actually step out of the dungeon a few times just to check what was happening outside. Especially, the monster situation and how his soldiers were doing.
Based on Draven’s quick reports, there had only been a handful of very small skirmishes. The actual number of monsters hitting the walls was surprisingly low.
As for his soldiers, some of them had become knights and the others were excited and were training hard too.
After he got the reports, he just went right back down to his training room because he knew he was not really needed in the war effort right now. The soldiers had it handled perfectly.
Adrian currently sat in the underground training room.
He activated Dungeon Link and peeked into his storage. The system had done it’s job perfectly. Two loaves of fresh bread sat on the racks. Beside them was a giant slab of slow cooked beef and a whole roasted chicken. He also spotted a few bowls packed with sliced vegetables.
And sitting right in the middle of it all was a deep pot filled with a rich, savory, and slightly spicy gravy.
Adrian brought all the food out of the dungeon. The hot plates and bowls materialized perfectly right in front of him.
He looked over at Aria. She was sitting a few meters away, deep in her meditation.
"Ready for lunch?" Adrian asked.
Aria opened her eyes and nodded instantly. The rich, heavy smell of the hot food hit her the second he pulled it out. She had known that the food was out even before Adrian mentioned it.
Adrian looked down at the food.
He picked up one of the warm loaves. It looked like a standard baguette but it was much wider.
He grabbed a kitchen knife and sliced the bread in half down the middle. He tossed the top half aside for a second.
Then he reached into his spatial ring and pulled out his trusty magic iron pan. He heated it up and tossed both the top and bottom halves of the bread right onto the hot iron. He pressed them down so the cut sides would get perfectly toasted and crispy.
Once the bread had a beautiful golden char on the inside, he took them off the pan. He toasted the second loaf exactly the same way.
Then came the fun part.
Adrian grabbed that massive chunk of slow cooked beef. He tossed the knife aside because he didn’t even need it anymore. He just dug his bare hands right into the meat and pulled. It was so ridiculously soft that it practically melted. The beef just ripped apart into shreds the second he applied a little bit of pressure.
He moved straight to the roasted chicken next. He pulled the meat completely off the bones and broke it down into messy chunks.
He dumped the beef and the chicken into a huge mixing bowl. A heavy ladle of spicy brown gravy went right over the top, and he stirred the whole thing up until every single piece of meat was absolutely dripping with sauce.
He scooped up a large portion of that wet meat and slammed it onto the bottom half of the toasted bread.
He threw the diced tomatoes and crisp onions on next. Then he grabbed a lemon wedge and squeezed it’s juice down the entire length of the meat.
He then placed the top bun and looked at it. The sandwich was pretty massive.
He built the second sandwich exactly the same way. He handed one massive loaf to Aria and kept the second one for himself.
Aria took the giant sandwich. But she knew what her physical limits were.
She took the knife and cut roughly a quarter of the sandwich right off the end. She handed that extra piece back to Adrian.
Because eating three-fourths of that massive loaf was her limit, and she knew it.
Adrian took the extra piece and took a massive bite of his own sandwich.
The crunchy bread, the savory, melting meat, and the sharp bite of the onions and lemon juice... it was just a perfect symphony of flavours. The whole prep work took him maybe three to four minutes.
They sat down to eat. But Adrian just stared at his food and sighed deeply.
"Why is my training going so slow...." Adrian complained with his mouth half full. "I can barely feel any actual progress happening in my mana veins."
Aria chewed her food and nodded in agreement.
"I feel the same way, Papa." Aria mumbled. "The mana crystals are not really helpful anymore. After I reached the fourth circle, they are not really doing much."
Adrian took a huge bite and nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. I feel like I am doing this completely wrong. I feel like... I’m stuck at a dead end right now and I cannot move forward. Maybe I need to stop depending on the mana crystals and just focus on using the normal meditation instead."
"Isn’t it better if you reach fourth circle first, papa? And then you can train your mana breathing." Aria asked and Adrian let out a sigh.
"Well, I guess you’re not wrong... "
He looked at his sandwich. "I was originally trying to forcefully increase my mana vein rank. That is the main reason why my overall progress has been taking so long. Most of the mana I absorbed from the crystals was just getting moved towards repairing the damage in my veins instead of actually helping me reach the fourth circle."