Chapter 1 Snake Spirit Yala's Cooking Class

First, prepare two Lingzhi (spiritual plant) ball cabbages. After washing them thoroughly, use an Exorcism Rune to cut them in half, killing the Lingzhi and removing its residual spirituality.

Take out the stalk separately, chop it into small pieces, and soak it in water for later use. It can be mixed with onions and black pepper to make black pepper sauce.

After taking out the stalks, peel off the cabbage leaves and tear them into evenly sized pieces. Actually, at this stage, the Lingzhi is already edible. However, in order to soften the spiritual energy within, so that ordinary people can also consume it and unknowingly enhance their physical fitness, it must be processed further.

Soak the leaves in blessed holy salt water and repeatedly chant mantras using the mobile phone's recording function (it needs to be placed in a Spirit Gathering Array to induce spiritual energy oscillations), so that the original Lingzhi spiritual energy does not dissipate, and gradually becomes gentle. This process takes about an hour, but practitioners can use their spiritual energy to assist and accelerate it.

Once processed, you can take out the cabbage leaves and drain them.

Prepare ingredients such as garlic slices, green Sichuan peppercorns, and millet peppers. Heat oil in a pan, add the ingredients and stir-fry until fragrant, then add the drained cabbage leaves and begin to stir-fry.

During the stir-frying process, you need to continuously inject spiritual power. The purpose of this step is to use high-temperature oil with a little spiritual power to calcine the wood energy in the Lingzhi and convert it into pure vitality.

After all the wood energy has been converted, a plate of very delicious hand-torn cabbage (Lingzhi cabbage) can be served. (280 calories + 63 units of vitality nourishment. The vitality index of an average adult is 100).

You can see that at the moment this dish is served, it faintly emits a little spiritual light—this is the spontaneous light phenomenon caused by the dissipation of a little unusable spiritual energy remaining in the Lingzhi.

"Well, although it is less effective than complete Lingzhi or high-level elixirs, it is safer for ordinary people to consume. They don't have to refine the medicinal power after eating it."

Su Zhou picked up a piece of cabbage leaf with his chopsticks, chewed it, and felt that it was crisp and delicious. He immediately nodded in satisfaction, "Eating these Lingzhi won't have much effect on me, but it's enough to keep my family and friends healthy and free from diseases."

"If you have specialized spiritual kitchenware and various complex ingredients to make a spiritual delicacy, then the taste will not only be delicious, but the effect will not be weaker than ordinary elixirs. Naturally, it can also be eaten by ordinary people."

Yala instructed from the side, "The way of spiritual food has its own reason for existence, and it is also profound. If you master this way, the dishes you make may shine perpetually!"

"Is shining the main point?"

After complaining, and confirming his craftsmanship and effect, Su Zhou sealed the spiritual energy of these foods with a ritual to keep them fresh.

In the blink of an eye, it was evening.

December 10, 2014, 8:47 PM.

Su Zhou's family of three rarely gathered together to have dinner.

On the table was a lavish eight-dish and one-soup meal specially prepared by Su Zhou.

No one spoke at the dinner table; everyone was silently picking up dishes.

Outside the window, snowflakes beat against the glass, forming ice crystals. The winter chill spread, causing the windows to creak.

The spiritually revived city was quiet in the snow.

"Our son's cooking is really getting better and better."

After taking another bite of the dish, Ning Shiyu, who had been feeling a little mentally exhausted from analyzing and dissecting extraordinary creatures for many nights, shook her head, feeling that her head was not as dizzy as before. A trace of gentle vitality was infiltrating, subtly strengthening her life essence.

She said with emotion, "Really, even big restaurants don't taste this good. It's so delicious that even my head doesn't hurt."

Of course it's good, can big restaurants use Lingzhi to cook? Su Zhou silently picked up a piece of braised pork for himself. The Lingzhi were for his parents; he should eat meat first.

"Good, good! As expected of our son!" Su Bei Luo was too lazy to even express his emotions. In fact, neither of them could cook. Su Zhou's cooking skills had nothing to do with them. Now, he was scooping a bowl of lotus root soup—naturally, it was also Lingzhi.

"Honey, eat more." After serving, Su Bei Luo didn't give it to himself. Instead, he handed the bowl to Ning Shiyu, and Su's mother smiled and put a chopstick of vegetables into Su's father's bowl.

They looked at each other, and everything was understood without words.

"Tsk, what's going on? This feeling that I'm superfluous?" Seeing his parents showing affection by serving each other dishes, what could Su Zhou do? He could only click his tongue in his heart, then get up to fill his fifth bowl of rice.

At this moment, Su Bei Luo's peripheral vision swept over Su Zhou, and a trace of doubt flashed in his heart.

"—This kid, there's really nothing strange about him. It's normal for his cooking skills to improve, but I always vaguely feel that something is wrong."

"His hair is growing a little too fast. Is it puberty? Or an abnormality caused by the spiritual energy revival? After all, he has such good talent. Could it cause some physical abnormalities?"

"His temperament has also changed slightly. He was originally more impetuous, but today he has become much more steady..."

Su Bei Luo and Ning Shiyu looked at each other, obviously, they both had the same thoughts as him... A police officer and a doctor, if they observed carefully, how could they not notice this abnormality? But asking about it seemed too serious. Their son wasn't a criminal; it felt a little unnecessary.

Su Zhou, who had returned with his rice, also noticed that the atmosphere was a bit strange. He guessed what it was, but he didn't care. He just casually brought up a topic after sitting down, "By the way, Mom and Dad, have you heard? The three newly established cultivation academies by the government have new information."

"To enter, it seems that you not only need talent, but also need to take a special test to get good grades in 'Spiritual Energy Class.' All my conditions are met. I want to go to those three cultivation academies."

After hearing this, Su's father and Su's mother, who originally thought Su Zhou was going to say something else, breathed a sigh of relief, "We thought you were going to say something. Is that all?"

Su Zhou's talent had already been demonstrated at the beginning of the school year. No one would think that his relevant talent and grades would be bad.

"But, son." Although he was very relieved, Su Bei Luo still frowned slightly and asked, "Aren't those professors very optimistic about you? Like Zhengyi Academy, Yuzhang Academy, they also have related extraordinary courses, and the quality is definitely not bad—there shouldn't be any need to go to those special cultivation academies, right?"

"Yes." Ning Shiyu also put down her soup spoon and asked seriously, "Staying locally should be fine. Professor Zhang from Zhengyi Academy specifically talked to me, saying that the academy's cultivation courses are definitely among the best in the country. If you are willing to join, they are willing to provide you with a full scholarship."

"How should I put it, it's mainly for childhood dreams and family tradition."

Su Zhou laughed it off. He wasn't making it up, although his expression didn't look too serious, Su Zhou's tone was very serious, "The spiritual energy classes in other academies are not the main courses. There, you only learn cultivation and don't involve any other knowledge. After leaving the academy, you are just an engineer with cultivation, a diplomat with cultivation, a programmer with cultivation. If you want to learn combat spells outside of various professions, you still need to study on your own."

"But the three cultivator academies located in Tiandu, Modu, and Xijing are specifically established to 'manage extraordinaries.' The graduates from them are specifically responsible for this aspect, that is, similar to armed police officers, officers, and related researchers in the extraordinary world. There can be more career choices, and the inheritance is also richer."

"In other words, the extraordinary courses in other academies are to choose the extraordinary as an auxiliary to the profession, while the cultivation academies take the extraordinary as a profession."

"...I see." Su Zhou said it very clearly, and they could easily understand it. Su Bei Luo and Ning Shiyu seriously looked at their son, and then smiled, "In that case, aren't you born for this?"

Their expressions were very gratified. Ning Shiyu even picked up her chopsticks and put a chopstick of vegetables for Su Zhou, "Since this is your choice, we won't interfere with you... You have always been more opinionated than other children. We believe in your judgment—not to mention you have such good talent. Mom is very relieved."

"Okay, eat, eat." Su Bei Luo also served Su Zhou a bowl of soup and 'casually' rubbed his head vigorously.

"The touch...doesn't feel like hair, but more like steel bars?" For a moment, the touch in his hand made him slightly startled, "This child's physical fitness...the spiritual energy revival has such a big impact on Su Zhou?!"

"If it were someone else, I would definitely suggest him to think more about it before deciding on his future, but Su Zhou, my son...I feel that if he wants to, he can definitely do it."

Next, the family continued to eat, and there was a little more discussion.

Ning Shiyu briefly talked about the research at the hospital. Limited by the confidentiality agreement, she couldn't say what kind of creature it was, but the progress was quite smooth. Next year, she might be able to get the title of professor and chief physician because of this. While this elicited admiration and joy from the other two, it also prompted Su Zhou to express the righteous-nation sentiment of 'I wonder if that thing is delicious.'

Afterwards, Su Bei Luo turned on the TV to make the news sound make the home more lively.

But international news such as "Large-scale extraordinary riots in Moshigo, several cities under martial law" "Mutated extraordinary monsters appeared in the Ganges River in Zhuguo, causing nearly a thousand deaths" and other news of foreign countries being mired in deep waters made this police officer shake his head, "Although foreign countries are more chaotic than us, to be honest, there have been a lot of crimes committed by extraordinaries recently."

"There are many extraordinaries who have awakened some special abilities, or have good talents, and have quickly cultivated spiritual power. They are unwilling to obey laws and regulations, and are unwilling to report to the authorities. It was difficult to handle many things during the heavy snow some time ago, but they always use their abilities to commit crimes. Not only are they difficult to detect and discover, but they are also extremely difficult to capture - fortunately, the snow has been too heavy recently, and criminals don't like to come out either, so it's been a little more leisurely."

What Su Bei Luo said was the common dilemma of police officers all over the world today. Just like in classical detective novels, the existence of martial arts cannot appear, the emergence of extraordinary power has brought great trouble to the pursuit of criminals.

For example, a gentleman is murdered in a closed castle, and the cause of death is a shattered skull. In theory, as long as you find the murder weapon that can shatter a person's skull, you can follow the clues to find the criminal - but if you add martial arts, the criminal actually used a Taiji Cannon Hammer Fist, or a Vajra Palm to directly kill the person. If he doesn't publicly demonstrate how this move was made, there is no way to start deducing it.

What bothered Su Bei Luo was this - superpowers are varied, and bloodline talents are also the same. If randomly awakened extraordinaries choose to commit crimes, then before the new extraordinary criminal investigation develops, it is really difficult to capture them.

Hearing this, Su Zhou's expression was also quite serious. Because, this is the reason why he wanted to go to those three professional extraordinary academies.

"The Divine Wood World let me know the consequences of the abuse of power. And the existence of the Tang family undoubtedly proves how much harm unbridled extraordinaries can cause to ordinary people in the absence of strong supervision."

In his mind, the laughing face of the Thousand Mile Wilderness and the raging magic soldiers emerged, and Su Zhou remembered the many resentful spirits he had seen in the Tang family just half a day ago.

"It is natural for extraordinaries to pursue freedom, but if they use their freedom to harm the freedom and safety of others, then this is undoubtedly a big mistake."

"This kind of willful behavior is evil."

Su Zhou's eyes were deep, but if he was the kind of saint who loved order, or someone with excessive sense of justice, it was not entirely true.

His ideas are actually simpler.

—In order to obtain extraordinary power, I would rather abandon my conscience and kill ordinary people to achieve myself.

If 'someone' thinks that this kind of 'oppression' is justified, then Su Zhou will become a bigger and stronger extraordinary to oppress these oppressors, and use the souls of these evil people to achieve himself.

Heaven's principles cycle, and retribution is inevitable. He is not a good person, and he does not reason with evil people.

After dinner, Su Zhou's parents rarely rested at home for one night before going to work the next morning.

When Su Bei Luo returned to the bureau, the bureau was quite idle - the snow has been too heavy recently, even criminals are people, there is no reason to go out and commit crimes at this time, and this is the reason why he was able to go home to rest yesterday.

"Team Su, those supernatural magazines you ordered have arrived. Should I put them on your seat so it's convenient to take them back in the afternoon, or should I put them in your locker first?"

Hearing the greeting from Old Ma at the reception room, Su Bei Luo was slightly stunned. He originally subconsciously wanted to say "Thanks, Old Ma, then please put them on my seat!", just like in the past ten years.

But thinking of Su Zhou's serious and expectant expression when he mentioned the cultivator academy yesterday, the corners of Su Bei Luo's mouth couldn't help but curl up slightly, and he sighed with a smile, "Don't bother, Old Ma, I'll go and tidy up myself later!"

"In the future, I won't order these magazines anymore."

"Huh? Why?" Hearing this sentence, a middle-aged man who was called Old Ma, who had impaired vision in one eye, and whose hair was slightly white, walked out of the reception room with half a box of magazines, somewhat surprised, "Why did you suddenly stop ordering them?"

"Hey." Su Bei Luo walked forward and took the half box. He smiled and said, "It's not needed anymore. Didn't I order these things in the past because my son liked them?"

"Now that spiritual energy has been revived, that kid has such good talent, and he plans to apply to a cultivator academy. His future life will definitely be more magnificent and bizarre than what these magazines make up. Why does he still need to read these things?"

"I thought you and your son both liked them, since you always carefully selected which magazines to subscribe to." Old Ma touched his slightly bulging belly and laughed, "But Su Zhou's talent is really good. The professors on their side told my boy and girl that they will definitely be able to get into whatever academy!"

"Thanks, Old Ma, I appreciate your kind words!"

Time passed, December 18, 2014. Thursday, the heavy snow gradually stopped, and the global spiritual energy agitation that had affected the world gradually subsided, and the global spiritual energy concentration increased significantly again.

And the school, which had been suspended for several weeks, resumed classes today.

The long-lost campus has returned!