The familiar interface of the system greeted him, and he saw that his points had accumulated to 1,100. He needed a pick-me-up so he proceeded to click into the Lucky Draw System. Upon clicking the start button, the Golden Wheel for the lucky draw began to spin. Before long, the wheel came to a stop and an automated voice chimed in his head, “Congratulations to the Host! You have drawn the recipe for Hippocrates Soup, a Mythical Delicacy!” Christopher blinked at the screen, slightly taken aback by his luck. He certainly hadn’t expected to land himself a prize in the ‘others’ category on his first spin of the Golden Wheel. But what good is luck when it can’t even help Maryse recover from her condition? “I really would prefer a can of ‘Happy Juice’ or something to cheer me up,” he grumbled. While his first draw had landed him a prize, he was not any happier than he had been before he clicked into the system. He was still worried about Samantha, who was staying in the hospital for the night.He shoved his phone beneath his pillow with a resigned sigh but just as he was about to go to sleep, he stiffened at a sudden thought that seized him. Wait—Hippocrates Soup! I’ve got the recipe for Hippocrates Soup! The mythical Hippocrates Soup! Realization dawned upon him. Originating from Ancient Greece, Hippocrates was heralded as the Father of Medicine and he was noted for authoring the Corpus Hippocraticum—a compendium of treatments and diagnosis for over 70 diseases. If the soup is named after him, that would mean… His thoughts trailed off and he quickly leapt out of bed, unable to contain the excitement that came over him. He shuffled through the database in his mind and hastily pulled up the foreword of the recipe for the soup. The next moment, he could see the words projected before his eyes. “The Hippocrates Soup was curated by The Almighty Kitchen God as a tribute to the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates. This is a step-by-step recipe to recreate the soup. Due to the complexity of the recipe, a plethora of ingredients are required, and only a chef with Divine Culinary Skills can successfully recreate the soup. The ingredients that are necessary for the soup are wolfberries, ginseng—” The recipe for the soup was extremely detailed and read a few hundred words, but Christopher was not in the mood to take them in. Instead, he was focused on the effects of the concoction. Unlike the recipe, there was only one word that described what the Hippocrates Soup could do, but it was enough to make his breath hitch. His eyes widened as he registered the word ‘resurrection’. Resurrection—by definition, the soup could essentially bring even the dead back to life! The soup can heal Maryse from the worst of her conditions; in fact, it can even resurrect her should she unfortunately pass. How can I have been oblivious to the existence of such a precious delicacy in the Thumbs-Up System before this? Now that Christopher knew the Hippocrates Soup could save Maryse, he abandoned all thoughts of sleep and began to read the recipe in earnest. It didn't take him more than five minutes to take in the few hundred words that expounded the recipe, but his brows were knitted when he had reached the end of the passage. He was frowning not because the ingredients listed were rare—on the contrary, wolfberries and ginseng could be easily obtained in modern society; he was frowning because curating the soup itself required the use of the Mythical Flame, along with elite-level Culinary Skills, which were those of Fire, Knife, Tasting and Choosing Skills. He hadn't thought that cooking the soup would require these four Culinary Skills, all of which must be honed to the Divine Level, no less. Divine Level? He was rendered speechless. Under the Scrolls of Experience, his Fire Skills were only elevated to that of the Beginner Level, and the other three skills were still pathetically hanging around Practice Level. At the rate he was going, it would take ages before he could attain the Divine Level for these skills. Besides, even if he were to go through the Lucky Draw System again and land himself Scrolls of Experience, it would do little to help his cause. Furthermore, he had the Mythical Flame aspect of the recipe to worry about. He didn't even have the Mortal Flame, let alone the Mythical variant! Presently, he grew grim at the irony of his predicament. He was lucky enough to have obtained the recipe for the life-saving Hippocrates Soup and he was so close to being able to turn the odds in Maryse's favor, but here he was—stranded and kept away from successfully recreating the soup.He closed his eyes and lowered his head, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration as a look of despair passed over his features. "Why let me get the recipe when I can't even do anything with it?" It was agonizing to see hope flash before one's very eyes and then watch it disappear into thin air. He would have been better off not knowing about the soup in the first place, but now that he had learned of its existence and he had the recipe for it, it only devastated him to admit that he could not make it. The helplessness was twisting inside him and he couldn't breathe. He felt like he was drowning. Suddenly, he grunted and he stiffened, his anguish was swiftly replaced by ecstasy. Wait—I do have the Mythical Flame! And it's not impossible for me to level up the four Culinary Skills so that I could attain the Divine Level! He was thinking about the Infinite Karmic Flame that the system had rewarded him previously. That's the kind of Mythical Flame that the recipe called for! As for the four Divine Culinary Skills, this could be the chance for him to use the Kitchen God's Descent!How could I have forgotten about that? Excited to have resolved this problem, Christopher hastily put on his shoes and rushed out the door. An hour later, he returned with a large carrier bag that was weighed down with various herbs. He had been right to say that the ingredients for the Hippocrates Soup were common, and he managed to find all that he needed from a 24-hour apothecary. Buzzing with anticipation, he hurried into the kitchen. He placed the pot on the stove and laid out all the ingredients in the same order that was detailed in the recipe, then took out his phone. Now that he was familiar with the recipe, all he needed was the Infinite Karmic Flame and the Kitchen God's Descent. If these worked out, then he was confident that he could recreate the Hippocrates Soup without a hitch. Without hesitation, he visualized the recipe and pressed the button for the Kitchen God's Descent. A whirring sound filled the kitchen as his phone vibrated aggressively. Then, there was a bright flash of white light, followed by the graceful hologram of a wizened and grey-haired elder that was projected from the screen. Smoke surrounded the elder's silhouette and he looked as though he had stepped out from some mythical realm. At that moment, the phone stopped vibrating and the hologram of the elder was cast over Christopher's frame. As soon as he was fully cloaked in the elder's hologram, it was as if the world shifted and he had become an entirely different person. There were no words to describe the bewildering experience. When his hand brushed over the myriad of kitchen utensils laid out on the counter, he felt as though these inanimate objects were alive and breathing. Just as he immersed himself in this feeling, the electronic voice of the system spoke in his headspace, “The Kitchen God's Descent has been initiated. The countdown starts now. 180, 179, 178, 177—” It was only upon hearing this that Christopher remembered that the Kitchen God's Descent came with a time limit and he had only three minutes before the function stopped. Not wanting to waste any more time, he took up his utensils and ingredients, then followed every step in the recipe as he dived into making the Hippocrates Soup.