The next few days his routine was pretty much fixed.

He would do his morning routines while preparing food. Then, after that, he would absorb a few cores every morning, ideally for the rest of the morning before it was time to prepare for lunch. If there were monsters, he'd deal with them as quickly as possible, letting the goblins butcher them for him.

Pang had been tutting at him since he started focusing on cooking rather than training, but he definitely shut up when he saw how productive he was even with his core absorption.

He was evidently absorbing it faster and faster until a single core only needed less than an hour, which was amazing. Pang didn't tell him this, though, because he was afraid it'd make him lax even more.

He could already imagine him saying it, "so this means I have more time to explore~"

Except he didn't imagine it.

Pang gave a deadpan look at the innkeeper with weird priorities.

To be fair, it was just new to him. His previous Innkeepers were both uptight men who knew nothing but fighting, using the Inn's barrier to kill and protect, and using the inn's regeneration for themselves and for their parties in a way most people would.

In contrast, Finn cared only about fighting for the sake of his cooking ingredients…

The panda softened when Finn placed a lovely fruit salad in front of him.

Nom, nom, nom

Well, whatever.

Not to mention, although this Innkeeper really looked leisurely, if he looked closer, he really was doing well in terms of Innkeeping, considering he had nothing when he arrived.

His previous innkeepers lived in the world the Inn was built, so they had history, influence, and money. They simply had to call their teams and take advantage of the barrier to train.

Pang sighed. Well, he'd grow bald if he kept overthinking things. It was hard to be stressed when food was good…

Finn continued to relax a bit. After all, his quota was absorbing only two cores a day, so he still had time. No biggie.

If Pang knew what he was thinking he'd want to smack him. Most people would take an entire day to do the same, okay!?

But then he'd eat his food and calm down again.

After a couple more minutes, Finn finally stood up and headed to the back of the inn to check his gardens. The past few days, they filled it up with his favorite flavorings and spices. They also uprooted a few more wild Matis fruits and replanted them in his garden so he wouldn't run out of this ingredient.

The plants really did grow quite fast. He could compare the fruiting of the existing plants enclosed in garden 1 compared to those outside. He saw that when other shrubs were still flowering, the ones in the garden were already bearing berries.

Another, he confirmed that they (ingredients taken from the garden) had the effect of increasing the chances of making essence food!

Granted, he could already make it 100% but that was only when he was in the kitchen. He had tested it out, and when he cooked outside the kitchen, his success rate was reduced to about one for every five dishes or so.

It was still extremely high according to Pang, but as someone who had always made essence food for most of his tries, it was quite a hit to the heart.

Anyway, having the ingredients themselves add to the chances was really great! If he had really good ingredients, then this meant that even if he wasn't in the kitchen, then the added probability of success was higher!

And if used in the kitchen, maybe he could make a higher-class essence food soon!

He wanted to add more gardens, seeing how amazing they were. For now, this should suffice. Two days had passed since then though, and since his ingredients were limited, he hadn't really explored new recipes yet, but focused on mastering the ingredients themselves!

During this time, he studied how different temperatures affected his main ingredients, how they reacted with other ingredients, how a particular treatment affected the taste, and so on. To Pang, this was boring; to Finn, this was building his foundations.

Of course, he wasn't just cooking at this time; he was also slowly improving the landscaping around the Inn with the goblins.

The building footprint was approximately two hundred square meters at this time, including the circulation areas, a.k.a. The Hallways. That left around 800 square meters of area left. That said, there seemed to be some magic involved, and the rooms inside were actually bigger than the area they consumed outside, so making calculations felt too much like a headache.

Anyway, he knew that the inn was on the southern side of the mountain, facing South. There were probably angles, but for simplicity's sake, it was facing South.

The inn itself was placed about a third of the way to the Northern side, leaving more space for the front side (and a large amount of forests). This was also where the makeshift sparring ring was built.

On the other hand, the Gardens were built on the North side (or the rear of the territory), which wasn't a problem because it was a bit elevated, so the building's shadow wasn't much of a problem to his planting.

He was planning on putting all the produce gardens on this side, like a small farmland of sorts. He'd arrange them in easily manageable clusters. This would mean he'd have to clear up some of the existing forests, though, which was a pity, so he hoped to retain the enclosed forests up front.

If he got money, he'd add more gardens up front as well, but many of those would be to maintain the health of the enclosed vegetation and maybe add a few flowers here and there. When he entered a position of splurging, he would totally do it.

What kind of hospitality building wouldn't have flower gardens? Not his!

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