Episode 7

The semi-final wasn’t the same with the other, this the real cooking battle that Xen has saw on TV. The top 5 has to cook 3 dishes - an appetizer, main course and dessert. These dishes must use special ingredients and has the same scoring ladder as the previous battles, scoring base on smell, decoration and skills, this time they added taste testing it only took 10% in the grading. There will be no time limit, but the candidates can make the dish only one time, which means if they failed, they have to submit it and moving on instead of making it again. The point will be released after all the dished been submitted. And the score will be announced publicly.

Xen can feel the pressure coming from everyone and he spotted Ymir, who seems to be very quiet today, must be because of the semi-battle and no one want to lose. Same as for Xen, he hopes that the semi-final can help him find his answer for his emptiness.

Their battle started with a signal siren and everyone rushing to the cabinet and picking their own supplied. Xen planned to make flower salad, beefsteak and pear tart. But the requirement is using special ingredients then he must find an equal replacement. After 4 days training, Xen has memorized all the special ingredients name and their description, they were called special ingredients because they were come from other planets, and have difference texture, preparation from normal ingredients.

So, he started with cactus flower on planet DS-5 for the salad, Wild red bull beefsteak and crystal pear tart for the dessert. At the beginning, while cutting flower cactus, Xen can feel that there is something wrong with the knife, but he was unsure. It feels likes the knife is pulling him follow it leads, Xen soon dismissed the idea. It's just imagination, he thought.

But when he moves to butchering the beef, Xen can feel a strong force that pulling him follow its lead. Xen starts panic when he realized that the knife makes Xen divide the meat horizontally instead of vertically, he doesn’t want to lose right now but the knife is too strong to control. He needs to gain the control back as soon as possible before the knife destroy everything. Sooner, Xen noticed the inside part of the meat been cut horizon showed the interspersed of the red meat the fat created a marble pattern, the most delicious part of the meat. He quickly understands that the knife moving on its own because it knows how to process the special ingredients. This time Xen not controlling the knife anymore, he let the knife do it work.

Crystal pear is more difficult to prepare, the skin was hard like crystal and fruit meat inside was soft and clear like jelly. Xen can’t think of any ways to avoid smashing the pear inside, he knows he can depend on the Outro knife but right now he doesn’t know where to start. Maybe picking randomly side or letting the knife work, he thought. Unfortunately, this time the blade isn’t working as he thought it would be. It stilts as a rock and Xen start using plan B, creativity.

From the textbook, to prepare the Crystal Pear, the chef needs to cut it open from the top of the petiole of the fruit, then Xen cut them into half. He only got one chance so smashing of the pear is not an option, so cutting into four pieces then scoop the meat out with a spoon have higher perfect chance. Thankfully, it was as perfect as he thought it would be. For now, half of them will be sliced into equal pieces and the other half are used for making the tart filling.

Instead of making pie crust, Xen crushed the cracker and mixed them with melted butter. Baking and dough making wasn’t his strong suit, to avoid getting minus points he needs to focus on his strong. Then he pressed them into the small pie plate and fill it with blended pear with sugar and bake it until the filler has light brown. The tart was finished with some cream circle the edge and decorated with sliced pears in the middle.

Xen completed his dishes and submitted it; he’s soon notice that he was the third submission. Ymir was the first and a blue alien was the second, on the stage remaining 2 people left, a red slime girl and a wolf guy, they both looks struggling with their dishes. They weren’t allowed to interfere the other so Xen spend his free time watching the match. After an hour, they were sent home and told to receive the score at tomorrow morning. Xen is quite concern and annoyed, the emptiness inside him has expanded. He spends all his night thinking about the battle and afraid that he might lose.

Xen wakes up with dark bags under his eyes, he couldn’t sleep so he decided to spend all his night at the kitchen practicing with Outblade. A small buzz come from his phone, it was the mail about the score and Xen receive 87 points, ranked the second after Ymir. The feedback was short, his food decoration was good but the beefsteak preparing was bad, they said he wasn’t followed the guide instruction when preparing Wild red bull and using only one high rank special ingredient. Therefore, Xen soon realize that there isn’t any feedback about the taste. He finally knows why he always feel angry and annoyed because the examiner didn’t eat it. How can they know the food was good or bad if they didn’t taste it?!

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