Chapter 179 - Feast

"Two steaks please."

As the queue we lined up in for more than half an hour finally moved far enough to allow us to order, I was quick to decide our meal. Considering how this was the only stall that was selling meat with deep-fried potatoes, I could finally enjoy something at least resembling earthy fast-food cuisine.

Passing the most used card, I saw the servant deducting the required amount of two arena coins from the card, before passing it back to me and pointing at the interior of the building.

"Sirs can wait for your meal inside. Just place this token on the table of your choosing, next!"

Passing a small sign with some mark written on it, this man quickly disregarded us and turned to the next customer. Considering how crowded this place was, I could easily understand his attitude. I happened to be at the shop right before the Christmas back on earth and I saw how clerks there had similarly dead eyes as this man. It was better to just follow his instructions and not stir any trouble. Taking in mind how popular this place was, it was obvious that they employed some drastic countermeasures for any potential troublemakers!

"Do you have any particular reason why we wasted so much time here?"

For the first time in my life, I could see a hint of dissatisfaction on the face of my beloved. Considering how we wasted so much time only to order the food when there were still great fights ongoing in the arena or thinking how much I could do in the smithy in the same time that we were pointlessly staying in the line makes it easy to understand.

"You just wait. As long as they didn't fuck things up, you will understand why I picked this place!"

While I couldn't be sure that the dish that they would serve would be in any way similar to the steak and fries that I loved back in the earth, just the sheer size of the people queuing here proved that there was indeed something to wait for!

"Okay then. Coming back to the topic, can't you just make your own handles? Why bother buying them if you can make better ones?"

Taking a small sip of the water from the glasses that were already on the table, Eve pointed out a valid fault in my thinking. Considering how great the sword with just a random handle would be if I was the one to make the blade, I didn't even want to imagine how it would improve if I were to make the handle myself as well. But the problem laid in points.

Woodworking or rather, carpentry was only one of the professions that I would have to pay for advancing to make my handles any better than just your everyday ones from the market. Even if I were to splurge on yet another ability instead of using those points to finally advance my stats, what if I needed one more profession? Or two?

I had no clue how to make a proper handle. I could only remember bits from the fantasy books that I read where various heroes had carbonised handles, handles covered in special thread… There were simply too many options to even consider this option seriously!

"To explain it, I would have to go into really small details, so you have to trust my word here. On the other hand, do you have any idea what this could be?"

Taking out this strange little thing that dropped from item randomizer after I accidentally threw Namatrium and my last heavenly stone in it. While I could simply use universal analyzer on it, I don't want to bias my opinion before I learn from someone else who do they think this is!

"Honestly, no idea."

As she looked at this star-shaped object, Eve could only shake her head with resignation. Looking at it with my own eyes, I even doubted whether it's not a single earpiece, but without a single thing to use as a hook, there was no way it could fill the criteria required for an item to be called like that.

With no other option, I could only grab it with my hand and utter in my mind.

Universal analyzer.

"Blop!"

"Heart of the weapon"

"Mixing it with materials of quality great enough will allow for freely changing the shape of the future weapon within the confines of the material quantity"

Wait, what? Are you fucking serious?

Seeing this notification, I could barely hold my excitement. Did that mean that if I were to find enough of Namatrium ore, I could make a shapeshifting weapon? Just as I was about to abruptly stand up and run to the market to look for this ore, our dishes finally arrived.

If one thought that Americans eat much, then he definitely didn't see this portion. With meat as wide as my waist and as thick as both of my hands cupped together, I could only stare are the pleiade of the deep-fried, peeled potatoes that decorated this piece of meat. As if someone wanted to make fun of those who dared to eat this meal, there was a single leaf of salad covering it, making this dish pretend to be healthy!

"Okay, I didn't expect this to be so big…"

At this point, I understood why a single meal costed an entire arena coin! With uncertainty about the taste of this food, I grabbed a knife and fork, only to cut off a small piece of the meat. Adding a small bite of the potato and a sizeable chunk of the salad, I placed all of it inside my mouth, expecting the worst.

Heaven.

I can describe what I felt only with this word.

With the tender meat dissolving in my mouth as soon as I closed my lips on the fork, it released its rich juices that instantly permeated the potatoes that added a nice touch of crispiness to the meal!

Unable to stop experiencing the constant changes of the food inside my jaw, I realised that somewhen during that process, this piece of salad started absorbing the meat juices, inflating to an insane size, almost making me open my mouth once again!

Clashing my teeth down on the food that I already had in my mouth, I felt an overwhelming amount of energy released as soon as the salad got crushed under my teeth.

I have no idea how, but they managed to make this single bite contain as much energy as an entire flask of blood tonic back in the sect!