Draden plucked at the edges of the clothes he was wearing in annoyance. They were rough-spun and itchy. Thankfully, his small clothes were of higher quality and kept his chest and privates from being rubbed raw.

  Still, the rest of his body was open season.

  He limped into the dirty kitchen, each step requiring him to lean heavily on the cane. He had gotten his first look at the damage that had been done to his leg, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. The scar was a gnarled mass of twisted flesh where it had created a knot of muscle. His wife had done her best to save his leg right after the attack, but she hadn’t known about the poison that had been on the blade at the time. The poison had caused it to heal badly, resulting in the twisting mass he was faced with now.

  If it hadn’t been for the poison, then his leg probably would have healed without an issue.

  There wasn’t much in the kitchen, but they did have a few supplies, enough for a single rather skimpy meal, at least. According to his memories, Draden had actually been rather wealthy when they first moved here. He still had some money, but a year of doing nothing but drinking had put a significant dent in his funds.

  It was a problem, as with his leg and now lacking cultivation, there were few jobs he could perform.

  Shaking his head, Draden grabbed a rather squishy lemon, along with a fish flapping about in a small hole that had been dug underneath the kitchen floor and whatever else he could find.

  He slapped everything on the semi-dirty counter with a sigh of resignation and reached for a nearby knife. This was his life now. While some things could be done to make their house and general life better and cleaner. The fact was, they were more or less living in what was the equivalent of the middle-ages. It wasn’t a one-to-one comparison, as from his memories he could remember some frankly magical things.

  Where they had chosen to settle down though, was a less developed place. At the time, he and his wife had hoped that it would be out of the way enough that no one would find them. It had worked too, for a few years.

  Shaking his head, he dismissed those thoughts and handed the pot to Leah. “Can you put some water in this for me, please?”

  She nodded with a smile and brought it over to the nearby sink while he reached for a knife.

  As soon as his hand touched the handle, the world around him slowed and a message appeared in front of his eyes.

  [Soul Combination Detected – Error!]

  [Soul Combination & Prior Life Memories Detected – Soul used for combination related to original but was pulled from an alternative universe through unknown means…]

  [Current Host’s Body is in poor condition with access to their cultivation core restricted due to prior damage.]

  [Searching for solutions…]

  [Congratulations, limited access to this soul’s original universe and planet has been established.]

  [Creating a basic system for use – Complete.]

  [Access to a summoning portal has now been established. Once a day, you may summon ingredients from your world according to the amount of money donated. This is done through a simple mental command, and the cost of ingredients may or may not equal the amount donated.]

  [Note: These ingredients will have effects similar to those colloquially known as magical or qi-enriched herbs or ingredients.]

  [Note 2: The system may be upgraded at a later date should you become able to pay with spirit coins instead of regular money.]

  Draden glanced down at the knife in his hand and then the message in confusion. He didn’t understand anything about what he was seeing. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had read stories that involved systems and transmigrations during his time on Earth.

  However, according to the memories he had inherited when his soul apparently combined the Draden of this universe… There was no system in this world. Receiving messages in front of your vision or access to help from some other entity was abnormal. It was unheard of, which meant that it was something that had gotten attached to his soul and come along for the ride when he was…

  Actually, that was another issue. He had no idea how he had ended up here. He obviously hadn’t been summoned. There were so many questions and zero answers. One of which was why his admittedly seemingly barebones system appeared to revolve around ingredients.

  Sure, Draden enjoyed cooking during his time on Earth, but it wasn’t something he had been passionate about. He couldn’t say that there had ever been anything he had ever been truly passionate about in life. All of his hobbies had been enjoyable -for a time- but he was generally willing to abandon them with little regret.

  This version of Draden differed from him in that regard, he had been passionate about his training and his wife. Both of those had been taken from him. He loved his daughter, but he was also too lost in his grief to do what he needed to most of the time.

  Shaking his head, he dispelled the erroneous thoughts along with the various messages. As they vanished, he found the world speeding back up to its normal pace once more.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He placed the knife back on the counter, and using his cane, limped back to his room. Most of his money was kept in several banks, one of which was located in the city nearby. Still, like everybody else, he still kept some money in his house for whenever purchases came up throughout the week.

  The pouch next to his bed held one gold coin, five silver coins, and eighty-three bronze coins. How much of it did he want to use on summoning ingredients? From the message, it sounded like there was some equivalent exchange going on, but was it according to monetary value or metal value?

  He had no idea how much a bronze coin might translate to in value in relation to Earthly currency. In this case, he decided the best method was to use a nice even amount that would be easily calculable later.

  Fifty bronze coins. It wasn’t a terribly large amount in this world, but it could still buy some food from a roadside seller.

  Taking out the amount, he stored the bag of money and then limped back into the kitchen.

  Leah had finished filling the pot and was waiting for him on a small stool, her feet kicking back and forth as she sang softly to herself.

  He splashed out some of the water to clean the counter and then, with a smile at his daughter, he winked. “Do you want to see something interesting?”

  She nodded and stood on top of the stool. “Show Leah, show her.”

  He extended his hand with the bronze coins on it toward her. After a second, they appeared to turn into dust and scattered on the wind blowing through the ill-kept house.

  The little girl tilted her head in confusion. “What-”

  Draden held up a finger. The process hadn’t finished yet.

  The counter in front of him where all his ingredients were flashed, each item seemingly being scanned. A moment later, a small glowing circle appeared next to the wet cutting board. In the middle of the circle, one ingredient after another began to appear.

  There were little metal shakers of salt and pepper. A little squeeze tube of honey, and a clump of garlic cloves.

  Well, that made things a little annoying. Now, he had no idea what to think. Was the cost of the metal for the shakers and the plastic of the squeeze tube included in the cost or a freebie?

  If he assumed that the material wasn’t included in the summoning, then he judged that one bronze coin could be equal to either a nickel or a dime in value. As the ingredients likely had a value between two-fifty, all the way up to five dollars. That was a fair bit of variance, and he would only be able to narrow it down with time.

  However, even that might not work, considering the message had straight up said that the value wouldn’t always be one-to-one. Then again, maybe that was its way of dismissing the cost of packaging and the like.

  Leah was trying to climb onto the top of the counter, her mouth hanging open. “When did daddy learn magic?”

  Draden chuckled and ruffled her hair. “I’m afraid this is the only sort of magic that I can do right now.”

  He glanced over the ingredients gathered on the counter and a simple recipe came to mind. It was a simple enough recipe, but it was one he had made before. He wasn’t a professional chef by any means on Earth, however, he had lived on his own, and cooking was something that he occasionally enjoyed.

  This particular recipe was known as ‘Honey Garlic Fish’, though the fish part of the recipe could easily be swapped for chicken or other items. Unfortunately, he was missing one spice that would have added a bit of flavor to the end result. But that was life.

  Draden cleared his mind and began descaling and prepping the fish. Once that was done, he grabbed two chipped bowls and quickly mixed the ingredients together. In the first bowl went salt and pepper. If he’d gotten lucky enough, then he would have also mixed in some cayenne pepper.

  In the second bowl went some water, the honey, juice he squeezed from the lemon, and a pinch of salt.

  With that done, he seasoned each surface of the fish with the salt and pepper mix, then pushed it to the side. Moving on to the next step, he began to prepare the fire under the stove plate and put some oil in the cast iron pan. Once the pan was hot, he carefully slipped the fish into the pan, skin side down so it could begin to sear.

  After a minute, he flipped the fish and let it cook the new side, then repeated the process a minute later. With that done, he added three cloves of garlic that he had quickly chopped into a mince. Using a wooden spoon, he stirred the garlic around the pan, letting them brown. The last step was adding the honey and lemon juice mixture to the pan.

  Using a smaller spoon, he splashed the honey mixture onto the fish, helping it to cook as the mixture gradually turned sticky.

  Taking the fish from the pan, he topped them with parsley and handed one to his drooling daughter with a smile. “Let’s eat.”

  It was good, though he did miss the bite that the cayenne pepper would have added. There was something else though, the food had an additional effect, well effects, multiple in this case.

  He could feel the knotted, twisted, and scarred muscles in his leg twitching as they began to move for the first time in years. In addition, a trickle of qi entered his body and began to reinforce his long unused meridians. It wasn’t enough to offset the damage he had suffered either, but it did give him a path forward. It wouldn’t be immediate, but it wouldn’t be long either.

  He just needed to be able to keep buying ingredients. Which meant he was going to need a source of income.

  Leah was in the midst of licking her wooden plate, trying to get every drop of lemon and honey. “That was so good!” Her head tilted to the side. “Leah’s insides feel all tingly, and the toe she hurt earlier doesn’t hurt anymore. Daddy’s magic is so strong!”

  He blinked at her in surprise, a slow grin coming over his face as the answer came to him. That was it. The answer he had been looking for. They were going to open a restaurant. Rebuilding the house and constructing an addon section right next to it that would serve as the restaurant. It would take nearly all the money he had left in the local bank.

  He would need to send a request to one of the other banks farther away, where he had money stored. It wasn’t enough to just rebuild and build everything. He had to be able to afford ingredients for Leah and himself. Then, once the restaurant was open, he had to be able to make at least one meal a day with them as well.

  That would be the main draw to pull people in.

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

  https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern

  https://joshuakernbooks.com/