Leveling Up Through Eating

Chapter 407: Spotlight

Two weeks ago.

Minhyuk went with the farmers of Rocard Kingdom to the Ingredient Heaven. When they arrived at the Ingredient Heaven, he was surprised to find the field shining brightly. It was both a strange and shocking sight. On top of that, all of the ingredients planted in the Ingredient Heaven were auxiliary cooking ingredients, like garlic, spring onions, onions, carrots, and the like.

Minhyuk harvested one onion and checked the ingredient’s information.

(Ingredient Heaven’s Onion)

Ingredient Grade: Five Legendary Ingredients

Special Abilities: STM +1, STR +1

Description: One of the Five Legendary Ingredients. Heaven's Onion is an ‘auxiliary’ ingredient. Auxiliary ingredients are one of the most important ingredients when cooking. Only ten of these onions can be eaten per person, any more than that and the effect will not be expressed. The effects of this onion can overlap with the effects of other ingredients.

“Heok…?!” Minhyuk gasped in shock.

The size of Ingredient Heaven was larger than what he initially expected it to be. The ingredients that they could harvest right away looked to be in the thousands. And those thousands of ingredients had an effect that could permanently increase one’s stats.

However, the Athenae management were definitely not stupid. They had set a limit and only allowed each person to eat ten of each ingredient to maintain balance. However, there were no limits imposed on how many kinds of restricted ingredients one could eat. One could increase their stats by 50 just by eating onions, garlic, spring onions, and carrots alone.

This was also another reason why Minhyuk was so shocked…

‘The ingredients in Ingredient Heaven can rival an elixir?’

Elixirs were regular occurrences in RPG games. They were extremely expensive potions that could raise one’s stats by +1 or +2 upon consumption. However, elixirs were very difficult to obtain. Assuming that one obtained STR elixirs by luck, they could only take five. Any more after that and it would not work anymore.

This was the main reason why medicines were extremely valuable. However, even after one had taken those elixirs, they could still eat the ingredients from Ingredient Heaven.

After searching through and looking through the details of Ingredient Heaven, Minhyuk found another surprising thing…

[You can always harvest at least 500 crops every year in the Ingredient Heaven.]

This amount of crops would never change even if they had a bad harvest. So, what would happen if there was a good bumper? This meant that the number of crops that they could harvest would increase.

Haze, who went with Minhyuk, looked at the Ingredient Heaven in admiration. She said, “Our troops will be able to grow further and get stronger with this. And, if we find a way to plant and harvest more crops in this Ingredient Heaven, then…”

The value of this place was astronomical. With this in hand, they would be able to strengthen their Atlas Territory troops and solve their financial problems. However, this was only assuming that they found out how to plant these crops. In fact, even the farmers of Rocard Kingdom did not know how to cultivate crops in the Ingredient Heaven.

According to them, the crops in this place grew on their own. And since the crops were heavily influenced by nature, they could not determine if they would have a good or bad harvest until the time to harvest came. As long as they found a way to cultivate crops in this land, they would be able to utilize it better, which in turn would help them leap to a higher place.

[Guild Master Minhyuk: For both the troops and the guild members, please study and look for references in books about how we can cultivate crops and gain a good bumper harvest in the Ingredient Heaven. Also, if you can, please let the people of our territory help out.]

[Genie: Roger that!]

[Locke: OK!]

They had to try everything that they could find, whether it was information from an old book, legendary soils, fertilizers, or nutritional supplements. Minhyuk and the members of Let’s Eat Sect gave their all in preparation for the upcoming Athenae: World War.

Then, a piece of news stood out in the guild chat window.

[Khan: Death came again. He’s still asking: ‘What’s the way to be happy?!’]

[Guild Master Minhyuk: Let him get killed.]

[Khan: Gotcha.]

Minhyuk smiled. Death had already come here to find him several times. However, he never intended to show him mercy and stop the people from killing him. But after a while, a whisper came from Death.

[Death: I came here to get beaten and die once again. However, I’m very curious about one thing. What did you mean when you told me that you were similar to me?]

Minhyuk smiled bitterly. He fully understood what Death was feeling. That was right. Minhyuk lived a life similar to Death. He hid in the dark for the longest time possible and lived a difficult life, one that he did not choose. Then, Minhyuk sent a whisper to Death…

[Minhyuk: I meant it literally. The only difference is the circumstances that surrounded us. You will continue to die here today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. However, I will not entertain your whispers anymore.]

…and cut him off.

[You have blocked Death.]

Even if Minhyuk blocked him, he knew that Death would continue to come here and die. Minhyuk went to the general goods’ store and bought letters. He would send these letters starting from Death’s sixth death until his last death under the hands of the people of Rocard Kingdom.

Minhyuk wrote him letters and used the ‘schedule function’ to send the letters to Death. His first letter was:

[I’m suffering from a rare and unimaginable disease. However, there’s a reason why I have overcome it.]

Including that letter, Minhyuk wrote a total of five letters that he sent on a schedule. He stretched his body and thought, ‘Will I be able to change his life?’

Minhyuk was not sure either. After all, he did not really do much for Death. He just told Death to come to him ten times and die, while he wrote a few letters. However, Minhyuk knew that this small act of kindness will become a driving force for a desperate person to rise up and live a new life. Of course, he just showed Death a bit of mercy, but Minhyuk predicted that he would be able to bring Death to his side with this small act.

And just when Minhyuk was about to move…

[General: Minhyuk! There’s trouble! Log-out, quick!]

“Hmm?”

Minhyuk looked at the whisper in doubt. But when he logged out, the news left him struck dumb. He felt as if he had been hit hard on the head. The first in the real-time search words was Food God and the second was eating addiction. This meant that someone had tipped Despatch about him.

The entire mansion was shrouded with a tense atmosphere. Even Minhyuk himself looked solemn after knowing that the thing that they hid for a long time ended up suddenly being revealed to the world without their consent. However, in a way, one could say that they had already hidden it very well. After all, Kang Minhyuk was Chairman Kang Minhoo’s son!

Minhyuk strived hard to achieve excellence in everything that he did. He was Ilhwa Group’s most promising star, their next chairman. That was why he usually drew attention from the public. However, he suddenly disappeared.

“This is clearly a scheme done by a rival company!” Oh Changwook shouted in anger.

Minhyuk’s father also rushed back to the house the moment he heard the news, “Son!”

His father looked extremely worried. He was not even worried about his company, all he was worried about was how his son was faring. Minhoo was very worried about the backlash that his son would receive. What would his son feel if the world sneered and mocked him?

Everyone looked at the dazed Minhyuk worriedly. After a few minutes, Minhyuk slowly stood up from his seat and went to the weighing scale.

[89.5kg]

Ever since he measured his weight back then, Minhyuk did his part and steadily lost weight. And right now, he has already reached a normal weight. In fact, he was not at all flustered. He seemed to be in a daze, because he was calmly assessing the situation.

Oh Changwook and Lee Jinhwan looked at Minhyuk in admiration.

‘My goodness… It’s amazing. How can he be so calm in front of this situation?’

‘As expected of the Chairman’s son, right…?’

They knew that they would have already fallen into despair if they were in Minhyuk’s shoes right now. Then, Minhyuk opened his mouth and said, “It’s okay for the world to know.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Everyone around him looked at him in confusion when they heard his words. Minhyuk looked at his father, Oh Changwook, Lee Jinhwan, Hye-jin, and the rest of the people that were worried about him and said, “It’s because I survived and overcame this disease.”

“…!”

“…!”

“…!”

“…!”

That was right. He could proudly say that he had created a miracle. World-renowned doctors were discussing the disease called eating addiction and had declared that it was an incurable disease, an unprecedented disease that had no successful treatment, and would eventually kill the patient. Plenty of people mocked and laughed at Minhyuk’s misfortune. However, what they did not know was that Minhyuk overcame it.

“We can use this to reverse the situation,” Minhyuk said with a grin.

Turning a disaster into an opportunity. An idiom that meant changing one’s crisis into a blessing and opportunity. Minhyuk thought about it calmly. Everyone would curse at him and mock him for being fat. They would also think that he would not participate in the World War because of how he looked.

Everyone was assuming that he was over 200 kg in weight right now. This meant that the person that tipped Despatch knew him before he started playing Athenae. The informant was most likely someone that worked in the mansion in the past.

Minhyuk had overcome this eating addiction, a disease that no one could fight against. He stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. He still had to lose around 10 kg, but he thought that he looked great already.

What would happen if he lost another 10 kg and appeared in public? And with his life story, how would the people feel if they knew that his sad and desperate drama had actually turned into a success story?

The people would definitely go wild and look up to the Food God that had overcome a deadly disease who appeared in front of the world with a handsome and outstanding appearance!

‘Perhaps, I should thank the informant instead?’

Minhyuk did not know who he was, but he gave the tip-off at the perfect time. They intended to use it to abuse Minhyuk, but he would use it as an ‘opportunity’. Even the companies that targeted Ilhwa Group would fall into frustration and despair once they saw his success story.

However, there was a problem. With the upcoming World War, he did not have much time to lose 10 kg. He only had a little over two weeks left to lose that much weight.

“Doc Jinhwan. I think I should take k4-1 for two weeks.”

“Will you be alright with that, Minhyuk?” Lee Jinhwan asked worriedly.

The drug k4-1 was a drug specially manufactured for Minhyuk by Ilhwa Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company under the Ilhwa Group. It had been a month since the drug was developed successfully.

However, this drug could not be taken for more than three weeks. Besides, it was not an effective drug against eating addiction. But with Minhyuk’s surprising weight loss, amazing improvement, and tenacious wil, Jinhwan had judged that this drug would work for him. He was just reluctant to recommend it because of the side effects.

“It’s going to be alright. I only have two weeks left to work with. I have to give the people that are cursing and mocking me during this two-week duration a surprise and turn the situation around,” Minhyuk said.

Changwook grinned and said, “What are you saying? It’s not ‘I’, it’s ‘we’.”

Changwook’s words warmed Minhyuk’s heart. Meanwhile, Kang Minhoo watched the scene in shock. He thought, ‘My son has truly grown up.’

Minhyuk’s ability to read the entire situation and come up with a solution could already rival his own. Even his plan to use this disaster and turn it into an opportunity was very shocking.

And just like that, two weeks had gone by.

***

“Food God Minhyuk. Participating in Athenae: World War.”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Murmur, murmur.

Click, click, click, click, click, click—

Everyone in the audience was shocked. The figure that they saw in the pictures had completely disappeared. They could not recognize Minhyuk, despite him looking exactly like how he looked in Athenae. This was because they were in denial. After all, was there really a person that could really lose that much weight and come back to this level?

On top of that, Minhyuk also looked different from his character in Athenae. First off, the armor in Athenae and modern suits and clothes were completely different. Besides, Minhyuk’s face was also prepared and had make up.

Meanwhile, the commentators…

[This is completely unbelievable. Minhyuk, the player that has created miracle after miracle in Athenae, has appeared in front of us. His appearance alone could surprise and overwhelm the representatives from other countries!!!]

[My heart is filled with indescribable emotions! It must have been a hard fight against that disease! However, Player Minhyuk had fought fiercely and won against this unwanted and incurable disease! My tears keep on flowing!!!]

[This is something that could bring a huge shock to the global medical community!!!]

[I don’t know what to say. All I could say is that he looks handsome and cool!!!]

It was the truth. Everyone that looked at Minhyuk, whether they be the reporters, the national representatives, or the general population, everyone held their breaths in awe.

And Go Eun-ah, the reporter acquainted with ‘Ruwan’, stood among the other reporters. She was a reporter that had written several articles about Ilhwa Group. She had been scouted and hired by Park Munsoo to write articles for them. Go Eun-ah smiled as she started to write an article on the spot.

Food God Minhyuk. No, Minhyuk, who was afflicted with Eating Addiction, has overcome his disease and proudly appears in front of the world. This is his ‘success story’.

She was sure that his story would bring countless tears to the eyes of everyone in the world and would give hope to those suffering from rare and unknown diseases.

Everyone’s taunts and ridicule had turned into cheers and shouts of envy. Minhyuk had completely turned the tide in his favor.

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