Chương 96: The System Goes Offline, Only Me Left

Chris moved, fast as a whirlwind. He remade the potato-cream base, and this time his movements were even more precise, every ratio measured to the gram. Then he poured the base onto a strainer lined with four layers of ultrafine gauze and began an extremely slow, careful filtration. Drop by drop… golden, impurity-free liquid seeped through the gauze and fell into the bowl below. The process couldn't be rushed; rush it, and the filtering structure of the gauze would break down. He didn't idle while the filter ran.

He fired up another burner at the same time and started on the caramel potato crisps. Paper-thin potato slices went into the rolling-hot oil, fried to a golden crisp, lifted out, drained of oil, then quickly coated in a thin layer of caramel. His brain was like a multi-core processor, handling several tasks at once, every motion precisely calculated, not a hair of it wasted. The people in the stands were dumbstruck.

"What is he doing? Has he lost his mind? There's no time left at all!" Marcus shouted, frantic.

"No—look." Jack's eyes lit up instead.

"He hasn't given up. He's fixing it. And… he's moving more than twice as fast as before." The filtering was finally done. Chris looked at the base in the bowl—half as much as before, but pure and silky beyond compare—and let out a breath. He'd bet right. Now, only the last twenty-five minutes remained.

He had to finish, all at once, the refreezing of the ice cream, the mixing of the black-truffle honey, pulling the potato pavé from the oven and trimming it, assembling the gratin element, and the final plating of all three dishes. It was a workload that, under normal conditions, would take at least forty minutes. Fine beads of sweat broke out on Chris's forehead. He knew that on his own, he'd never make it in time. He had to borrow outside strength.

"System," he said inwardly.

"Activate 'Absolute Heat Control (Short Duration).'" If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It was the reward he'd won in the restaurant-takeover battle, and the last trump card he'd held in reserve all this time. He'd always assumed he'd use it on some crucial cooking step—he'd never imagined that in the end he'd use it… to save time. [Confirm use of one-time skill "Absolute Heat Control (Short Duration)"?]"Confirm!" [Skill activated.] In an instant, the world in Chris's eyes changed. The potato pavé in the oven was no longer a blurry whole, but a heat model made of countless data points. He could clearly "see" the heat conducting through every layer of potato slices, "see" the precise progress of the caramelization on top. He didn't need to wait, didn't need to guess. He only needed to pull it out at the exact instant the data model hit its perfect threshold. Thirty seconds. The skill lasted only a short thirty seconds.

Chris didn't use it to cook anything—he just stared, hard, at the pavé in one oven and the miniature model of the gratin element in the other. Twenty seconds… ten seconds… Now! The instant the skill's effect faded, Chris pulled open both oven doors at once and lifted out two perfect half-finished dishes. The heat was exactly right—not a second early, not a second late. In just thirty seconds, he'd finished work that would normally take at least five minutes of repeated watching and judging.

He'd clawed back five precious minutes for himself. But just as he was about to start the next step, a piercing alarm suddenly blared in his mind. [Warning! Warning! Abnormal system energy drain! Activating a one-time high-tier skill has overloaded the core module!] [System entering low-power protection mode.] [Module "Data Eye" disabled.] [Module "Dish Simulation" disabled.] [Estimated recovery time: Unknown.] The blue system light-screen flickered a few times, then went completely dark. Chris froze.

The system… had gone offline? In the final fifteen minutes of the grand final, at the moment he needed help most, the system that had always been his greatest crutch had simply walked off the job. On reflex he tried to call the system, but his mind was utterly silent, no response of any kind. The familiar data panels, completion estimates, and analysis readouts in his vision—all of them vanished. What he saw now was only ingredients, plates, and his own two hands. A vast panic seized his heart in an instant.

Like a driver who'd always relied on GPS, suddenly dumped into an unfamiliar desert; like a programmer who suddenly found his computer blue-screened, all his code and tools gone. He… had only himself left.

"Why did Chris stop?" In the stands, Sarah's heart climbed into her throat.

"He looks… a little off." Jack frowned too. Across the floor, Ethan had finished all his cooking and, with an almost obsessive perfectionism, begun his final plating. The orientation of every slice of vegetable, the position of every drop of sauce, all carefully designed. And Chris stood at his station, motionless, as if held by a binding spell. Time—only the last fifteen minutes remained.