Akihabara, 9:00 AM.
"Welcome, everyone, to the Akihabara Summit Battle cooking competition. I'm your host, Kasuga Yanagi." A tall, fiery beauty in a small red formal dress beamed with a smile. "This competition is sponsored by the Chiba Shrine."
"Alright, let's not waste any time. We'll get straight to the main event."
"A total of 67 fish shops passed the preliminary tests to advance to the elimination rounds. Based on those results, they have been divided into four groups—A, B, C, and D. They will compete within their groups, and the first and second-place winners from each will move on to the finals."
"What we're about to see is the first main event: a clash of titans between the 11 fish shops in Group A."
"Our guests today are the chief food critic for the IGO's Hokkaido district, Colson; the highly popular idol from 346 PRODUCTION, Takagaki Kaede; and the IGO Six-Star Chef and miko of Chiba Shrine, Chiba Eda."
The camera panned across a bald, bearded foreigner; a mature idol with a beauty mark under her eye; and a long-haired miko with a sweet smile.
"Next, let's welcome our chefs to the stage!"
"Our first chef is from..."
===
"Sorry! We're late!" x2
Two girls, panting for breath, pushed open the doors to where the other girls were gathered.
"Anya, Fumika, you're so slow! Kaede's shot just passed," said the 12-year-old little princess, Tachibana Alice, with her hands on her hips in dissatisfaction.
"Sorry, we woke up late," Anastasia, affectionately known as Anya, explained haltingly in her peculiar accent.
"It's okay, it's okay, Kaede is bound to get more screen time. Here, have some water and catch your breath," said Nitta Minami, with her nurturing, big-sister personality, as she handed them bottles of water.
"Thank you." Sagisawa Fumika took the water, her gaze turning to the television.
On the screen, a young man of about her age was drawing a gasp from the host.
"Such a young contestant! According to our information, this is the eighteen-year-old Mo Bai, representing the 'Wang Family's Auspicious Fish Shop'!"
*Boom!*
The mineral water bottle in Sagisawa Fumika's hand was crushed instantly.
Coincidentally, a certain girl who had been kept for half a year was waiting for an hour in front of the designated shop when she also happened to see the program broadcast on the shopping district's large screen.
*Thwang!*
A delicate shoeprint appeared on the roll-up shutter door.
"Achoo!" Mo Bai let out a huge sneeze. "Why do I get the feeling someone's talking smack about me?"
"The competition is about to begin! The main ingredient for this match will be the fish submitted by each contestant's own shop before the competition."
"The time limit for cooking is three hours."
"The competition officially begins! Staff, please bring out the ingredients for our contestants!"
"If you require any additional ingredients, you may speak directly with the staff."
As soon as the host, Kasuga Yanagi, finished speaking, two teams of staff ran out from the stairwells on either side, carrying various ice chests.
In an instant, a wide variety of fish species made their appearance.
The most eye-catching was undoubtedly the deep-sea fish placed in front of the chef at the second station in the front row. Nearly three meters long and taking up almost the entire prep table, it was the king of tuna: the bluefin tuna.
Just as Mo Bai expected, the moment this king-class ingredient appeared, the entire venue erupted in an uproar.
"A bluefin tuna! Haranoya actually brought out a bluefin tuna!" Kasuga Yanagi's expression masterfully conveyed a look of ecstatic shock. "We simply have to ask our preliminary test examiner, Mr. Colson."
"What was going through your mind when you saw this behemoth?"
"At the time, I was just as shocked as you were by this monster."
"You have to understand, it's late spring right now. To see a bluefin tuna like this just as the purse seine fleets are beginning their season is incredibly exciting," the bald man said, trying to look cool in his sunglasses. "Moreover, its aging is absolutely perfect. It's just what you'd expect from Haranoya, the local leader that grew from a simple fish shop into an enterprise with its own fleet."
"And what about you, Miss Takagaki Kaede and Miss Chiba Eda? Your eyes haven't seemed to move since the bluefin tuna was brought out," Kasuga Yanagi teased.
"I want to eat it," the two foodie girls said without a hint of pretense, their cute response charming Kasuga Yanagi.
"Haranoya's chef today is also a young and powerful new force, the 28-year-old Three-Star Chef, Harano Katsuya."
"The heir to Haranoya is now going to demonstrate how to break down the tuna for us."
The subsequent shots were, without a doubt, completely dominated by Haranoya's prep station.
Mo Bai watched with great interest as well.
"Next, I will use the 'ōtoro,' 'chūtoro,' and 'akami' to create a sashimi platter for the judges that incorporates all the finest parts of the bluefin tuna." Harano Katsuya, who looked refined and scholarly in his gold-rimmed glasses, did not hide his ambition in the slightest.
In terms of ingredient quality alone, he had indeed crushed the entire competition.
"Tsk, tsk, they're loaded," Mo Bai expressed his envy, jealousy, and hate. "I remember this stuff being crazy expensive, right?"
"That's right. The market just opened this year, so it's hard to say. But last year, a large 212-kilogram bluefin tuna was auctioned off for seventy-four million yen."
"This one looks to be over 300 kilograms. If it were actually sold, it could probably fetch over one hundred million yen."
How is this eating fish? This is clearly eating money. Mo Bai, who had been delighted just to fleece that rich whale for a hundred thousand yen, was secretly astonished.
The prize money is only fifty million, not even enough to cover the cost of this fish.
"Don't tell me they're after that mysterious grand prize?" Mo Bai wondered to himself, happening to guess the real reason.
At that moment, Harano Katsuya's blood was boiling with excitement as he took his kitchen knife and began to cut the fish.
As a 28-year-old Three-Star Chef, he believed it wasn't that he lacked talent, but rather that he suffered from the lack of a famous mentor. If he had a great teacher, he felt that while he might not become a top-tier special-grade chef, he could still hope to qualify as a high-star chef.
By a stroke of luck, he had learned that the Chiba Shrine had a cooperative relationship with Tōtsuki.
The truth behind the Chiba Shrine's so-called mysterious grand prize was therefore obvious.
Tōtsuki, the holy land for chefs in the Far East.
Although it was a bit awkward for a 28-year-old man like him to be mixing with a bunch of kids, he was willing to cast aside his useless pride to reach a higher level.
"I absolutely will not lose!"
"Ohoho, contestant Katsuya seems to be fired up! Next, let's take a look at the other contestants." Kasuga Yanagi and the cameraman immediately spotted Mo Bai, who stood out amongst the crowd of busy chefs.
"Hey, Host. The camera's on you. Let's get to it."
"Alright, alright, you're the star today, you call the shots." Drawing the cleaver from his hip, Mo Bai performed a flourish and beautifully planted Xiao Bai upright on the cutting board.
The flashy move, directed by Xiao Bai, earned a round of applause.
But as Mo Bai reached for the Leopard Coral Grouper in the crushed ice, his expression darkened.
This texture... it's not right!
"What's wrong?" Xiao Bai was the first to notice something was off with Mo Bai.
"Something's wrong! There's a problem with this fish."
"Huh? Are you kidding me?" Xiao Bai, who had already fully analyzed the data on the Leopard Coral Grouper in the Mental Time Chamber, controlled Mo Bai's hand and placed it on the fish.
[Ingredient: Incompletely Aged Leopard Coral Grouper]
[Ingredient Rating: 89 (97)]
[Reason for Anomaly: After the first perfect aging, the temperature during the second stage of low-temperature aging was 3 degrees too low.]
[Time Remaining for Full Aging: 2 hours 35 minutes (at current temperature)]
"Shit!" Xiao Bai was dumbfounded.
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