It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students – Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Can You Study on an Empty Stomach? (2)

Bread that Makes You Study Well.

That was the title of a children’s book I read when I was young.

There is a similar sister product called Doraemon’s Memorization Bread, but let’s put that aside for now.

In that children’s book, there’s a baker who sells bread called Study Bread and Do Re Mi Bread.

Study Bread is literally bread that makes you study well, and Do Re Mi Bread is bread that makes you good at playing the piano.

“What? Bread that Makes You Study Well? What kind of nonsense is that?”

At Kyung-joon’s words, Bread made a puzzled expression.

“No, it’s just nonsense. Anyway, the bread is fine, but can I borrow your kitchen?”

“The kitchen? Are you going to bake bread yourself?”

“Yes.”

Thanks to the children’s book that came to mind, a good idea came to mind.

Bread that Makes You Study Well is not nonsense.

It’s definitely possible.

Mythical Skill 『Infinite Reading』 Level 2 Unlock Effect.

The ability to imbue items related to studying with the power to aid in studying.

The desk, chair, and Study Villa all increased tenacity.

The ceiling made of quartz glass and the windows on the walls created a bright atmosphere, boosting creativity.

‘Energy Tower is not directly related to studying, so it doesn’t give you any study-related abilities… but you never know about bread.’

Bread! The optimal food for supplying the brain with sugar and carbohydrates, satisfying hunger.

Moreover, it’s more of a snack than a meal.

You don’t need to set a time to eat it, you can just grab it and munch on it.

It’s the perfect food to eat between studies!

But what if the bread also had study buffs such as tenacity and creativity?

It would be the completion of 『Bread that Makes You Study Well』, just like the title of the children’s book.

“I never thought you’d be interested in baking. I’m a bit busy now because I’m open for business. If you come on the weekend, I can give you some pointers. I open late then.”

“Alright. Then I’ll come back tomorrow around this time.”

Kyung-joon made a promise with Bread and came out of the bakery.

Teemo, who had been quiet until then, asked Kyung-joon.

<Master. Since your objective to buy bread has been postponed until tomorrow, are you planning to return to Study Villa?>

“Walk all that way? Forget it. Since we’re already here, let’s study at the library today instead of Study Villa.”

It takes at least 1-2 hours to walk from the starting village to Study Villa.

Since it’s the weekend tomorrow and he had a promise with Bread, Kyung-joon decided to study at the library for the first time in a while.

“I should go renew the books I borrowed and there’s one more book I need to borrow.”

<Another book? I believe you have already borrowed all the books within your current study scope. Are you planning to study more magic theory?>

“Something other than magic. There’s something new I need to work on.”

<Could it be baking?>

< (ΟΔΟ)?!>

Baking.

Kyung-joon had cooked in his life, but he had never baked before.

But it’s fine.

If you don’t know something, you can learn it.

That was Kyung-joon’s recent motto.

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

When he went to the library, there was a new librarian.

This was the third librarian after Libra and Burari.

His name was Ray.

Wearing glasses, he looked quiet at first glance.

‘The library must be quiet again.’

“Here’s my library card.”

“Yes.”

Kyung-joon handed his card to the new librarian and went straight to the bookshelf.

He was looking for a book.

Not about Korean, English, or math, but about baking.

There were two books worth reading.

『L’histoire du Pain ~The History of Bread and Modern Baking~』

『Humanity Kingdom’s Bread Skill Book (Unusable)』

The former was a real-world book published by Seolha Publishing House, and the latter was a skill book created within the world.

However, because it was for library use only, it couldn’t be used and could only be read.

Other players would have been happy to get a skill book for free, only to be disappointed that they couldn’t use it.

Of course, it didn’t matter to Kyung-joon, who didn’t use skill books even after obtaining them and preferred to learn by reading them himself.

‘Let’s just read both.’

After agonizing over which one to choose, Kyung-joon ended up choosing both.

[Mythical Skill 『Dimensional Study Room』 has been activated.]

▶Time Dilation: 2.0x

▶Established Time: 37 hours 46 minutes

Rustle.

Even though there were no creativity or tenacity buffs, only the Dimensional Study Room effect, Kyung-joon showed an amazing level of concentration.

The buffs and study habits he had accumulated so far had become ingrained in his body.

[Your Intelligence has increased by 1 through continuous studying.]

[Your Intelligence has increased by 1 through continuous studying.]

[New knowledge about baking has been acquired.]

[1 hour has been added to the Dimensional Study Room.]

．

．

．

Thus, Kyung-joon continued his baking studies at the library.

Of course, he didn’t forget his regular schoolwork either.

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

The next day.

Kyung-joon finished his self-study on baking and went back to Bread’s bakery.

He learned various baking techniques from Bread, including kneading dough and fermentation.

He thought he might have to come back tomorrow because it takes about 8 hours for the dough to ferment, but Bread had some pre-fermented dough that he used to bake bread himself.

[General Skill 『Basic Baking』 learned.]

[Skill learned directly from an NPC.]

[Proficiency increased by 50%.]

“Bread, I got a skill.”

“Oh, already? You weren’t kidding when you said you did some self-study.”

Kyung-joon was learning the basics of baking from Bread.

Normally, it takes at least three to four hours for a player to learn a skill from an NPC without using a skill book.

But it took Kyung-joon less than an hour.

About 30 minutes.

That’s how long it took Kyung-joon to learn the baking skill.

‘I was skeptical when he said he had studied on his own, but I didn’t expect him to pick it up this fast……’

Bread was pretending to be nonchalant, but he was quite surprised inwardly.

‘I heard he’s level 6, but that’s definitely not the dexterity of a level 6. Is this what they call talent?’

Bread mistakenly thought Kyung-joon was a player with immense talent.

But this was a misconception.

Kyung-joon was by no means talented.

This was just a manifestation of all the hard work he had put in.

The dexterity he had built up from diligently studying carpentry and construction, and the study habits he had developed from consistently doing his schoolwork.

Talent? That was nothing more than a demeaning term for his relentless effort.

If there was any talent to speak of, it would be the talent for hard work.

“Munch munch, but the bread is still a bit hard.”

Kyung-joon tasted the bread he made and gave his feedback.

It wasn’t a recipe for hard bread, but it was quite hard.

“I used our village’s wheat because the merchant hasn’t come by lately. Our wheat isn’t very good for making bread. The best you can do is knead it for a long time to make it a little less hard.”

‘Hmm, so the flour here is…’

Kyung-joon recalled the baking knowledge he had self-studied yesterday and organized his thoughts.

“Well then, why don’t you practice on your own? It’s almost time for me to open up shop.”

“Okay, I was just thinking about doing that.”

“Feel free to use any of the ingredients and tools here. Just try not to break anything.”

“Come on, you think I would do that?”

Bread and Kyung-joon exchanged friendly words and went their separate ways.

Bread went to run his bakery, and Kyung-joon continued practicing baking in the kitchen.

His original goal was to activate Infinite Reading and add an effect to the bread that would help him study, but a problem arose.

“Teemo. This flour seems like cake flour, right?”

<Yes, I believe so.>

Cake flour!

In fact, not all flour is created equal, and there are different types.

The main ones are bread flour and cake flour.

The difference lies in the amount of gluten, a protein found in wheat flour.

Bread flour has a high gluten content, while cake flour has a low gluten content.

The reason why the bread he just made didn’t tear apart like chicken and felt hard was because of the low gluten content of the cake flour.

It is generally known that bread flour is suitable for bread making, while cake flour is used for confectionery and other baked goods.

This cake flour was not suitable for bread making in the first place.

“That’s why the bread doesn’t taste good. It’s better than hard bread, but still not good. I don’t want to study while eating this.”

He couldn’t be satisfied with just being better than hard bread.

As if reflecting his feelings, the bread he just made didn’t activate the effect of Infinite Reading.

“It has to at least taste like the mass-produced bread they sell at Paris Baguette or Tous Les Jours.”

<Paris Baguette? Tous Les Jours? What are those?>

<?_?>

“Just some bakery names from my side. They’re very famous, but not super delicious, just averagely good. Still, they taste much better than the bread here.”

Large franchise bakeries like those use completely different baking methods than the one Bread just taught him.

<I see. Those bakeries use the methods from the book you read yesterday.>

“That’s right. Let’s try copying them.”

With that said, Kyung-joon started kneading the flour again.

He was still using cake flour.

There was no bread flour in the starting village, so there was no other choice.

If he continued like this, he would only end up with the same hard, tasteless bread as before.

That is, if he used the ‘medieval baking techniques’ as they were.

Kyung-joon recalled what he read yesterday in the book published by Seolha Publishing House, 『L’histoire du Pain ~The History of Bread and Modern Baking~』.

‘The Chorleywood Bread Process. I can use this even with cake flour.’

The Chorleywood Bread Process!

A revolutionary baking method that emerged in 20th century England after the Industrial Revolution.

Why did it appear only in the 20th century?

Because it was a baking method that could never be done with the traditional home-based methods.

It was a method that could only be achieved through high-speed mixing using machines and chemical catalysts like potassium bromate.

Kyung-joon aimed to implement that right here, right now.

Of course, he had neither a high-speed mixing machine nor chemical catalysts, but he had magic.

‘I can substitute high-speed mixing by using Energy Bolt and Spell Modification to rotate it very quickly like a vortex, and as for the chemical catalyst……’

Kyung-joon recalled the concept of ‘catalyst’ he learned in Chemistry 1.

What was the purpose of adding a chemical catalyst in the Chorleywood Bread Process?

It was to significantly speed up the fermentation of yeast in the flour by adding a catalyst.

This would reduce the dough fermentation process, which normally takes about 8 hours, by more than half.

Then what is the principle of a catalyst?

It means lowering the energy barrier required for a reaction to occur, thereby increasing the reaction rate.

‘I will directly control mana to lower that energy barrier.’

[General Skill 『Energy Bolt (Lv.8)』 ]

[Rare Skill 『Fine Mana Manipulation (Lv.3)』 ]

[Advanced Skill 『Spell Modification (Lv.4)』 ]

Woooong!

Kyung-joon started kneading the flour using three skills simultaneously.

“Ugh, even a slight mistake……!”

Using three skills at the same time – general, advanced, and rare!

It required immense concentration and extremely delicate mana control.

Even a slight mistake would ruin the dough and send stray mana flying everywhere.

Mana with a very high concentration that could kill a beginner in an instant.

If it were to explode, not only would Kyung-joon’s life be in danger, but Bread’s kitchen wouldn’t be safe either.

And if that were to happen, countless beginners would starve to death without being able to eat cheap, tasteless, hard bread.

To prevent such a catastrophe, he had to maintain this high-concentration mana flour dough for about 5 minutes.

<5 minutes and 12 seconds remaining.>

“Ugh……!”

Beads of sweat formed on Kyung-joon’s forehead.

Powerful mana swirled in his hands, kneading the flour at high speed.

“Phew.”

The long-awaited 5 minutes had passed.

Kyung-joon had succeeded.

And that fact was……

[Unique Skill 『Mana Baking』 created.]

…proven by the status window before his eyes.

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