"Whoosh~"
Rootless flames danced on the stove, painting Hermione's cheeks a faint red as she clutched her ingredients nervously.
After reading through the recipe in her hands two more times, Hermione handed it to Professor Kahn beside her, took a deep breath, and placed the ingredients on the nearby cutting board.
Seeing the girl's overly anxious appearance, Evans spoke softly to comfort her: "Don't be too nervous. I have materials here too, so even if you use up all yours without success, I can lend you some."
"Thank you, Professor!" Taking another deep breath, Hermione finally managed to steady herself. With a wave of her wand, the pot beside her lifted into the air and settled above the stove flames.
Seeing Hermione enter her focused state, Evans casually opened the recipe in his hands, planning to study this creation left behind by one of Hogwarts' founders.
When Hermione first obtained this cookbook, he had briefly looked through it. The dishes inside were quite different from those in the Muggle world, incorporating cooking techniques unique to the magical realm. This made the cookbook not only capable of producing delicious food when followed properly, but it also contained many profound principles of magical knowledge.
The recipes featured advanced applications of Levitation Charms, insights on simultaneously operating several completely different spells, temperature and fire control techniques, plus methods for processing magical ingredients. Though each individual element didn't require vast magical power, the technical requirements for wizards were extremely demanding.
If someone could truly create a dish following these methods, both their spellcasting level and understanding of charms would improve significantly.
After all, this had been left by a great wizard whose name would echo through history. Having such profound knowledge embedded in her recipes wasn't surprising at all.
But still, going through so many complex processes and magical techniques—surely it couldn't really be just for cooking, could it?
These pictures did look quite delicious, though.
Observing those realistic portraits in the cookbook that seemed to emit steam and aromatic scents, Evans felt somewhat eager to try his hand at cooking.
Why not attempt making something himself?
After all, due to that seal's influence, both his fine magical control and dexterity had improved considerably through practice. Plus, he usually cooked his own food, so making some simple dishes shouldn't present a problem.
With this thought, Evans randomly selected a few pages featuring dishes that looked both easy to learn and delicious, pointing his wand at the pages.
"Geminio."
Light appeared at his wand tip, but dimmed slowly after a few seconds. The duplicated pages that should have appeared beside the book failed to manifest—his magic seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
A strange gleam flashed in Evans's eyes as he carefully observed the recipe in his hands.
His proficiency with the Doubling Charm was quite high. Even if the target object's structure was very complex, he could copy a very similar-looking shell—he wouldn't encounter this situation of being completely unable to duplicate anything.
Anti-duplication curse? Or some other protective enchantment?
Touching the recipe in his hands, Evans pulled out two pieces of parchment from his pocket, letting them float in mid-air as he began copying down the two recipes he had chosen by hand.
While Evans studied the cookbook, Hermione was operating her wand with utmost concentration.
The ladle in mid-air kept stirring, ensuring the Biting Cabbage in the pot heated evenly. In Hufflepuff's recipes, Fire Salamander Tail Braised Cabbage with Spices was the simplest dish, but even so, the difficulty remained extremely high.
She had to control temperature while removing the Biting Cabbage's natural toxicity, ensuring the Fire Salamander tail wouldn't release too much spiciness or directly ignite from overheating, while simultaneously maintaining Levitation and Summoning Charms—for a second-year student, this was nearly an impossible task.
Although Hermione practised magic daily, and her proficiency with spells far exceeded that of ordinary students, completing these tasks was still quite challenging.
Right after successfully processing the Biting Cabbage's toxicity, Hermione's movements clearly became somewhat frantic. Soon, due to the temperature rising too quickly, the salamander tails began burning, incinerating everything in the pot.
Seeing the somewhat dejected Hermione, Evans glanced at the recipe description and spoke softly:
"Try again. I'll help you out—I'll remind you when something's about to go wrong."
"Yes!"
Steeling her resolve again, Hermione cleaned out the pot's charred remnants, prepared a fresh set of ingredients, and placed them into the pot.
The stove fire rose once more, and all the previous steps proceeded methodically. When it came to removing the Biting Cabbage's toxicity, Hermione's movements became somewhat panicked again.
This step required simultaneously controlling two Levitation Charms and one Summoning Charm—without sufficient experience, it really wasn't easy to manage.
Extending his wand to lift the salamander tails that were about to ignite into mid-air, Evans said softly: "Don't rush. Focus on processing the Biting Cabbage first."
After losing the source of ignition, Hermione's movements clearly stabilised. Once she had completely extracted the toxicity, Evans guided the salamander tails back into the pot.
Accompanied by a golden light, Hermione extinguished the stove fire and poured the dish from the pot into a nearby food container.
It really did glow.
Looking at the dish whose luminescence still hadn't dissipated, Evans's expression was somewhat strange.
Although the recipe had described this phenomenon, personally witnessing glowing food still gave him an inexplicable sense of surreal wonder.
Extending his wand to lift up a piece of cabbage and place it in his mouth, Evans tasted it briefly.
"How is it, Professor?" Hermione's eyes held expectation as she watched Evans chewing thoughtfully.
"Very good."
Though it was rather spicy, the taste was excellent.
"It's almost curfew time—hurry back. As for this