1 Chapter 1-2

"Papa …. Papa …."

Michael Shen [1] heard a crisp but immature voice that seemed to be calling him. He moved his hands to cover his ears to drown out the voice but instead seemed to feel something soft. His reflex actions, honed from years of survival instincts, forced him to sit up quickly and take a quick look. One look and he was stunned.

Where am I?

Am I safe or have I somehow be magically transported to somewhere else?

Michael Shen could vaguely recall that he was in a private charter boat. He was very happy when he found a King Crab caught in his crab trap. He slowly lifted up the crab trap and was about to bring it on board the boat, when a strong wave suddenly hit the boat. The impact forced Michael Shen overboard. As he fell into the water, he dimly heard the sound of a woman screaming, and someone diving into the water. Then all is dark and quiet.

When he next woke up, he found himself in this European style room, and his hand has held on to a four to five years girl's hand.

Before Michael Shen could speak a single word, his brain was suddenly overwhelmed with a ton of information. The information overload hit Michael Shen hard, and he ended up closing his eyes and ears to shut everything out. The feeling of shutting everything out was like when he fell overboard and everything turned dark and quiet.

In his past life, Michael Shen could be considered quite famous. He was the son of a tyc.o.o.n and was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has no interest in inheriting his father's vast business empire and is more interested in eating and tasting the world's best food. He styled himself as a food critic. Thanks to his father's wealth, he was able to dine and wine in the finest and most expensive restaurants worldwide. However, Michael Shen has a very acidic tongue and his comments on food are very harsh. This harsh critique, combined with his coverage of almost all the Michelin starred restaurants, has built over a million followers to his food blog in less 3 years.

Michael Shen felt that he has only expressed his honest personal opinions of the food that he had eaten. Because he often exaggerated about the shortcomings of each food he ate, he was universally hated by almost all the shops that he had given a critique of. Every day, he would receive over a thousand emails or messages that cursed him. Many of these curses hoped that he will fall into the ocean and drown, and be reincarnated as a chef. Although he did not believe in curses, these letters cursing him did annoy him.

Now that he thought about it, maybe the curses of these people had come true. After all, he had fallen into the sea and drown. Surely the heavens are not that unmerciful?

But he did not dwell on these thoughts for long, as he was attracted to the endless stream of incoming information into his brain. From the information he received, he was sure that his soul has been transferred to another person's body. This person was a fallen warrior who can never pick up his sword again.

The information and feelings about his present life slowly merged with his soul and knowledge about his past life, and he has no control over this process.

From his present self, he learns that the current world he is living in resembled a fantasy world like the role-playing games he had played. This world has dragons, demons, orcs, elves, dwarves, and humans etc.

About one hundred years ago, most of the races living in this world had signed an armistice agreement. Under this agreement, various races agreed to live in peace with one another, and the war that had raged for thousands of years between the various species came to an end.

Although there is a ceasefire and it is a time of peace, there are still conflicts among the various races. After fighting for over a thousand years, the feelings of hate and suspicious of other races were deeply ingrained into the population and was not easily broken just because of a treaty. Although there are still conflicts, these skirmishes are usually minor and are between two parties rather than a long out war based on race.

The man whose body Michael Shen has come to own is call Michael McGonagall. McGonagall is a prestigious family in this world, having defended the human empire against orcs for hundreds of years, and never letting a single orc into human territory.

About 300 years ago, the demons allied with the orcs and managed to destroy the McGonagall castle, and killed most of the McGonagall's clansmen. The glory of the McGonagall House was lost in the battle, and only a few clansmen managed to survive. Micheal McGonagall is one of the few descendants of this proud and n.o.ble lineage.

Micheal McGonagall was an outstanding warrior. From the time he served in the army, his skills in battle, as well as his ability to command the troops, were exemplary, and he quickly gained the approval of his superiors and was awarded numerous medals for his valor and courage. In the span of a few short years, he quickly rose to become the youngest ever Gryphon Knight. His future was bright, and he was predicted to be next commander in chief of the army, and restore the glory and honor to the fallen McGonagall name.

If not for incident 3 years ago, Micheal McGonagall will become one of the men who stand at the apex of this world.

That night, he was concurrently attacked by a large party of elves, demons, and human mages. They crippled his hands and broke his tendons before giving him a baby. That baby was barely one year old.

This baby was his baby, born to him by Elven Princess. Although it is a time of peace between various races, interracial marriage is not permitted. Micheal was betrayed by his most trusted comrades. He fell into the trap and was crippled.

His friends fanatically tried to heal him. Thanks to them, he can walk and do simple tasks with his hands, but he can no longer wield a sword. He changed his physical appearance and brought his child with him to City of Sin. Over here, he hoped to start his life anew.

His new life was ridden with poverty. Despite being healed by his friends, he never fully recovered and was very weak. The bitter cold of the winter winds finally claimed the life of Michael McGonagall, and gave Michael Shen a chance to reborn in Michael McGonagall's Body.

Michael Shen may be tempted by the path of the hero, but he did not feel the need to take up the sword again and take revenge. Rather, he was more worried about how to survive in this world.

"Rest in peace. Forget about revenge. I will definitely raise the child to be an outstanding lady." Michael Shen promised. With this silent promise, the darkness seemed to recline, as if Michael McGonagall left and handed his body over.

He is still Michael Shen, but he had Michael McGonagall's memories and feelings.

"From now on, I will just call myself Michael". Michael silently remarked to himself.

As he opened his eyes, his eyes seemed to clear, but the feeling of weaknesses in his body suddenly hit him all at once.

"Papa… What happened?" The little girl's hand was clutched in his hand, and her face was full of worry.

Michael's glare softens and becomes warmer. The girl who was sitting beside the bed has hair that is silver in color and reached her shoulders. Her tiny face has a big pair of sparkling blue eyes that is extremely attractive. These, combined with her lush, soft skin and pointed ears made her appear to be very lovely and charismatic. She was wearing a grey colored cotton dress that looked quite old, and her overall appearance is very adorable.

This is Michael McGonagall's daughter, Amy. Now, it is also his daughter.

In his past life, Michael Shen has not married yet, and he did not have any children. Neither does he know how to handle children. But after his soul merged with Michael McGonagall's body, and looking at Amy's face, he felt that it was as if he was looking at his daughter. That feeling of wanting to be closer to his daughter makes him a bit fl.u.s.tered. His parents in his past life were always busy with work and have little time to take care of him. But because of the lack of parental love, he was determined not to be like them. He was more excited, excited at the prospects of being a father.

"Amy, please do not worry, I am all right." Michael slowly reached out and stroked Amy's hair, as he replied in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

The soft, silky hair was comfortable to the touch, and it made Michael's heart warm. This is his daughter! His flesh and blood! The feeling of closeness with a sudden daughter was strange and wonderful.

"Papa, papa, if you are all right, then that's great!" Amy rubbed her head against Michael's hand, and slowly her eyes begin to narrow, like that of an adorable cat. But she pouted her lip as she continued, "But papa, I am hungry. Can you cook for me?"

Michael felt as if his heart has melted. He would cheerfully pluck the stars from the sky for Amy, let alone cooking a meal. But at the same time, this task gave him a headache.

Although he had taste the finest food in his past life, he had no experience in cooking. He had never even touched a kitchen knife nor a wok in his past life. As he recalled the horrible creations that sprung out when he tried to cook, he mentally decided to eat out instead of cooking.

At this sudden moment in time, he suddenly heard a sound ringing in his brain: "Becoming a G.o.d of Cooking System has activated!" This feeling is very weird. For some reason, he knew that he did not physically hear this sound. But the sound exists, but only in his mind.

Michael almost jumped out of his skin. What the f**k? Becoming a G.o.d of Cooking System? How did this crazy stuff enter his head? Did something else also come into this body with his soul?

The strange voice that appeared mentally in his head continued: "Because you had trampled on the pride of hundreds of thousands of chefs with your acidic tongue, you had acc.u.mulated a lot of resentments from chefs. As such, Heaven has come up with this 'Becoming a G.o.d of Cooking System'. This system will judge all food accordingly to your standards in your past life, and slowly make you a chef. The system will, from time to time, a.s.sign you tasks. Completing each task will result in a reward. If you failed to complete a task, you will be punished by the system.

Listening to these voices inside his head, Michael was stunned for a moment before he collected his wits. "What the f**k! What the h.e.l.l is this? I just got reincarnated into this world because of the honest opinions of the food I ate? So because you do not like my opinion, you dump me in this strange world and even come up with the s.h.i.tty system to teach me how to cook?

Michael suddenly recalled the numerous emails and letters he received from chefs he had criticised - most of them cursed him and wish that he would become a chef in his next life.

Michael looked up at the sky and roared, "Heavens, why did you do this to me!!!!"

Notes:

[1] Michael Shen, 沈麦格in Chinese is p.r.o.nounced as Shen Mai Ge. The words Mai Ge and Michael sound the same, and I translated it as Michael Shen.