EP 3 The Only Solution is Realm Advancement

The four essential arts required of a virtuous wife are collectively known as Yangcheo Saeye. Originally there were a hundred such arts under the name Yangcheo Baekye, but in recent times the term Yangcheo Saeye—referring to just four of them—has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠become far more common. Among these four, cooking is regarded as an especially delicate discipline. It is not merely about flavor. It encompasses consideration for a person’s health, decorative presentation that pleases the eye, and precise control over heat. It is a comprehensive art that demands the utmost refinement of every technique. When magic is fused with this craft, the resulting field of magic cooking is hailed as the very essence of modern magic. Dishes imbued with magical effects can heal wounds, trauma, and even disabilities in those who consume them. For this reason, certain branches of alchemy—such as the creation of elixirs and pills—are treated as subcategories of magic cooking.

Because of this, the prestige of a Magic Cooking License is extraordinarily high. There are even rumors that obtaining one can completely turn a person’s life around. Of course, the fact that cooking is considered a fundamental feminine virtue only intensifies the obsession with it… but regardless, the Magic Cooking License commands immense influence. Thanks to that prestige, the competition rate grows more insane every year.

Today, 221 applicants showed up at the Daejeon examination hall. Only two of them will receive the Magic Cooking License. Moreover, the exam’s difficulty is so high that the average number of attempts per applicant is ten. Considering that first-time examinees exist, this also means there are plenty of veterans who have taken the test more than twenty times. The proctors warn all candidates not to let their guard down and to focus on seizing the initiative from the very start. May you all achieve the best possible results.

……I read that post on the internet.

‘…No wonder everyone at the exam hall looked so strange.’

They were all desperately pouring everything into the test, while I had shown up in a tracksuit and sneakers, casually flipping through the questions. It must have been incredibly irritating for them.

‘…Still, it’s not like I could wear a skirt.’

At least no one had openly tried to sabotage me. For the most part, they simply ignored me on the surface and moved on. I arrived at the assigned classroom. Fifty desks arranged like a high-school classroom were already packed with women. I stepped inside. So far, so good. I sat at my assigned seat and took out my summary notes. The knowledge was already stored in my brain, but I still wanted to review and organize everything once more by reading through the material.

“Yoo Ji-tae?”

A sweet female voice. My shoulders instinctively tensed. I turned toward the source and saw a woman who looked like a literature-loving girl. Her overall appearance was soft and cute. Long brown hair reaching her waist, large and gentle-looking eyes, a small mouth and nose—she was the perfect image of a literary beauty. She wore a knitted sweater and a long A-line skirt. Though there was little skin exposed, the size of her chest, stretching the sweater, was striking. Adding to the impression, the blanket draped over her shoulders somehow reinforced her scholarly aura. Altogether, she reminded me of a cute bear.

“So it’s a man’s name. My friend has one too.”

She had seen the name and number written on the desk attached to mine.

“What’s your realm?”

“Refined Realm.”

“Hmm? Then your education?”

“High school graduate.”

“From Hyeon High?”

“Hyeon High? Ah, that place. No, just a regular high school.”

The literature girl, who had been nodding, suddenly smiled brightly.

“No wonder you look like an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, dressing like that is going to make everyone around you uncomfortable. If you happen to run into a man, it would be disrespectful. At the very least, you should put some effort into your appearance.”

“…It’s just comfortable.”

“Hmm? In that case, why not just go around naked with ‘idiot’ written on your forehead? That way you wouldn’t even need to introduce yourself. Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

“……”

“What, you can’t even talk back? How disgusting. Someone like you is taking this exam? With that pathetic mindset, you’re aiming to become a virtuous wife and catch a man’s attention? The reputation of the Magic Cooking License is going to hit rock bottom because of you. If possible, could you stop breathing too? I’m worried your lazy way of thinking might be contagious. Got it?”

The woman, who had been smiling radiantly, added a cheerful “Fighting!” and turned back to her notes, focusing intently once more. I glanced at her desk. Her name was Lee Se-rin. Age twenty-six. This was her thirteenth attempt. Thirteen attempts meant she had already failed twelve times. That also meant she had wasted sixty million won on exam fees. Even if she had taken the test every two months, it meant she had been pouring her life into this exam for over two years.

So people like her really exist.

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

After that first clash of wills, Lee Se-rin never spoke to me again. A quick glance showed she was concentrating so intensely that the gentle impression from earlier had completely vanished. I, too, continued scanning my summary notes. I could feel the knowledge in my head clicking into place, piece by piece.

Then I heard voices from the front.

“You’re back again. Isn’t it about time you realized your brain is only suited for simple repetitive labor?”

“This is your eighth attempt this year, big sis. Please keep the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠desk clean. You’ll be using it again next year.”

After trading those remarks, they both dove back into their studies with manic focus. Watching them, I finally understood.

So that’s how it is. Everyone does this. Maybe I was the weird one for not being able to fire back.

Ten minutes later, a female proctor entered the room.

“The exam consists of two parts: a written test and a practical test. The top twenty scorers from the written portion will proceed to the practical exam hall. From there, the top two in the practical will be awarded the license.”

Fifty people were crammed into this exam hall. That meant there were at least four, possibly five, other classrooms holding the same test. Another female proctor entered. Now there was one at the front and one at the back—two in total.

The proctor at the front spoke.

“Any form of cheating will result in immediate expulsion and a thirty-year ban from taking any magic-related licensing exams, including the Magic Cooking License.”

“Furthermore, all proctors present are at the peak of the Condensing Realm. It would be wise not to delude yourselves into thinking you can get away with cheating.”

“If a tie occurs and the number of candidates cannot be narrowed to exactly twenty, the practical exam will proceed with fewer than twenty participants.”

Peak Condensing Realm… how much do they get paid? Each person had paid five million won. With two hundred applicants, the total fees collected came to one billion won. If eight proctors were assigned across four classrooms, that meant each one earned roughly a hundred million won per day. Or perhaps they were on a monthly salary. Either way, it was far from ordinary.

The proctor checked her watch and began distributing the exam papers. The cover clearly read “Magic Cooking License Examination.” Once the papers were handed out, she placed a clock on the podium and set the timer.

Click.

“You have a total of 120 minutes. Then… the exam begins now.”

Click.

It had started. I immediately flipped over the exam paper and looked at question one. Although I hadn’t acquired Magic Cooking (B), I had perfectly memorized the knowledge from multiple books. So solving the problems shouldn’t be an issue. Since I didn’t know what the passing cutoff was, I needed to get as many answers correct as possible.

I slowly read through question one.

“…Huh?”

The proctor’s eyes snapped open and she glared at me as if she wanted to kill me. The message was clear: make another sound and you’re out.

‘Crap.’

I clamped my mouth shut and stared at the question again. But I couldn’t understand it.

[Question 1.]

[Assuming the graph below shows the rate of change in mana quantity due to the ionization of alkaite molecules ideally altered by mana, by what percentage does the intermolecular mana binding force change ‘theoretically’ when the atmospheric mana concentration decreases by 4.5%? Provide your solution within 2,000 characters based on the Llywelyn-Karno Transformation Theorem. (Atmospheric pressure is 1 atm, temperature is 25°C, humidity is 30%, and atmospheric mana concentration follows the ideal state table. Note: the Boson-Limit Theorem may not be used.)]

‘What the hell is this?’

I had been staring at it for about a minute already, yet the question itself made no sense. Of course, I knew the knowledge from reading the books. I understood what each individual word meant. But I had no idea how to apply any of it. This was an advanced, high-level application problem that could never be solved through memorization alone.

Wondering if question one was unusually difficult, I flipped to the next page to check.

‘…They all look hard.’

I stared blankly at the questions, then checked the clock to see how much time had passed.

‘Six minutes already?’

My exam paper was still blank.

‘I haven’t solved a single question.’

At that moment, the woman in front of me flipped a page with a rustle. My jaw dropped.

‘She already solved it?!’

I couldn’t breathe. It was suffocating.

‘Ah. So that’s why everyone was so on edge. If you had to take an exam like this ten or twenty times, of course you’d go insane.’

While I was tearing at my hair and staring at the paper, I finally began to grasp how to interpret the problems and how to write out the solutions—by which point—

—thirty minutes had already passed.

‘I’m screwed.’

‘Still, I have to write down whatever I can solve. I need to salvage something.’

Just as I gripped my pen in despair and began writing the solution—

“Huh?”

Salvation appeared right there.

*****

The exam proctor inwardly sneered as she watched the woman who had just flipped the page. On the first page, question four—the one that looked easiest—she had attempted it, failed to solve it, and then abandoned all four questions on the first page entirely.

‘…She didn’t solve a single one.’

Then she spent about thirty minutes on pages two and three before flipping again and discarding another eight questions.

‘Well, knowing when not to waste time on unsolvable problems is a skill in itself.’

The proctor shifted her gaze to the other examinees. They were all mediocre. Even those who flipped pages had countless unsolved problems. They were only flipping pages to intimidate others. But the people here were all women who had taken the exam at least five times before.

‘That kind of trick won’t work.’

Just as she thought that, she noticed the strange examinee at the very back trembling violently.

‘…What’s with her? Is this her first time?’

As the proctor observed her more closely, her brows furrowed.

‘What’s with that outfit that blatantly advertises her own weakness?’

Magic training had effects similar to the Fairy Technique. As a mage’s realm rose, their appearance naturally improved dramatically. Even so, striving for further improvement was the basic attitude of a virtuous wife. Why? Because “to protect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and embrace a man, one must appear approachable so that he feels no fear.”

But that woman had none of that. There was not the slightest trace of reverence or respect toward men.

‘She must have graduated from some trash high school.’

‘To think the level of this year’s exam has fallen this low.’

Come to think of it, she had seen her being intimidated by the other virtuous-wife candidates on the way in.

‘Once the exam is over, I’ll have to destroy her mentally so she never attempts this again.’

“….Hmm?”

The examinee had begun slowly writing something. The proctor watched. The solution wasn’t a mess. It was logically sound.

‘She solved that? And question one is supposed to be the difficult one by tradition.’

Then, suddenly, she stopped as if possessed. And began writing answers even faster.

‘…What?’

It looked like random scribbling at first, but she was properly solving the problems. She spent at most three minutes per question.

‘That can’t be…’

But the proctor herself couldn’t even tell whether the answers were correct. She didn’t know either! As the number of applicants increased each year, the difficulty of the Magic Cooking License exam had risen to the point where even the question writers would fail half the test if they took it. By mixing magic and cooking in ways that had no practical application, they had created a festival of killer questions designed purely to rank people. At this point, it was more like a puzzle completely divorced from actual cooking.

The exam ended. After collecting the papers, the proctor left the classroom and headed to the grading room.

“…Surely she didn’t get a perfect score.”

*****

‘This really is cheating.’

I could understand the principle. Hephaestus was a skill that combined materials to produce results. The knowledge needed to solve the problems already existed inside me. But that knowledge had been disconnected, unusable for application. The knowledge required to link everything together into one cohesive whole must have come from The Cooking King’s Diary and The Book of Manhan Jeonseok.

However, my Hephaestus was a skill that executed the process when materials were present. The moment I pressed the button, the temporarily assembled knowledge within me instantly deconstructed the problem, analyzed it, and produced the answer. The bizarre sensation of running a computer using brain cells still lingered… Honestly, my head was still throbbing a bit, but this was a cheap price to pay.

With this, the written exam was over.

Once the test ended, the women sat in their seats with solemn expressions, either dozing off or blankly fiddling with their phones. Perhaps due to the emptiness of it all being over, everyone looked drained. It felt hollow. No matter how hard you tried, everything ended in just two hours. A mere two hours. Even though I had only solved problems, I had no energy left in my body. Could I even take the practical in this state?

Beep.

A screen in front of the exam hall lit up, and text appeared.

Beep.

1st Place: Han Yu-na — 14 points

Beep.

1st Place: Han Yu-na — 14 points

2nd Place: Seong Ye-na — 0 points

Beep.

1st Place: Heo Jin-ah — 18 points

2nd Place: Han Yu-na — 14 points

3rd Place: Seong Ye-na — 0 points

With each beep, a new name and score were added, and the rankings automatically shifted.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Han Yu-na’s rank gradually dropped. When she fell to 21st place, a woman with a wavy perm burst into tears and staggered out of the exam hall.

…But realistically speaking, 14 points out of 120—

I shook my head to dismiss the thought. Right. It was still possible to hope.

1st Place: Lee Se-rin — 40 points

2nd Place: Yoo Sol — 36 points

3rd Place: Han Na-hee — 36 points

4th Place: Kim Yeon-hee — 34 points

It was mostly like that. …There were still many low scorers. Just as I thought that, Lee Se-rin, who had been sitting beside me, stood up confidently, wearing a bright smile.

“Oh? Yoo Ji-tae, this is your first time taking the exam this year! Huh? Don’t tell me—don’t tell me—don’t tell me you actually believe you can take the practical?!”

She swayed her upper body left and right like a metronome, giggling. Her smile looked cute, but her words were practically those of a madwoman.

“Well, at least you’ll have a nice memory. So next time, try mastering the basics first? I’m heading to the practical now.”

Just then, my name appeared on the screen.

“Ah. There it is.”

At the same time, the atmosphere in the exam hall shifted. Screams erupted from all directions.

“What the hell is that?!”

“Cheating!!!”

“Who is Yoo Ji-tae?!”

“This is insane, what even—”

“That’s impossible!!!”

“This can’t be happening! It can’t!”

Lee Se-rin, sensing something was wrong, also looked at the screen.

1st Place: Yoo Ji-tae — 120 points

2nd Place: Lee Se-rin — 40 points

“Huh?”

Lee Se-rin’s mouth fell open as she stared at the screen. 120 points. A perfect score.

A broadcast echoed through the hall.

—“Yoo Ji-tae is the first perfect scorer in the history of the Magic Cooking License examination. Once the practical exam concludes, please report to a proctor. We have a proposal regarding your future career path.”

I scratched my head.

‘They’re making it public?’

Weren’t these things usually supposed to be quietly relayed to the individual in private?

Everyone was frozen, staring at me in silence. Earlier they had been loudly denying it in shock, but now a strange tension filled the air. Someone in front stood up and began clapping.

“A strategist, I see, big sis.”

“…Hmm?”

“First you pretended to be weak, then you displayed overwhelming skill to crush the mental state of your practical competitors to the limit. They say the ‘virtuous’ in virtuous wife means wisdom. You’re living up to that saying, big sis.”

Applause and cheers erupted from all around.

“We lower-tier candidates had no idea at all! I’ll be sure to learn from this starting next time!”

“Excellent! You were hiding your power. Since this is fate, could I perhaps exchange contact information with you, big sis?”

“Please team up with me, big sis! If you and I coordinate as main wife and concubine, we could seduce any man we wanted.”

The eliminated candidates spoke up one after another. Meanwhile, Lee Se-rin muttered from behind with a dark expression.

“I deliberately did the written exam half-heartedly. As long as you pass the cutoff, that’s all that matters. The practical is what counts. Yeah. This is my thirteenth attempt. There’s no way I’d lose to some newbie taking the exam for the first time.”

Someone stepped in front of Lee Se-rin.

“Show some respect to the perfect scorer, Miss Thirteen. Besides, what do you mean you did it half-heartedly? Everyone here knows you’re always desperate.”

“Don’t call me Miss Thirteen. And isn’t the highest virtue of a virtuous wife strength? In the practical later, do you really think that scrawny-armed kid can do anything?”

Lee Se-rin glared at me, then opened the classroom door.

“…I’m confident in the practical. I’ll win in the practical.”

Bang!

The door slammed shut. The practical exam would begin in thirty minutes. I left the classroom, drank some water, and took a deep breath. The headache from using Hephaestus and the sudden cheers from the crowd of women had left me feeling nauseous.

“…I’ll just do the practical and go straight home to sleep.”

I headed toward the practical exam hall.