Mythology: Ragnarok

Chapter 295 First Confrontation

"Different tastes? What's that because?" Xuan Yuan Mu Ze asked, somewhat puzzled.

Agreed looked at him with some surprise, his eyes seeming to ask him how he could ask such a stupid question, but he still patiently explained: "Why? Of course, it's because of the differences caused by the eating habits and physiological structures that were formed a long time ago! Let's take the lizardmen as an example. You've seen Talos, right? I'll use him as an example to tell you. For example, cold-blooded animals like lizardmen have very efficient and thorough digestive systems, but the digestion time is long. Therefore, in the long process of evolution, lizardmen have actually lost their sense of taste long ago."

Their eating habits are more like those of pythons or crocodiles, swallowing food whole without chewing. As a result, they mainly eat easily digestible meat and fruit. Consequently, their sense of taste has gradually disappeared over the long course of evolution. Therefore, seasonings are essentially meaningless to them. What stimulates the appetite of lizardmen is more their sense of smell. In fact, many restaurants that lizardmen love to go to are simply because of their delicious aroma. Apart from that, they cannot sense anything else. For their way of eating, you could even roast a block of iron sprinkled with spices and eat it.

Therefore, you can see that lizardmen particularly love foods like 'roasted meat,' 'stews,' and 'baked goods,' which smell especially appetizing to them, even though the taste is completely irrelevant to them.

At this point, Agreed seemed to recall something and warned with a somewhat nauseating expression, "So I advise you not to go to restaurants run by lizardmen. Their food is stuffed with spices without any seasoning. At best, the food just doesn't taste like anything, but at worst, I'm afraid your taste buds might need a short break."

Upon hearing this, Xuanyuan Muze suddenly realized and said, "I see. So, according to you, each race has its own unique food culture. I thought that the diets of intelligent life were much the same as those of humans."

Agreed disagreed, saying, "I often see the very naive idea in some of your artworks that other races would like your food. To be honest, this idea is actually quite... rude and arrogant, but it's understandable. After all, you probably haven't encountered other intelligent life forms, or what you call 'aliens,' so it's natural to project your own humanistic thoughts onto them. But I still have to say it's really impolite, especially your culture that deliberately insults other races to glorify your own, which could easily incite racial wars. In short, what is said in jest may be taken to heart, so it's better to write things more objectively."

Xuanyuan Muze said indifferently, "This is making a big deal out of nothing. They just wrote some things according to their own preferences. As a human, I also like to write articles that beautify my race. It's normal. Besides, they didn't do it on purpose."

Agreed slightly raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and then said, "Well, it was my fault, and I apologize to you. However, I still have to remind you of one thing: 'ignorance is not an excuse for your rudeness.'"

Just as the two were talking, the waiter pushed open the door to the private room, placed the dishes that Agreed had ordered on the lazy Susan table, and then politely said "enjoy your meal" before leaving the room.

Then Agreed took out a pair of chopsticks, handed them over, and said, "Forget about arguing about this, let's try the food first and see if it's good."

Xuanyuan Muze then took the tableware and began to savor the delicacies of this other world. To be honest, these dishes were not as delicious as those in Xuanyuan Muze's hometown, but when he ate them, he always felt a kind of inexplicable comfort. This made him eat these dishes one bite after another until he devoured all the food.

Agreed handed him a cup of herbal tea and said with concern, "Eat slowly, don't choke."

Xuanyuan Muze took the herbal tea and drank it all in one gulp to swallow the food in his mouth. But little did he know that Agreed's words would come true. After swallowing the food, Xuanyuan Muze began to hiccup involuntarily. Seeing this, Agreed walked to his side, pressed his index finger against the location of Xuanyuan Muze's diaphragm, and then a slight electric current appeared on his hand, instantly making Xuanyuan Muze tremble on the spot. After that, Xuanyuan Muze stopped hiccuping and returned to normal. Agreed also calmly returned to his seat.

Xuanyuan Muze examined his throat, which had returned to normal, and asked in surprise, "Wow! How did you do that?"

Agreed explained to him, “It’s just a basic application of magic. You can think of it as electrical defibrillation. The reason you hiccup is that too much food stimulation overexcites your diaphragm nerve, eventually causing a spasm of the diaphragm. In layman’s terms, the electrical signals that cannot be calmed keep sending a wrong signal to your brain, making it insist that there is a foreign object in your esophagus. It urges you to hiccup in the hope that you will get rid of the thing in your esophagus.”

At this point, you only have two choices: one is to wait for the bioelectrical signals to gradually subside over time until your body returns to balance, and the other is to cover and erase this effect with a stronger but quickly disappearing external electrical signal. The second method is more commonly known as the therapy that 'fright can cure hiccups,' which can indeed work, but it does require surprise and is very easy to fail.

However, I don't recommend using my method to treat hiccups. It requires extremely precise control of the electrical current, and a mistake could cause unavoidable nerve damage. In fact, without a soul cultivation level of at least a legendary mage, it's impossible to perform such an operation, making this method impractical. If your hiccups won't stop, I suggest you just bear with it. It's not a medical condition; it's just your body's feedback system acting up. Just bear with it, and it will pass.

Xuanyuan Muze grew increasingly astonished as he listened, his eyes wide with excitement as he shouted at Agreed, "You guys know magic?! Magic actually exists in this world!"

Agreed said dismissively, "Magic is actually very common in this multiverse. To put it bluntly, in the Land of All Races, magic has long been integrated into the lives of ordinary people. You will understand this situation later."

"Can I learn your magic? The kind where you can fly on a broomstick and kill people with a wave of your wand!" Xuan Yuan Muze asked Agreed excitedly, since magic was just a fantasy product in novels to him.

Agreed frowned in confusion and asked, "A broom? When magic is mastered to a high level, one can manipulate magnetic fields and gravity to fly. Why use such a stupid way to fly? And even if you want to ride something to fly, there's no need to choose something so ugly, right? You could just stand on a disc made of metal with a strong magnetic field or something. That way, at least you wouldn't look like an idiot when you fly."