Main Quest

## Introduction

This is a walkthrough for the Main Quest of the game Epic Chef where the player will be following in the footsteps of Zest, a stowaway looking to rebuild his life in Ambrosia.

## Welcome to Ambrosia

Zest roughly lands in Ambrosia and the first NPC they will encounter will be Private Blen who will try to get a bribe from you but fails. You will then be tasked with your first quest, **Talk to the Captain**.

Going to the left, Private Blen's right, you'll see a red arrow pointing in the direction of the Captain's office in the Port Authority. You have the option to speak to the soldier guarding the door, Private Nostra, who will also attempt and fail to get a bribe.

This will trigger a cut scene with Captain Bonifacius who will give you the papers necessary to get to your villa. He will direct you to Private Speck. ￼ After the cut scene, you have the option to interact with several items in the Captain's office which triggers short dialogues with him.

### Head to the South Gate

Go back to where Private Blen was initially guarding (he has moved) and you'll be able to go through the passageway. Now, you have free access through the city center. However, you will not be able to go into any shops. As you make your way to the southern gate, Zest will come across several NPCs who you can interact with. However, they will not trigger new quests.

Local Drama: Mystic EmporiumLocal Drama: Orc or OrcaLocal Drama: Culinary FightWhen you reach the first gate, a cut scene will start between you and Private Garcilo. He will direct you to the Southern gate. You will pass the market street on your right which will be blocked by an Orca and then, on your left, you will see some local drama at the Mystic Emporium.

Zest will interact with the large, partly opened gate door and it will trigger a short dialogue. Interact with the guard station and a cut scene will start with Private Speck and Corporal Dummynic.

### Go Home

After the cut scene, Zest will finally be able to go to his new home, Villa Calamitozza. You won't be able to actually do anything on your farm, but you can explore a little bit of it. Once you get to the door, you'll have a short dialogue about the house.

### Light Up the House

Once inside the Villa, Zest is going to need to light up the house and evaluate it. The first light (in the form of a candle) is right in front of Zest, next to a grandfather clock. If you continue forward on the first floor and make your way to the kitchen, you will find the second light which is lighting the boiler. Those are all the lights on the first floor. The second floor, your first light is the fireplace in the living room. In the following room, which is the bedroom, you'll find a candle in the bottom left corner adjacent to the bed.

### Rest

Interact with the bed and Zest will automatically sleep. Sleeping is the only time the game saves so keep an eye out for that.

### Check the Kitchen

Before going downstairs, the player should desire to head into the bathroom and change clothes. This will introduce the wardrobe feature in the game. To start, Zest will only have the basic option and a swimsuit option.

Once dressed, head to the kitchen. Zest should now be able to interact with items and spaces in the house. When Zest gets to the kitchen, he'll be able to interact with the cooking pot on the stove. This will trigger a cooking event.

### Investigate the Ruckus

Head outside and there will be a short scene that plays that will show you where the ruckus is coming from. Going to the left, you will see the fountain with debris inside it. When Zest interacts with the blue quest point, a cut scene will start.

This cut scene involves Zest interacting with a Golem. This specific cutscene with the golem acts as a tutorial for the game.

### Plant the Seeds

The Golem (unit K-28) will gift you a hoe and several seeds. Opening Zests inventory, you will see three different tabs that represent different categories of inventory.

The apple tab denotes ingredients and items, the shovel are tools, and the cutlery is where different dishes you make will be kept. In the tools inventory, you can equip the hoe and also add it to the shortcut bar.

After creating the plots, equip the seeds to plant them. When you start planting seeds, Zest will gain Spirit. Experience is divided into three categories: Vigor, Spirit, and Sophistication. Different activities will give you experience in one or more of the three.

As Zest gains experience, the three bars in the top left corner will fill. Every time you fill the experience bars completely, Zest will gain a .5 multiplier to that category. The multiplier doesn't come into effect until leveling up which will be explained further on. Once finished planting, return to the golem.

### Gather Wood

The golem will give Zest an axe and asks for three wood logs. Any regular looking trees on the farm can be cut down. Don't worry! The trees are under the same curse as your crops and will return within a day or so. All trees in the game will give you three logs of wood. Return to the golem when you have enough wood.

### Build a Small Storage

The golem will give you a magiconstructor which is essentially a building mechanic. You should be able to use the wood to build a storage box through the build menu. Note, this is only one of two storage container blueprints you can unlock.

Once built, return to the Golem.

### Build the Sawmill

The sawmill is the first farm machine that Zest unlocks in the game, and it allows you to create planks. The in-game description describes it as the following: "The Sawmill is perhaps one of the most important buildings, as it is used to create materials for all of the other buildings, such as the Windmill and Sauce Workshop," You will need six wood logs to build a sawmill. Once complete, return to the golem afterwards.

### Harvest the Crops

Your irresolutely cursed farm has its perks. Harvest your vegetables and return them to the Golem. They will give you a cooking starter kit. According to the Golem, these crops have five-thousand times the normal crop growth speed due to an overabundance of magicka more or less positioned inside of the estate that Zest owns.

### Learn How to Cook

This is where the tutorial quests can potentially get a little confusing. This is the first introduction to the cooking mechanic in this game. Go to the Kitchen and interact with the stove. The cooking window will open, and the mechanic will begin.

The window includes Zest's inventory on the left and information on the selected ingredient on your right. All ingredients have properties and flavor values. For now, Zest is limited by the tutorial, so it is highly advised to closely follow the instructions. First, add the tomato. When you add the tomato, you will see that the flavors statistics that were shown in the original cooking window start to bubble out of the tomato. The tomato has the flavors of 6 Vigor, 2 Spirit, 2 Sophistication (Note: these correspond with Zest's leveling up categories).

Stir your ingredient to release these flavors but be warned: If you see grey smoke starting or black bubbles appearing, your food is burning. Burning food causes you to lose some flavor. The best way to avoid burning is to toss the ingredients. The tutorial will direct you on what to press to toss ingredients. All dishes are made of three ingredients. Go ahead and add the other ingredients as the tutorial directs.

As you add ingredients, you should notice that at the bottom of the center of the cooking window, a section called "Properties in Pan" is found. At this moment, if you look to your ingredients on the left, the carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes have two small icons on them. These denote their properties. This feature will gradually become more relevant as Zest unlocks more ingredients and cooking knowledge.

Now the tutorial will guide you to serving the dish.

You can go ahead and unequip the dish so you can return to the golem quickly. Before speaking to the golem, re-equip the dish. You can equip and unequip dishes the same way as all other items.

### Eat Your Veggies (Leveling Up)

After the Golem deems it safe, it sends Zest off to eat it. You need to return to the kitchen, equip the dish, and interact with the kitchen table. It should be noted that when a dish is equipped, his movement speed is significantly reduced.

The tutorial will begin to explain the process of leveling up in the game. The important thing about leveling up is paying attention to the three primary cooking elements.

In the top left of the screen, you can see Zest's experience bars. They are separated into three categories.

Each of the three element bars can fill up with experience specific to their categories. For instance, planting crops gives you Spirit experience, and those points will be input into the corresponding spirit experience bar. As you fill these, you'll notice that to the left of the bars, the multiplier will increase. The highest you can get these multipliers to be is the value of 5. Henceforth, whenever Zest cooks meals, you will notice that the dishes also have corresponding Vigor, Spirit, and Sophistication counters. The tutorial dish previously made should have the stats of 10 Vigor, 10 Spirit, 10 Sophistication. When Zest eats this dish, it will take the multiplier and multiply it with the stats of the dish. At the time, Zest has a multiplier of 0.5 on all three categories. This means that the intensity of a primary cooking element (i.e., Vigor) will be multiplied by the multiplier.

Zest's 15 experience points will fill in the green bar which shows his actual level. As he gains levels as a chef, Zest will unlock Synergies. Synergies are combinations of ingredients that will get you bonuses in flavors. Now, return to the Golem. It will give you more ingredients to cook with. This section of the tutorial will introduce Synergy.

### Synergy

Return to the kitchen and start cooking. You'll notice that now, on your right under the ingredient properties, there's a section called Dish Synergies. The dish synergy for the carrot says that if it is added to a pan with nothing else in it, the carrot will add a bonus of +5 spirit to the dish. Go ahead and follow the tutorial instructions. Once finished, go back to the golem.

## Through the Big Door

Zest has a new quest. This quest's prime directive getting Zest a new bed. To start, converse with Private Speck. He will inform you on the location of the carpenter, Jesus. On your way up the road to the gate house, before the strange tent, there is a Mysterious Egg. Pick this up, as it will become important later. Approach the knight.

### Defeat the Knight

Zest will be stopped by a Mysterious Knight and Stagllione who challenges Zest to a cooking battle. This will be his first introduction to the battle mechanics of the game.

Culinary duels are usual one dish served to a judge. Most judges have a preference in flavor or ingredients which can be used to your advantage. Later in the game, Zest unlocks sauces which can be used as a tactic to beat opponents.

As long as you still have ingredients left from the golem quests, you will be ready for this challenge. Speak to the knight to start the battle.

To start, you will be shown the Judges Tastes and how many rounds there will be. You will need a single dish per round. Thankfully, this judge loves carrots, tomatoes, and potatoes. Using these ingredients will give you +50 each for your final score. All you need to do to win is remake the dish you prepared earlier with as much synergy as possible. So, carrot first, followed by the tomato, and then the potato.

This battle will introduce the idea of aroma. Aroma is what the judge uses to choose whose dish to sample first. To get aroma, don't immediately stir ingredients. Toss ingredients to avoid burning and you will see  bubbling out of your ingredients. Sometimes, depending on tactics, it's useful to go first or last in a battle. Make sure not to leave it too long or you'll lose flavors.

The Mysterious Knight will explain all of this: and for this battle, aroma isn't especially important. As long as you followed the recipe above, you should win (which will unlock an animation with Stagllione).

For winning, you will receive a Hammer which is used for destroying builds, crops, and trees.

### The Carpenter

Now enter the gate house. Private Speck will tell you to check with the local carpenter. The carpenter is on the market street. Simple go through the gates and before reaching the second town gate, there's a small side street to your left. This street is where you can find the Carpenter's house. Upon entering, you will find him. His character is designed to be (incredibly) loosely based off of Christianity's Jesus, of which he shares the same name. His personality is more similar to *Family Guy*'s depiction of Jesus rather than the general biblical depiction, as he is often more laid-back. He then converses with Zest, gifting him 200 escupados. Jesus does have a bed in stock (questionably being the only thing he has), although he asks for a chef's medallion in return.

### Chef License (Side Quest)

Zest should then return to his house, as it immediately enacts a cutscene preluded by knocking on his door. When opened, he finds Sous-chef Bosco and his minions notifying Zest that he illegally participated in a cooking fight that thankfully did not have many witnesses. After this cutscene, a stall in the Town Plaza will open, allowing Zest to purchase the Chef License for 1,000 escupados. Even after purchasing this license, the stall will remain. It should be noted that at this time, Zest currently does not have the adequate funds to purchase a license, so he should resort to completing various quests, including growing tomatoes for Tomatillo, locating the seven sons of Hadriv, catching five rats for Meowrice's family for a holiday occasion, and selling items to Tilmitt, the town shopkeeper. All of these are mentioned in the following paragraph.

### Side Quests

It is recommended to first locate Hadriv's sons, as he gifts you 200 escupados and unlocks further quests. They are found all throughout the accessible city. It should be noted that there is no reward for completing Cook Fucius's quest. After this, it is recommended to catching five rats for Meowrice's family. This quest is particularly easy: rats are found in abundance throughout Ambrosia's docks. After such, he will gift you with 410 escupados. This alone is enough to purchase the Chef's License, although it will only leave 10 escupados, which is why I further recommend selling crops to Tomatillo and Tilmitt.

There is also an additional side quest involving a cooking tournament. Converse with Meownika on entering the tournament. The entry fee is 5 escupados, and the reward is an "amazing chef outfit". This is personally recommended due to the fact that it can increase your skills as a competing chef before dealing with Metrielle. In a previous paragraph, it was instructed to keep the Mysterious Egg. Take them to the Doctors as instructed by the quest: after so, they will ask you to create a Spirit-rich dish involving Crabs to hatch it. It is highly recommended to involve mushrooms, which are known for being rich in Spirit, in this dish. After giving the dish to the Doctors, they will deposit the dish into a Pokeball-esque device. They then comment that they needed "military-grade magicka devices" to hatch the animals which were birthed out of those eggs. Since your Villa is rich in magicka, you can hatch it there. Return home with the Egg in your hand and converse with the Golem: afterwards, a mount named Birch will appear. Birch will need to be routinely fed and can be summoned any place, anytime.

## Chef's Medallion

After completing these Side Quests, Zest should purchase a Chef's License. Zest should have also competed with the aforementioned tournament. To earn the Chef's Medallion required to get Zest a better bed, Zest needs to do battle with Metrielle. Zest must create Caribara Sauce and apply it in his first dish, which is created by using Tomato Sauce and an Apple. On a side note, the magiconstructor will now allow Zest to create a Saucing Machine upon purchasing the Chef's License, which is why it was previously recommended to purchase a Chef's License beforehand.

Visit Metrielle and Slothy at the North Cave Beach. The cooking battle between Metrielle and Zest cannot even begin if Zest does not have Caribara Sauce. During the cooking battle, Slothy is set to be a judge, although, while he is currently unofficially licensed as such, he does have the merit of used to being affiliated with the Critic Union. When Zest asks why he was kicked out, Slothy answers that he was "too lazy". Zest remarks "Too lazy to be a critic? That's a special talent you have there," before the game is interrupted by a so-called Extradimensional Being exclaiming, "Well, \*\*\*\* you too. [sic]" Zest reluctantly accepts. The entry fee for fighting with Metrielle is 100 escupados.

If Zest loses, he can simply join again. He can technically commence the fight for an infinite of times. Meanwhile, if he wins, Metrielle acts unexpected, and Slothy gifts him the Chef's Medallion. Zest should then revisit Jesus to claim his new bed.