The Glutton's Pantry

The morning the sky fractured and the 'System' arrived, Mateusz Nowak was just trying not to burn his breakfast. While others were granted legendary combat classes, he was branded with [Culinary Synthesis] - a skill for a world that no longer had pantries. Shunned and deemed worthless, he survives on scraps in the shadow of the Shard, the crystalline monolith that has replaced Warsaw's city center. But during a desperate scavenger run, he tastes a drop of a priceless healing elixir and the System reveals his skill's true nature: he can replicate it. Perfectly. Potions, enchanted scrolls, even permanent stat-boosting elixirs - if he can taste it, he can cook a flawless copy. This power makes him a target for the powerful, an enigma to his rivals, and a lifeline for his friends. But the System's gifts are never free. Each synthesis leaves him feeling emptier, his memories fading, his emotions blunting into a terrifying, hollow hunger. Is he climbing to the top, or is he just the choicest ingredient in the System's unknowable feast?