Entering the hall, I saw Hari watching as both Darren and George were going through the steps to build muscle mory. Hari caught sight of straight away but made sure the two of them kept swinging, pulling out a training sword and throwing it in my direction.
“Jump in there, Trev—you’ve not practised in a while.”
I took up a position next to George and tried to rember the steps, but I failed miserably.
What seed like forever later, Hari let us stop, and George imdiately asked to spar. We had a rivalry of sorts back at the academy, no… orphanage. Lukas was far more competitive, but George was always there, and he never actually won, so I suspected today would be the day he got his revenge.
“All right—no abilities, no buffs, and we’re not trying to hurt each other,” Hari said.
I stood across from George, who currently had a one-handed sword and a small buckler, while I was holding a slightly longer sword in two hands with no shield.
I know Hari said no abilities, but I still wondered if I could sneak so Barrier lon without him noticing.
“All right, go,” Hari said.
George lunged towards , going for a stab—which I saw coming; that was his old move, he always opened with that. What caught by surprise, though, was that it was a feint, as George pulled the strike just as I was moving to deflect and ca from another angle, striking on the side.
I leapt backwards to try to put so distance between us, but before I knew it, George was already inside my guard and tapped again.
I tried my best to make an opening of so kind, and every chance I felt I had, his buckler slipped into place just in ti.
The fight didn’t go on for long. I didn’t hit George once. It highlighted two things to : the first was how little I actually knew about fighting; the second was the value of Hari’s training.
I didn’t have ti to dedicate days like George and Darren, but I felt that if I could spare an hour a day to so basic practice, it would help out. I wasn’t planning on engaging in combat anyti soon, but it would be nice to be able to defend myself in a pinch if I were forced.
Once our fight was over, Darren stepped forward to spar with George, and I was rubbing my arm, feeling embarrassed at how poorly I had perford.
“Not as bad as I suspected,” Liane whispered.
“What do you an? I lost horribly,” I retorted.
“You did, but you don’t have the stats for it, nor do you have the training and the passive skills. Rember, a soldier gets a basic weapon-mastery passive, so they are going to be a step above you in combat even before training,” she explained as I walked to Milo’s area.
“True. I’d like to get a little better though—just in case I need to defend myself one day, you know?”
Liane just nodded, and when I entered the cave area Milo had been working in, I was rendered speechless by the sight in front of . Where there was once a giant hole in the stone cave, there now was a very large, intricately carved stone balcony that overlooked the ocean—but even more than that, I noticed now it had a thin lattice of stone preventing soone from falling out.
Or, I guess, stopping soone or sothing from coming in. Looking closer, I noticed he had also made several planter boxes, clearly for Joanne.
“Looks amazing, Milo,” I said, making him jump.
“Thank you,” Milo bead. “I’m just adding the finishing touches now, but it’s all pretty much done. This mini-lake here is rather special as well. I don’t know how sensitive to your surrounding mana you are yet, but that lake has a very strong presence of water mana.”
“I didn’t know you could feel different mana types,” I said, scratching the back of my head.
“Oh—sorry, that’s my fault. I forget that you didn’t have any lessons on mana and magic. Well, very quickly: everyone who has access to skills that use mana will be able to sense their surrounding mana with a bit of effort. It’s an important skill, as the surrounding mana will affect the strength of your spells,” he started to explain.
He gestured towards Crisplet in the brazier. “This lake here, for example, would likely serve to dampen Crisplet’s spells, and he’d find his fire less potent.
“But, more than that—even ones like earth magic—the stone is stronger, the dirt heavier, due to the water mana condensed in it. I suspect that’s why the stone around here is as strong as it is.”
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“So if I cooked down here, Manaflair Crust would take on water-mana properties for the al?” I said, rembering the brief description ntioning that the environnt affected the results.
“Probably—but if Crisplet were involved, you’d find it was likely cancelled out, as the fire mana around Crisplet is incredibly potent,” he said.
“You two are boring when you talk magic like this, you know that, right?” Liane said with a smirk.
“Yes, but he has to learn,” Milo said to Liane, clearly missing the mirth in her tone.
I walked out onto the balcony, approaching the edge, where I watched as the water crashed into the rocks below. The sll of the salty air was strong here, but there was beauty in it all, despite being so high up.
“All done now?” I asked Milo.
“Yeah, all done. I’m going to take my samples, even if I feel I have worked out the reasoning already. There could be sothing else affecting these rocks I have yet to discover.”
“Oh—before I leave, would you be able to fill up the two barrels I purchased with water? I need to soak them for a couple of days, I was told,” I asked.
“Hmm, you got it untreated. This gives you an opportunity, actually, if you’re interested. We’ll soak the first one normally, but for the second one—you should consider having Crisplet lightly char the inside. This does a few things: it acts as a filter to the liquid inside, removing harsher compounds, but it also will enhance the flavour and colour of the liquid as well.”
I shrugged; I didn’t see why not. I pulled out both barrels, and Crisplet happily went into one.
“Just a thin layer, please, Crisplet,” I asked, and a mont later a tower of fla erged from the barrel. It lasted for just a few seconds and then stopped.
Once I was sure it was over, I looked over the edge of the barrel, and the entire inside was a mixture of black and white—not a single spot was left untouched.
A mont later, Milo filled it with water. I was surprised when both barrels had water shooting out the sides. I was about to rush to pack it with wax but was stopped by Milo.
“This is normal, Trev. It’s what they ant in preparing them. The wood will expand and fill the gaps, essentially sealing it. If there are any major leaks after a day or two, and once you’ve tightened these bands, then you use the wax if you have to. Leave them with ; I’ll keep an eye on them,” he said, shifting them closer to the pool of water.
***
Back in the kitchen, I pulled out the two halves of the cleaned eel onto the counter. I had an idea of how I wanted this cooked, so first I threaded it through the iron rod. The eel was surprisingly larger than the rod, but it would do.
I was going to save this for a campfire, but I decided against it. Instead, I had Crisplet make a long grill the entire length of the oven. Under it sat hot coals, which I felt were mostly for appearance, but I appreciated it.
I noticed already an earthy sll emanating from the oven; I gave Crisplet so extra Echoheart to burn for this dish.
I started making the sauce I would baste them with, starting with the Glyntar honey. To that, I added so fine Pyrrhosite, along with Fire Salts to add a nice spice to it. Next, I wanted to see how deep I could go on the mana side of things.
So I mixed in so Mana Tear flowers, a dash of the Mana Willow powder, and Legarant.
After mixing it all up, I felt the honey mix was a little too thick for what I needed to do. Looking at my inventory for solutions, I landed on the spider soup. I had given most of it to Liane, but this would really test the limits of how many buffs I could stack into one dish, since the soup had its own selection of buffs already.
And potentially, I would activate both Second Simr and Crust using this.
I winged it, added the soup, and thinned the basting sauce a small amount. When I was happy with it, I got to work. I didn’t have the brush that Geo had back in the kitchen to spread it over the eel, so I would have to make do.
I poured it on top, using the back of a wooden spoon to spread it all over, before placing them both in the oven.
It only took a couple of minutes before Crisplet sent off the flares, so I pulled them out, flipping them over and pouring more sauce onto the opposite side, and placing them back in the oven.
This continued for a short while—pulling it out, adding more sauce, and placing it back—with the eel itself becoming a richer and richer brown. It slt amazing. There was a spice, but also a sweetness, a very brief tingle on my tongue, then an earthiness from the fire ca through subtly at the end.
Soon I got the embers to remove them, and when I did, the grill collapsed. I took that as a sign that it was ready to go. I used Purify and Infuse on both of them before quickly placing them in my pantry to maintain the heat while I prepared so sides.
Would you like to store [Rare] Spice Infused Mana Eel ×2 for 5 mana? Yes/No
I pulled out a small bag of rice to go with it, prepared it in my pot, added the lid and let it cook. I had plenty for everyone at least, and the second half was for Lily, who had not shown up yet.
“Lily, are you watching?” I said tentatively to the shadows.
For a fleeting second, I swear I saw her green eyes in the shadow under the countertop.
“I have food ready for you.”
A second later she was there. I couldn’t help but chuckle—if I didn’t have food, would she have just ignored ? I was sure she’d looked to see what I was doing.
I pulled out one half of the eel and placed it down for her. She started with a tentative small bite, but then it was all gone a mont later, faster than I had seen her eat anything in the past, with the only exception being the dragon.
I was curious myself now; I couldn’t help it. Pulling the eel out onto the counter, wanting to try just a small amount for now while we waited. Slicing off a small bit at the end.
It looked incredibly juicy, and the honey basting had created a sticky crust on the outside.
I placed it in my mouth, and the flavour was intense. I first got a sweetness from the honey, which was almost imdiately flooded like a surging fla across my tongue, before that settled and I was left with a fresh saltiness.
I was just about to pull up my status sheet when the world grew dark again.
In the split second it took to fall to the ground, I had two thoughts go through my head:
The first—what did I do wrong? I purified the dish.
The second—I hope Liane finds first.
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