"You went to sleep late last night didn't you?" Gilbert noted in the morning. lina was barely able to hold her eyes open. She couldn't help but experint with the crystalized ooze she managed to create. Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to incorporate it into the pastry itself, the cream, or even arrange it on top of the fruit, in the end, the crystallized ooze was too hard to chew and remained last, leaving a mildly bitter aftertaste in the mouth.
It was a vast improvent over the first healing pastry lina made, but she hadn't really incorporated the ooze. It rely hung on top of the pastry, resembling a random, rogue elent rather than a part of the dish. She knew that she could achieve a better result.
By the ti lina gave up her experints, it was already way past midnight and she still had to spend a substantial amount of ti cleaning the kitchen. Overall, she had gotten maybe three hours of sleep.
"I might have gotten carried away with my experints," she admitted, arranging strawberries on the tart. lina was relieved that she was so accustod to making the pastries they sold that she could do it half-awake. Her eyes were very heavy this morning and she barely even registered what she was doing.
"And the result? You managed to make sothing edible?"
"Sort of?" lina said and retrieved a jar that she had filled with little crystalized ooze.
Gilbert looked at it skeptically. "What in the blue blazes is that?"
"Crystallized saplon ooze. It has strong healing properties, but… I've had no luck incorporating it in a dish."
The old baker took one of the balls out of the jar and inspected it with a scrutinizing gaze. lina suspected that he was using one of his skills to see its effect. After a mont, he popped it into his mouth, tasting it. "Oh, that's so potent stuff. I can feel the aches in my joints disappear right away."
lina smiled. "Yes, the effect is good… but the flavor."
"It's not so bad, but it does have a dicinal quality to it. Interesting how it lts just like sugar. Perhaps it could be made into caral."
"Caral?" She looked at the crystalized ooze in mild disbelief. "Master, you have to teach how to make caral!"
"Yes, yes, of course, I will. But we need to finish our work first."
lina groaned. It felt like she was just a step away from creating the perfect healing pastry, yet these mundane things were blocking her path. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that made her feel a bit irritable, but she also knew that the bakery was important too. Every coin they made was important, especially since lina wanted to expand and improve their business.
"Let's get to it then!" lina nodded resolutely and returned to work.
Making pastries was easy and very rewarding. Since lina's level had reset after equipping [Arcane Baker] class, she could watch how her levels steadily went up. She started the morning at Level 2 and ended up with Level 5. As an added bonus also ranked up, reaching rank D, and decreasing the cooldown to six hours.
At the end of the morning, after lina invested her unspent skill points in and , she opened her status screen.
[Na: lina Dufour]
[Level: 5]
[Class: Arcane Baker]
[Familiar: Sienna — Ember Wyrm Level 48]
[Intelligence: 15]
[Agility: 8]
[Strength: 9]
[Skill: 18]
[Charm: 7]
[Active Skills: 8]
[, , , , , , , ]
[Passive Skills: 3]
[, ]
Wait a minute… Sienna leveled up?
lina looked carefully at the screen, not quite believing her eyes. She wondered when it happened, but then rembered how after Sienna had killed the nightstalker lina had received a notification about level up. But Alistair had been injured at the ti, so she had dismissed it right away and turned her attention to him.
"Master… Sienna leveled up," lina told the old baker as they arranged the prepared pastries on the shelves.
"So?"
"It's just that her level is rather high. She's currently at level 48. What if she evolves?" lina asked.
Gilbert paused and looked at the wyrm who was sticking to the shop's windows and gazing at the birds outside. A perfect picture of innocence.
"Yeah… that'd be troubleso…" Gilbert noted and they both gave Sienna a long look. Monster evolution was a… ssy process. It involved them going into a crystallized sort of cocoon and staying there for days, maybe even weeks before their bodies fully underwent evolution.
The worst part, however, was after they erged from their cocoon. All of their energy would be spent on evolution, and they'd usually be cranky and extrely hungry, attacking and eating everything even remotely edible. Sotis a newly evolved monster was far more dangerous than the one of higher levels.
"It would be for the best if we didn't have to go through that. Who knows what she'll evolve into? I wouldn't be surprised if it was a draconic species. And I certainly wouldn't want to see one of those things raging through Sunglow."
"Neither would I," lina agreed. She shuddered to imagine what townspeople would do if Sienna went on a hungry rampage through the town. They might not forgive lina then.
With the pastries all set on their shelves and the sign turned on, people once again flooded the bakery in a steady stream. Unfortunately for lina, everyone had already heard of her trip to the Monster Realm—information traveled really fast around here. So she was bombarded with questions first thing in the morning.
"What was the Monster Realm like?"
"Did you get attacked?"
"What did you find?"
"What was in that bag that was dripping sli everywhere?"
lina tried to answer their questions with a smile while being mindful of how much she could reveal. For example, she didn't mind describing the colorful beauty of the Monster Realm even if it slowed the service to a snail's pace. However, she did not ntion the verdant grasps dragging multiple people to the ground.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
She also didn't ntion the nightstalker attack or any attack whatsoever, instead evading the questions about monsters. Soti during the service, Alistair also ca for his morning pastries and added to her story. He was also mindful to avoid any ntions of attacks and instead focused on the feyfruit and saplons that they found.
Another person who made an appearance during the shop hours and made everything even more difficult was none other than Leliana. She of course, instantly stuck to Alistair and asked him every question imaginable with big starry eyes.
"Oh, so that nasty sli I saw in the town yesterday was from a saplon?" Leliana asked in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "Why even carry such a nasty thing back?"
This raised a murmur of questions as other custors also pondered what could lina possibly do with the nasty fruit. She couldn't just openly tell them that she was trying to make into healing pastries. Could she?
"One of my skills discovered that the lons have healing properties. lina will try to make them into pastries," Alistair said and winked at her. The custors buzzed with excitent at the prospect of healing pastries, cheering for lina's success.
"I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm still a novice," she said.
"I'm sure that Gilbert will help you figure it out, won't you?" Missis Veilcroft urged him.
"I make no promises," he grumbled in response, but everyone laughed, already familiar with Gilbert's icy attitude. Everyone except for Leliana who looked like she was fuming. The red-head stord out without anyone noticing, and lina got a strange foreboding feeling.
The afternoon couldn't have co any sooner. lina eagerly returned to her experints. Gilbert had suggested she incorporate her crystalized ooze into caral sauce and given her the recipe for regular caral sauce. It was surprisingly simple.
All lina had to do was carefully lt the sugar, then add butter to it, and finally whisk in a bit of cream. The result was a deliciously sweet gooey substance that lina could barely keep Sienna away from. Wyrm managed to nab a bit of it while it was still hot, and she only managed to dissuade her from pursuing the rest by promising her feyfruit tarts later on.
With the first batch of caral being a success, lina set off to make the second batch but this ti she added crystallized ooze along with the sugar and lted them together. The start was promising as the ooze lted and mixed with sugar producing a sweet herby scent. After that, she added butter and whisked everything together with cream. It resulted in a lighter-looking caral that slled very mildly of herbs.
"Let's see…" lina muttered and activated on the caral.
[Saplon Caral Sauce – Rank C: deliciously sweet and pleasantly gooey, this caral will make any sweet lover beg for more.
Effect: Heals minor injuries.]
It appears the healing effect got diluted during the cooking process. I need to figure out the proportion for maximum healing effect while retaining the pleasant flavor. Perhaps, it would be best if I asked Master Gilbert to do the taste testing. My tastebuds are already worn down by all this sweetness.
lina continued making various batches of saplon caral, altering the amount of sugar, butter, and cream added. A few tis she didn't have enough butter or cream which resulted in a mixture that partially hardened and wasn't pleasant to eat. Other tis, she added too little sugar and the herby sll beca too pungent.
In the end, she was left with four samples with varying degrees of healing effectiveness and sweetness. She was about to go and call Master Gilbert downstairs to help with the taste testing when a knock resounded on the backdoor.
lina instantly tensed rembering how last ti it had been Heiliger who had co knocking on the backdoor.
Don't be ridiculous. She has already long since left Sunglow. Maybe it's Alistair. Perhaps, he'd be willing to taste the caral sauce.
She liked that idea very much and headed to the back door with a spring in her step. Much to her disappointnt, it wasn't Alistair who had co, but rather Leliana. lina barely managed to suppress a frown.
lina was sure that during their brief chat, Leliana told Heiliger about this back entrance. She considered just slamming the door shut in her face, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in Leliana's face which stilled lina's hand.
"Hello, Leliana. How may I help?" she asked.
Leliana had an uncomfortable smile on her lips which she tempered into her pleasant mask. "You know this morning I heard about those unusual lons you found in the Monster Realm, so I got curious about them. As a farr, I am extrely interested in new fruits. Perhaps, we could find them useful. Would it be alright if I inspected one?"
lina doubted that it was the lons that Leliana had co to see. She had called them gross just this morning. For a mont, she contemplated just rejecting her request and sending her away. But the girl would no doubt use it to her advantage, telling everyone how lina was too greedy to show the spoils from the Monster Realm to others. Or sothing like that.
She suppressed a sigh and smiled. "Of course. Co in."
lina led Leliana into the kitchen and put one of the lons that had been oozing into one of the larger bowls the whole night on the table. The redhead scrunched up her nose in disgust. The ooze did not sll nice in such large quantities—it was an overwhelming, almost sickening sll of bitter herbs.
"Why does it sll so bad? Is it rotten?" Leliana covered her nose, so of her prim facade slipping away.
"No, that's just how it is."
"Shouldn't you wash the sli off?"
"No, that's the most useful part. The innards turn nasty when cooked but are toxic in their raw form," lina explained.
"Toxic?" Leliana recoiled from the bowl, taking a few steps back. "And you're putting it into food?"
lina smiled. Leliana's mask was slipping. The girl felt far more reasonable when she wasn't pretending to be pleasant, so lina hoped she'd drop the facade completely.
"It's safe to eat when cooked properly," lina assured, then looked at the four bowls that held her experintal caral. For a mont, she pondered whether she should ask Leliana to taste it. She needed to know the honest opinion.
But this was Leliana. If the caral was bad, then she could use that to weave so new rumors, possibly even ruining the bakery's reputation. However, lina rembered how Leliana had spoken about Master Gilbert and how much she enjoyed his cooking.
No, I don't think she'd do anything that would harm Master Gilbert or the bakery. She just doesn't like .
"Would you like to taste so?" lina offered.
"What? No way!" Leliana shook her head fervently.
"It's safe, I promise! Look," lina said and put a bit of the caral sauce in her mouth. It was sweet and herby, pleasant in her opinion, but at the sa ti, her taste buds had already gone numb from all the sweetest. "It's tasty, but I've eaten so much of it that I can't make sense of which tastes the best."
Leliana gave her an appraising look. "Alright. But if you want my honest opinion, I want sothing in return."
"What do you want?"
"A few of those fruits you got from the Monster Realm."
That was the last thing lina had expected from the girl. She thought she'd ask lina to stay away from Alistair again or sothing equally ridiculous. "What are you going to do with them?"
"I'll try to grow them."
"Grow them?"
"These fruits can only be found in the Monster Realm right?" Leliana prompted with a mischievous sort of grin.
"That's what I've heard."
"Imagine if soone would be able to grow them in the Human Realm. What kind of profit they'd be able to make from them," Leliana explained.
"So you're after money?"
"I want a better life for myself and my sisters. Do you know how hard it is working on the field day in and day out, only for all of your hard work to be thwarted by droughts or monsters attacking you on the way to Pertia, forcing you to abandon most of what you've worked so hard to grow?" Leliana snarled.
lina softened. She knew all too well the hardships of poverty and things outside her control. After all, there was nothing wrong with hoping for a better life. That was the whole reason lina rewound ti—to give this world another chance for happiness.
"Only if you promise not to sell them," lina said.
"Of course I won't! I'm not stupid enough to dig a hole for our town."
"Then I'll give you a few of those fruits. Just don't expect that growing them will be easy. Especially these lons."
"I enjoy a challenge," Leliana said.
lina nodded and at that mont there was almost a friendly feeling in the room. She retrieved her caral samples and set them in front of Leliana.
"But you must tell which one you think is better first."
The redhead glanced at the caral dubiously, then looked at the ooze in the bowl. "That sli is in this caral?"
"Yes!"
Leliana grimaced but took the teaspoon lina offered, dipping it into the first sample. Tentatively she brought it to her lips, exhaled, and then swiftly put it in her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise. "This is… actually good."
"Yes, I told you. I just need to figure out which one is the best," lina nodded excitedly, seeing how her caral was a success.
Leliana looked down at her palms for a mont. "Now I'm even more excited to get these things to grow in the Human Realm."
"It would certainly be amazing if you could do that," lina said, although she was almost certain it couldn't be done. The conditions for growing these lons were just too finicky. But she won't stop Leliana from trying. "Now taste the other ones. I need to know which one tastes the best."
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