Chapter 22: Legendary Talent? Sounds Tasty
The gate of Aeros shut behind them with a thud. It sounded like the start of a countdown. The road north toward the Jagged Peaks was full of players who thought returning to the starter forest was beneath them. That meant Tana was empty that meant it was exactly where Liam wanted to be.
"Alright, look," Liam said, checking the straps on his new [Wolf-Fang Longsword]. The platinum armour he wore caught the morning light, making him look like a solar flare moving through the trees. "I want you on high alert. No slacking because the mobs are low level."
Elizabeth looked at the treeline with the expression of a woman who had survived an Ogre General yesterday and was now being asked to take the kindergarten zone seriously. Her new platinum armour caught the morning light, and her red cape moved in the breeze, and the Gale-Sliver Rapier sat at her hip as it had always been there, which in Liam’s opinion it basically had. "We’re Level 24 and 19," she said. "The squirrels here have ten HP i could kill them by breathing on them."
"That’s exactly how you get caught in a pincer," Liam said. He checked the straps on the Wolf-Fang Longsword without breaking stride. "What if a world event triggers? What if a Level 50 hidden boss spawns because the system notices two high-level anomalies weed-whacking its starter mobs? The second you think you’re safe is the second the system starts measuring you for a coffin take it seriously."
Elizabeth unsheathed her rapier.
"Fine serious mode prepare to die, fluffy rodents of doom."
For the next three hours, Tana Forest became a site of systematic extraction. Liam moved from glade to glade, not a hunt, trying to seek out every Tana Squirrel and Garter Snake he spotted, dispatching each one with Sonic Step and a clean strike and a quick bite before moving to the next. He wasn’t looking for EXP, he was looking for the ping.
After forty-five minutes of clearing a grove of ancient chestnut trees, he got one.
[Recipe Unlocked: Roasted Hearth-Chestnuts — Common.]
[Effect: Nutty Aroma. The user smells strongly of roasted chestnuts for 168 hours.]
[Flavour Text: "Great for hiding the scent of blood. Bad for people with allergies."]
Liam stood over a pile of charred nuts with his brow furrowed in the specific way it got when he was finding a use for something everyone else would have thrown away. "Smell like chestnuts for a week," he said"
"It’s useless, Liam," Ellie deadpanned, poking a dead squirrel with her boot. "Why are we doing this? You’re a legendary chef who just ate an Ogre General. Why are you making... an air freshener?"
"What if we encounter something that hunts by scent?" Liam said, in the serious analytical voice he used for raid bosses. "What if there’s a Great Oak Sentinel that only ignores things that smell like the forest? This isn’t a smell. It’s a tactical scent mask. A camouflage layer."
Elizabeth stared at him. "You are genuinely trying to find a combat application for smelling like a snack."
"Everything has a place in the pan," Liam said. "And stop calling me weird you were laughing at the snake recipe ten minutes ago."
[Recipe Unlocked: The Cinnamon Scroll (Snake Edition)]
[Tier: Common]
[Effect: Serpentine Vanity. The user grows a functional snake tail for 36 hours. Provides +0 Battle Bonus.]
[Flavour Text: "All the sass of a cobra, none of the venom."]
"I wasn’t laughing at the recipe," Elizabeth said, her ears doing the involuntary twitch they did when she was genuinely trying not to smile. "I was laughing because I imagined you with a snake tail coming out of the armour it would look so stupid."
"It’s a functional tail," Liam said, turning away so she couldn’t see him actually considering whether the additional appendage would improve his gravitational force on Spin to Win. "Balance. Or a third arm for holding a whisk the system doesn’t give you junk for no reason."
"Liam, it’s literally called Vanity it’s for people who want to look interesting at the taver, or a party"
"Whatever," Liam grunted, "I have the recipes now. Once the ’God of the Kitchen’ makes it once, the system saves the essence. I don’t need to carry the physical ingredients anymore; I can just manifest the effect as long as I have the Hearth-mana."
Liam paused in a small clearing where the sunlight filtered through the leaves in golden shafts. It was beautiful, peaceful enough that you could almost forget that your soul was currently a line of code.
"Dear Santa-Hestia," he said, with complete sincerity, "thanks for the recipes. They’re kind of weird, but I’ll make them work. Love you. I mean, amen."
"Santa-Hestia," Hestia’s voice arrived in his head, dripping with honey. "My little butcher. Are you calling me a jolly old man with a beard, or are you simply so overwhelmed by my generosity that basic vocabulary has escaped you?"
Liam’s ears went slightly pink. I thank you for the utility, Hestia don’t make it weird.
"You called me Santa," she said. "I think you’ll find you made it weird first."
Elizabeth was watching him, he was clearly having a conversation she couldn’t hear, and she had decided she didn’t want to know. "Hestia again?"
"She’s offended about something," Liam said.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing," Liam said, which was technically accurate in the way that most of his decisions were technically accurate and practically complicated.
He opened his recipe log and checked the count. Three new entries from three hours in a starter zone that the rest of the server had written off as a waste of time, and at the bottom of the list, one entry that hadn’t been there this morning, sitting quiet and private and pulsing with the same volcanic warmth as the Golem core and the Shaman essence and everything else the Hearth had decided was significant.
He hadn’t eaten anything that should have unlocked it. He hadn’t triggered any visible quest condition. It had just appeared, the way Hestia had appeared on Day 1, before he’d cooked a single thing, as if the system was running slightly ahead of him and leaving doors open.
[Recipe Detected: Tana’s Hidden Feast — Tier Unknown.]
[Condition: ??? ]
[Note: This recipe has not been unlocked. Something in this forest is waiting to be found.]
Liam looked up at the trees. The light was different here than it had been in the clearing, older somehow, like the forest had been holding its breath.
Something in this forest is waiting, he thought, red eyes moving through the shadows between the trees with the patient focus of a man who had just found out the menu had a secret item.
"Elizabeth," he said.
"Yeah?"
"We’re not done here."
[Tool Tip]
Ellie
[Level]: 19
[Class]: Pink Cat, Warrior (Progressing toward Shadow Stalker or Blade Dancer.
[Role]: She is currently the highest-level "warrior" in the Aeros district. While she feels weak compared to Liam, she is actually outleveling Saffron and Noir.