Chapter 22: First Customer
Within his Mental Landscape, Elias stood before a vast workshop where his Inner Self possessed the power to manifest anything he could conceive. As a former Quantum Seeker who had reached the Unified Field Stage, recreating mere food items was indeed, as he had once joked to himself, "a piece of cake."
"Let’s start with the classics."
He murmured, his consciousness shaping reality within the infinite space of his mind.
He began with what he called "Deli-Cakes." These were elongated pastries roughly the length of two thumbs placed end to end, with a thickness that required two hands to grasp comfortably. These were filled with a variety of creams and fruit preserves, their exteriors glazed to a perfect golden sheen.
Next came "Coconut Doughnuts." Ring-shaped pastries covered in shredded coconut and a light glaze that sparkled like morning dew. Coconuts were luxury ingredients in this world, making these treats particularly exotic.
He created "Honey Spirals." Twisted pastries that seemed to glow with their own inner light, infused with honey that had been enhanced through refined processes to provide both incredible flavor and surprising nutritional value.
"Chocolate Dreams" followed. Small, dense cakes that melted on the tongue, releasing layers of flavor that seemed to evolve with each bite. The chocolate was unlike anything available in this world, rich and complex in ways that would seem almost magical to local palates.
He could be certain of these assumptions because of his inherited memories of the original Elias’s experience in Mystral as a noble child.
Each creation was not merely food but a work of art, designed to provide not just taste but genuine nourishment. These pastries could satisfy hunger as effectively as a full meal while delivering an experience of pure pleasure.
The process of manifesting these items in his Mental Landscape and then retrieving them into physical reality cost him only a single Mystic Crystal, a remarkably efficient exchange rate. He presumed the reason for the low cost was the relatively simple nature of what he was creating.
While Elias worked on inventory in the Mental Landscape, in the real world, Selina proved invaluable in preparing the physical space. Despite her lack of formal education, she possessed an intuitive understanding of organization and aesthetics.