Chapter 69. Potato Chips
“Make… what?” Bast asked, lost.
Rhys handed him a knife. “Do as I do. You’ll figure it out.”
“Potatoes are going to make us rich?”
“I know, right? I was startled, too,” Rhys said. Startled that they had potatoes, anyways. In his world, those were New World foods, relegated to the far-flung American continent. But why not? Although he’d recognized lots of the foods, there were still lots of roots, herbs, and flowers he didn’t recognize, a great variety more than even what he’d been aware of in his world. It was as if the mountains they lived in were cold-weather rainforests, so diverse were the plants that grew upon them. With such a diversity of plants at their fingertips, why not a potato? Or at least, a starchy root tuber that was roughly equivalent in starch content and flavor to a potato.
Getting rich with potato chips was a bit far-flung, even Rhys knew that. But that was why his ambition didn’t stop at mere potato chips. After all, potato chips were junk food. And what was junk, but another word for trash?
Mages sought many things, but primarily mana, techniques, and a path. With ordinary humans, potato chips in their most processed, most junky form, provided flavor, but, thanks to complicated processing techniques, almost no fullness. What Rhys wanted to replicate wasn’t merely the technique of frying a thin slice of potato in oil. No, anyone could do that. His ambition wasn’t so shallow. What he wanted, was to replicate that addictive quality in ordinary humans—the delicious flavor plus no fullness—but for mages.
For mages, what would be the equivalent to flavor plus no fullness? Well, flavor was the same. He had seen mages eat, and there were enough merchants selling foodstuffs and stall food that he knew they were motivated by good food, just the same as humans. But the fullness was the missing factor. Mages didn’t need to eat, so food didn’t connect to their satisfaction sensors the same as it did for humans. They would either eat unendingly, or eat a small amount for flavor and no more, since they didn’t need to eat for survival. Targeting not feeling full was pointless, because that wasn’t part of the condition for mages.
No. Instead, he had to look at what mages sought. Mana. Techniques. A path. Junk food was trash; he could imbue it with the hints of a path (namely, his path), such that the chips would seem to have depth and mysteries to them, but would not be comprehensible to anyone except for himself, or anyone else who could understand the Path of Trash, which… he doubted existed. Junk food was trash, so it was easy for him to impress mana into them. Just tiny slivers, tiny flickers so small that the mages wouldn’t even be sure where the mana was coming from. He didn’t want them to actually realize that the chips were giving them mana, after all. No, he wanted them to feelgood when they ate the chips, but not realize why, and simply associate the chips with feeling good rather than with getting mana. If they knew the chips were giving them mana, they’d be disappointed in the amount of mana, or simply realize that they were wasting their time. Better for it to be a mysterious happy feeling they only got when they ate Rhys’s chips, that was associated with the chips and nothing else.
As for imbuing the chips with techniques… he hadn’t figured that part out yet. But hey, potato chips only fulfilled humans’ desire to eat tasty food, they didn’t fulfill their desire to create or grow as people or enrich their lives. He’d definitely experienced that for himself. If potato chips could have fulfilled his entire life, he would have been the happiest man on his old planet. He didn’t need to fulfill everything that mages wanted in order to craft an addictive treat, he just needed to trigger enough pleasure centers in the mages’ brains to get them to keep buying potato chips.
After all, that was the essence of junk food. Not being delicious, or providing nutrition—ha!—but simply tricking human psychology into bending over backwards to pick up more of it, despite offering no benefits whatsoever. That was what Rhys sought to emulate. That was what was going to make him rich. If he could crack that code for mages, he’d be swimming in gold.
Ultimately, the potato chip itself was immaterial, compared to figuring out how to make junk food for mages. Once he figured out the addictive formula, he could apply it to anything. Pure-sugar candies. Delicious chicken nuggets. Chocolate, pretzels, french fries and hamburgers. Anything he could use to trigger the same fulfilment in mages that junk food did in mortals was valid as a target to him; it was just that potatoes were available, and potato chips relatively easy to make without industrial processing materials. If he nailed this, the cost-to-value ratio would be absolutely insane, and then he could look at upgrading to even better junk food, like candies and chocolates.
Of course, a nice coincidental side effect of this was that he would have potato chips and maybe, eventually, chocolate in this world, but his real objective was gold. Those were merely happy coincidences. Or, in mage terms, as he’d often seen in the manuals he sped-read, the harmonious byproduct of working toward a virtuous goal.