The next morning Kael awoke to the feeling of something entering his nose. Slapping his face and rolling out of bed, he was greeted by his laughing father who was holding a feather.

Sighing, Kael got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. Seeing his mother already down there with a loaded up plate chowing down, he hurried to join her before it was all gone. As he took a giant biscuit his mother informed him he would be making breakfast from now on.

Looking at her enormous stomach he quietly cursed his father for making her walk down into the ice cellar to get meals ready. “Of course mom, I can do all the meals if you like.”

Smiling at her son, she said, “Thanks Kael, but you are going to be too busy for that. Your father and I have decided that you have too much artisan talent to let it go to waste. We are not going to give you our soul refining methods until you meet our standards.”

Shocked, Kael asked, “But mom, I thought I would need to have a spiritual sense to make Dans. How can I do that without going through spiritual refinement?”

“Don’t worry, I am sending your father off to get you more pill recipes and plenty of supplies. We also talked to Muta. You are not to start crafting until you are an expert in refining. The basics of skills are always the most important. Once you have mastered all of the basics of those two skills, we will be sending you to Jurt, the villages leatherworker. You also will have the chance to go work with Albus the woodworker if you so choose. A basic in woodworking will help you with many things later.”

“Mom, only one thing about this surprises me.”

“Oh, and what is that?”

“That you stopped eating long enough to say all of that.”

Getting hit in the face with a biscuit, Kael took off to the smithy to find Raen. Once there he found the place deserted with nothing but a note.

Kael, since you like running off without telling people, I did the same. My pops and I am going to look for that monkey. Otherwise,

he will never shut up. On the way back we will be heading into a silver rank city for supplies. We will be gone for at least two months.

Your dad came to talk to us last night before we left. He wanted you to work on refining. Pops told him you were good to go for mortal

grade ores, you just need practice. When we get back he is going to pass to you our families smithing skill. I guess he really likes you.

Raen Ruǎnjīn

Surprised that Muta already left and that his parents beat him to the punch, he thought, They say I do things spur of the moment? Pft.

Wandering back home he was met by his mom sitting on the porch. “Kael, you did not really think you were going to get a free day, did you? You had almost an entire year of freedom. Go read over your getting started with pills guide. Then go out back to practice, give me a shout when you are ready.”

That is what I was going to do anyway, so this works out. “Sure mom!” Kael said while heading to the backyard. Why the backyard though?

After reading through his very brief introduction into pill refining he gave a shout to his mom. After she waddled back there, she pulled out a rocking chair from her storage pouch and sat down.

“Ok Kael, you can throw away that worthless book for now. In real alchemy, the alchemist maps the herbs with their spiritual sense. Then as they bake the herbs they use their qi to direct the flame into the impurities. The goal is to burn off everything but the medicinal properties you want to be left. That is an oversimplified version of essence extraction. ”

“Ok, that makes sense, but what about pills?”

“Pills are the bridge point used to practice. Powders are to help you learn the properties and interactions of plants. Pills you will learn to use your qi delicately. You need to wrap the fire around the herbs to slowly bake off the exterior. Once the fine layer on the exterior is gone, you have to control the fire temperature to reduce the herbs into a liquid. As it is liquified you will have to package it in wooden qi and hold it while you refine the other herbs. Finally, very carefully you mix them together.”

“Uh, mom, that sounds way more complicated than I expected. You sure it wouldn’t be better to have a spiritual sense first?

“No honey, you need to work on your fire control. If my guess isn’t wrong you have never even pushed Qi outside your body.”

“Ok you got me there, so what am I doing mom?”

“Before you even attempt at refining herbs, you need to practice pushing your qi out of your body. Once you can make a flame, practice changing its temperature. When you are good at that, practice changing its shape. When you can form neat things with your fire, only then are you good to start. Oh, I almost forgot, you need to be able to make a bubble at the very least out of wooden qi.”

With that Alavarah stood up, stored her chair, and went back inside. When she got to the back door she looked back and said, “Good luck!”

With a dumbfounded look, Kael sat down on the ground and started practising. Keeping a steady flame extended from his hand was harder than expected. The first attempt at getting a fire to light ended up with a flame that went out with a puff of wind. The second one, thinking he needed some more oomph to it, ended up like a flamethrower. Now I see why she had me come outside.

Even with his talent and bonus from his bloodline, it was almost noon before he could hold a steady flame for more than 10 minutes. Seeing that noon was approaching and he was almost out of Qi, he decided to go make his mom lunch.

Approaching the storehouse he heard the back door open. Turning around he shooed his mom back inside with the promise of a treat. Running through his memories about the eastern food he loved, the first thing that popped into his head was dim sum. Dim sum is yummy, and I can make a ton of it so there are snacks later. We have a winner!

Going into the storehouse he began gathering flour, yeast, sugar, salt, lard, and butter. Storing it all in his ring. Finished he headed down into the ice house. Cutting out an entire side of pork ribs and storing it, he started looking around for things to make sauce from. While looking around he paused for a moment. Fuck, it has to rise. No time!

Still looking around the storehouse he spotted a big blue fruit he liked called cloud fruit. Contemplating its taste, he decided it was close enough to plum. Grabbing a handful of those, ginseng, and honey he thought, Woe is a world with no soy sauce.

Chopping off some beef then cutting it into thin strips he stored everything and headed back to the dry storehouse. Arriving, he grabbed some extra salt, sugar, garlic, and a good amount of rice. Looking around he decided he should throw some of his hated green onions in there for colour.

Heading into his kitchen he started boiling the rice while he worked on the sauce. Smashing, mincing, and chopping the veggies up he mixed them all together in a pan over a small fire. When it started to heat up he added the sugar, salt, and honey. With a bit of inspiration, he spread a thin layer of fire qi into the sauce at a low temperature to speed it up. Once he was done mixing and reducing it, he had a nice blue plum sauce.

Taking out a wok, he lathered it up with fat and got it roasting hot. Drowning his extremely thin meat strips with the sauce he threw them onto the pan one by one. With the high heat, and a quick flip they were cooked super fast. At first, he freaked out by the cooking speed as he had no plates ready. After a second of thought, he grinned and just stored it all into his ring.

Once the rice was done, he tossed it into a big bowl for his mom, tossed the meat on top, covered it with more sauce, and chopped some green onions for the top. Looking at the green against the bluish coloured sauce, he changed his mind and started picking the onions off one by one.

Congratulation, you have created a new object: Cloud Beef and Rice.

Mortal tier cooking production, total servings available for creation, 4.

Item creation, initial sustenance of 120. Taste increased by 50% due to talents.

No sustenance wastage, remaining sustenance of 120(+50% =180).

Chef’s choice, increase sustenance or servings?

Surprised and not really sure what sustenance did yet, he picked servings.

Current sustenance of 150(+50% =225), 25 sustenance per serving. Converting 225 sustenance, remaining 7.5 servings.

Each serving value of 18 experience, soul granted 135 experience to the Chef profession.

Calculating out two servings for his mom, one for himself, and one for his father, he carried the three bowls to the table. Shouting for his parents to come eat he sat down and gave it taste. Awesome, almost as good as plum beef, a little too sweet though, next time less or no sugar. At first, his parents were a bit apprehensive of the blue sauce. After one bite though, it was over. His father and mother both went for seconds.

While his mom was packing the leftovers up, Kael went ahead and started to make his dough. Pulling out all of the flour and other bits, he kneaded them by hand in a huge bowl. After finishing, he covered it with a towel and told his mom it needed to raise for 2 hours, so no one should disturb it.

Heading outside he meant to practice with his fire work but ended up meditating to regain his qi instead. After an hour and a half, he headed back into the dry storehouse. Gathering up garlic, mustard seed, some kind of hot pepper, vinegar, salt, tomatoes, molasses, and honey he prepared for some BBQ sauce.

Heading back to the kitchen to crush, powder, chop, boil, and reduce his mass of veggies into a BBQ sauce, he finished just in time for his dough to rise.

Splitting the dough up, he realized he really made too much dough. He ended up with 50 steam buns. Knowing he did not have enough BBQ sauce, he had to make an additional run to the dry storehouse. Coming back in with a spinach type vegetable, bamboo shoot slices, and water chestnuts, he prepared them for veggie buns.

Finally getting back to the good old meat, he chopped, braised, and BBQ’d up the meat from the short ribs. Giving it a cursory taste, he was ok with his sauce, but he thought it needed work.

Finally stuffing all the buns and setting up some pans to steam them he was finished. Shouting, “Mom, your treat will be done in 20 minutes, they are great snacks! Since it is too early for dinner can you grab them in 20 please?”

Hearing a positive reply he went back outside to practice.