15.9

Eve managed to find the kitchen using her enhanced sense of smell. She had considered asking the maids to show her, but they were vanishingly scarce for some reason. After a moment of thought, she suspected the missing maids were assisting Ralph with the interrogation. Those who served a noble were not normal, after all. Eve found it was faster just to follow the scent of cooking meat, fresh vegetables, and heated fire to the target location.

“Hello! May I enter the kitchen?” Eve asked at the open doorway from which different scents wafted.

A large woman in rough attire with a massive apron looked up from her work at a complex stove that held multiple pans. “If you are going to complain, I don’t have time to entertain such malarky. Lunch is already behind with all the girls missing.” The words were laced with a familiar brogue that was smoothed out by Polyglot into decipherable speech.

Eve smiled while waving both hands negatively as her suspicions were confirmed and said, “No, no. The food has been quite nice. Mr. Ralph is busy tending to someone who attempted to murder Miss Charlotte. I was sent to assist in any way you need.”

“Someone tried to kill the little miss, bah that explains all the girls gone. Assist me? Can ye even boil water or clean pots with that skinny figure?” the cook said with a sigh. “No one can trust a slim cook, lass! Without a figure like mine, trust is hard it is.”

Eve grinned at the canny cook and said, “My mother didn’t let me escape the basics of life. I’m called Eve. Can I have the name of the ruler of this place?”

“Maddy, that’s my fine name. You won’t find a better cook in this entire city. Everyone knows it, they just don’t want to say it.” The cook said with a sniff before turning her attention back to the pans. The large woman waved a single hand at her while the other grabbed a metal spatula. “If you can help, then get to it. Any port in a storm, any pair of hands when behind schedule. Wash the veggies, chop’em to cubes, and mince the leftovers into a paste for the lasagna filling.”

Eve nodded, pulling her sword out.

Maddy glanced incredulously from the side as she flipped a few different items in the pans. “What the hell good is that going to do? Are you planning to kill my countertop?”

Eve shook her head, shifting the sword into a general-purpose chef’s knife. “It is a special blade I made to make my life a bit easier.” Eve let her Witch’s Dust wash the blade in a silver gleam, cleaning it completely. Microorganisms were ruthlessly removed, sanitizing the knife better than a mere fire.

“Fancy magic. Probably cheat just as much as that old bag of bones when you cook. The damn butler boy never did respect the sacred rules of cooking society.” Maddy said, looking envious.

“I could probably do the enchantment as a favor for my favorite cook….” Eve said with a faint smile. Anyone who talked bad about that annoying old man could easily get Eve’s favor with shared irritation.

“Did I mention you were a wonderful assistant, the kind I have always dreamed of working with? You can make this into something even more useful, right?” Maddy said, quickly pulling down a cleaver from the hanging knife rack above the central cooking island in the kitchen. It was a no-nonsense request if Eve had ever seen it.

“Most certainly, Maddy,” Eve said, smirking.

“Good,” Maddy said, handing the cleaver over to Eve before turning back to her pans. After being this close to the cook, Eve's found the faint scent of the earth around the larger woman quite apparent. It matched the massive amount of earth mana that her silver eyes saw layered in the woman’s body like geologic sediment.

Earth troll, or something along those lines. Eve thought as she grabbed the cleaver.

“Anything specific?” Eve said, placing the blade lengthwise to enchant while using Telekinesis to begin preparing the vegetables for the lasagna dish.

“Any magic is better than nothing,” Maddy said, shrugging without turning around.

Eve nodded before getting down to business. Change and Clean were easily embedded into the cleaver before Eve tested it briefly to determine if it could take another enchantment. When she was sure there wouldn’t be ill effects from a third enchantment, she wracked her mind for a good idea.

After a moment of thought, she decided to go with Bound making it something only the cook, or her children, could use in the future.  It wouldn’t do for something she gifted personally to be used willy-nilly after all. Maddy glanced over her shoulder at it but didn’t move to take the cleaver. “So, what does it do?”

“I placed two runes on it, Change and Clean. The change will allow you to shift it into any cooking utensil you desire. Clean will ensure there is never any worry of cross-contamination,” Eve said. She left out the fact that the knife would bind to the woman. It would probably take a few uses before the cook realized it was always near when she desired it. Bound items tended to get very strange for a long enough period of time after they were created. Eve didn’t know how long earth-aligned troll specimens could live, but it would certainly be enough time to make the binding worth it.

Eve accepted the nod of thanks from Maddy before she moved her attention fully to her minor tasks. Within moments she had quickly prepared a small pot with water. Second, later vegetables flowed into it in a stream with precise Telekinesis applied. The legumes were washed in the pot before flying out. Above the pot, they got to meet her knife that hovered in mid-air. It took barely a second to turn the veggies into cubes using the kitchen blade. From there, the cubes separated and flew into a bowl that Maddy had laid aside for collection. The leftover bits were minced in a blur of speed, allowing the tiny pieces to fall into another bowl Eve had placed to catch the falling non-cube bits.

“Fast, efficient, and precise. Even though you're a bit thin, I’d employ you if it was up to me.” Maddy said as she started transferring the various pans of cooking meat into bowls of their own. Once the pans were emptied, the large woman tossed them all into a barrel of water next to the stove. Eve was certain the cleaning of pots and pans fell on a scullery maid’s head.

It didn’t escape Eve’s attention that the larger woman didn’t have to protect her hands from the heat at all. She didn’t bother inspecting the cook, though. Just like Ralph, Eve was certain she would be able to sense it by instinct. She didn't need to rock the current noble-based boat as long as it wasn’t a life and death battle or permission was given.

Eve watched Maddy carefully layer the massive lasagna pans filled with prepared pasta sheets in concentric layers of vegetables and meat. Maddy got the hang of the shifting cleaver in moments and proceeded to use the cleaver-turned-spoon with ruthless skill. After two trays of seven layers, each was finished, the cook directed all the dirty dishes to be dropped into the same barrel the pans had been tossed to.

Maddy sighed deeply, looking at the finished pans that were ready to place in the massive oven along one wall. “This is going to be a mediocre meal, lass. I have nothing to add mana spice efficiently with. I’ve tried buying a fancy device for that, but those things are beyond the pale in price.”

“Mr. Ralph, do a few finishing touches to add flavor?” Eve said. She had suspected as much, but having it confirmed was nice.

“Yes. However, I can only strengthen what already exists. I can’t add additional flavors like that sack of sod does,” Maddy replied with a sad look.

“Is it a matter of mana?” Eve asked, her eyes beginning to glow faint silver. Shroud would easily solve the issue if its quantity were the problem.

Maddy nodded and said, “I can add the flavor, but it would put me out cold after I run down to empty. Then dinner would not be on time. No help for it, can’t do anything for it.”

Eve licked her lips as her eyes grew brighter. “I don’t mind providing some assistance as long as I can observe the process in action. Tasty food will make the little miss happy, after all.” She shamelessly used the devotion of the cook to her benefit.

Maddy looked torn for a moment before giving the nod. “Aight. But, be careful; I don’t want a scolding because you overextended yourself and dropped out cold on the floor!” The cook shook a thick sausage finger at Eve in a clear gesture of warning.

“No worries!” Eve said, placing a hand on the larger woman’s right arm. “Go ahead and do whatever you need to do.”

Maddy grunted and placed the massive cleaver-less hand over the first lasagna tray. A soft glow of chocolate brown flowed over the dish, sinking into the entire tray. Once it had formed a thick, smooth layer of light over the top, Maddy removed her hand, cutting off the Skill’s source.

“Fascinating,” Eve said as her eyes recorded the entire process. In theory, duplication wouldn’t be hard once she deciphered the entire process completely with Nota's help.

As she had long suspected, the soul interacted with mana through the System to create the 'Skills’ and ‘Spells’ used. From what she observed, stamina was a resource pool of physical power stored in the body. The stronger a body was, the more stamina was available for use because the storage space grew larger. However, the base power was still mana.

“The only difference is the storage medium and the processing. The fuel never changes.” Eve mumbled to herself as she watched Maddy complete the second lasagna pan.

Mana pools are stored outside the Soul in the body’s spiritual space. Let’s call it the mind vault. Stamina pools are stored within the body directly, in the body vault. But no matter which resource is used, they both must be processed by the Soul first, and they are always fueled by mana. Eve thought. As seen previously, the System is merely a complex overlay that allows the Soul to interact more effectively with Mana. Skills pull from the body vault to fuel themselves. Spells, in comparison, pull from the mind vault instead.

Witch’s Dust allowed her to cut the System out of the process. Because it was a tool completely under her control, Eve could craft her desires using pure will to alter mana. Rituals were like creating a program fueled by mana. With the Shroud, she was effectively self-sufficient.

On the other hand. Eve narrowed her eyes as she moved to assist Maddy with placing the large pans into the expansive wall-sized oven. If I ever land somewhere without mana, my mere existence will eventually weaken the walls of reality, allowing mana to flood in due to the Shroud. Like a spike piercing a dam, the flood might start small, but it wouldn’t stop, in theory.

Eve felt like she had grasped a theory, but it slipped out of her thoughts like liquid. Shrugging, she decided to pursue it at a later time. Lunch was in order now!

“That’ll be the meal,” Maddy said, wiping her brow with a cloth. “Thank you for the assistance and the gift.”

“Thank you for taking the time to show me your flavoring Skill,” Eve said politely. While she would never be held to a standard other than the Silver Witch Prime, she felt it was a matter of pride to be able to learn the other Colors. She couldn’t understand the process of Skill creation right away, but it was only a matter of time before the flavors of mana filled her own dishes, just like the Greens!