Chapter 12

Taking the 'packages' out of the oven Rupert let them set while going to grab a black five star red wine for the pairing. He immediately tried to open the package and was swatted by his own spoon. Looking over in rage he saw Jason smile before saying, "Wait five minutes before opening it."

Confused and still somewhat angry he grunted in acceptance and displeasure. He made up his mind to beat this child when the food wasn't that good. He was a cultivator anyways so it would just be humiliating. Besides this was his kitchen.

"Ok the food is ready and the wine has been breathing since we started cooking. Pour the wine and we can eat. " Jason said.

Rupert planned to take one bite before complaining but as he opened his mouth he immediately looked down at this 'simple dish' and quickly took another bite.

Jason just smiled amd enjoyed his food and wine only occasionally glancing at his stunned companions face.

After about an thirty minutes Jason and Rupert finished their meals. Rupert looked up with puppy dog eyes. "Ugbh. Never do that again. The other steak is for you enjoy." Jason said both in disgust and humor.

Rupert didnt mind and quickly opened the final package and began to eat the second package of food. Jason continued to drink his wine, even pouring a second glass before Rupert stopped him, "you are only ten one is enough. " Jason having forgotten his age for a moment was shocked

So Jason sat by the counter and began to ponder the different recipes he could make. After Rupert finished his food they shared a moment of silince before Jason asked, " So what star rank do I deserve?"

"Zero. Wait let me explain. your food was delicious but the energies were not aligned. you didn't even try to use you mana to fix that. If it was a proper spirit meal you would have felt a surge of energy even from these low quality ingredients." Rupert explained.

Jason was at first shocked but then he began to understand. just like with tailoring the goal was to combine the materials and theor energy signature to make them stronger than the sum of there parts. This meant even for cooking, something he excelled at, he had a lot to learn. but instead of felling discouraged he felt excited about all the new opportunities this offered.

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"Today, the proffesions will be alchemy and blacksmithing. We will do alchemy first as it is far more likely for you to choose sense you are mages. Now let's head to the alchemy lab. " Tobias said.

Inside the alchemy lab a twenty something tear old lady stood behind a bronze cauldron with dragon filigree as well as many runes around the base and rime. She asked both Jason and Anna to each stand in front of a large cauldron of there own.Each of their cauldrons were matte black, and unadorned. Beside each cauldron was three pairs of five different ingredients.

"These ingredients are; Fire root, Candace Lilly, turtles glove, aspen root, and weeping grass. They are all extremely common and are the ingredient for the Mending pill. This is a weak healing pill mostly used by mages to heal light cuts and scrapes. It is also one of the very few pills without pill toxins. This means it will have no adverse effects on you or your cultivation path. " the lady patiently explained .

She lit a fire under the cauldron to warm it up. The she began, "Once the cauldron is warmed use the levitate spell to grab some flame, using your spirit power slowly shift the flame temperature and shape to surround the fire root. You need to burn it into a red powder like so. Set this to the side. now we are going to do the same with the Candace Lilly and the weeping grass. Leave the weeping grass in the cauldron and let it sink to the bottom. Now turn the aspen root into powder while smoking it with the weeping grass. Now use a morta and pestle to grind the turtles glove into a paste adding a small amount of water if needed. Then clean out and this away the weeping grass."

Grab all of your powders and stir them slowly into the paste. use levitate to move the new paste into the cauldron. it should soon turn liquid. Now you need to spin the solution around in the cauldron while alternating the temperature. Now use your spirit power to compress the solution and slowly raise the temperature. "

After about 20 minutes the instructor wad done. Then Jason and Anna tried to repeat what the saw. Anna was able to quickly understand it even though she still made mistakes and failed to form the pill the first time. The second time while technically a success looked like a deformed blob more than the spherical pill the instructor made. The third time it actually looked like a pill even if it was quit perfect.

Jason on the other hand made his cauldron explode twice and the third time bad all the ingredients flare up and turn to ash. This at first left him frustrated as he had initially wanted to be an alchemist as he figured it was similar to being a spirit cook. But then he decided it was ok as he could just have the one profession of being a spirit cook.

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"Ok let's go to the smithy. " Tobias called out with a slight note of remorse in his tone. Anna also seemed a little sad, but Jason couldn't figure out why. she had done significantly better than him. But he figured maybe she was a perfectionist and was disapointed with her results, so he decided to ignore it.

An angry voice shouted at them as soon as they walked through the door. "Why are you mages in my smithy! I already told you Tobias a mage cannot be a blacksmith even if he has the strength to wield the hammer and I doubt these two kids have the strength regardless. "

"I know your opinion Marcos, but this is the order of Marquess Kovar, will you deny his edict!" Tobias growled with a red face full of anger.

After huffing a bit Marcos relented. "Fine have them take an iron ingot and make a dagger each. "

Passing a pair of ingots to the both of them Tobias went and grabbed two eight pound hammers. Anna gave up after a short while as she could barely deform the iron and she had already chosen her profession so there was no need.