The Black & White Saga: Chapter 5 - Home

Climbing the small hill, the girl and her two panda companions arrive closer and closer to the two story building. It was an avant-guard structure built from a combination of stone and bamboo. The different colored stone bricks mixed with light grey ones added warm hues to the typical dreary grey walls found in traditional sturdy stone buildings. Light green bamboo supports stretched from the floor to the ceiling in arches. Bamboo work was incorporated into the stone structure in places such as stairs, balconies, and the roof. The flexibility of the bamboo added touches of nature to the rigid stonework.

When they arrived home, they put down the things they carried in the front yard, and split up for their own tasks. Nebula took the two cubs from Lunette and went inside to settle them in their crib. Sam worked on moving all the bamboo to the backyard. Lunette followed Sam, and put all of the bamboo stored in her space bracelet on the patio in the inner yard.

Once everything was moved to the back, Sam grabbed a sharp machete and got to work. He placed the bamboo on slanted racks after cutting off the bottom section of the bamboo stalk at the joint. Below the slanted racks was a row of large white porcelain bowls. Translucent, light green sap started dripping from the cut joints of the bamboo stalk into the giant bowls. Sam followed by tossing the bottom sections of the bamboo stalks he cut off into another basket. Nebula soon rejoined him in the backyard to help him process the giant hill of bamboo.

Lunette took the bamboo shoots to the kitchen, and brought out all the fruits and vegetables they harvested. She washed the fruits and vegetables with water, and dried them with wind magic. Then all the fruits went into the cooling box next to the door, while the veggies were placed on the kitchen counter next to the cutting board. Next, she washed the bamboo shoots and filled a large pot with water. She scored the outer skin of the bamboo shoots with a knife, and peeled off the tough outer bark, before placing the pale tender bamboo shoots into the large pot of water. Once the pot was filled, she added a small spoonful of sugar, and brought the water to a boil. The stove was powered by magic, but spirit power was not required to run it. Magic users could use their own spirit power to work magical devices, but this is very taxing. Most people would use spirit stones to run their devices, and replace them when they run out of power.

Once the pot of bamboo shoots were boiling, Lunette lowered the heat and left them to simmer for two hours. She then turned to prepare the vegetables for today's dinner. The lettuce was cut into bite size pieces for a salad. The spinach was thrown into a pan with garlic, and sautéed with a small drizzle of water until it was wilted. Then she put the cooked spinach into a strainer and squeezed out all of the excess water. Next butter, cream cheese, and cream were added to the pan to cook. Lunette added some flour to a little bit of milk and mixed it together. When the cream and cheese melted together and came to a boil, Lunette added the flour mixture to the pan. After mixing everything together with her spatula, she let the pan simmer until the liquid was reduced. Then the strained spinach went back into the pan with some parmesan cheese, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of pepper. Finally, everything was stirred together into the rich cream sauce. The asparagus was dressed lightly with oil and tossed with salt and pepper. Then it was placed into the oven on a baking tray. Like clockwork, Lunette arranged each step patiently and watched as her creations formed masterpieces under the controlled heat of the stove. When the dishes were done, Lunette quickly plated the food and put them into a preservation box to maintain its freshness. Like the cooling box, the preservation box was also a magical device. The only difference was that the cooling box brought items to a lower temperature before preserving them. The preservation box kept items in the same state they were at when they were placed into the box. Freshly cooked foods would remain hot, while ice would not melt when they were in the preservation box.

Now it was time for bread. Lunette took out the bowl of dough she left to rise before they went out to the bamboo forest. She quickly wiped the counter with a clean damp cloth, and sanitized it with a quick cleaning spell. Then she sprinkled a thin layer of flour onto the counter, and proceeded to knead the dough. Next the dough was split into individual portions, then rolled into smooth balls, and finally placed onto a baking tray with plenty of space in between for rising. Lunette turned the oven on to bread mode, which automatically allowed the dough to rise before baking it. When the oven was ready, she placed the baking tray into the oven and set the timer.

Magic stoves usually did not have the ability to allow the bread to rise and then transition directly to baking it. This function was added when Lunette decided to design her own stove after she destroyed the one she bought when she moved to Green Village. At the time, she did not find any magical devices that would allow her cook with the flexibility she needed in the shops around town. She went to find magical device shops in Double Towers City and asked if they can help her customize a device. Many magical device shops declined her request, since most crafters did not specialize in household devices. She finally found a crafter in Steve's Magical Device Store who was willing to help her with the customization.

Steve was a beastman who moved to Miloa, a country predominately inhabited by humans, after the war. He was very enthusiastic about creating new magical devices, and learned his craft from a master dwarf in his previous country. Lunette had learned a lot of theoretical knowledge about magical devices, and could barely qualify as an amateur crafter at that time. She spent a few weeks in Double Towers City, working with Steve in his shop. Nebula would remember that period of time as a nightmare. During the development of the new stove, there were several explosions and a couple of cases of things catching fire. Luckily, Steve's workshop was separated from his store and his neighbors by a small yard with walls, so there was no property damage or complaints. They also needed someone to help them taste the bread after it came out of the new stove. Poor Nebula was forced to taste all their failed experiments along the process. After many blacken slabs of bread, they finally succeeded. When Nebula smelled the sweet toasty scent of freshly baked bread in the wake of the completion of the first successful trial, tears came to her eyes.

"Finally," she thought. "No more threats to my life….. they can finally stop testing their failed bread samples on me…. sniff, sniff….. my tastebuds will not have survived another day of this…"

Lunette admired the bread function of her stove for another second, before going into the second cooling box for more ingredients. The cooling box next to the door was for vegetarian ingredients, while the second cooling box next to the pantry was for meat.

"What protein should we have today?" she thought. She took out some chicken wings and decided to panfry them with onions.

First she heated the pan with a little bit of oil. Then the chicken wings were seasoned with a touch of salt and pepper, and placed into the pan. While waiting for the wings to sear, Lunette quickly sliced a couple of onions from the pantry. Once the chicken was nicely browned, she flipped them over to cook the other side. After a few more minutes, the chicken wings were golden brown on both sides, and glistening with an oily sheen. She poured the sliced onions into the pan, and tossed them with the chicken until everything was mixed together. While the dish was cooking, Lunette poured soy sauce, brown sugar, flour, and a splash of cooking wine into a small bowl, and mixed everything together. When the onions became translucent and the wings were almost cooked through completely, she added the sauce. She tossed the ingredients using the spatula, until everything was coated in sauce, and left it to cook a bit longer. When the sauce thickened and the chicken was cooked thoroughly, Lunette also plated the dish and placed it into the preservation box.

"Let's make a soup, and that should be enough for dinner even with all those big eaters," she thought to herself.