Cooking Up A Character

With the cat's story decided, I ripped the ink stained pages from the notebook and placed them in front of a blank golden interface.

Seeing the pages dissolve into particles of light was possibly the strangest thing I've seen so far. But considering that I now look very different compared to before, and I literally see glowing screens in front of me, I guess this was pretty tame now.

Once the pages were finally gone, the stress I had all this while suddenly spiked. I really wanted for this to succeed, it took me two and a half hours to complete the basic lore. And I'm hoping this is enough.

I put in as much detail I could, it's name, the fact that it was a golden tabby cat. How it was found by the mage, how it became capable of talking after drinking a potion made by the mage. How it was smart as a human after drinking it.

And its power to erase grief and wash negative emotions away by letting memories of happiness resurface.

If this doesn't pass. I'm not sure what I'm going to do!

As I was pondering all of that, the results were in... And the conclusion was that....

I did an excellent job! The spirit guarding the Tome Of The Omnifarious stated that it was well thought out and amazingly detailed for being imagined on the spot as well as being under duress.

In fact, the spirit even stated that the time limit was there to see how well I did under stress and that even if I went beyond the three hour mark I would have passed as long as I gave out something like this.

After all, you can't rush art. Knowing that, my stress somehow overturned and erupted in anger.

"WHAT?! YOU MEAN I COULD HAVE TAKEN MY TIME?! ARGH!" I was pissed off that I wasted two hours stressing over the deadline when in reality I didn't need it anyways.

Alongside my rage, something strange happened. Cold mist began to emit from my hands. A thin layer of frost forming over them.

Once I noticed it, I was surprised. I barely felt it forming, it should have been cold, but I felt nothing.

I released my fists and exhaled deeply, causing the frost that formed on my hands to melt back into water.

Causing my hands to be wet. Grabbing a towel from atop my drawers, I dried them swiftly as I communicated with the spirit guarding the Tome.

"What do I do now?" I queried, wondering what it was going to ask of me next. To my surprise, instead of giving me a proper answer, a screen popped up in front of me.

Detailing different items and amounts for a strange concoction. "What is this?" As I read on, I realised. It was ingredients to summon my creation.

——

[A generous amount of Sap of Happiness (A tablespoon of honey).

A sprinkle of purified sea water remains (a quarter teaspoon of salt)

An entire stick of a sweet wood (one cinnamon stick)

Four cups of water

Mystic Cat's eye (the jewel, infused with magic)

1. Boil four cups of water, once water starts bubbling add in ingredients in the specific order.

2. Take a tablespoon of sap of happiness, the higher the quality, the better. Stir it in the hot water to melt the excess.

3. Once the water becomes a translucent golden-brown or amber-like colour, add in the purified sea water remains and stir it with the sweet wood clockwise for two minutes before reversing and stirring it anticlockwise at the same speed with the same amount of time.

4. Once the remains have fully been dissolved, turn down the fire to a lower frequency if using a cauldron, and throw in the sweet wood. Cover the cauldron with a lid and wait for thirty minutes.

5. Once it has been thirty minutes, throw in the Mystic Cat's eye and take it off the heat. Wait for an hour for results]

——

Only three of the required ingredients were currently available to me at this moment, the remaining two; the cinnamon stick and Mystic Cat's eye were not. Especially the latter, I was unsure how to get that.

Thankfully, the spirit of the Tome provided the rest. All I had to do was follow the instructions and I was set.

First, I set gathered four cups of water and added it to a pot. Set the stove to the appropriate temperature and let the water boil.

As stated on the instructions, I had to get a generous amount of honey. Which I did. I made sure to twist the spoon around to let the excess cling onto the spoon. I used Manuka honey for this as it was high grade stuff.

After making sure all the honey was dissolved, and saw that the water was a lovely light caramel colour, I scooped up some sea salt I made last year for a science project and dropped it in the water.

After doing so, I picked up the fragrant cinnamon stick and gave it a quick whiff. The strong earthy, sweet smell was still lovely as always.

Gripping it with my right thumb and index finger from its top, I tried hard to keep myself stirring it without being uncomfortable with a soggy piece of cinnamon stick. But the steam did not help at all.

So, I took drastic measures and used my ice powers for the first time to create a functioning tongs to grab the cinnamon stick.

Which worked surprisingly well. But, the steam was making the ice melt in my hands. Of course I wasn't going to let it do that, so I constantly sent out a cold stream of air surrounding the tongs to keep it cold and not melt into the concoction.

Four minutes of slow stirring was up, and I was relieved that I didn't have to hold on to the cinnamon stick anymore and let it fall into the water with a small splash.

I let the ice tongs evaporate into cold air right after, all whilst grabbing oven mitts to handle the boiling hot pot. Then remembering that all I had to do for now was turn down the heat and wait thirty minutes with a closed lid.

Slapping my forehead feeling stupid, I took off the mittens and did as the instructions said.

In my thirty minutes of free time, I took the time to first admire my Glacial Wand. Which was a wand with an intricately made handle crafted with some sort of blue crystal and the rest of the wand being made of some unknown lustrous material that looked akin to a processed ivory tusk of an elephant.

I played around with the wand and realised my ice powers were amplified and more precise using it.

Enabling me to conjure ice sculptures of striking details, create short lived snow creatures and a small snow cloud.

I think there was way more that could be done with my magic, but I had to wait to test it out later since thirty minutes was up. So, I threw in the lovely round jewel and took it off the heat and on a dishtowel.

Now I had an hour of free time, since I had time to do so, I decided to watch a movie.

I heard musicals were very in this year, so I picked out the recently popular musical movie to watch.

"Ooh. It's from a Broadway show too..."