Chocolate

I screwed the cap close on the final jar of our ingredient gathering trip. Early in the morning, Just before the lantern ferns started glowing, we met up as agreed near the middle of the camp. Yawning, Tim had rubbed his eyes in sleepiness as he fiddled with his personal terminal. Then, before he started to go live, he smacked his face quietly with his palms to wake himself up.

In our backpacks was our breakfast, an odorless dish that consisted of meat covered with the sugar syrup and then further covered with another ingredient to mask the smell.

Waving goodbye to Katty, we left the camp. However we were not the only ones who left the camp so early. Not that far from us was the hunting group including Josephine, dressed all in camouflage and discussing over a map before heading out.

The leader of the hunting group and Josh met gazes, before Josh made some hand signals at her. Replying back with a series of hand signals of their own, both of our groups had then parted from each other.

Josh had then brought us onto another route, and referring to something on his personal terminal from time to time, we had collected enough ingredients to fill all the jars in my survival belt. This included more sugar syrup and cocoa bark.

We then headed back to the camp before it was even lunch. Splitting apart, Josh and Tim had gone off to do whatever, while I headed straight to the cooking area. Looking at the schedule Josh gave me, the cooking area should be quite free now, and I had about maybe an hour to spare before my cooking session with Caroline.

However I made a quick stop at my house to grab the jars of mixtures that I had made. What Josh was referring to during our ingredient gathering was probably a list of ingredients Caroline wanted for our cooking session. He did mention that we weren't allowed to use the camp's food supplies. Therefore, before that, I wanted to do some experiments on the mixtures I made. If there was something I didn't understand, I could always ask Caroline when she came later.

Comparing all the dishes I had encountered, they mostly utilized sugar syrup. However, this sugar syrup had given very different results for almost every dish. In the cooking session later, I was planning on asking Caroline questions regarding this. But the main focus of this experiment was going to be the 'new' ingredient, cocoa bark. There was a high probability that it was not included in a dish yet.

Showing one of the Lupos who didn't recognize me the permission pass Josh had given me, I entered the cooking area with ease. I was walking past one of the preparation rooms when I heard rhythmic knocking sounds coming from inside.

I stopped in my tracks and leaned my head in to observe the Lupos in the room feeding what looked like a machine some red colored stones. Looking closer at the Lupos' face, I recognized him as the pool person from yesterday.

As he turned around, he seemed to spot me and gave a wave. He then gestured for me to enter the room. Walking up to him and the machine, he showed me how to use it as well as explained the product it created.

"These red stones are known as red fruits. They usually grow on tree roots as a way for the trees to fruit from below the canopy. Although the outside of these red stones are red, when cut open, the insides are actually white."

Using the knife on his survival belt, he cut open the 'red stones' to reveal the white insides. He then tossed the cut parts into the machine.

"We prepare the stone powder here for use for the rest of the day. Then the leftovers are used for tomorrow's breakfast. There are also other machines that grind other ingredients. They're over there."

He pointed to similar looking machines that were slightly farther away from this machine. As he talked to me, his hands never stopped chucking the red stones into the machine. And out from the other end came the familiar white powder that I had seen Caroline use yesterday.

Thanking him for the explanation, I said farewell as I exited that preparation room and continued my way to the main cooking area. Meanwhile, whenever I passed a preparation room, I would take my time to look and observe the ingredients and products they produced.

When I had finally peeked into most of the rooms, I came to the main cooking area and proceeded to the pool that I had been at yesterday. Grabbing several plates, I placed the jars onto the table that Caroline used and added the mixtures onto the plate. Then, with the help of Sazzy taking note of the time, I sent each plate to float on the pool.

To differentiate the mixtures, I tied the colored ribbons the friendly pool group member had passed to me just now onto the plates. Then, the two of us stood there at the edge of the pool looking over the plates.

The first plate to have any noticeable changes was the special mixture that I had made for the Avis. However this change wasn't good. The previous powder-like form had remained but the color had darkened incredibly fast and by the time I fished them out, Sazzy had declared them inedible.

Then following that, the next mixture to be done was mediocre in taste and texture. It had a better taste when it was raw.

Noting these points down, the third mixture to have a change was the cocoa and seed mixture. This mixture turned out much more promising. The cocoa bark powder had 'melted' into a brown colored syrup. And together with the grinded seeds, it created something that resembled chocolate.

The brown viscous fluid was slightly bitter in taste, with a strong accent of nut flavor. It could be considered a major success.

Separating that one from the others, we continued observing the rest.

The final results were two outstanding mixtures, one mediocre, one that tasted badly and one that was inedible.

Focusing on the outstanding mixtures, one was cocoa bark with seed, the other was sugar syrup with one of the fruits Josh had shown us yesterday, It was also part of the Jelly.

The fruit was a pale yellow in color, with its flesh being a very interesting shade of deep red. In the middle of the fruit was a large seed that was easy to remove.

I had taken the fruit and cut its flesh before smashing it and mixing it with the sugar syrup. And although this mixture could technically be considered a success, it was essentially just a simpler version of what Caroline had cooked yesterday.

I had thought that only using one fruit would produce different results, but tasting the mixture, my thought was proven to be wrong. Additionally, the mixture that tasted bad was the ground up seed mixed with sugar syrup.

Scooping up and eating the fruit and sugar syrup mixture while putting aside the other failed ones, I took out the cocoa bark that was freshly collected today and made a couple extra mixtures using it.

Cocoa bark with sugar syrup, cocoa bark with fruit, I even mixed some of the ingredients with the chocolate I had made. Like with the leaf with a milky smell. Maybe that would produce milk chocolate?

Putting them to steam, the overall results were alright, but not as promising as the chocolate mixture itself. And the steamed mixtures that included chocolate just tasted like too sweet chocolate or chocolate covered fruits. The milky chocolate was as if someone poured milk and chocolate together. I felt incomplete. In the end the chocolate was the biggest gain.

Bringing the plates and failed experiments outside, I washed them clean before heading inside and placing them back where I got them from. And just in time too, because the moment I turned around, I saw Caroline enter the cooking area.