With Kit’s panic over, the party headed towards the forest. Snickers sent her animals ahead to clean out the dangers inside so they could focus on collecting new ingredients. Kit listened to the snarls and yelps coming from the forest with a frown.
He was glad that he could collect the ingredients faster, but he wanted to increase his fighting ability. Just standing and waiting for others to do the work wouldn’t get him closer to increasing his swordsman level.
Kit sighed at the wasted opportunity to collect experience points.
If he was going to be adopting a bunch of cats, he thought he might add in some training fighting alongside of them. That way in the future he could get some benefits from areas like this where his level was too low to enter the fray safely without protection.
While he was waiting for the okay to enter the small forest, Kit started to scrutinise the trees. The tree in front of him had emitted a light smell of cinnamon that he could smell even from the short distance he was standing away.
Kit felt his heart pick up speed with the faint aroma. He had no clue what a cinnamon tree looked like in real life all he knew was that the spice was made from the bark of the tree. He couldn’t wait to peel some of the bark off the trunk to find out if this was a cinnamon tree in the game.
His eyes wandered to a vine not too far inside the tree coverings. It wrapped around numerous trees, it was around 15meters in length and had thick stems with a greenish yellow flower. What caught Kit’s eyes though wasn’t the flower, but the thin green pods attached to the vine.
Kit wanted to get closer to those pods to smell them. He had a hunch they would be vanilla beans. Kit was already putting together a recipe for spiced rum in his head. He hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed by their identification on closer examination.
Further into the small forest he could see two more different species of plants. He wasn’t close enough to get a good look what they were. He couldn’t wait to go exploring. Snickers walked over to his side and pulled his gaze from the trees.
“Those ones just in front of you are called Cinamoo trees. The bark can be made into a spice.”
Kit sucked in a breath at her words. It really was cinnamon!
“Those vines over there are called creeping vanilla. The green pods have black seeds inside and they taste like vanilla. That large tree further inside the forest with the large nut growing is Nut Meg green. You can make a spice from the seen inside the nut.”
Holy guacamole! Cinnamon, Vanilla and nutmeg! This small forest was a treasure trove for chefs! Kit was in seventh heaven. Then he watched as Snickers mouth opened once again.
“The last tree inside the small forest is a Flower Clove tree. Those red flowers can be dried and made into a spice. Those four spices are commonly found together in Spartan Fire. The small spice forests like this one are called Spice spaces. There should be another one or two spices inside as well. The other spices will change depending on where the forest is found in Spartan Fire. It’s only the four spices that stay the same.”
“Snickers, this is amazing! Thank you for bringing me here.” Kit felt warm and fuzzy towards his employee. Snickers really was a good egg, even if she was cheeky sometimes.
Kit started to get itchy fingers. He couldn’t wait to dive inside the small forest to collect samples. As he roamed his eyes over the flora once again, he noticed the sounds of snarls had died down.
Soon Kit saw the midnight guardians returning from there hunt. All five of them had numerous wounds and were covered in blood. Kit could smell the heavy metallic scent from where he was standing.
“All done?” Snickers enquired towards the black cats. She received a nod in return from one of the large panthers. Snickers fed them some strange glowing fruits then turned to Kit. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Kit didn’t bother answering Snickers question, he rushed over to the closest tree and peeled a bit of bark with his knife. As the outer bark was curling away from the trunk, he could see a yellow orange inner bark. His excitement grew at the sight.
Kit peeled away some of the inner bark and brought it to his nose. A warm, full, slightly fruity, peppery and vanilla like smell tickled his nose. “Cinnamon!” Kit could not help gasping.
He then ran over to the vine and plucked a long green pod. He split it open with his fingernail. A sweet, rich scent that exuded warmth enchanted his senses. Kit felt giddy with happiness. He happily ran further into the small forest to pluck a nut from a green tree.
The nut was slightly split at the end. Kit pulled either side of the shell to separate the two halves. Inside was a shiny brown seed. A distinct pungent smell came from the seed. Nutmeg!
Stolen novel; please report.
Kit shivered with delight. He could feel his enthusiasm growing the more he explored. He could not stop himself from racing over to the last type of tree he could see. He could hear laughter from Mars and Snickers behind him. He ignored the two and plucked a red flower from the branch he had just approached.
The aromatic flower exuded a spicey and sweet but woody smell. “Haha, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon! This is fantastic! Quick, come and help me harvest these.”
The three of them got to work. Soon after they had started Twix joined them. Kit watched as trees and vines were stripped of their useful parts. As he got deeper into the small forest, he noticed a different type of tree.
It had green leaves and black berries. Kit couldn’t contain himself and ran over to pluck a single berry of the tree. He frowned at the smell, it was like cinnamon, nutmeg and clove all rolled into one. Kit’s eyes went wide when he recognised the smell.
Allspice!
Kit started cackling like a mad man. As he was dithering in delight his foot caught on an object on the forest floor. Kit’s eyes that had only been focused toward the treetops dropped to the ground. A dead silver bird lay dishevelled at his feet. Kit used identify on the animal.
[Unable to identify]
Kt’s nerves were already dancing with happiness from the spices he had just found, now they exploded. What was this bird! Kit picked up the bird and ran over to Snickers. He almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to get to her.
“Snickers do you know what this is?” He held the dead bird out in front of him for Snickers to inspect.
Snickers tilted her head as she scrutinised the sparkling silver bird. Kit watched as Snickers pupils shrank. Kit hand started to shake from his excitement. He could tell he was about to get a good surprise.
“Meow Meow, come here quickly.” Snickers hollered. A black panther came bounding over. “Are there any more of these?” Snickers pointed to the silver bird in Kit’s hand.
The large cat slightly opened its mouth and lifted its head scenting the air. A chattering sound came from the cat and soon the other four cats and Snowball surrounded them.
“Meow Meow take the others and bring all of these back as fast as you can.” Six animals spread out bidding Snickers request.
“Snickers you didn’t answer my question, what is this bird!” Kit was impatient to find out the answer.
“These birds are called Silver spells. They are quite special. They gather magica by eating magical fruit. Kit, I think you will like cooking with these birds.” Snickers gave Kit a bright smile.
Kit felt his hands start to tremble. The birds collected magic! What would a meal turn out like when made with these! Then Kit put on the breaks of his exploding excitement.
“Snickers what level are these birds. Will I be able to cook with them?”
Snickers frowned. “You mightn’t be able to sell a meal made with these yet. I would guess it would have some side effect like your other creations that are a high level. But it wouldn’t hurt to start experimenting with them now. You never know how long it will take to produce a stats meal with them.”
Kit thought about her answer. He didn’t know what level was classed as moving out of low level meals into something higher. If that was the case the ingredients found in this area mightn’t make a stats dish when combined with the Silver spell.
Snickers was right, it was better to start experimenting sooner rather than later. Who knew how long it would take him to create a higher level stats dish. Kit tucked the bird into his pouch with the idea to work on a recipe for the bird later and returned to collecting the new ingredients in the Spice space.
The gathering of ingredients had whizzed by once Grandpa turned up. The midnight guardians returned with over 50 of the Silver spells. Kit glanced at the items piled on the ground for him to put inside his pouch.
Kit had enough of everything to have his storge cupboard bursting. He would have to figure out a way to get some kind of storage shed for all his ingredients. Right now it was fine to use his pouch, but in the future, even his bag might run out of space.
Kit glanced up to the sky to see the sun nearing its peak. He didn’t think they would make it back before lunch. He hoped his new staff were holding up okay. Kit hurried everyone back to the restaurant. As he approached, he could see a long line out front of his establishment.
He quickly rushed around the back of the restaurant to see how Cupcake and Crackers were going.
“Cupcake you filled the time freeze storage shelf last time, it is my turn now. There is only one slot left to fill so you wash the dishes ready for the next batch.”
Kit walked in to see that Cupcake and Crackers were leisurely moving around in the kitchen. He looked over at the time freeze storage shelves to see that the numbers on display were all near capacity. There was also prepped ingredients ready to use if a meal was needed to be made.
Kit blinked at his efficient staff. By the looks of things, he could have stayed out all day without having to worry. Crackers noticed him standing at the door watching them.
“Kit, you’re back, how did you go?”
Cupcake turned to Kit with a wide grin. “Boss.” Kit nodded at Cupcake in greeting, then answered Crackers.
“It went well. I got a lot of new ingredients. I just have a bit of preparation work to do with the materials before I can use them.” Kit glanced at the two and decided he could leave them to work by themselves while he sorted out his new stock.
“That’s great. I can’t wait to be watchin’ how ya create a stats dish.” Snickers turned a hopeful gaze on Kit.
“Cupcake too.” Cupcake thumped his chest and blinked bright eyes at Kit.
Kit didn’t know how he would feel being stared at while trying to create a stats meal. He felt he couldn’t disappoint them with the hopeful looks they were giving him. “That’s fine you can watch. You too look like you have today’s meals under control. I’m going to go outside and sort out the new materials so they can be used.”
Kit took a relieved breath as he walked outside. He had thought he would be working late into the night to get the ingredients ready to use. He was very happy his new employees were capable and wouldn’t need his direction to get things done.
He decided to start with all the spices, that way they would be ready to put in the rum when he made the alcohol from the sugar cane.
Before he started, he walked over to the market to purchase glass jars in bulk. He also purchased some more wooden barrels to store the rum in when it was finished.
He spent the afternoon drying and crushing the spices. He had a large collecting of spice jars at the end of the day. He hadn’t gotten to the sugar canes yet. He decided to leave that for tomorrow. He went inside the restaurant to join the others for dinner.