Lucinda at home. But unlike most days, she wasn’t practicing magic. In fact, she was doing something very unusual for her.

“Ok, this shouldn’t be too difficult,” she muttered to herself.

She knew how to cast a Tier 3 spell; certainly, baking an apple pie couldn’t be that difficult. Dulcia had given her the recipe, even going so far as to claim that a child could do it.

“She could have come to help me instead of making fun of me,” Lucinda grumbled.

Dulcia had indeed refused to help her, telling her it was up to her to make something and mean it.

It’s just a pie, Lucinda thought, reassuring herself.

She wasn’t even sure why she had decided to go through with Dulcia’s insane plan. Joey was a Human. And he wasn’t just a Human—he was a stupid Human with some very cute dimples when he smiled.

Lucinda was going to be a Nine Towers Academy graduate one day—perhaps, even an [Archmage]. Why should she be concerned with something as mundane as cooking? Plus, she was pretty sure there were [Cooks] at the academy that prepared all the meals.

But whatever.

Dulcia had a point.

If she wanted an excuse to meet Joey again, baking a pie for him to thank him for the meal was a good one.

And sure, the Human had said he didn’t want anything to do with magic before. But now, he was doing revolutionary Enchantments. Maybe they could compare notes—yeah, just that.

“Stupid Humans,” Lucinda muttered to herself as she looked through the simple instructions Dulcia had left her.

“First, peel the apples and slice them thinly,” she read out loud.

She looked at the six apples on the table in her kitchen and then back at the notes.

“What’s thin? How thin is thin? Ugh, Dulcia.”

She started slicing the apples without peeling them, already forgetting about that. Lucinda was cutting the apple vertically, trying to slice it somewhat evenly.

After a few minutes, she looked at the slices. While they weren’t of the same shape, they were at least of the same thickness—roughly.

“Whisk a cup of butter with half of the sugar and add a whole egg and a yolk…” Lucinda read the next step.

“Which one’s the yolk again?”

She stared harshly at the notes, hoping that it would somehow coerce the answer out of them.

She wasn’t sure whom she hated more at the moment: Dulcia’s poor instructions or Joey’s doing magic and rekindling her interest.

“Whatever, let’s just use two whole eggs.”

Lucinda, with a mix of determination and anxiety, reached for the two eggs she needed. Grasping one in each hand, she attempted to crack them against each other. But the first two attempts were unsuccessful.

Angry, she smashed the two eggs together.

The egg whites, yolks, and a whole lot of eggshell shards fell into the bowl. Frustrated, she sighed and dipped her fingers into the slimy mixture, fishing out every eggshell piece. It was a time-consuming task, and she couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance at her ineptitude.

“What a waste of my time,” she growled. “Rotten baking. Rotten [Bakers]. Rotten everything.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Once she had finally removed the last of the eggshells, Lucinda turned her attention to the butter and sugar. She grabbed a chunk of butter, realizing too late that she had neglected to soften it beforehand. Nevertheless, she stubbornly added it to the bowl, followed by a generous scoop of sugar.

She was staring at the mound of butter in the center, with a shallow puddle of eggs around it, unsure of what to do next.

"Whisk, whisk, whisk," Lucinda muttered, remembering the instruction.

With a deep breath, she grabbed a whisk and started mixing the ingredients together. The butter, which she hadn't properly softened, stubbornly resisted blending with the eggs and the sugar. She gritted her teeth and put more effort into her whisking, determined to make this work. Her arm muscles started to ache, and she wondered if perhaps there was a spell to solve this problem. No, she reminded herself; this was about doing something without magic.

As Lucinda continued to whisk, the ingredients slowly began to combine, forming a lumpy, uneven mixture. She periodically scraped the sides of the bowl with a spatula, trying to incorporate every bit of butter and sugar. The process was beyond tedious.

“I will pull your ears to the ground, Dulcia,” she grumbled at the lack of precise instructions.

Finally, the mixture reached a slightly more homogenous state—still far from perfect, though. Lucinda stared at the bowl, sweat trickling down her brow.

“That wasn’t so hard,” she smiled smugly. “Bakers? Tsk.”

She was a [Mage]. How could a [Mage] have trouble making something this stupid?

“Add flour and knead the dough,” she read the next part.

She picked up the bag she had purchased at the market. Her inexperience showed as she tried to make sense of what ‘adding flour’ meant in terms of quantity. She hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then attempted to tilt the bag into the bowl gently.

Unfortunately, she miscalculated the angle and tilted it too much; half of the entire bag spilled into the mixture, suddenly creating a massive cloud of white dust that filled the air around her. Lucinda quickly pulled the bag away, coughing as the fine particles entered her nose and throat.

“Rotten roots,” she swore, coughing and shoveling the flour out of the bowl. “Whatever, this will do."

Lucinda rolled up her sleeves and prepared herself for the next step: kneading the dough. As she plunged her hands into the mixture, she could feel the sticky dough clinging to her fingers with each fold and press. She hadn't expected the process to be so messy.

For a second, she imagined she was punching Dulcia’s face as she worked her hands through the mixture.

That actually made her feel better.

But as she continued, the dough seemed to become more and more attached to her hands. Soon, though, the insane amount of flour actually helped her make a non-sticky ball of dough.

After several minutes of laborious kneading, she couldn't help but notice that the dough was maybe too floury.

Lucinda divided it, setting one piece aside for later use. She took the larger portion and began to roll it out, doing her best to create a uniform thickness. As she carefully laid the dough into the cake pan, she noticed a few small holes that had formed in the bottom.

“It should be good enough,” she shrugged.

It was baking, not magic. She doubted that a few mistakes in precision were of that much importance. Sure, if this had been a spell matrix, the spell might have already backfired. But this was a pie. She allowed herself a small smile, “How bad could it be?”

"Next, mix the apple slices with sugar," she read, grabbing the ingredients.

Lucinda took a plate, placed the unevenly sliced apples into it, and reached for the sugar. She sprinkled the sugar with care over the apples, trying not to repeat her earlier mistake with the flour. When all the slices were sugared, she moved on.

“Put the slices in the pie and cover it with the rest of the dough.”

She arranged the slices in the pie crust, licking her fingers afterward.

“Hm, you get to eat a lot as a [Baker], I suppose.”

That was the only enticing part about the whole thing.

Now, it was time to add the top layer of the pie crust. Lucinda retrieved the remaining piece of dough and rolled it out. She lifted it and draped it over the apples.

Sure, she had forgotten to press the edges to seal it, but how important could that be, right?

…

Lucinda stood in her kitchen, her gaze fixed on the dark brown pie she had just removed from the small oven. Disappointment washed over her. The pie looked less-than-perfect—well, it actually looked quite terrible, but she did not have a great frame of reference.

The top crust had become detached from the bottom, and its edges were dark brown.

She cautiously lifted the top crust to peek at the apple filling beneath.

“Rotten roots,” she swore.

The apple slice had shrunk considerably and looked gnarled.

What was she going to do now?

Should she bring the pie to Joey even though it looked like this? What would he say? Would he make fun of her?

Wait, why was she even thinking about this?

Lucinda got a mote of anger in her heart.

She should be worrying about magic, about the admission, about showing [Archmage] Titus she was so good that he would immediately take her on as an apprentice.

She threw the pie to the ground, frustrated.

“Damn it!”

But she regretted it immediately.

Looking at the poor result now smashed on the ground; there was only one logical conclusion.

“Baking is stupid,” she growled.