After the pact, Dorothea left to explore the Courtenay fief, and Envy went hunting after a few hours.

— Courtenay mansion kitchen, nearly midnight.

Ai enters the kitchen, finding it empty except for a bucket full of beets, which she places on a countertop. She then grabs an apron and puts it on. Shortly after, she ties up her hair.

"Alright..." Ai takes a wooden board and places a beet on top of it.

Generating sugar through magic is inefficient and consumes a lot of mana, so I must resort to primitive methods. Keeping that in mind, even though I don't know the exact procedure, I know these beets contain sucrose, which is why I asked Envy to plant them. So, I'll start testing my hypothesis.

Ai picks up a knife.

To use the sucrose-containing juice, I must first extract it from the beet. For that, I need to cut it into small pieces and then squeeze it with enough force to get as much out of it as possible.

"Please, Miyamoto." Ai clasps her hands together in prayer and Miyamoto possesses her body.

With the knife, she cuts all the beets into small squares and rectangles.

"Alright, that should do it." Ai lays out what looks like a cloth on the countertop and pours the beet pieces onto it. Then, she wraps them up and proceeds to place the cloth over the bucket that previously contained the beets, and begins to squeeze it.

The cloth acts as a filter for most impurities from the beets.

"Hmph!" Ai squeezes the beet pieces over the bucket multiple times until she fills nearly half of it with beet juice.

"That should be enough." She wipes off the sweat.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Now, I'll add water to the juice and heat the mixture in a pot." Water dilutes the juice and reduces the sucrose concentration. This allows me to obtain more sugar, and at the same time, as the water evaporates, some residues from the mixture do as well.

— One hour after starting to heat the beet juice.

Ai takes a spoonful of the mixture and lets it cool outside the pot. After a while, sugar crystals can be seen forming on the spoon.

Ai tastes the sugar.

!!

"I wasn't the mistake... Without a doubt, the food in this world is horrible." Ai would start to tear up in happiness at being able to taste food from her old world after several years...

Right, the reason I started producing sugar was a while back, when my mother was still with us.

— Memories of Ai, once in the Courtenay mansion's dining room.

"Sugar? It's only served in special situations... A handful of sugar costs around 10,000 imperials and your daddy..." Ai would stop paying attention.

A handful for 10 gold coins? That's enough for a person to survive for five years... If I manage to produce white sugar, I'll be able to sell it for an even higher price, which means-

"Ai! Darling!"

Crap. I got lost in thought again.

"W-what happened, mommy?"

"I asked if you're going to eat the egg."

"H-here!" Ai suffers internally and hands over her egg once again.

My egg...

— Back to reality.

That means I could sell half a kilo of white sugar for 15,000 to 20,000 imperials without a problem...

Ai turns off the pot and pours the liquid onto the countertop. It begins to cool and crystallize. After that, she takes the mallet and pounds it until there are small dark crystals left.

"Now comes the most important part." Since it's unrefined, the sugar I made is dark. If I want to whiten it like in my old world, it has to go through a much longer process. So, I'll take advantage of the loopholes in the feudal world's law and use food coloring.

Ai cups her hands and begins to recite a spell.

[Molecular Exchange: Converting equivalent molecules of H2O to 20g of TiO2...]

Titanium dioxide. A white coloring from my old world used for cakes and similar foods... I can mix this powder with the sugar to give it a whiter tone.

Long-term, it's not good for health, but I don't care. Since this sugar will only be for high society people who dine on the best food of these times.

Ai pours a few grams of the white compound and mixes it with the sugar crystals, then compares them with the others. These would be linen colored.

"It doesn't reach white, but it definitely looks of much higher quality." With this, I'll be able to squeeze both the commoners with the uncolored coarse sugar and the nobles with the white sugar.

"Eheheh..."

After continuing to devise wicked plans, Ai spent a few more hours perfecting the process late into the night, then went to sleep.