Zane continued going about his day, oblivious to the monster he had created. Pinky was trying to find new buyers for her wares, but nobody was willing to meet her prices.

They told her to try some of the hotels and spas higher up the mountain. Few merchants were capable of resisting the fog, so those that could were able to charge higher prices for their goods.

Meanwhile, as Zane sat and listened, he noticed something. He understood now that the fog was some kind of barrier that prevented people from accessing areas of the mountain that were beyond their level. But some people seemed to be coping better than others.

He gestured at a man who was wearing flowing white silk robes. He didn't give off the same aura as the cultivators. As far as Zane could tell, he was a regular human. “Hey, Pinky. What do you make of this guy? Why is he doing great when everyone else is freezing their asses off?”

Pinky looked at the rich merchant. “He can probably afford enough sacred herbs to fight off the fog. Or he's a core junkie.”

“Core junkie?” Zane wrinkled his nose at the words. “What's a core junkie?”

She explained to him how some people would heat up cores to release the essence inside. They would inhale the smoke to fight off the effect of the fog. “But it's toxic as fuck. The impurities in the core get absorbed too,” the kitsune finished.

“Huh, I wonder if there is a way to filter that out.” Zane thought about the cores in his bag. He hadn't taken the time to try extracting the essence stored within them. Sucking on a core like a cough drop had given him some benefit. But it wasn't a significant boost.

Zane was worried about how much the fog affected Pinky. If he couldn't find a way to level her up quickly, he might have to leave her behind. He felt like the cores were the answer to his problem. But the mention of impurities had given him pause. The chef would need to run some experiments. Ideally, far away from Pinky.

“Is there a glassblower in town?” Zane asked.

“Yeah, at least, there used to be. But they’re a bit… weird.”

The young man's eyes lit up. He could work with weird.

***

Hiccup’s Glassworks was a squat stone building on the bad side of town. Insane bottles and tubes that boggled the mind sat proudly on displays. The squat wrinkled man looked at Zane's drawing and laughed. “That looks suspiciously like a bong.”

Zane felt his ears grow hot. “I mean, you're not wrong. I'm not trying to get high though.”

He explained his theory about how it might be safer to pass the smoke from the cores through water to filter out any impurities.

“You don't look like a core junkie,” the old glassblower mused, “I'm no expert, but it could work. Heating cores to extract the essence within is probably the easiest way to get a jolt. I'd be careful though, sometimes cores can explode if abused.”

Zane thought about terpenes and extraction temperatures. “Does the amount of heat change what comes out? Like, if I heated them at a lower temperature, could I get fewer impurities?”

“That, I don't know. The core junkies heat the cores as hot as possible to extract all the essence they can. But, I don't think they care much about their health.”

A half hour later Zane had put down a deposit on some custom glassware and moved onto his next stop, the apothecary. An unhappy menagerie of stuffed and preserved animals leered down at him from the shelves.

“May I help you, young cultivator?” asked a tall lithe woman from her seat at the back of the shop. Her white mask was adorned with paintings of flowers and alchemical symbols. She was pretty enough in her green silk robes, but something about her seemed off.

It was like looking at a porcelain doll made to slightly the wrong proportions. Her limbs were a touch too long, her teeth too white. The Apothecary lurched towards him as if she were a puppet on strings.

Zane froze, trying to quell the sense of unease he felt. “I’m looking for information on herbs that remove impurities,” he said.

“Impurities?” the apothecary craned her head to get a better look at him, “What would a beautiful boy like you know about impurities?”

“Nothing, that's why I'm getting more information.” Zane stood his ground.

“Hmmm… I suppose that's fair.” The woman, or whatever she was, stood still as she pondered his request. “Impurities are a byproduct of incorrect or incomplete conversion of essence. It gunks up the channels in your body and clogs your cores. If left unchecked, it can crystallize and become permanent.”

“Do I have impurities?” Zane asked.

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“Probably. Everyone does.” The apothecary turned and grabbed a bottle of pills off the shelf. “These should purge any minor accumulations you may have built up. They bind with the corruption and make it much easier for your body to expel it.”

Zane paid the creature and all but ran out of the shop. He wasn't sure if he trusted her, but the green pills felt benign to his senses. They probably wouldn't do anything too bad. He hoped.

***

Pinky was becoming increasingly unhappy. It had been twelve years since she last came to the town, courtesy of the time-loss. And people were not pleased with her. They kept talking about breach of contract and late fees.

Her warehouse and the goods inside were long gone. All she had left was her cart and the tarnished remains of her reputation. Pinky would have to start pretending to be her own daughter or something, if only to get a fresh start.

She did manage to gain some useful information about the restaurant. The building was up for sale suspiciously cheap. When she told Zane about it, he nodded his head as if the information confirmed some theory of his.

He looked at the old restaurant with a critical eye. “I wonder if it's fate.”

“How so?”

Zane sighed, “I have three blessings and I'm a chef. The old chef disappeared around the time I arrived. That hardly seems like coincidence.”

“No, that sounds exactly like coincidence.” Pinky stroked her chin. “But I can't help wondering what a level ten chef could accomplish with a restaurant of their own. High level chefs make the best food.”

The certainty of her words gave Zane pause. He hadn't actually used his class for its intended purpose yet. There was no guarantee he was any good at cooking. Of course, there was one way to help improve his chances.

Zane accessed the Mesh and pulled up his stats. The young man had a little over four essence stored and one level left to be claimed. If he spent some time distilling essence, he could probably afford to buy another upgrade to his Chef’s Tools. That would boost his skills significantly.

Then again, an upgrade to his agility might make more sense. Zane wasn't sure if combat or utility abilities were more important. There seemed to be a synergy between the two. Whenever he upgraded his chef abilities, he got access to better weapons.

In the end it was Pinky who influenced his final decision. She looked so miserable, sitting there shivering next to him. If the chef could find a way to make food rich in essence, he could jumpstart her progress.

Zane looked up at the sky. It would be dark soon. “Come on, let's get some ingredients before the shops close so I can cook us a proper dinner. We can camp out in the restaurant tonight while we figure things out. I doubt anyone will care.”

Pinky seemed to brighten up at the prospect of food. “What are you going to make?”

Zane shrugged, “I dunno, what do you want?”

The woman shrugged back. “I'll have whatever you want to make. I'm not picky.”

The chef shook his head and started walking towards the market. He let out a chuckle. Apparently some things were universal.

***

The restaurant was in shambles, but it hadn't taken much for them to clear out a space in the kitchen. One unforeseen benefit of the fog was it killed the rats and mice that would have otherwise made a playground out of the abandoned building.

Zane was still unsure if surviving the fog was more related to level or how much essence someone had. But, Pinky seemed to exist in a different reality than he did. When he asked her to describe what she saw, the kitsune talked about gray skies and bitter cold.

The chef knew that as he traveled further up the mountain he would get to feel the effects of the fog for himself. Zane shuddered at the thought.

He decided to start with a bit of tea and fruit to warm them up. Some of the produce in the market had contained slight hints of essence. He was curious to find out how that affected the food.

The nice thing about the chef class was that Zane never had to do dishes. He could dismiss his cutting boards and knives when he was done with them. Pinky watched in fascination as the young man worked.

Each cut was precise with no wasted movement. His knife glided through the soft flesh of a peach. He drizzled the slices with olive oil, followed by sea salt, and lime zest.

Pinky wasn't so sure about the recipe, but all her doubts melted away as she took her first bite. “Woah.”

“I'm glad you like it. Savory and sweet is a good combination to prepare the palate,” Zane said as he poured her more tea, “For our next course I'll be making garlic and lime marinated rock chicken skewers, served with a side of wild rice.”

He drew on energy from his lower core to heat up the cast iron grill. The smell the rock chicken made as it cooked was divine. Pinky’s mouth watered as he handed her the next plate.

It was easily the best food she had ever eaten. “Zane, this is good. Like, really good.”

The chef looked at her blankly. “I mean, I would hope so. My class gave me the recipe based on what was available and I followed it.”

Pinky groaned in frustration. “What I'm saying is, if you opened a restaurant there would be a line around the block.”

“Thank you.” Zane bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment and completely missing Pinky's point. “I tried my best.”

The kitsune looked at the young man and sighed. “Zane, I'm trying to say that I want to open a restaurant with you.”

Zane wasn’t strictly opposed to the idea. Working in the restaurant would be a good way to get a feel for the city. But he wasn’t about to say yes the first time she asked. “I don't know if I'm ready to make any big commitments. Going into business together after one day is a little bit fast, don't you think?”

Pinky glared at the chef. “Didn't you just ask me to let you feed some bodies to my horses?”

“Well, yeah. But that's different,” Zane said.

“How? How is it different?” Pinky demanded, “I've been putting an awful lot of trust in the idea that you aren't a psychopath. And you don't want to go into business with me because it's ‘too soon’?”

Zane frowned. “Actually, now that you mention it, when's the last time you checked on the horses?”

They walked over to the makeshift stables to find that all three horses were gone. As was any trace of the cultivators Zane had butchered. He ran his finger along the bottom of the improvised trough. It came up completely clean and free of blood.

“Huh,” he said, “I guess it must have worked.”