One month had passed since the battle of Fort Mountain. Some of St. Peter’s inhabitants had visited the town, and they found only charred rubbles. Not one house had survived the onslaught that Juliet had brought upon the city.

He was still recuperating, and his cultivation had stagnated. Now, the entire group that battled the Charybdes was at the Mantis realm. Jacob, instead, was still at the 5th stage of the Cockroach realm in both Qi and Mana.

Jacob had decided to spend most of his time cultivating Spiritual Herbs and creating new Alchemic inventions.

Right now, he was in his own little laboratory. He had set up shop in the villa he had borrowed the first time he had discovered the Alchemic Tagliatelle. Marcus and Lucius were outside, both at the 2nd level of the Mantis realm, his personal bodyguards. People had already come to bother him while he had been inventing delicate procedures.

Now, Jacob knew that it sounded absolutely ridiculous. But he had theorized that more complex dishes that would include more than one concoction could maybe result in something greater than the sum of the parts.

And he had been working on his special project for a week now. Whereas the Alchemic Tagliatelle was now a common staple of almost everyone’s diet, he had now been playing with higher-level stuff.

He also had manufactured a specially reinforced oven to bake his… products.

In his new oven, something great was baking, the literal future of civilization. They had lost everything, from electricity to gas. They had no heating and few of the comforts they were used to. But Jacob was giving them back the most important thing—no, not just giving it back. He was making it greater.

Jacob heard a kitchen timer go off and hurried up to remove his new concoction from the oven. It had taken multiple attempts to figure out the best temperature, the right density for the pasta sheets, the correct proportions for the Spiritual Herb.

Urgh. I hope this will not turn my sh*t purple again.

There had been incidents. And the one he was thinking about had been one of the more dignified ones.

“Marcus! Come here!” Jacob shouted.

“Oh, hell naw—Lucius, you go!” Marcus shouted from outside the door.

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“Marcus, you big child. Come on, your body is stronger. I’m a mage,” Jacob heard Lucius’s lower voice.

“Oh, man, the boss is trying to kill me,” Marcus started whining, “I swear, he wants me dead.”

Yeah, that was another development. Even though Jacob had laid low for the past month, Marcus had taken to call him boss jokingly. Lucius, in turn, alternated the new epithet and his name.

“Christ, the both of you, come inside!” Jacob shouted. “This time, I think I got it right!”

After a few incidents, Jacob had decided that it was better to leave time for his body to recover. That, in turn, had justified using human guinea pigs.

“You said that last time!” Marcus said with despair on his face.

The big guy had not been happy after the battle, but he knew better than complain to Jacob, the guy who had pulled off saving St. Peter with his personal Suicide Squad.

“Jesus Almighty and all his Circus, Marcus, eat the lasagna!” Jacob took a knife and cut a little bit of the new concoction. It was… purple. If social media had still existed, he might have become famous because of his food's funny colors—no, alchemic products had turned like.

“To be fair, boss,” Lucius said with irony in his voice, “Marcus is right. You have said it the last three times.”

“Well, I said I thought I got it. Not that I was entirely sure.”

Marcus had just taken the fork Jacob had given him, but he was now eyeing the morsel with clear distrust.

“Come on, chop-chop. Train’s coming choo-choo.”

Both of what Jacob considered his underling looked at him weirdly.

The fact that he had been doing alchemy almost all day every day had put him in a good mood, making his usual sense of humor come back. Sadly, some other people in his presence weren’t that happy about him being in a good mood and having his humor back.

Marcus groaned and then swallowed the piece of Alchemic Lasagna.

Jacob looked at the new analog clock he had worn. The last one had been ripped apart after the battle with the Mantis realm Charybdis.

Both Lucius and Jacob waited for Marcus to start vomiting, run to the bathroom, or much worse.

“It’s really good, like—really good!” Marcus exclaimed.

“YES!” Jacob started celebrating by jumping and dancing.

Knowing that he would not have to experience more intentional poisoning for a while, Marcus started dancing with Jacob up in the air.

Lucius, for all he wanted to punch both of them in the face, started laughing.

They had all needed this, a bit of normality.

“Well, then, I can copy the recipe and distribute it to the ones doing the Alchemic Tagliatelle.”

Jacob had personally instructed multiple people so that they could learn how to cook what now was the signature dish of St. Peter.

“The cooks will be so happy,” Marcus exclaimed.

“Alchemists, Marcus, not cooks,” Jacob rebuked.

“Yeah, Alchemists with a chef hat,” Lucius said.

“Well, that’s what you get when you try to become an alchemist in Italy, Lucius. You get what you get,” Jacob said.

“Whatever,” the Mage said and went back to his post to practice a new Spell Jacob had taught him.

“Marcus, go fetch Juliet and Helena, please. We need to go oversee Luis Albert’s work. The man has been working like a madman.”

Marcus turned serious for a second after hearing the name of Frederick’s dad and nodded.

“On it, boss,” Marcus gave him a sloppy military salute and departed.

Jacob had a sudden thought.

Can I be considered a mad scientist and these two my goons? Ah, never realized it.