I looked down at the bunch of stuff that I had brought back from the mart.

They had more variety than I thought and I was most definitely not prepared for most of them. At this point, if someone told me there was a synth version of everything, I’d believe them.

Could you believe they have a ‘Synthfeet’? Like… What kind of feet?! And why?!!

… Don’t answer that… Because I know exactly why…

Anyway, I told Amber that I would make us some lunch after all that so let’s see what I can make with this.

I managed to get my hands on some normal looking ones like Synthpotato, Synthonion and also Synthpork, so I was thinking that maybe I could try making some stir fried pork with potatoes or something.

That is assuming that everything here tastes as I expected it to taste.

Amber was already seated beside me and watching me with an excited look on her face.

“So what are we making today?”

“Mmm… I’m hoping I can make something I know but I don’t really know if I can do it until I start tasting these,” I pointed at the packages in front of me.

“Mmhmm~ I already can’t wait~”

I grinned at her, “I don’t even know if this is going to be good yet so I would say to curb your expectations.”

“Oh, I am curbing it~ I’m just enjoying the sight of you cooking~”

I raised an eyebrow, “You like the sight of someone cooking for you, I take it?”

“Well… Not just anyone, just you~”

I snorted at her before I started to open up the packages to taste the food inside them.

The first one I tried was the Synthpork since that would be my centrepiece.

It looked normal enough when I opened it so I tried tasting it a little.

…

Ok, it tastes nothing like pork, what the fuck is this?

I mean… It has the texture of one but the taste is… Well… Missing?

It would be more correct to say that there isn’t any taste at all I guess… Which makes it feel like I had some kind of tasteless rubber in my mouth. Yuck.

I suppose at least they have the texture of it somewhat correct…

What about the other two?

I tried tasting the potatoes first and… Wow… They err… Actually taste like potatoes, holy shit. That’s a surprise for sure.

And the onions… They just give this weird tangy sort of taste… With a salty aftertaste…

Hmm… Let me see…

I know from my previous tastings what I could use to correct this… I even got them sorted into little containers that I labelled with the taste they gave me.

Let’s see… A little bit of ‘salty’, a lot of ‘meaty’, some bits of ‘sweet’ and then I can throw them in there into the wok and start frying them.

One good thing about these synth foods is that I don’t even need to do that much preparation for the food because all of them are pretty much ready to eat from the start.

So I just start frying them and tasting a little bit of them and adding stuff as I need to until I get the taste I wanted.

Alright, I think I got the taste. There’s even the taste of soy sauce in there too.

All in all, I’m quite satisfied with how it turned out.

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I took a plate and started scooping the food out of the wok. Obviously it doesn’t look like the normal stir fried pork since I added a whole bunch of other stuff in it.

Amber looked over my shoulder, “Oh wow~ That definitely smells good~ Did it turn out the way you wanted?”

“Pretty much~ Let’s try it shall we?”

I gave her a pair of chopsticks and took another one for myself.

Amber waited for me to take the first piece of the synthpork from the plate before taking a piece for herself.

…

Delicious~

Amber shivered, “Mmmmmm!! Oh gods, you’re magic, Tera… Oh my god… How did you even manage to make something like this?”

I swallowed, “I mean, you literally saw me cook it, it’s not that hard. I’m sure someone else could do the same too.”

“Mmhmm~ I don’t think anyone can do it even if they saw you make that, Tera. Especially when you start throwing those things in to… What did you call it? Getting the taste right?”

Oh yeah… I suppose it’s because I at least have something to reference that I could adjust the taste to get it right. But for someone who hasn’t tasted the real thing before, they wouldn’t even know what they need to throw in to adjust it.

Both of us enjoyed the food I made and the plate was emptied within minutes.

“That… Was so good~” Amber moaned.

“I’m glad you liked it. Speaking of which… Do you know any stores that might serve food like this?”

Amber shrugged, “I’m guessing maybe the really expensive restaurants? Those places would probably serve using organic ingredients instead of synthfood like this.”

I placed the plate into the sink alongside the wok and utensils, which Amber would wash later since she insisted that it was the least she could do after I always made food for her.

“Speaking of which…” I started, turning to face her. “Is there any way I could get my hands on some seeds or something?”

She raised an eyebrow, “Are you planning to grow your own food?”

“Yeah. Since we’re using this room anyway, I could use some parts of the other room to grow some potatoes or something.”

“Mmm… I’m not sure if you could get any here to be honest. And even if you did get your hands on one, the problem is where are you going to plant them? It’s not like you can just get soil around here or something.”

I scratched my head, “Err… I was thinking maybe I could do something like hydroponics?”

She gave me a look, “You know how to use hydroponics?”

“Err… Not really, but I’m sure there’s some instructions on the GalaNet right?”

Since technology has become so advanced, surely this technology would have advanced greatly right?

Unexpectedly, Amber leaned over and dropped her voice low, “Tera… It’s err… You won’t find any information on how to use hydroponics there.”

…

“Eh? Really?”

Is it a lost tech or something? Do we no longer use hydroponics here because we don’t use water like that anymore or what?

She pulled back and nodded, “Yeah… About that… I’m just going to go ahead and ask if you know about the Alvs?”

“The what?”

She waved her hand, “Well… Just know that they are another race out there. They have long ears and live really, really long. Humanity first found them when their civilization was under threat of a leviathan but that’s a story for another time. Anyway, they have mastered hydroponics and food processing and made it a law that all of their tech should remain with their people. So nothing is posted on the GalaNet and the moment it appears, it’s taken down.”

“Why the fuck would they do something like that?”

She rubbed her thumb and middle finger together, “Money of course. They wanted a monopoly on the tech.”

“What the fuck? Why would anyone agree to something like this? This thing would have allowed places like these to grow food too!”

She grimaced, “Well… It’s not illegal to have a hydroponics garden… It’s just that if you want to learn how to do it, you have to go to their schools to learn how to do it… Actually, scratch that, they don’t teach this skill to outsiders, they’ll just sell you the machine and then that’s it.”

“Hasn’t anyone… I dunno… Tried to do it themselves?”

“Oh, most likely yes. But they’re most likely keeping it to themselves and selling the produce to make big money because once that knowledge becomes commonplace, the value of organic foods would plummet in that sector. Besides… Most people like us are already used to synthfood which is easy to make and easy to get. No one would be bothered to go through all the trouble to do it.”

I raised a finger, “Then if I were to buy a big ship and turn it into a farm of sorts… Wouldn’t I be able to make shitloads of money if I just fly them to fringe stations like these?”

She grinned, “You can. And you’re not the first one to think of that either. We call those Roaming Farmers. Just to let you know, it’s not as profitable as you think.”

“Eh? Why not?”

“Because pirates looooove to target these ships so you’d need to invest a lot in having either your own fleet to protect you or hire Mercs to escort you which really cuts into your profits. If you’re planning on going that route, I’d say that we’re better off just growing enough for ourselves instead of trying to make a business out of it.”

Hmm… I suppose I could try making a small farm… But then again I’d also need to get some seeds too… I could probably try it out with some root vegetables but as Amber said, they’ll be really expensive so I’m not sure if I should risk that investment…

Fuck it… Whatever we have right now works so maybe I’ll only think about it after I earn more Credits first…