I watched my experience rapidly increase over the night. I'd made sure to extend the buff for maximum duration on Lily's meal, and she'd clearly taken my plea for help to heart.

Between yesterday and today, Lily had gotten me close to thirty thousand experience, with my level currently sitting at 19,307 / 22,200—only twenty-nine more notifications, and I'd hit level twenty-five.

Which is why I was still up well past when everyone else had gone to sleep, sitting on a stone bench that Milo had set up just outside the structure where Hari and Liane were keeping watch.

"Getting close now?" Hari asked, knowing full well why I was still awake.

"Yeah, super close!" I said excitedly. It was definitely getting colder now—you could feel the chill in the air. That meant we weren't far from winter setting in. I didn't know if it snowed this far south; I'd always heard it stayed much warmer here and didn't snow as much, but I didn't know the truth of it.

"Does it snow here in winter?" I asked, attempting to distract myself from checking the notifications every couple of seconds.

"Yeah, during the peak of winter, it still snows down here. You'd need to go to the island with the demons to get no snow—or even further south than that," Hari said, watching Crisplet chase some small creature that was burrowing away.

"Further south than the demons?" I asked, confused.

"Of course. We can't really travel there easily, but the world isn't a small place—it doesn't just drop off a cliff into the void," Hari said with a chuckle.

"Have you been down there?" I asked in awe. I hadn't known about this. I knew there was a continent to the east that we had boats to—it's where most of the elves came from—but the only elf I knew who actually lived here was the one who ran the temple Amanda went to.

"No," Hari said with another chuckle.

"I'd say there might be fewer than ten people in total who could make that trip across the ocean."

"Do you know anything about it?" I asked.

"Not really, no. I heard there are a couple of tomes in the capital library that detail the explorations of a space-specialist mage from several centuries ago—someone who supposedly reached their land and documented it. But it could just be a madman writing a tale; we don't know," Hari explained.

"I wonder if the dragons could make it across," I said in wonder.

"Okay, I stand corrected—there might be eleven people in this world who could make the trip, because I wouldn't put it past you to convince a dragon to try, eventually." Hari let out a proper laugh.

Looking at my notifications again—only fourteen more kills to go.

"Will we reach Grey Rock tomorrow?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah, most probably. The boys are looking stronger already, and I think they'll be able to ride the whole day tomorrow." He nodded approvingly as he said it.

"Anything we need to worry about in that town? No storm dragons or anything?" I asked with a nervous chuckle.

"No, not this time. Honestly, I've been to that town a handful of times, and outside its Temple of Waves there's nothing that really stands out. Oh—but don't worry, there's no creature watching over this temple," he reassured quickly.

Seven more kills to go.

Taking a deep breath, I looked up to see Liane lying on the roof, staring at the sky.

"You're not sleeping up there, are you?" I asked jokingly. The next moment she appeared sitting beside me and flicked my ear.

"You can't even tell a decoy from your own friend! Tsk tsk," she said with a chuckle, before vanishing again.

"You get used to that," Hari said, laughing as I spun around to see nothing. "She's troublesome at night, but always there when she's needed."

Then it happened.

Notification:

You have earned 100 bonus experience for a buff used in combat.

...

You have reached Level 25 in Arcane Chef.

You have +2 unspent stat points.

You have gained a new ability.

You have a new ability selection.

You have 1 available ability selection.

"I just got to level twenty-five!" I said excitedly before pulling up my selections.

Congratulations on Level 25!

Choose from the following options:

Mana Pan

Skill type:

Active

The perfect tool does exist.

Allows you to create a pan of various sizes out of Mana.

Essence Memory

Skill type:

Passive

A true chef never forgets a flavour.

Once an ingredient has been used, the user can recall its base properties, any buffs it contributed, and the pairing result when used in successful recipes.

Feast of Power

Skill type:

Active

A meal everyone can enjoy.

Can prepare one 'Feast Dish' per 24 hours, and it will grant increased buff quality and increased buff time.

Culinary Echo

Skill type:

Active

The memory of a meal can linger in magic

Allows you to create a simplified version of a previously cooked meal, retaining some of the buff structure without duplicating the original ingredients.

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Manaflair Crust

Skill Type:

Active

Flavour is magic. Smoke is memory. Crust is transformation.

When exposed to ambient elemental, magical or environmental energy during cooking, the crust passively absorbs traces, subtly altering its nature.

The first thing I noticed was that it didn't show the old skills. It also said to select one—so once I chose this one, would all the ones I didn't pick appear on the other list to be chosen with the replacement skill?

I hoped so, but there was nothing I could do right now to find out, and I wouldn't choose a skill until I'd at least discussed it with Milo. Still, looking at the options, there were certainly some fun ones there. Essence Memory seemed incredibly useful!

But I also knew exactly what Milo was going to tell me: "That skill won't do anything for you that the notebook can't."

I chuckled to myself as the voice of Milo echoed in my head.

"What's up?" Hari asked, looking over at me.

"Oh, nothing. I got a skill that'll allow me to perfectly recall any buffs and pairing results after they've been successfully created—but I know exactly what Milo's going to say when I tell him," I explained.

"That you have a notebook?" Hari chuckled as well. "He'll do that. But for my own piece of advice, notebooks are all well and good, but in twenty years, how many ingredients will you have used in your life? How many notebooks would that be?"

"If it were just the buffs that an individual ingredient shared, that's one thing, but letting you know every pairing result as well…" He paused, smiling. "It removes the unknown."

And honestly, it was a very good point—one I hadn't considered. Right now, I was using largely the same herbs, and although I occasionally mixed it up with an odd ingredient here and there, we were leaving the forest behind.

Soon, I'd have new ingredients. New pairings.

"Anything else interesting?" Hari asked, and I felt Liane appear next to me again, listening in.

"A couple, yeah. Culinary Echo—it looks like I can copy the buffs off one meal and make a lesser version of it? I'm not sure where that would be useful," I started to say, when Liane basically yelled over me.

"Not useful?! You could copy the buffs of Lily's dish onto a lesser meal!" she said, shocked that I thought it was no good.

"I mean, sure, but how long will we have dragon tail for? It only seems useful for the super-rare stuff," I countered.

"He has a point," Hari added. "Although it would be nice to see the dragon tail buffs, just so you'd stop trying to get yourself killed." He gave Liane a look.

"I promise I won't eat the dragon!" Liane said, folding her arms.

"I wasn't going to anyway. I really don't want Lily killing me if I'm honest—but I do really want to know what the buffs are," she added.

"The next one is Manaflair Crust, and it looks like ambient magic adds additional effects to the item with a crust. So… just bread?" I shrugged—it seemed limited. Before I could say more, Liane laughed at me.

"Again, you're thinking too small! A crust could be many things—bread crust, the burnt edges on a roast, the breadcrumb on an item, the bottom of those tasty fruit tarts—that's all a crust," she said.

"That seems really useful then," I admitted, now deep in thought. If it counted for all those things, that did seem like the most useful of the skills.

I did really like the idea of Echo, but I couldn't see much use for it unless we got a lot of super-rare ingredients. And I wasn't too keen on Lily going and fighting a continent-destroying beast again just to get a bit of its flesh for food.

I'd already had too many near-death experiences for one life.

With a stretch, I said, "I'd better try to get some sleep so I can wake up and pester Milo for advice. Thanks for all the help—and for distracting me while I waited." I smiled.

I called Crisplet back, who had caught whatever he'd been chasing by filling the entire burrow with flame, causing several spouts of fire to burst up around him.

***

I woke up very early the next morning, having gotten only a small amount of sleep—but I couldn't help it. I was too excited to pick the new skills. I even had one I couldn't choose that was getting assigned to me as well.

So all in all, I would have three new abilities today. How could I not be ridiculously excited about that?

I waved good morning to Crisplet before making my way out into the very cold morning air. It was still mostly dark, with just a hint of daylight appearing on the horizon.

"You're up early," I heard Jen say, and turned to see her sitting on the bench with Milo, reading a book.

"Morning! Yeah, I got to level twenty-five last night, and I wanted to see Milo about skill selection. I couldn't really sleep," I said sheepishly, feeling a bit embarrassed about it.

She just chuckled. "Well, come take a seat and keep warm in the air pocket Milo has around us."

As I walked closer to them, sure enough, I entered an area where the air turned pleasantly warm—as if it were daytime—completely removing the chill.

"This is so nice!" I said, taking a seat before starting to go through the abilities with Milo.

"You're right about the memories being achievable with the notebook. However, what Hari said is also true," Milo said after I explained them all to him as well.

"It's not what I'd suggest as your first pick. The Crust one is by far the best of the lot. If it's picking up ambient mana, then you could easily influence that—but if it's environmental mana, then you might get useful buffs based on where you are. Like frost resistance during snow, for example."

He continued, "You're right about Echo. It would be nice to believe you'll get legendary ingredients often, but the reality, Trev, is that you're the first person I've ever met in my life who's in possession of legendary-quality meat. And when you look at the creature it came from and realise it would take a nation of people to bring it down, I doubt the meat of a creature like that is what they'd be preserving."

"My suggestion," he said finally, "is to pick Crust as your first. And if it appears again on your second selection, consider picking Memories there."

Shrugging, I followed his advice and chose Manaflair Crust.

Congratulations! You have gained the ability Manaflair Crust.

Congratulations! You have gained the ability Second Simmer.

And as had become tradition now, I pulled up the abilities.

Manaflair Crust

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

Flavour is magic. Smoke is memory. Crust is transformation.

When exposed to ambient elemental, magical or environmental energy during cooking, the crust passively absorbs traces, subtly altering its nature.

Second Simmer (Passive)

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

Some flavours only emerge on the second pass.

When reheating or reworking previously prepared meals, you have a chance to draw out hidden latent qualities or refine the buff into a more specific variant.

That given ability seemed really useful—so anytime I recooked a meal, like the stew from last night, it would have a chance of bringing out new buffs?

I explained the skill to Milo, who seemed interested to see the results. However, he pointed out that adding the complexity of second-time-cooked buffs to a meal would only increase the need for a skill like Essence Memory.

So, I attempted to pull up the ability selection screen I'd looked at previously, with all the old skills on it.

Choose from the following options:

Feast of Power

Mana Pan

Gourmand's Insight

Flame Control

Handle the Heat

Clean Cut

Essence Memory

Culinary Echo

I sighed in relief seeing the options appear there. After confirming them all with Milo one more time—and a little bit of a debate on the merits of Feast of Power, Mana Pan, and Memory, with Jen pointing out that I wasn't getting these old skills again, so this could be the last time I'd see them—I made my choice.

Congratulations! You have gained the ability Essence Memory.

Essence Memory (Passive)

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

A true chef never forgets a flavour.

Once an ingredient has been used, the user can recall its base properties, any buffs it contributed, and the pairing result when used in successful recipes.

I was expecting some kind of rush of knowledge or something—but there was nothing.

I really didn't know how the ability worked, so I tried thinking of ingredients, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I thought of Buvul and knew it provided +1 Strength. Fire Salts provided minor fire resistance.

Drake provided +3 Strength, +3 Endurance, +2 Charisma, and Major Fire Resistance.

And Tempest Dragon provided +7 Strength, +7 Endurance, Lightning Immunity, an ability called Tempest Flight, and a permanent +1 to Endurance.

I stopped myself immediately as that thought crossed my mind.

I absolutely did not know that before!

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