During diners, for the first time ever since they could remember, all of the adults nearly swallow their tongues along with the food into their stomachs.
The reason was because of my food, of course.
Even though I didn't infuse in any mana into the food, the ingredients and methods that I used to cook them were already great enough for a King. No, even a King wouldn't even get to eat it.
"This taste... Kroka meats?" Aineah asked shockingly as she tasted the stew that I made. All of the kids nodded their heads in agreement to that question.
"But... Kroka's meat is very tough and smells very harsh on the tongue and nose. So- how?" Aineah's eyes were spinning in confusion and yet, her hand didn't stop scooping out the stew for more bites. There were tears in her eyes and her face was flushed brightly in happiness.
All of the kids were nodding their heads to whatever it was that Aineah was saying without a care as they too, continues to scope more stew into their mouths.
Groans and moans were heard from all of the other adults. Keith was the only one that wasn't moaning but the speed that he was stuffing his face with food was abnormally much faster than the other.
Jin and I exchanges look with amus.e.m.e.nt dancing in our eyes.
Half an hour later, when everyone had finished eating and washed the dishes and plates, the kids were back to studying how to write and read while Rebecca was weaving the jute that we already have into jute fabrics with the of Samantha and the other adults.
I and Jin took the flax seed and the cotton seeds that we just bought and went to our backyard. Well, I called it backyard but truly, it was the old farm that Anise family used to have. I took out a couple of the seeds and sent my mana into it.
Ah- I see. Now I know why flax seed and cotton seeds were so cheap. This kind of flax seed and cotton seeds was a genetically mutated kind. And not in a good way, either. You can say that the only thing good about this kind of mutated seed was the fact that it gives back a lot of seed. However, the yield of cotton b.a.l.l.s was very little. And the flax plant fiber was very weak to the elements out in the open.
This caused a lot of problems. Well, for other people, that is. For me and Jin, this kind of problem was easily solvable using magic.
I closed my eyes and form a magical formation in the air with Wood and Water elements. Suddenly, Jin also put his hands out and form a symbol in the air too. Ah- this boy, he's already strong enough to make the Cloud Rain array.
As sudden as our action, the seeds from the bags that held them was suddenly turned upside down, causing all of the seed to flows out from the bags into the air. Droplets of rains in the color of azure and blue washed the seeds as it also soaked them. With my eyesight alone, I can see that each grain of seed was absorbing the liquid of the rain into themselves hungrily.
Once we finished soaking the seeds, both Jin and I wordlessly sprinkle the seeds all over the old farm. Of course, it looks like we are carelessly sprinkling the seeds all over the place but really, it wasn't so. Each seed was placed in a pattern, making cotton goes to one side while flex goes to the other. It wasn't carelessly planted.
Afterward, both me and Jin went back inside the house. The flax seeds and the cotton shrubs were already growing since both I and Jin had enchanted and enhanced them using magic rainwater and growing formation for plants.
I, Jin, Captain Clapton, Keith, Mark, and Linah was sitting on the chair surrounding the dining table. The other adults were either outside doing their daily activities or inside helping the kids with their 'a.s.signments'.
Watching Linah and Rebecca reminds me of how Kainen always hover around me when I was knitting some clothes for him during the New Years.
"Jenna?" Jin asked me with his voice slightly tense. I shocked those memories off my head as I turn back toward what we were talking about.
The looks on Jin's face wasn't good but it wasn't bad either. There's this looks in his eyes that seems to have this 'Realization' look in there.
But... realizing what?
"Let's continue. What is it that you want to talk about, Captain Clapton?" I asked as I ignored the looks one Jin's face. His face was between happy, sad, miserable, ecstatic, melancholy, stressed, and pure antic.i.p.ation. What's going inside that boy's mind?
For some odd reason, this facial expression of Jin was oddly familiar. Like, I had seen it before from someone else's face... Whose?
Anyway, moving on.
"We would like to live with you guys for a couple of days. Of course, your kids don't have to provide for us. We will do it ourselves. We are here mainly because of the contract between your mother and I but there's another reason why we chose this region to come to." Captain Clapton explained as he sipped the herbal water that's in front of him.
He continues; "You do know that there are another egg-laying animal species that are similar to the crockatrice and the chickens? It's called the Rooster Snaketail." Captain Clapton introduce as he took out a drawing of a Rooster Snaketail.
It was a huge chicken with tails made out of very skinny snakes. There's a drawing that has the Rooster with one tail, one that has two tails, and one that has three tails. All of the tails were of snakeheads. Poisonous snakeheads.
The main body was the rooster but the tails also have it's own conscious, which made it hard for people to defend against.
Jin looked at the drawing with interests and a gleam in his eyes; ideas of what to do and how to fight against this mana animal- yes, it's only a mana animal, not a magic beast- was already forming within his mind. Fire magic would work great against this kind of mana animal.
Or, Restriction array and magical formation.
I left Jin to his thoughts. He doesn't need interruption right now.
As Captain Clapton continues to explain to us kids the differences between the three egg-laying chickens-and-not-chickens, I notice that for some odd reason, Captain Clapton had this gleams of light flas.h.i.+ng by his eyes... Ah- that paired of eyes...
Clapton was a Priest and a Holy magic user... That means... A cursed eye? No- a const.i.tution eyes?
"Jenna? What's wrong, you had this scary look in your eyes," Captain called as he waves his hand in front of my face.
I ignored his action and turned on my soul's eyes. Ah- really... This guy... it was no wonder why his body has a lot of impurities even when he's a holy magician...
A body filled with wounds from both his physical aspects and his soul realm.
No wonder why his magic eyes were only half opened.
His soul was damaged, his physical body was in an even more precaution situation. His mind was clouded with poison to the point that his body has been soaking in the after effect of the poison.
Hmmm. There's actually an alchemist or poison master in this world who could create this grade of poison. It seems like I shouldn't be underestimating this world too much.
"Nothing, just thinking that it would be great if we can find a way to domesticate the Rooster Snaketail, too," I replied back.
"D-domesticate Rooster Snaketail?!" Captain Clapton nearly choked on his split.
"What?" I asked, not knowing why the captain was so shocked. Jin was looking at the captain with a puzzled face as he too was unable to understand why the captain was so shocked.
"Miss Loveheart, that's impossible!" His face was oddly aggressive as he denied the possibility of breeding and domesticating the Rooster Snaketail.
"Hmm? What are you talking about? It is possible," Both I and Jin answered back at the same time.
Hmm? Both I and Jin exchanges look as we saw comprehension within our eyes. Jin just grinned at me happily while I blinked my eyes in surprise.
This boy... He's too perceptive.
"It's possible?!" Linah asked, shocked as her voice nearly torn her own ears drums off.
"We don't know yet. You gotta have to wait for the results." Jin answered Linah as he sits back on his wooden chair with a grin stretch across his face. A look of precaution within the glimmering of his eyes and a flash of lightning lite across his face.
I was surprised that this boy was this good at keeping a poker face on this early in his life. Innate skills?
"Sister Jenna, do you know where we put the sugar cane blocks at?" Samantha came from the kitchen as she asked me with a puzzled look in her eyes that speaks of her frustration.
"The sugar-cane block? In the third cabinet behind the wooden bowls," I answered her back as I recalled the location where I put them.
Samantha smiles brightly at me as she skipped back toward the location that I pointed out.
Why does she need a sugar-cane block?
"Sugarcane blocks?" Linah asked, confused as she probably has never heard of this thing before.
I ignored her curious glaze as I stood up and went to help Samantha with what she wanted to do.
Samantha has a sweet tooth. But because the current situation that us kids are it wasn't good and right for me to make sugar, I did the next best thing. Using sugar-cane to refined some sweets candies for the kids.
In this body, Jenna Loveheart was also a very sweet-loving girl- but due to the limited amount of sweets that this village has, she barely notices that she has a sweet tooth.
As a result, when I first think of creating the sugar-cane blocks to make candies for the kids, this body literally reacted.
It surprised me so much that I nearly slipped and fell into the water well, hasn't it been for Jin.
In this part of the world, sugar cane plants were very abundant. But- due to the limited environments that the sugar cane can grow in on this part of the world, and due to a large amount of forestry and beasts, nearly no one knew about this kind of sugarcane variety.
I took out a large jute bag from within the cabinet in the kitchen and took out three thumb-sized chunks of sugar cane blocks.
It looks slightly golden brown and yet it was not burning at all. This was because I didn't cook it using a cooking pot but rather, with something that's similar to the alchemy fires that I had used in Magis Millions Worlds. This firing method was slightly high-end, so the effects were also very good. At first, it causes the impurity within the sugarcane juice to evaporate and left behind only the pure sugar-cane juices. As a result, the blocks of sugars cane that I'd made was very high grade.
The amount of sucrose found in this variety of sugarcane was oddly high. So, the sweetness was very pure and high, even higher than honey.
I divided the thumb size chunk of sugar cane into smaller pieces before I put it into a small cup. Why? Because it was too sweet.
"Thank you, sister Jenna!" Samantha's smiles were brightly lite up as she took the cup filled with smaller chunks size of sugar cane block and went to where the rest of the kids are at.
"Okay! If you got 10 questions right, you will get a piece of sugar cane candy! If you got it wrong, then no candy for you for the rest of today!" Samantha said cheekily with a large grin on her face as she s.h.i.+elds the cup of sugar treats away from the other kids.
All the kids whined but they didn't refute her. They just turn their eyes to the sheets of wooden 'paper' that they are practicing their a.s.signments on.
The so call wooden paper wasn't actually paper but rather a thick 1mm sheets of wood that has been cut into the size of a parchment paper. Since both, I and Jin didn't know if papers were expensive or not in this world, we couldn't just create paper out of thin air. In alternatively, Jin thought that it was a great idea to used wooden blocks of thin, 3mm, size boards to write with.
Only, he didn't count on the fact that the kids were trying to learn magic words. As a result, those wooden blocks that Jin created for them got burned to ashes.
When I saw this, all I did was looked at Jin like he was an idiot and shakes my heads. So, instead of using whatever it was that Jin think was a great idea, I used air magic to dried out a large log and cut them using a spell called "Wind Edge" to 'Skin' off sheets of dried wooden planks. The first times that I did it, the size was as thick as 4mm but once I refined them by soaking them in water and clay overnight, causing their size shrinks from a thick 4mm size to 1mm size.
Since I did refine the sheets of wooden planks to be more or less like a sheet of plywood, it was strong enough to withstand another refinement magic. Which was why it didn't burn down when the kids wrote magic words on it.
Captain Clapton took one looks at the wooden plywood sheets of paper and his eyes widen in disbelief.
"This is made out of ... wood?" He said as he touches, examines, and observed the papers that the kids were using.
"Jenna, where did you guys get this kind of paper from? It was even stronger and st.u.r.dier than the paper that I used to make Paper Talisman." Captain Clapton asked with his eyes wide and his face twisted into a look that I recognized daily when Jin wanted to know about something new.
"Jenna made it," Jin answered with his chest puffed out proudly.
"What?" Captain Clapton snapped his heads toward me so fast that his neck might snap if it was just a little bit faster.
"What?" I asked back, making this innocent and naive face at the man. Jin chuckling softly by me as he seen my expression.
"Jenna, could you give me a couple sheets of paper? I want to test something with it," Captain Clapton smell a large opportunity of business and he was hooked.
... This man... He was so easy to tempt. Will he be fine as a merchant?
It seems like this might be a good opportunity for the kids to earn some money for the future so I didn't stop Captain Clapton from testing the papers.
He went outside with Linah, who was curiously looking at the paper with a naive look in her eyes.
Both me and Jin exchange looks.
"Jenna, are you sure that was a good idea to let the man knows about those paper?" Jin asked, slightly worried.
"It's fine. Those are too thick for any good writing. They were just the testing kind, not the real ply paper." I replied back with a small smile on my face. If my eyes gleam with amus.e.m.e.nt than that's my business.
"Huh? You already finished creating the ply paper?" Jin asked, shocked that he didn't notice.
Well, of course, he won't notice. I didn't create such a thing in the beginning. I was just using the methods that I already know of to test some of this world's trees to see if I can create Magic Paper.
Turns out that it was possible- but not with the woods in this part of the world. The paper made from the woods in this part of the world wasn't very good at soaking in mana and holding onto the mana. As a result, making Magic Paper was not possible yet. Instead, Ply paper, a lesser grade of the Magic Paper, which can be used it makes Card Spells, talisman formation, and inscription formation was created from it.
Although the papers that the kids use aren't the ply paper, it was the testing version of it. Thicker and heavier than the real ply paper. A normal, good, version of the ply paper was a lot thinner than the ones that the kids are using.
Jin nodded his head in understanding as he went to supervised the kids- making sure that they don't cheat on their a.s.signment while Lurin and Luke keep the score.
When Captain Clapton came back twenty minutes later, his expression was bright and a large smile was on his face.
"Jenna, would you like to partner up with me to create and sell these papers!?" The older man didn't even wait for me to greet him back in before he was already in front of my face with his hands on my shoulder, looking at me with a look in his eyes that I recognized from experiencing with merchants. Only, he was more honest and pure in intention.
I nodded. "Sure," I was thinking of doing that exactly. However, the methods will be a secret from the adults.
"Oi, let go of Jenna," A very annoyed voice called from behind Captain Clapton.
"Ah- Sorry," Captain Clapton said sheepishly as he stretches his head with a tick of nervousness in his voice.
... Jin, you... No, forget it.
When night comes, Hawk and Mark have to drag their captain to sleep because the man just won't stop talking about what should they do for their so-called 'Alliance' that will be selling the ply paper. Even the thought of opening our own store came into the conversation. And Captain Clapton just keep throwing ideas after ideas at I and Jin, not noticing that Jin's eyes were already half-way asleep.
That night, some of the adults sleep in the living room and outside the house while the kids all sleep in their own room with the women. Linah, Olivia, Lisley, Aineah, and Clarissa all took my room while I went to sleep with Anise and Vinna.
When I woke up to make some breakfast for us kids the next morning, only Aineah and Linah were awaked as they prepared breakfast for the adults too.
"Morning, Jenna and Jin," She greeted.
Jin? Ah- when did he get behind me?
"Morning, Jin," I said as I yawn with my hand on my mouth.
"Morning, Jenna. You making breakfast?" He asked as he cleans his face with a towel.
"Yes," I answered him as I make my way toward the washroom to wash my face. When I come out, Jin already made some hot water and was in the process of making some herbal tea.
"Jin, could you please get me that large pot?" I asked him as I started another fire on the cooking stove that Jin made.
"Okay," He said as he used an earthen spell to levitate the large iron pot from behind the counter into the stove. Once the pot was secure and balance, I took out a slightly blue stone that has a water symbol for mana on it and charges it with my water mana element.
Water started to come out of the stone and soon enough, the pot was half filled. Linah and Aineah stare dumbstruck at me and Jin.
I ignored them as I open the side cabinet and took out a jar of salt.
One cup of salt into the water and then put it back. I opened another cabinet and took out three large potatoes. I cut them into smaller pieces before putting them into the pot.
Jin handed me a large bowl of rice...
Well, it looks like rice but it wasn't riced at all. It was actually oat. Goldens.h.i.+eld Oats, to be more specific.
They are very plump and large. About ten times the size of normal oats. I picked one up and turned it over a couple of times.
"Hmm... they're not fully rejuvenated yet. In that case, Jin, could you rolled them over into flat pieces?" I asked Jin.
Jin nodded as he took the bowl of golden s.h.i.+eld oats and went outside.
When he came back a couple of minutes later, the grain pieces of the golden s.h.i.+eld oats had turned into rolled oats. The s.h.i.+eld was gone, leaving behind only the edible part. I checked the rolled pieces of oats and nodded in satisfaction.
"... Jenna... Is that really oats?" Aineah asked as his eyes widen in disbelief.
That's because everyone knew that oats aren't that large. And normally, oats were used to feed livestock, not human. I can understand their points of view but these golden s.h.i.+eld oats aren't the normal kinds.
This variety had been genetically modified by me and was planted by Jin in our backyard, so it only took 4 days to fully grown and mature. Each stalk only has only 6 grains but it was about 50 times the weight of a normal stalk. Each grain weighted at less 20 ounces. The heaviest one had weighted 36 ounces each grain.
I ignored the two of them as I put the whole bowl of rolled oats into the pot. Within a couple of seconds, the water started to boil with the oats in it. I took out a large spoon and added three labels of meats- the last of the Kraka's meat into the pot. Jin opened the cabinet behind the stove and pa.s.sed me some dried herbs. I pinch a couple of each and throw them into the pot.
While the porridge was boiling and cooking, I added some oil into it, causing the oats to break down into smaller pieces as it turned very silky soft.
I let the pot boil for another ten more minutes as I asked Jin to watch it.
"Jenna, where are you going?" Jin asked curiously as he stirred the pot of porridge.
"Foraging for more herbs and greens," I said as I took out a woven basket from the corner of the room.
"Ah, wait, Jenna, I'm coming with you," Jin said as he put an inscribe sealed over the fire, for it to automatically turned itself off when 10 minutes pa.s.sed by. He ran to grab a basket himself as he skipped happily after me.
What... Oi, Jin, since when did you learn inscriptions incarnation?!!! I didn't teach you this!!!
"Let's go, Little Jen!" Jin said as he pulled me away from Linah and Aineah.
... little Jen?
An image of a much older man with green hair flashed by my mind. No, stop it Megie. Don't think too much.
It was just a coincidence!
"Jin, you can let my hand go now," I said as I tried to take my hand from Jin. However, no matter how much I pull my hand Jin didn't let go at all. He only tightened the hold as his expression turn slightly dazed.
I frown as I tried to s.n.a.t.c.h my hand away from Jin again. This time Jin's expression turned agony with pains before his face started to sweats and his body started to s.h.i.+ver. Before I could do anything, Jin's eyes rolled back and he fainted.
"!!!" What the h.e.l.l?