After the meal was over, and the rest of the ingredients stored away, Aznod and Udona met again within her office. Udona propped her elbows atop her desk as she leaned forward, letting out a satisfied sigh. “That was as good as always.” She smiled towards the chef across from her. “So, have you decided?”
Aznod thought about her words briefly, before nodding his head. “I think I am able to give it a try now.” The meaning of his words were somewhat ambiguous, but Udona seemed to understand.
“Which one do you want to do first, then?”
Aznod closed his eyes, thinking. “According to my predictions, it should be easier to prepare a dish for Mister Beldin. The other two have not yet decided what they want, so I am thankful that he is easier to satisfy.”
Udona gave a light chuckle at that. “How long do you need to prepare your recipe?”
Aznod shook his head, his divinity beginning to shine from his body. “I am already prepared to give the recipe. In order to cook the domain of lightning, I require…” Aznod’s voice shifted, becoming deeper, yet more ethereal. “A storm eel, two deep oysters, and Sorii’s firepowder spice. Everything else, I already have.”
Udona blinked, before chuckling again. “So that’s what you wanted the domain of Optimization for.”
“That’s right, Lady Udona.” Aznod nodded, his divinity receding as he offered a deep bow. “With the three domains of Cooking, Preparation, and Optimization, I can divine the recipe I need to achieve a given effect.”
After cooking his own second domain, Aznod had made a rather disappointing discovery. Unlike the forging process, he would be unable to prepare divinity for others as he had initially hoped. At least, within the same rules as the forging process. This was because his divinity was too deeply ingrained within any dish that he created.
If he were to have someone consume a dish that he prepared in order to unlock their divinity, they would only be able to emerge as a Subordinate Deity of Aznod himself. However, after tapping into his Preparation domain, he had discovered an alternative.
Instead of preparing a blank divinity that the consumer’s body could slowly digest over time, he could craft for them a specific domain in the form of a dish. Each domain would require its own recipe, however. It was only natural that you could not craft a Fire domain with the same ingredients as a Water one.
Thankfully, the act of cooking a domain that he did not possess himself would remove enough of his ‘signature’ in the divinity to allow it to be safely digested by others. At least, that was what his simulations had told him. He had been hesitant to take the final step and deliver a dish thus far simply because he had been waiting for his third domain to be completed.
With his third domain, and the completion of his trinity, he was able to skip the step of conducting days or weeks of research. So long as he knew the effect that he wanted, he could provide the recipe to achieve that effect.
Udona nodded her head, thinking about the materials that he had mentioned. “The spice is easy. The oysters… I’ll ask Bihena if there are any that can be quickly imported. As for a storm eel, let’s see if the market has any in stock.”
“I will leave the matter to you, Lady Udona.” Aznod said politely, offering another bow. “Once the ingredients have been delivered, please let me know. And do tell Mister Song and Mister Phisher that I will be ready to prepare their recipes as soon as they tell me what domains they would like.”
Udona smirked slightly. “I’m half tempted to make you a member of my Holy Knights as well. You definitely fit the criteria.”
Aznod offered that same warm smile. “If that is your wish. Though, while I am not averse to combat, my greatest talent lies within the kitchen.”
“Shame.” The kitsune goddess said lightly. “If you could apply that talent to battle, you might just be one of the strongest combatants in the world.”
Aznod pursed his lips, thinking of something. “Perhaps. I will leave it to your discretion. For now, I will excuse myself. There is something that I wish to attempt.”
Udona looked at him in interest as he turned around, leaving her office. It was not often that Aznod took the initiative to excuse himself, so she was initially wondering if she had upset him somehow. However, a quick look at his stride and expression revealed that he was truly deep in thought about something.
After leaving her office, Aznod moved to his own room. Due to his rank and talent, he had been given quite the large and comfortable room, though Aznod had hardly decorated it during his stay. Aside from the brief periods when he needed to relax his mind, Aznod spent most of his time either in the kitchen or wandering the halls of the castle. Sometimes, when he was particularly bored, he would create an avatar so that he could do both.
Entering the room, Aznod sat down at his desk, finding his personal terminal within one of the drawers and placing it on the desk itself to activate it. He opened a blank page to type, and closed his eyes to take a deep breath. Just as before, his divinity began to shine. “In order to prepare an energy suitable for cooking in a battle, I require…”
His fingers seemed to take on a life of their own as his words fell off, despite his eyes remaining closed. He typed faster than he had ever typed before, writing out four different formulas. Aznod only opened his eyes again once he felt his divinity dim, feeling that the recipe had been fully written.
His eyes scanned over the information provided, humming lightly in thought. “I see… to truly make this energy, I will need to make three component energies. One energy dismantles targets, one prepares ingredients, but this last one…” Aznod had seen a few energies over the years, and his recipe had even included basic descriptions for each that had been provided. That is, each except for one. “Is it merely a catalyst for the final combination?”
Thankfully, none of the energies listed required material components. “I’ll have to ask the Goddess if she can let me borrow the use of a training room.”
“Of course you can.” Udona’s voice spoke up from just over his shoulder, causing Aznod to flinch. He had not noticed her presence as she read over the energy. “So this is what you were thinking so deeply about. If James knew what you just did, he’d probably be staring holes into the back of your head right now.”
“It’s nothing as impressive as you imagine.” Aznod said, clearing his throat and shaking his head. “This energy is deeply related to cooking, so I was able to use the same trinity ability in order to prepare the recipe. If I were to try doing so for an energy unrelated to cooking, I believe that my luck would not hold up nearly as well.”
“Maybe.” Udona agreed with a half-hearted shrug. “However, it’s not often that you see someone come up with the idea for a saint level energy that easily.”
“Saint level?” Aznod asked in confusion, unaware of that energy level.
“Right. It’s a level of energy that can be compared to divinity, or even the void. See, in this third energy, you actually have to open a void path to filter the energy through. And then again in the final product. Aside from James and Chel, I don’t think anyone could casually produce this energy on their own. Though, if you use your three domains, you can probably give yourself an advantage.”
“I certainly hope so.” Aznod said with a small nod. The more Udona talked about the energy that he had written, the more that he was looking forward to seeing it created.
“Either way, you can use the first training room whenever you are ready to make these. My advice would be to start small, practice a bit before you commit to doing it all in one go.”
As Udona said that, she offered a gentle pat to his shoulder, turning around and leaving his room. Only once she was gone did he let out a breath he didn’t realize that he had been holding in. “So, there really is a way for me to utilize my cooking talents in battle.” He muttered to himself. Previously, Aznod had always used the knife skills honed in the kitchen, or his card magic as his primary combat style. If the energy he was looking at truly offered a new alternative, he was more than eager to give it a shot.
Jace chuckled, keeping his eyes closed as he walked down the street. “You don’t have to be so tense.” He said towards the man walking along next to him. “You haven’t seen her in a decade, right?”
“I have.” Keenan’s answer came quietly, surprising Jace. “Sam called me every month for the last couple of years.”
“Eh?” Jace turned his head to regard his friend, eyebrows raised. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Keenan simply shrugged. “We were busy training, and it didn’t seem all that important.”
“Still, it’s a surprise that she called us like this out of nowhere.” Jace muttered, shaking his head as his feet continued bringing him forward. “Given her talent, do you think she already became a god?”
Keenan nodded his head. “Last year, her mother helped her get the materials, and she had her divinity forged. She was really happy because it only took her six months.”
Jace gave a knowing smile as he listened to Keenan talk about his sister. “Nice to see that you care.” If it was the Keenan from when they first met, he would have never given his sister a second thought. No, that wasn’t quite right. If anything, Sammy would have been lucky if Keenan did not use their blood relation as a reason to lash out at her.
“She hasn’t done anything wrong.” Keenan said in his defense, though he knew all too well what Jace meant. Living in society was still not entirely comfortable for him, even after obtaining his godhood and spending these years training. There were times that Jace had to talk him out of simply living in Sanctum, or worse, finding a nice little bubble in the void to mark as his territory. His repeated claim was that felyns were social creatures, and that they couldn’t go too long outside of society like that. Keenan still wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he believed that.
“What do you think she wants, then?” Jace asked curiously, though Keenan shook his head. While his sister had asked for the two of them to visit, she had been quite mum on the details as to why. Jace was concerned that something had happened to her mother when they finally turned the corner, seeing a house at the far end of the road.
Standing outside the house was none other than Sammy herself, as well as her mother. Jace gave a smile as he saw how Sammy had grown, no longer the little girl she had been when they first met. Well, ‘saw’ was relative, given that he never opened his eyes. However, he was still capable of seeing thanks to his own divine properties.
“You made it.” Sam smiled, waving to greet the two boys. While her mother did not have a trace of divinity, Jace could clearly sense the power within Keenan’s sister.
“What’s this about?” Keenan asked, holding his arms out to let Sam run over and give him a hug. Jace’s smile grew wider at that, as it was the first time that Keenan had actively embraced someone in as long as he could remember.
Sam simply hugged him tighter in answer to his question, speaking up in a soft voice. “I found our father…”
