Ren rose before the sun.
The forest was still half-shadowed in blue mist, and the only sounds were birdsong and the quiet crackle of last night’s fire. He slipped from his bedroll without waking the others, strapped on his foraging pouch and knife, and stepped out into the trees.
The deeper they traveled, the more alive the forest felt. The air shimmered faintly, as if the mana here had weight. Roots glowed gently underfoot. Leaves swayed in rhythms that didn’t quite match the breeze.
He’d cooked with mana-rich ingredients before—imports, tavern staples, even dungeon runoff vegetables that Maela had scowled at before allowing. But none of those had been wild. Untouched. Unnamed.
Here, there were no labels. No clean storeroom shelves. No “safe for use” tags.
Here, it was just instinct and skill.
“Tallen?” he whispered, barely a murmur.
The forager materialized from the undergrowth like a summoned spirit. She’d been up longer than him, most likely.
“You’re going out?”
Ren nodded. “I want to test some local ingredients. I figured you could keep me from poisoning myself.”
Tallen snorted. “That’s the goal, yeah. But no guarantees.”
____________
They walked in companionable silence for a time, weaving through strange trees and stone-crusted brush. Tallen pointed things out as they moved.
“That’s whisperbark,” she said, nodding to a silvery tree whose trunk looked like braided reeds. “Crack the bark and it lets off a smell that drives off most insects. Don’t eat it, though—makes your tongue go numb.”
Ren took a sample anyway. Not everything non-edible was useless in a kitchen.
He collected a few things that sparked his attention:
- Starflame pod: Bright red and papery, it fizzed slightly when opened, releasing a tangy citrus scent with a faint pop of heat.
- Bluecap fungus: Pale, dome-shaped, almost translucent. Cold to the touch, with tiny glimmering veins of mana that sparked at his fingertips.
- Orrenroot bulb: Dull brown and gnarled. When sliced, it released a pungent aroma halfway between garlic and iron.
His Flavor Sense flickered every time he picked something up, but the results were unreliable. Too much raw mana, too many unknowns. It gave impressions—“numbing,” “volatile,” “warming”—but nothing close to a full analysis.
He was flying blind…. And he liked it.
________________
They returned to camp by midmorning. The others had just finished their sparring drills, and Kaela was tending a minor scratch with a wince. Garron gave a lazy wave, already flopped by the fire.
“Gonna cook?” he asked.
“Trying to,” Ren replied, setting out a small portable cookstand he’d borrowed from the alchemist’s stockpile. “No guarantees.”
He pulled out a small pan, some neutral oil, salt, and the wild ingredients. No full meal—just controlled tests.
First: starflame pod alone. He roasted it lightly, letting it blister and hiss open. The scent hit immediately—bright, acidic, then a slow bloom of heat that crept down his throat.
Tallen tried a sliver. “Tingles.”
Ren nodded. “Capsaicin-like response, but not damaging. Could be useful in broths.”
Next: orrenroot, sliced thin, pan-seared in oil. The smoke was aggressive, and he backed away, coughing. The taste? Sharp. Numbing. Not unlike Szechuan pepper, but deeper—almost emotional. It lingered in the jaw.
Then he tried bluecap fungus raw, and immediately spat it out.
“Mistake,” he wheezed.
“Too strong?” Tallen asked.
“It’s like licking the inside of a freeze- I mean ice dragon.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Tallen gave him a weird look. “Right….”
He lightly parboiled it next, then pan-seared with just a drop of salt.
This time, the taste shifted—mild umami, a clean aftertaste, and a faint, almost musical echo in his senses.
The skill flared faintly:
Bluecap (Stabilized): Cooling / Mild mana conduction / Umami-rich
Risk level: Low (after heat treatment)
“Better,” he muttered.
Then came the real test.
_________________
He poured water into a small clay pot and added slivers of each ingredient: starflame, orrenroot, bluecap. A few pinches of salt. A dash of tavern broth for balance.
And then, carefully, he infused it.
Fire. Earth. Water. Just a thread of each.
Ren had been practicing mana control daily. Now, with Flavor Sense guiding him, he shaped the mana like heat through a ladle, letting it swirl gently into the mix.
The pot hissed. Bubbles rose. Steam spiraled upward in strange colors.
He stirred.
Tasted.
The flavor shifted three times in one second. First, warmth—bright and sharp. Then grounding—deep and mineral. Then, finally, a cooling wash that left his tongue clean and open.
And then—
[Flavor Sense] has evolved into [Flavor Sense II]
You now perceive subtle mana signatures and interactions in food more clearly.
Effectiveness with complex or volatile ingredients improved.
Caution: Increased sensitivity to unstable or toxic flavor profiles.
Ren froze, eyes wide.
It wasn’t just a stronger skill. It felt different. The way he tasted now—it wasn’t just tongue or nose. It was like sensing the shape of flavor, the temperature of umami, the color of bitterness.
It was—
“Are you okay?” Tallen asked.
He grinned. “I think I just leveled up my tongue.”
He quickly served the stabilized stew to the others.
Garron tried a spoonful and blinked. “That’s...different.
Like stew with an aftershock.”
Kaela narrowed her eyes. “Tastes like something’s hiding in there.”
Ren sipped his own bowl and nodded. The stew still needed work. It was a prototype. But it was his first real success using wild ingredients, unaided by having information about it before-it widened his horizons and also apparently levelled his skills up-he didn't even know that was possible.
He grinned, “Let’s try again.”
____________
Three days passed in steady rhythm: hike, camp, forage, cook. The group moved like practiced parts of a living machine, and though Ren still felt like a new gear in the system, he was no longer an idle one. His mana control had improved—slowly but noticeably. He could now infuse while stirring without needing to stop every few seconds to let it stablise.
Each night, he refined. Each morning, he tasted the difference.
The trees grew sparser as they climbed higher into the hills, and the air shifted—thinner, drier, heavier with the scent of stone and something else… something like ozone.
It was late afternoon when it hit him: the faint flicker in his vision, that weightless ting in the back of his head.
You have reached Level 6
+2 Free Attribute Points awarded
Ren slowed, letting the others get a few paces ahead as he opened his status page.
Ren Saito
Class:Mana Chef (Outsider Variant)
Level: 6
HP: 124
MP: 86
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 10
Perception: 15
Intelligence: 10
Charisma: 8
He hesitated for a moment.
Perception had been his keystone so far, the sense that most directly translated into taste, timing, and mana intuition. He put one point there. Just one. The other, he placed into Intelligence.
Not because he suddenly wanted to become a spellcaster, but because he needed the clarity and he definitely wouldn't say no to a stronger [Mana Pulse].
He closed the screen, let out a slow breath, and caught up with the others.
The trees fell away as the trail crested a ridge. Beyond it, the world dropped suddenly—into a massive stone basin carved from a hillside, shadowed and half-covered in moss. Crags ringed the bowl like ancient claws, and in the center of it all, a gaping, moss-choked stairway descended into blackness.
It was the dungeon.
Kaela’s voice dropped as she whispered, “We’re here.”
Ren didn’t answer. He stepped forward slowly, eyes wide—not with fear, but with awe. The entrance radiated energy. Subtle, but unmistakable. Mana pooled around the threshold like dew around cold metal.
It called to him.
Not to fight, he reminded himself. To taste. To learn.
Tallen stepped beside him, quiet but alert. “Don’t let your curiosity get ahead of your legs, chef. The upper floors are considered stable, but stable doesn’t mean safe.”
Ren gave a short nod. “Understood.”
He tightened the straps on his foraging bag, checked his belt pouches, felt for the weight of his kitchen knife turned survival tool. Everything was in place.
The others lined up behind Garron.
And then, without fanfare, they stepped down together into the dark.