Origin Witch - Mana Soup
Steelwool hooked a clawed foot into the clay pot rim and tried to haul it off the bench. Corinne caught the owl chick by the scruff and set it back, the steam from the small clay pot curling into its ruffled gray feathers.
Beside her, Steelwool was standing on its short gray legs, its steel-like feathers puffed out until it looked like a fat gray ball. Its big round yellow eyes were fixed on the clay pot, its head bobbing up and down in quick jerky motions while its beak let out a continuous low click-click-click.
“This cost me three health potions,” Corinne said.
A minute earlier, a private trade window had popped up on her screen.
[Private Message from: Piper Bell] [Sender Tag: Outcast Trader]
[Piper Bell]: Corinne! I made something! I used those enamel mugs you traded me yesterday, plus some river fish I caught with a basket trap near the creek! I added some Bitter-Grass leaves, Yellow-Tail petals, and those wild tubers I found in the woods! [Piper Bell]: I know you’re super busy brewing, but you haven’t bought any food off the exchange today, so I thought, um, maybe you’d like a hot meal? I swear it’s clean! I washed everything three times in spring water! [Attachment: 1x Clay Pot of Alchemical Fish-Noodle Soup]
Corinne had accepted the trade, sending back two Grade-E Health Potions as payment. She didn’t like taking gifts. Gifts in Sector 666 usually came with strings attached, and strings were things people used to choke you when your back was turned.
She raised her Spectacles of Discernment, looking at the clay pot through the special lenses.
Item Appraised: Silver-Fish & Tuber Noodle Soup (Grade-E-) Ingredients: River Silver-Fish, Wild Potato Starch Noodles, Yellow-Tail Flower Petals, Bitter-Grass Leaves, Yellow-Ring Earthworms (Dried & Ground), Glow-Cap Mushroom Essence. Effect: Restores 1 Mana Point per second for 10 minutes (Total: 600 MP). Restores 2 Health Points per minute for 10 minutes (Total: 20 HP). Note: A remarkably creative culinary alchemical decoction. The cook successfully extracted and stabilized the dormant ether inside raw monster ingredients through slow thermal simmering. Tastes surprisingly savory, though the addition of ground earthworms might disturb unrefined palates.
Corinne froze with her spoon halfway to her mouth.
Six hundred Mana Points.
A single standard Grade-E Mana Potion restored fifty Mana Points in ten seconds. It was a burst tool, something you drank in the middle of a fight when your bar was empty and a monster was leaping at your neck.
But this soup was a continuous passive regen engine. Ten minutes of steady unbroken mana flow, total six hundred points. That was enough to power six full eight-hour brewing batches without needing a single rest period.
“Culinary alchemy,” Corinne whispered, staring at the thick milky-white broth. “The girl didn’t just cook lunch. She made a long-lasting mana battery.”
She looked closer at the ingredients list.
Yellow-Ring Earthworms (Dried & Ground).
Corinne’s lip twitched slightly.
She picked up her wooden spoon, dipped it deep into the cloudy white broth, and pulled up a cluster of thin translucent noodles along with a thick piece of tender fish flesh. Floating right beside the potato noodle was a tiny pale-yellow ring about the size of a rain-drop.
She stared at the yellow ring for three seconds.
“It’s dead,” she muttered to the quiet room. “It’s boiled. It’s salted. And it gives six hundred mana.”
She shoved the spoon into her mouth.
The flavor hit her tongue like a warm explosion.
It wasn’t the dull salty grease of instant hotpot packages, nor was it the sterile metallic bitterness of her own potions. The broth was rich, thick, and deeply savory, infused with the natural sweetness of boiled river fish and the sharp pepper-like kick of cooked Yellow-Tail petals. The potato noodles were chewy, slick with fish oil, absorbing every drop of the spiced broth.
A deep spreading warmth bloomed in her stomach the instant she swallowed.
Mana Points: 15/80… 16/80… 17/80…
The green number on her status display began ticking upward, steady as a clock.
“Holy shit,” Corinne gasped, swallowing a second large spoonful.
Steelwool let out an indignant keek! and hopped straight onto the desk, its sharp black talons clicking against the wood as it tried to shove its round head into the clay pot.
Corinne grabbed the owl chick by the scruff of its neck, lifting its weightless fluffy body off the table.
“I told you no, bird. Go eat your raw wolf meat.”
She pulled a small wooden saucer from her shelf, scooped three pieces of tender white fish flesh and a spoonful of broth into it, and set it down on the floorboards. Steelwool dropped onto the wood instantly, burying its beak in the fish, its tail feathers wiggling with frantic delight.
Corinne leaned back against her mattress, holding the clay pot in both hands, taking small measured sips of the hot broth until the pot was completely empty.
She opened her private messaging thread with Piper Bell.
[Corinne]: The soup works. [Piper Bell]: REALLY?! OMG I WAS SO NERVOUS! Did the taste turn out okay? I was worried the Yellow-Tail petals would make it too bitter! [Corinne]: It tasted good. The mana regen effect lasts for ten minutes. Total 600 MP.
In a small leaf-covered log cabin three miles away, Piper Bell sat up so fast she bumped her head against her low wooden ceiling.
[Piper Bell]: SIX HUNDRED MANA?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! I thought it would just give like, twenty or thirty points! [Corinne]: You used ground Yellow-Ring Earthworms and Glow-Cap mushrooms. The earthworm powder acted as a binding agent for the fish fat, trapping the ether in the soup broth instead of letting it evaporate in the steam. [Piper Bell]: I, I didn’t know that! I just remembered my grandma telling me that adding dried earthworms to chicken soup makes the blood circulate better when you have a cold! [Corinne]: Your grandma was an alchemist without a license.
Corinne set her empty clay pot down on the desk, her fingers tapping a slow rhythmic pattern against the wood.
[Corinne]: Here is my proposal, Piper. [Corinne]: You stop trying to sell raw herbs on the public market. From now on, you cook. I will supply you with raw monster meat from Garrett Thorne, clean Anseic water from my stone well, and all the salt and spices I trade from supply crates. [Corinne]: You supply me with three pots of that soup every day. In exchange, I give you a 20% cut of my daily potion inventory, plus complete immunity to any material price hikes in Sector 666.
Piper stared at her screen, her hands shaking slightly.
A 20% cut of Corinne Mercer’s potion inventory.
Right now, in Sector 666, Corinne’s potions were the undisputed gold standard. Having a guaranteed supply of forty or fifty potions a day meant Piper would be one of the richest safest people in the entire forest. She wouldn’t have to fight wolves. She wouldn’t have to scavenge in the dark. She just had to sit in her cabin and cook soup.
[Piper Bell]: YES! YES YES YES! I accept! I’ll make the next batch tonight! [Corinne]: Keep the earthworm ratio the same. And don’t tell anyone else the recipe. [Piper Bell]: Understood, Boss!
Corinne closed the messaging window.
A deep quiet sense of control settled over her chest.
Her supply chain was fully locked down now. Jasper Finch handled her glass containers and raw iron. Garrett Thorne handled her heavy stone slabs and monster cores. Piper Bell handled her raw herbs and daily mana food.
She wasn’t just a girl hiding in a treehole anymore. She was the central hub of a small ruthless economic engine that was slowly tightening its grip on Sector 666.
Outside her glass sliding door, the sky was turning a dark bruised purple. The evening wind was picking up, rattling the broad leaves of The Spire.
Down in her lower workshop, the three-legged granite array base she had carved earlier sat silently on the stone bench, its dark amber glyphs reflecting the faint moonlight.
Corinne pulled her thin blanket over her shoulders, closed her eyes, and let the warm continuous hum of 600 Mana Points flowing through her veins lull her into a deep dreamless sleep.
— Origin Witch —