The Grind

—Georges Archambault329

The Grind

Shiv was no stranger to seaweed soup. He'd prepared over ten different variations of the dish in the past. Most had beef chunks or rounded steaks, sliced into smaller pieces before being dipped in the soup. The dried seaweed the Swan-Eating Toad used was sourced from some eastern nation of Integrated Earth. At least that's what Georges claimed. It was far softer and usually dissolved into messy clouds of debris if the water's temperatures spiked too high, too fast. With a fourth of a tablespoon of sea salt, a few cracks of black pepper, perhaps a bit of sesame oil or, circumstantially, soy sauce and minced garlic, the finished meal provided a comforting sensation when imbibed.

Such as why certain people requested the soup when they were sick or when celebrating lonely birthdays for themselves.

Georges had said that when staring at a lonely old swordsman sitting in a booth. Shiv still remembered that Pathbearer. Too many scars on his face, only wisps of hair left over from his badly burned scalp, armor that looked worse than the man's flesh, and an old greatsword with far too many nicks leaning against his table.

If the old swordsman heard Georges back then, he didn't react. It took him far too long to finish that soup, but ultimately Shiv didn't see him leave; he only collected the pieces of mithril left on the table. Like that, the old swordsman was gone like a ghost.

Something told Shiv he was probably long dead now.

Shaking off the haunting memory, Shiv proceeded with his preparations. With the kelp being more durable than he'd expected and the organisms living within the aquatic forest as the weak links for the soup, he adjusted his meal and made it simpler. Creating three different sectors for the aquatic forest and partitioning them by heat was too pointlessly complicated. It likely wouldn't provide any additional flavor or create an elevated experience for the Princess.

Shiv thought.

He tried to imagine her tearing those long ladders of seaweed out from the soil, plucking them free with her teeth and catching a bit of soil in her gums.

And he really could. Echoes from his past continued to linger. He could practically feel the Head Chef shouting beside his ear, pointing out a mistake he'd made: a bit of potato left over, a piece of eggshell dropped in the mix. Mistakes demanded consequences and corrections; mistakes were made when desperate fools with no plans at all tried to make something happen with sheer passion and stupidity, or they were born of a perfectionist who thought they could account for every little detail—especially the stupidity of the clients.

Ultimately, stupidity was the unifying problem here, and Shiv could only control one person's stupidity: his own.

The moment he voiced that problem to himself, he began feeling the grind take hold. And that caused his Sage of the Enkindled Heart to react.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart:

A flicker of mental burnout kindled as Shiv tried to solve his problem.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart:

The mention of his great adversary made Shiv grind his teeth together.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart:

The cold truth offered by the Psychology Skill felt like a lethargic venom creeping through Shiv's body. He didn't want to do this. He reflexively wanted to act to try and make things simpler—the soup would taste fine with the life forms anyway.

But he couldn't accept "just fine." He didn't do things to be mediocre. He did things to find the borders and go beyond them. If unspeakable agony didn't dissuade him from being a warrior, then a little mental strain wouldn't turn him away from acting as a proper chef.

The first thing he did was form a simple shell. It manifested around him as a golden anchor pinning the flow of time. While he did that, the crushing presence emanating from the Princess's pocket watch ground at him, chipping away at his Chronomancy field. It wasn't even near him, but he could feel the beams of passive mana slice upon his magics. He wouldn't get a whole chunk of allotted time. He needed to make do with what he had.

Shiv started moving again. He used his Atlas to detect all the lifeforms within the aquatic forest, then began plucking them into the grasp of his Biomancy. Healing their wounds all at once induced massive strain, but it was necessary. He needed them prepared separately—properly preserved too, since he wanted this to be done right. What followed was a mad sprint across the bowl. Shiv exploded from point to point, causing brutal turbulence within the waters. The waves he cast and the gaps he created from sheer velocity alone were tremendous. Thankfully, he was doing things via his Severed Shadow, and the disturbance that came was far diminished compared to the kinetic bomb that was his physical form. Every few minutes, when the temperature dropped and the boil threatened to stop, he'd swap places between his two bodies to keep the ecosystem simmering.

His mind went vacant as his duties took hold. He shot from one place to another, cutting through certain stalks of kelp along the way. The damage was contained and acceptable. He would have to dice them anyway. But another imperfection he needed to accept was the fact that he wouldn't be able to secure all the fish or the jelly crabs. There were simply too many, and he didn't have the luxury of time to hunt each and every one. By now, he'd been working for half an hour or more. It was hard to tell without a clock, and the Princess was to finish with her pre-appetizers before the end of the day.

Shiv reminded himself. That left a sour taste in his mouth and an ugly feeling in his chest. But he refused to let demoralization take hold. This might not be a great meal, but he could still make sure it was a good one.

He didn't know how long he shot to and fro through the aquatic forest, but by the time he surfaced, it must have been hours, as the Bread-Knights had gone missing and the Princess was distracted with something else. She was shoving her mouth full of a massive, dripping blueberry pancake, so wide that it would have dwarfed an entire town—and not even a small one like Blackedge.

With his great customer distracted, Shiv decided he would rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission as he made use of an empty cup. An incredible strain afflicted his Biomancy, but he managed to drop the vast amounts of flopping fish and jelly crabs into the glass container. A loud clattering noise followed, but the Princess didn't notice. Shiv, meanwhile, took a moment to right himself.

Once more, he dove back into the aquatic forest and swapped his physical body into position. A near minute later, his Severed Shadow exploded out from the surface again to deal with his fish and crab problem.

Shiv looked at the small mountain of seafood he had piled up inside the cup and sighed. “System, what am I supposed to do with all of you? How do I get you prepared without ruining you?”

Once more, he triggered his Chronomancy to buy himself more time for thought. His brain was tired, but Shiv cleaved his way through the dense fog and forced himself to consider all possibilities. Pyromancy had been eliminated. He couldn't simply vibrate the creatures until they were well-cooked. He didn't have that kind of control or Awareness, even though his Shapeless Tides were practically surgical compared to a monster's Physicality. Frankly, there were a lot of other things that needed to be done too. He needed to prepare the fish, peel their skins, expose their inside, remove the filth, gut them properly. The jelly crabs also needed to be—

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A thought wormed its way into Shiv's head. A strange one.

That stopped him dead altogether. He wished Georges was here to tell him what to do. In fact, he was lost without Georges in some way. Shiv hadn't felt helpless after he was dropped in the Abyss, but he'd truly believed that reuniting with Georges would only be a matter of time back then. Now, even though all his years of experience, all his maniac energy, and the Skill Evolutions he'd gained through struggle had accelerated his cooking dramatically, he felt lost. Just like Jessica could pick him apart as a fighter, Georges would have dismantled Shiv as a chef.

An uncharacteristic despair washed over Shiv. He wasn't going to give up, but he didn't think he had a strategy to achieve what he wanted. The aquatic forest was too big. Shiv's skills were too limited. His understanding and his initial concept were unstable. This might not even be a good soup anymore. It might just be . At best.

With that realization came another echo from his past.

Georges had scoffed at Shiv’s egg and tomato mix. The Omenborn child he'd been had thought he'd made something special with that, that he would finally get a nod of appreciation or some form of affection from the bitter-faced Head Chef.

That didn't happen. What he'd gotten was worse than criticism. It was near apathy—indifference.

Shiv hadn't known why at the time, but part of him had wanted to curl into a ball, while the rest of him had struggled not to resign in disgrace.

And as always, Georges had read what Shiv was feeling from his face and tore into his stupid commis.

Shiv had murmured at the time.

The Head Chef's eyes had rolled in response.

But for the first time in Shiv’s life, Georges’ expression had softened as he spoke those words.

Somehow, that did make Shiv feel better.

Back in the present, Shiv didn't feel so ground down anymore. “Thanks, Chef.”

But there was no one to wave him off, no one to reply.

Georges wasn't just distant.

Georges was dead.

Shiv remained. And Shiv breathed out. “Alright. Let's make of this what we can. Go for mediocre.”

He let his chef's instincts guide him. The first thing he did was prepare the fish. He flayed them, removed the nasty stuff inside them, plucked their flesh free from their bones, and cast those needle-thin bits free in a large pile on the table. At least it was a large pile to him; he doubted the Princess would even notice. Not until the Fae started cleaning things up after that did he knead the fish flesh into massive balls. They were glistening white and unprepared, but soon he would see one burned to test its heat tolerance.

A pounding ache speared at his head. His Bifurcated Processing and his weary Biomancy were working in tandem; however, the latter was recovering fast now that he had offloaded all the biological constructs stored within his Aegis. He gave himself an added moment of respite as he returned to the aquatic forest and kept it boiling once more. When he returned, he was enthused with an experimental vigour. He plucked the first of the fish balls and dipped it into the surface of the soup. It burned in half a second, turning charred black from the heat. Then he experimented. He coated the fish balls with the crab exoskeletons. He didn't even think much about it. All he knew was that he needed insulation, and he didn't have any means of fixing the damage, other than using his Biomancy to rip the harm away. But doing that ruined the flavor; he needed a more effective solution.

Stuffing the fish balls with jellied flesh and sticking them both within the crab crusts granted some protection. When he dipped them back inside the boiling waters, he observed the burn with his Atlas and counted the seconds. It took twenty for it to fully char, fifteen for the taste to be burned out, and ten before the flavor got butchered. Naturally, he added more pieces to the exoskeleton, and with that, the time he got went up exponentially. However, it took longer to heat up the insides as well, and eventually the heat just couldn't reach the core where the jelly was, leaving cold bits of tissue lingering inside a partially cooked spheroid of meat.

And he knew that. He could see The Chef Unwavering’s glow dimming slightly. The texture and satisfaction would be reduced, but it could still work.

“Princess!" Shiv called out with all his might.

His voice carried across the table, and Plum Blossom casually tore the colossal pancake she was holding in both hands in half to smile at him. Her face was a mess of glistening syrup and smeared berries.

“I'm gonna ask if you have some salt, a bit of black pepper, some sesame oil, soy sauce, and minced garlic.”

Her smile somehow grew even wider. The way her lips curved defied a human's musculature, becoming inverted arcs that pointed downward. Reaching out with a single hand, she drew a series of condiments into her hand from somewhere Shiv couldn't see, and they hovered over Shiv like ominous mountains, mainly because they were just as big. The ingredients he'd requested were stored within containers and bottles. The Deathless almost swallowed as he was entirely engulfed. “Oh, thank—”

Plum Blossom sang, and then she dropped them all on him.

Legendary Physicality allowed Pathbearers to do incredible things, overcome impossible odds. Shiv could crush a town, could bear the weight of a city on his back, and pitch a monster the size of a Tarrasque over the horizon.

Spending all his overflow tides barely allowed him to catch the plunging condiments.

Things were pretty different in the Fairwoods.

Even so, he managed to catch them before they crashed down. Though it made his body shake and caused him to crack a molar from clenching his teeth, Shiv dragged a truly immense load of weight that would have crushed a portion of the Republic’s seaboard between his shaking hands. And then, almost to his own disbelief, he somehow managed to apply the proper doses to his meat.

Moulding the colossal ball of fish in jelly crab flesh pushed Shiv's Biomancy hard. He was also starting to suffer waking fever dreams as his Bifurcated Processing was driven to the brink. Guided by his Cooking Skill, he applied the salt first, shaking the huge, towering bottle over his shoulders gently and wrapping every colossal droplet of salt into the enormous orb of meat.

Then he had to do the soy sauce, the black pepper, which took a considerable amount of twisting and a brief rest before he had enough overflow tides—a bit of sesame oil after that, and finally a few thousand tons of minced garlic.

The sheer exertion that the task demanded of him made minutes seem like hours, and he already worked for hours, regardless. By the end, he was bone tired, on the level he had felt since he was still a Master. Every part of him ached; his mind, most of all. But he still wasn't done. He still needed to encase all that stuff in a layer of exoskeletal protection.

By now, the aquatic forest had gone cold again. It was stupid heating it up so early, but winning that bet was a pleasurable thing regardless. Heating it again took a might Shiv didn't know he still had—but it was an effort he managed, even if he briefly cramped up in the water toward the end. As the bowl of soup was bubbling with scalding water once more, Shiv hugged his new crab-crusted fish jelly meatball into the midst as he began tearing through the kelp forest. The final part of his misadventure lasted approximately three hours longer. It was a series of careful temperature adjustments and a final attempt at deforestation—with a bit more flavoring applied via the humongous bottle of salt directly into the water itself.

By the end, Shiv didn't shoot out of the water. No, he crawled. He barely clambered over the edge, and he didn't even have the strength to fling himself through the air anymore. Instead, he fell, crashing against the ground as he heaved for breath. He gave himself three seconds, recovered enough of his innate tides to move again, and then plucked himself up into the air once more to call out for the Princess.

“Plum Blossom?” His voice was hoarse, his lungs were sore—had been worked hard as he groaned and growled his way through the labor. “Princess, it's done. I managed… I managed…” He couldn't even finish his sentence. It was hard to think; it was hard to move. It was hard to stay suspended in mid-air.

A titanic shadow spilled over him. Two sets of gleaming bright eyes glittered like stars. She nudged him with something and nearly swatted him out of the air. He thought it was her finger, but he wasn't sure and didn't care.

As he briefly closed his eyes, he worried that unconsciousness might sneak up on him. Instead, his mind whirled, thinking of everything he'd just gone through, recounting his mistakes.

And that was something he couldn't take away from himself. He did get things done. He did finish the soup. He did tackle a meal that was large enough to feed a small nation. Maybe for a decade. Despite it all, regardless of his mistakes, Shiv doubted there were many Legendary Pathbearers who could do what he'd just done, and practically no chefs that might be able to match his feat back on Integrated Earth.

“Might not be the… best thing I’ve made, but I think this is… going down in my legend for effort alone…”

Forcing his eyes open was a struggle, but he managed it. And he did it just in time to see Plum Blossom dunking the contents of the entire bowl down her throat in less than a half second. There was barely a slurp before she was done. Suddenly, the emptied basin of soup slammed down behind him—and Shiv gawked as he realized she ate the fucking soil too.

“Broken… felling Moon…”

The Princess, meanwhile, barely looked phased and briefly smacked her lips together. Her eyes rolled to the left and the right. Then, her lips curved into a frown.

And despite that middling review, the Deathless let out a near-whimper of victory. “I’ll… I’ll take average. This time. You… still planning on eating me?”

the Princess said, clapping her fingers together. A shockwave shook the world.

“Well. You’re going to do it anyway, so…” Shiv swallowed. He was so spent it was hard to think. “Hey, listen, I’m going to try to drive my physical body down your throat and blow you up. You mind if I make an attempt?”

“You too, thanks,” Shiv slurred. And with that, he burned the last of his strength as he pitched his physical body at the Princess with full force. Her mouth opened wide in a mountain-range-swallowing black maw. His Severed Shadow settled into a silhouette-like state, and what followed became hard to remember for Shiv as he found himself accelerated by the dragging winds of her inhale and slammed against her pendulous uvula before he discharged his Inertial Overdrive.

The Chef Unwavering 82 > 98

Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides 523 > 530

Inertial Overdrive 281 > 290

Aegis of Assimilation 140 > 145

Atlas of the Flesh Scryer 128 > 130

Bifurcated Processing 89 > 100 (Skill Evolution Imminent)