Mint Chocolate Makeover in the Tower of Winds
While the three special class undergrads from the old school building were busy plotting their assault on the Tower of Earth,
"Ugh."
I'd ended up entering not the Tower of Earth they'd resolved to conquer somehow, but the Tower of Wind.
The moment I opened the door, sheer cliffs and mountains loomed before us. It was like getting stranded smack in the middle of the Himalayas—the entrance to the Tower of Wind's first floor opened onto a ridiculously perilous spot.
"Heave-ho."
Kim Penril, who'd been riding on my shoulders, hopped down from my head and planted her feet on the ground. The instant she did, I sensed a ripple of mana spreading out from beneath her soles.
"As expected, we can intervene with the magic here, huh?"
Kim Penril tapped the ground lightly with her foot. The moment she channeled a bit of mana downward, wind mana surged up from the earth, and a single white flower bloomed.
It was, perhaps predictably, a mint choco-scented one—
"Hold up. Not peppermint?"
"Since it's gonna give off a scent anyway, I went with mint choco, nyang."
"The kids'll get the wrong idea."
I reached out toward the flower Kim Penril had bloomed and adjusted its mana.
"Whatcha doing, nyang?"
"Gotta make it right."
Crack, crunch.
The petals shifted from their goofy wildflower shape into something more harmonious and refined.
"Here, give it a taste."
I plucked the flower and handed it to her. Kim Penril cautiously accepted the white blossom and crunched into one petal with a crisp crack.
"...Oh!"
Her ears and tail shot straight up in shock.
"How'd you do that, nyang?!"
"Chocolate sculpting and sugar crafting."
Mana shaped like a blossom. Forming desserts from foods in my memories was child's play, just like making mana bread. Especially since I'd crafted them myself before.
It might be too specific to explain to Penril, but in my past life, I'd done every damn thing in the industry to make a buck. Game food replication—in some Aztec-like world, I'd gotten famous enough pre-YouTube era for a cookbook recreating that world's dishes. In the Breadcademy world, I'd whipped up all sorts of stuff.
And it wasn't limited to breads or preset dishes from the [Cook] command.
For instance, the [Moonflower] Kim Penril was munching on right now? A chocolate cake molded into moonflower petals.
The mint choco flavor was a treat for her. And at the same time, a stepping stone to "remodel" this first floor of the Tower of Wind, so to speak.
"Kim Penril."
"Yeah?"
"How about we turn every moonflower here into chocolate?"
"Brilliant idea, nyang."
Kim Penril swallowed the last of her mint choco moonflower chocolate and scanned the cliffside.
"Leave the mana-formed terrain as-is, but swap out the moonflowers—the tools we need to collect on this floor—for mana versions, right?"
"Exactly."
I'd missed the chance to scope it out properly in the Tower of Earth since it spat us right back out, but each floor had a "mission."
Tower of Earth: Eliminate 400 A-rank mana beasts. Basically, spam AoE and sweep 'em.
But this floor's task was different. Because 500 years ago, the Four Founders hadn't just gotten missions to massacre beasts or AoE-farm them.
"See that over there?"
"The one blooming on the cliff?"
"Yeah. Looks just like a moonflower."
A single white flower blooming on the cliff below us, like a sheer chasm.
"Just pluck it, nyang?"
"Pluck? Nah, we gotta chop it down."
"...Aha."
At my "attack" order, Kim Penril leaped straight off the cliff.
Thud—whoosh.
Not quite. She was scaling the cliff perfectly.
Not falling via gravity or floating down with levitation magic—she was sprinting down the near-vertical face, ignoring physics like it was flat ground.
And the moment she hit her target—
Slash!
As ordered, she swung her sword at the target moonflower and lopped it clean off.
"That do it—"
She turned to look back at me, but then she saw it.
"Whoa, didn't expect to run into these guys here."
[KIIIIIAAAAK!!]
A horrific screech echoed out.
A woman's scream, a wail of agony—it burst from the severed flower.
[[[KIIIIIAAAAK!!]]]
The entire cliffside amplified it like surround sound.
This was a mental world, but without pre-emptively shielding my eardrums with mana, the sheer vibration might've ruptured them.
"......"
Kim Penril, sword jammed into the cliff and dangling there, looked seriously pissed. She planted both feet on the blade in one fluid motion and beckoned me urgently.
"Hm."
No third wheel. No flying Mont Blanc. Even if someone was watching, no one but Penril would spot me, so I summoned my "true mana" for the first time in ages.
Fwoosh.
Flames of mana erupted behind me.
Felt like sliding into the driver's seat of a car I'd neglected forever, but the moment I revved the mana like turning the key, my body remembered instantly.
Flap.
I spread wings of flame and descended slowly toward the cliff base.
"What's up? Something sour your mood?"
"This is the 'Trial of Wind,' nyang?"
Kim Penril folded her cat ears flat against her head and shoved her hand into whatever was screaming below the moonflower she'd sliced.
Squelch.
The shriek cut off.
Something came out in her grip.
"Why's there a mandrake planted on a cliff, and why's this shaped like a moonflower?"
"Guess that's how it was 500 years ago."
"Hah, for real."
The moonflower—decapitated mandrake—gaped its mouth wide in death.
It'd been howling in agony since its head came off, but once Penril's claws pierced its torso, it finally kicked the bucket.
"In reality, you'd have to climb all the way up here the hard way, but if you know the trick..."
Squelch.
I plunged my hand into the mandrake's torso and yanked out the orb inside.
"...you can snag at least an A-rank core."
"These still exist, nyang?"
"Who knows. Guess we'll find out if we check it out."
I pointed to the sheer cliff region.
"The Four Founders came and went 500 years ago, but if mandrakes are still rooted here..."
"This a real place we can actually go to?"
"Probably."
Kim Penril shook the mandrake's torso—what'd be the roots on a plant. Sure, mana beast cores were valuable, but mandrake roots were premium alchemy ingredients beyond just the mana conduits.
And those moonflowers? Infestations of 'em blanketed the cliffs.
If we pinned down the real-world spot, harvesting just ten roots here could net hundreds of billions in profit.
"Hmm..."
"What?"
"How're we remodeling this?"
Kim Penril tapped the cliff lightly with her foot.
"Shouldn't we match the difficulty to the Tower of Earth's first floor at least, nyang? With flight magic or cliff-scaling skills, this seems kinda easy to clear, nyang?"
"Not for us."
I pointed at myself and Penril in turn.
"Think the mandrakes are blooming here for no reason? They've got guardians."
I grabbed Kim Penril's waist and leaped off the cliff toward the base.
We passed through a zone of thick fog, descending further.
Physical interference was off-limits, and right now, Penril and I were like "spirit bodies"—undetectable to them.
"Whoa."
The moment we cleared the fog, Kim Penril gasped.
"They're still alive, nyang?!"
"They were, 500 years ago."
Below the fog.
On land jutting from the cliff, a horde lived in a village like some ancient primitive tribe.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of beings slumbered around huts woven from branches and thatched with feathers and hides.
They hadn't stirred despite the mandrake racket because Penril and I had entered in a state akin to "developer mode."
The moment our innate angelic power—lingering even in spirit form—got detected, they'd wake.
"Annoying as hell, but shall we make some?"
I tuned my mana.
With Kim Penril's help, I crafted a mana afterimage mimicking angelic power to the max, drawing aggro.
Twitch.
Hundreds sleeping stirred, heads snapping up in unison.
They spread massive wings, eyes gleaming like raptors', beaks gaping as they turned toward us one by one.
"Join tribe."
Eagle-headed, feathered bodies, wings on their backs—but still.
"Not like modern Join tribe at all."
"...Yeah, no."
Kim Penril rubbed her face.
"Roughly like this, nyang?"
"Ditch the cat face. Make it wolf."
"Eek."
Kim Penril, whose fairy traits were about 90% cat, reverted to normal. I molded mana based on the angelic mimicry.
SKREEEEEE!!
A mana beast with blazing red flame wings—spanning nearly 30 meters—radiated angelic-like mana.
The Join tribe scrambled up, flapping wings frantically.
"Join tribe from 500 years ago. Historians would flip."
Like Rydmila seeing a 500-year-old ancestor with a rabbit face.
In 500 years of "peace," humanity screamed "infinite potential!"
And over those 500 peaceful years, Join blood mixed into humanity, diluting toward human dominance.
"The Founders had no clue. That the tribe they fought tooth and nail against now lays eggs with humans—and some minorities are even born with back wings."
I'll tell 'em. Humanity's potential is boundless.
"Founders'd hate that."
"Whatcha gonna do? Their descendants did it."
Now then.
"Let's turn 'em into the Mint Choco Guard Squad."
Protectors of the mint choco flowers.
"With some proper balance patches."
The trial shall be normalized.