Chapter 68: Book 2 Chapter 22 – Celebration and Crafting

Jake was hard at work: cooking. The whole Hart family was, in fact. Ophelia was roasting a wyvern flank, her mouth drooling as she basted it with oil and Jake’s seasoning, and watching the meat cook. Fhesiah was helping Bloodberri cut vegetables and general preparations, while Bloodberri prepared some sides for the upcoming meal.

Jake was preparing the girls and his favorites. Hot magical air was gathered and condensed around the food in the magic butter-filled pan, as it was heated and magically fried to perfection, using his magic oven of his design. Jake had gotten the idea from the air fryers and convection ovens of Earth, and the magical fire and condensed air along with fantasy materials really created for some delicious results, and in such a short time allowed Jake to prepare many foods.

He made sweet potato fries, potato chips, mozzarella sticks, hot giant-chicken wings, and home-made pizza rolls. All using premium fantasy ingredients, containing mana. The magical cow’s milk that went into the butters and cheeses brimmed with vitality, and made the flavors really explode. Jake wryly smiled at the idea that this normally artery-clogging, weight gaining meal would actually be good for you. Not that these girls had anything to worry about regarding that, their training and efforts burning thousands and thousands of calories.

He included several home-made dipping sauces. Bloodberri and Fhesiah finished their jalapeno cornbread and chili, along with a hearty chef’s salad. Ophelia cut the roasted flank into steaks, and the meal was completed. A veritable buffet now lay in front of them, and Jake also splurged on making some alcoholic beverages: strawberry margaritas. They would need to disable the purifying flames ability they all had, but could still use it to more or less set their level of buzz.

Jake started grabbing some food, but froze when he realized Ophelia had grabbed nothing.

“What’s the matter, Ophelia? Why aren’t you digging in?” 

Ophelia said, “It’s just, there’s so many good things to eat, it’s hard to choose.”

Jake was confused. “I thought you can nearly eat as much as you want, though? You can just have some of everything. I’m probably the only one who can only have a bit of each and will have to choose.”

Ophelia shook her head; Jake just didn’t get it. Perhaps, as a man, he couldn’t. Ophelia said, “That’s not it. Well, it’s hard to explain… If I have too much of one thing, I won’t be able to have how much I want of another.”

Jake was still confused and thought about how he could break this awkward situation. She’d probably get over it and eat eventually, but perhaps she wouldn’t enjoy it as much as he hoped. The wide array of delicious foods had placed her into some sort of decision paralysis, he guessed. Jake thought he had an idea.

“I made those potato chips with some mana infused peanut oil with you in mind, I thought they came out extra crispy. You should start with those.”

Ophelia smiled and reached out for some, taking bites and crunching on them happily.

“Fhesiah, your favorite was the spicy chicken wings, wasn’t it? I made them this time with crystalized pepper flakes, and the chicken is a special kind, raised and cared for with much attention, like the wagyu beef of Earth I told you about. What do you think?”

“They’re spicy as I like them, husband. These are your best ones yet; the outside is both spicy and crispy. The insides, which there are a lot of, are juicy and full of flavor. Somehow, knowing that they were pampered to be slaughtered for my consumption makes them taste even better.”

Bloodberri had grabbed the large wyvern flank that had the steaks cut out of it and began eating right away.

The table was all smiles and enjoyment after that, each having a little bit too much to eat and drink, even for them. They had ice cream that Jake had pre-made for dessert, and the table got noisier as they had more to drink. They moved on to the next activity Jake had prepared to celebrate: karaoke.

The girls had expressed interest previously, otherwise Jake would never be the one to bring it up. He figured they could go wild and enjoy themselves, and he would at the very least enjoy watching them. They certainly had the right number of drinks in them to make it fun, that was for sure.

Fhesiah said, “Don’t be silly, husband. Of course, you should sing with us, too. Ophelia very much would like her husband to serenade her.”

Jake looked over to Ophelia in question and realized Fhesiah was right, and even Berri looked at him with upturned eyes.

Jake groaned but realized it was a small price to pay to make them all happy. He didn’t have any songs he particularly wanted to sing, so he went ahead and sang sappy love songs for each of the girls. He did his best to add his feelings, but in the end, he just wasn’t very good.

The girls laughed but rewarded him with kisses, and they went on to sing their own songs.

Ophelia sang, and he thought her voice was quite good, perhaps being a valkyrie thing. But the song…

“My heart will go on and on…”

Jake did his best to keep his cringe internal as the girls and him clapped.

“Jake, what is it? Was I bad? I am not that used to singing…”

Jake sighed. He would have felt the same way if she had the most beautiful voice in the multiverse, probably. Perhaps he shouldn’t look down on the multiverse, but that song was just ruined for him.

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“It’s not you, it’s me, Ophelia. I’m sorry, you did about as good as could be done with that one.”

Ophelia was confused, but they moved on and sang “I Will Survive,” and “Holding Out For A Hero” to which Jake was able to give a much more enthusiastic response. Fhesiah and Bloodberri discovered Kati Perry and sang their hearts out, singing “Roar” together and fun was had by all as the drinks flowed and they continued snacking on the many prepared foods. They switched to a movie when they had enough, and stayed up so late they all fell asleep on the couch, or next to it, in the case of Bloodberri.

Jake was the first to wake up, and he went about cleaning up the mess as he thought about the things he needed to do. At the forefront of his mind though was: Bloodberri. She had been patient, and her desire for Jake was so high that it made him feel bad for denying her. Even knowing that Jake wasn’t ready for children, she still wanted to ‘mate’ with Jake.

Jake felt like Berri now understood empathy, or had just moved on from her apathy and was less of a monster in her heart, making it easy for Jake to return her love. Blood was working on it, but just because Blood wasn’t quite where Berri was didn’t mean he should deny Berri, he thought. He sighed: this was just too complicated for Jake. Still, he wouldn’t have it any other way. They all had so much fun last night that Jake couldn’t help but look forward to the next time.

Really, there was nothing stopping them from being able to do such a thing on most days, thanks to their supernatural constitutions. They would continue a good balance of enjoyment and working hard, going forward.

Jake had a lot to do, but he would plan a date for Bloodberri as he did for Ophelia. It would be tough being limited to the Refuge once again, but he knew the girl, girls? They would both find it special just because Jake was focusing on them the whole time. Jake also knew Bloodberri wasn’t really interested in the traditional date, so that worked just fine for him.

The girls began to stir, all with somewhat tired smiles on their faces as they remembered the events of the evening. Jake took out some pre-made food for breakfast, along with a fruit drink, to get them moving for the day. They would do their training, and then Jake would do some preparations for the day, both for crafting and some preparations for Bloodberri’s date, planned for tomorrow. He told the girls as much, and Bloodberri was very excited, giving Jake a hug and a kiss hearing the news.

They focused on their training, and Jake had some goals in mind for what he wanted to achieve for himself. But Ophelia had other plans. She beat him into shape, and Jake thought he had a long way to go to get his shield and spear technique to where she’d be satisfied. They started working extra without his shield, too, as she was more than aware that his shield had been wrenched away in the previous fight.

Bloodberri and Ophelia would focus on making a set of armor for Ophelia and Fhesiah to upgrade and match Jake and Bloodberri’s new armor quality as best as they could. They could hope to create a new weapon for Bloodberri, a slightly longer spear staff that was meant to be used two-handed for Ophelia and improve the quality of Fhesiah’s fan as well. Jake also needed a higher-quality shield.

This was too much work for the almost two weeks they had on route perhaps, but they would do their best to make it. They now had tons of monster materials, and they could fill in the gaps with CP or purchases on the market.

Jake was now focused on jewelry. This had a dual purpose for tomorrow. Bloodberri’s reaction to the earrings was so large that he just knew it would be a big deal for her to be presented with it first. Jake had thought long and hard about what was missing from their equipment and compared what kind of enchantments would work on jewelry. Meaningful protection from jewelry was somewhat of a challenge, as it’s not like a ring could help with blocking a blow from a mace or a dagger, without some major ingenuity.

But Jake had gotten an idea from the energy reservoir on his armor. He could add a meaningful reservoir in one piece of jewelry that was large enough: the necklace for Bloodberri’s massive chest. The same jewel wouldn’t work for Fhesiah and Ophelia being too large to fit in armor afterwards being the size of a softball, so Bloodberri would just have to be first, or just have one slightly better, for now.

He purchased a jewel for this purpose and thought it was a shame that the jewel would not be visible. It just didn’t match the personalized item that he wanted to make, a blue sapphire. The strange red gem that gleamed like golden flames were frozen inside and used in his armor was simply not available, or completely outside of their price range.

Jake carved runes on a much smaller gemstone as a test, doing his best to replicate the effect of a reservoir. The tiny gemstone only barely fit the runes he intended to use, and he sighed with relief when it stored a small amount of mana. He repeated the process on the much larger gemstone and inlaid it in a metal contraption, a sort of jewel clasp with runes of its own.

Something he needed Ophelia’s help for would then surround this contraption. He would have loved to keep this a surprise for each of the girls, but she would have to help him forge both his and her necklace in the future. Jake and Ophelia worked on the necklace together, forging several fantasy materials into a heart that encompassed the jewel, but covered both it and the jewel housing contraption completely.  

The heart had two halves: one black, and one white. They had formed an alloy out of mithril and white gold, and mithril and black gold. Jake was satisfied with how the colors had turned out, and the much larger two-toned heart encompassed a red-gold heart, meant to symbolize Jake’s. On the outside, he added a crystal blue heart, and a red heart, meant to represent Ophelia and Fhesiah’s hearts. Jake added the final runes to the enchantment on the heart. This stretched Jake’s knowledge of runes to the maximum. It just barely fit the final enchantment.

The jewel had a reservoir that filled itself with the mana in the environment. The contraption had the ability to monitor the user’s life and trigger the enchantment on the heart if they were in danger. The heart would create a runic barrier and heal the user, hopefully, enough to protect their life when combined with the barrier.

Jake then used his advanced enchanting to add the system-assisted enchantment of increasing the user’s constitution slightly and used a durable mithril-gold chain enchanted with system-assisted durability for the necklace portion, Jake being unable to inscribe such a thin thing with runes, at least not yet.

 

Jake was surprised he managed to make an Epic Grade item, but figured it mostly had to do with the high-quality materials and enchantments, really pushing the limits of the near-peak T1 materials. Jake guessed that normally such success would be near impossible without having level 5 of [Advanced Enchanting], but his high attributes combined with his high mana control, using the mana of his hearth, and even using his [Improvisation] subskill to merge the three pieces into a single one made this all possible.

Jake was glad that he was able to finish before the evening. They wrapped up all their training and crafting and had dinner. They played some board games in the evening, that Jake picked up on the multiverse market, and it was Ophelia’s night, so he ended the evening in her feathery embrace.

Jake made his final preparations for their date after they did their normal training and breakfast routine. Once again, he had planned some things that might be a little different from what most people would consider for a date with a girl, let alone a ‘first’ one, but he thought she would enjoy it.

Jake got dressed, and instead of flowers in a vase like he had done for Ophelia, he had different gifts that he thought she might enjoy, holding them within his storage bracelet. Jake wryly smiled at the fact that at least this time, the one filling Berri’s head with crazy ideas might only be in her own mind. Fhesiah wasn’t giving her a talk when Jake arrived at Bloodberri’s door.

He knocked on her door, and when she opened it, he couldn’t help but be taken aback; she looked stunning.

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