Chapter 442: Actual Hi-Tech Cookin
"He's right you know" said Kamiko, when she noticed Kat's slight disbelief. "It's one of the things we're told about if we so much as glance in the direction of learning how to enchant. Demonic enchanting draws first on the energy in the demons nearby which is fine, we put off a lot of extra energy but the problem is when it needs more then that. It starts going after whatever it can, and if it absorbs mana or qi… strange things happen. It's a weakness to our enchantments but not one we've ever been able to fix"
"It's worse than that actually" said Freddy jumping in. "Other kinds of enchantments will just stop working when they run out of energy. Demonic ones won't ever have that problem. They will try and use whatever they can to keep going even as that warps them. That is, until it fails catastrophically."
*Well… that's something I'll make sure to remember. I doubt it'll be an issue but… is there really no way for that sort of thing to be safe? Well, yes keeping it small. I suppose they did tell me that.* "Thanks for the explanation" said Kat
"Well, well, that's fine. It was an easy thing ta give anyway" said Freddy. "Anyway, I don't need to go over this here machine much because I'll be operating it for ya both. The last thing we need to cover is the central island table"
With this, Freddy gestured past them to the central piece of furniture, the kitchen island. It was made up of black stone that almost seemed to suck in the light, with a long glowing blue line right down the centre of it. Branching off from that was a few extra lines on either side separating the bench into a number of rectangles. Underneath all this was normal cupboard doors set into more black stone, though the handles looked to be white marble.
Of course, Kat had a suspicion that the bench wasn't made of stone and the door handles weren't marble either. *Perhaps the bench is magically treated obsidian? That's actually the most believable thing I can think of at the moment.*
"Now now, this is actually a little simpler. In the cupboards ya'll find a large variety of knives as well as a few other necessary utensils like strainers and meat mallets if you need them. The top of the bench is where all of the workmanship is. Oh, before I get to that, you can slam these cupboards as well. No reason to, but they ain't cheap construction I can assure you of that.
"So, the bench here" Freddy said as he tapped the black 'stone' lightly. It let out a very slight humming sound when he did so at the blue lines flashed once. "Will react to what you want from it as best it can. So, for example" Freddy placed his hand on one of the rectangles and summoned a bit of demonic energy into his hand. The black 'stone' glowed and rippled before sinking slightly into the bench.
Once this was done, Freddy dashed through Kat and Kamiko quick as a flash to open up the food transporter and grab out the potatoes before dashing back through the pair. Once back at the bench, he dumped the potatoes into the indent which fit them perfectly. "As you can see, I've now made storage for potatoes. Youi can go one step further though!"
Freddy stepped to the side and spread two arms out across two separate rectangles and pushed more energy into both of them. The one on the right sunk down to match the one on the left, but the one in the middle rose up slightly before it hardened and took on a new texture. Where as the normal stone was smooth and, when Kat felt it, somewhat cool to the touch, allowing one's fingers to glide over it almost like it had been greased. This new surface that Freddy had called forth was somewhat rough.
It wasn't so extreme to be like sandpaper, but it had grip to it. It looked… actually, when Kat looked at it properly it seemed to hold the texture of a plastic cutting board, if likely a sturdier creation then most of those. Freddy then surprised Kat further by picking it up and waving it around before setting it back into its place.
"So now I've set up a basic workstation. Potatoes here," Freddy pointed as he said "then you cut them up on the cutting board here, before finally, you drop your prepared potatoes into the next receptacle and repeat the process."
*Nice. I think we might actually be able to do this. Making the dish doesn't seem to hard, and everything makes a good deal of sense. With Freddy hear to call in the ingredients we should be fine. *
"Well well, now that I've explained everything are you both ready to get started?" asked Freddy
"Yes!" said the demonesses together.
And with that, they were off. Freddy rapidly started to summon in the food as required. For the spices, there seemed to be an extra command in place because he was able to summon most of them in the form needed such as the ground paprika, which was in a small dish that contained about two tablespoons of finely ground spice. The olive oil and passata was the same, and from this, Kat decided to make the meals in standard size and go from there.
The first thing they all got to work on was Kat showing Kamiko how she wanted everything cut so that the other demon would always have something to work on. Kamiko watched, eyes glowing as Kat cut the foods easily. Not only could she tell the knives were excellent even with her limited experience, but Kat was a little surprised at her increased dexterity.
She did still need to slow down time once or twice during the demonstration to keep up with the faster pace she was trying to go at it but that was no real concern. What Kat was surprised at, was that once Kat finished the basic demonstration of how to prepare the ingredients Kamiko absolutely went to town.
Kat's plan had been to make a few sets of ingredients, separate them out, and then get started on the dishes in quick succession so she wouldn't have to stop to prepare more ingredients once they'd started. Kat was underestimating her new friend.
Once Kamiko knew how Kat wanted things cut, she became a real powerhouse. Kamiko's body radiated a faint pink fog, but it was only slight and Kat guessed she was using no more than her regeneration rate to do it.
All the same, Kamiko completed a full set of ingredients in under a minute. She was moving at a blistering speed with precision Kat simply couldn't match, and Kat actually did make an attempt. When Kat was finishing up her third set of ingredients, and Kamiko her seventh, Kat wanted to try and up her game. Kat used her full ability to slow her perception and speed herself up as much as possible… but found herself unable to compete with Kamiko anyway.
Her friend had a seemingly perfect understanding of where to cut, slicing rapidly through the ingredients without stopping. Kamiko used one hand to place the ingredients on the cutting board, her other hand to dice them as required, and then her tail to sweep it all into the storage section before repeating. Kat didn't quite have the trust in herself to do that without relying on her full powers but she could tell without much thought that would drain her far too much.
So instead, as the day got on, they settled into a different routine. Kat would simply deal with the process. Taking ingredients and putting them where they needed to be, which was mostly into the oven, and watching the onions cook. That was a depressingly large amount of their time. She was even helped on that front by Freddy who would watch over his own set of onions and always made sure that when she reached off to the side their was water in the jug for another batch of food.
Once that was done, and the food cooked, someone, usually Freddy would take the 'scalding' hot dish and place it into stasis for some other time. Kamiko made sure to stay on her own side of the bench the whole day, while Kat spent most of it on the other with Freddy. It was simply too hot for Kamiko, even with the enchantments. The continual opening and closing of ovens would not have been comfortable in the slightest for the ice aligned devil.
Thus, the three settled into their routine. They worked mostly in silence, with Kamiko's chopping as the accompanying music. Kamiko was clearly in the zone, a peaceful look on her face as she diced faster than any machine Kat had ever seen. Freddy seemed to be watching everything closely like a hawk, as if missing some small detail of Kat's cooking process would mean he forgot the recipe. And Kat… well, she found that keeping track of a dozen versions of the same dish was really hard, and making sure all the ingredients were added in even harder, especially when those same dishes required things throughout their cooking process.
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