The kitchen of the Hearthline Guild became a whirlwind of disciplined, focused activity.
There was no recipe for what they were making. No ancient text or culinary school lesson could have possibly prepared them for this. The recipe existed only in Izen's head, improvised on the spot from the chaotic symphony of salvaged ingredients.
"Elara, take the bread crusts," Izen commanded, his voice calm and clear amidst the controlled chaos. "Soak them in water until they're soft, then knead them with a little of our flour into a uniform dough. The staleness is gone, but the baked flavor is still there."
"Kael, you're on sauce duty. We have apple peels, orange rinds, the dregs from a hundred juice boxes. Simmer them down. We're extracting every last molecule of fructose. We will balance it with vinegar and the salt-dust from the chip bags."
"Grit!" Izen called out to the giant, who was watching with awe. "Your team knows heat. Set up a deep-frying station outside. We need two stages. First fry to cook the dough, second, higher-heat fry to create the ultimate crust. The fat we'll use is the pepperoni-and-cheese-infused oil from the pizza boxes."
Grit and his team, who were used to working with jet engines and plasma cutters, now found themselves reverently building the perfect deep-frying rig, their mechanical skills bent toward this absurd, glorious purpose.
Izen himself was at the main table, meticulously working with the heart of the dish: the flavor. He sifted the multi-colored dust harvested from instant noodle packets, chip bags, and salty snack wrappers, separating the finest powders from the coarser grains. He combined them in a large bowl, tasting tiny pinches, his palate working like a supercomputer to analyze and balance the chaotic mix of artificial chicken, spicy chili, sour cream and onion, and a dozen other synthetic flavors.
He was reverse-engineering junk food, breaking it down to its core components and reassembling it into something new.
Once Elara's dough was ready, they rolled it into long, thin breadsticks. They were then handed off to Grit's team for the two-stage frying process. The first dip in the hot, pepperoni-infused oil cooked them through, filling the air with an intoxicatingly savory, greasy aroma. After a brief rest, they were plunged back into hotter oil for a second time.
SSSSS-CRACKLE!
They emerged a perfect, glistening, golden brown, their surfaces covered in a delicate lacework of crispy bubbles.
The final step was the seasoning. The hot, fresh-out-of-the-fryer breadsticks were immediately tossed in Izen's masterpiece "thirty-two-spice blend." The savory, salty, spicy dust clung to the hot oil, coating each breadstick in a thick, magical layer of pure, unadulterated flavor.
When the first finished breadstick was brought back inside, the entire guild fell silent. It looked incredible. It smelled divine. It was a perfect, idealized version of every junk food snack, yet it was made from their ghosts.
"Try one," Izen said.
Hesitantly, Elara took a piece and bit into it.
Her eyes shot open.
CRUNCH.
The exterior was impossibly crispy, shattering between her teeth. The inside was soft, chewy, and savory. But the flavor… it was an explosion. A tidal wave of salt, spice, umami, and a dozen other things she couldn't even name. It was everything you crave at midnight. It was addictive. It was transcendent.
"It's… the most delicious thing I have ever eaten," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.
One by one, the others tried them. The same look of stunned, ecstatic disbelief appeared on every face. Grit Hark, the connoisseur of massive steaks, ate a whole breadstick in two bites and was left speechless, just shaking his head in wonder.
This wasn't garbage. This was a culinary revelation.
Later that night, Izen and his team—now including a very useful Grit and his crew—wheeled their newly-modified cart out into the city. Ciela was there, of course, but she wasn't just narrating. After a single bite of the 'treasure sticks,' she had become a fervent convert. She now saw this not as a charity case for her stream, but as a genuine culinary revolution that she was a part of.
Their first stop was a crew of street sweepers taking a late-night break. They were used to receiving Hearthline's watery soup and stale bread. They accepted the food with their usual tired gratitude.
One of them, a grizzled old man with weary eyes, took a bite of a breadstick.
He froze. He chewed slowly, his expression shifting from exhaustion to confusion, and then to pure, unadulterated joy. He started laughing, a deep, happy belly laugh that echoed in the quiet street.
"What is this?!" he exclaimed, his voice full of wonder. "It tastes like my whole childhood in one bite!"
Soon, they were all eating, laughing, their spirits visibly lifting. The food wasn't just filling their bellies; it was making them happy. It was a flavor designed to bring immediate, potent joy.
As they served the last of their stock to a grateful team of night-watchmen, a sleek, black car purred to a stop a short distance away.
The tinted rear window slid down. Dean Tethys Quirin sat in the back, observing the scene. He watched his students—the garbage-sorters, the gearheads, the clout-chasers, all united—serving their miraculous creation to the city's forgotten workers. He saw the looks of delight on the workers' faces.
He took a small, unmarked container from a compartment next to him. His assistant had… acquired a sample of the breadstick for him. He picked up the golden-brown stick and examined it. It smelled intoxicating.
He took a bite.
CRUNCH.
The Dean's perpetually smiling eyes widened just a fraction. The flavor was… a masterpiece of controlled chaos. He could taste the artifice, the echoes of a hundred mass-produced snacks, but they had been filtered through a genius's palate and reassembled into something sublime. It was low-brow and high-brow all at once. It was a paradox on the tongue.
"Voltagrave tried to starve him of ingredients," the Dean murmured to himself, a slow, deep chuckle rumbling in his chest. "Instead, he's forced the boy to create his own, unique culinary genre."
He looked back at the happy scene on the street corner, at Izen handing out the last of his food.
"Junk Food Haute Cuisine," the Dean whispered, giving the new genre its name. "Magnificent. Utterly magnificent."