The third day of the Hearthline Test began with the low, rumbling sound of Grit Hark cracking his knuckles. He was a man of action, of fire and steel, and the thoughtful, philosophical nature of the previous tests had made him antsy. He wanted a straightforward challenge. He wanted to build something. To cook something big.
Nyelle, however, had other plans.
She wordlessly placed a heavy burlap sack on the workbench in front of him. Grit reached in, his massive hand closing around the contents. He pulled out a handful.
He was holding raw, unprocessed oat groats. Not the rolled oats used for breakfast porridge, but the whole, intact grains, still encased in their tough, fibrous, barely-edible outer husks.
"Oats," Nyelle said, her voice clinical. "Peasant food. Animal feed. The husk is nearly indigestible and has a bitter, grassy flavor. The groat inside is bland. It's known for being mushy, heavy, and boring. Your challenge is to find its power. Make me a dish that is neither mushy nor boring."
Grit stared at the sack. This was, in its own way, a crueler challenge than Kael's or Ciela's. Konjac was a blank slate. Puffed rice was a vessel. These oats, however, had a strong, unpleasant identity of their own. His entire culinary philosophy was based on big flavors and overwhelming heat. How was he supposed to make this tough, bland, bitter grain exciting?
His first instinct was to pulverize it. He grabbed a handful and threw them into one of his custom-built industrial grinders. He flicked a switch, and the machine roared to life.
WHIRRRRRR-CRUNCH-SCREEECH!
He shut it off after a few seconds and opened the chamber. The result was a coarse, gray, unappetizing flour that smelled faintly of sawdust. He'd destroyed the grain but hadn't solved the problem of the bitter husk, which was now just ground into the mix. A dead end.
He spent the next hour trying to toast them, roast them, and even quick-fry them. Nothing worked. The husk was too tough; it either burned before the groat inside could cook, or the whole thing just turned into a hot, still-raw, bitter mouthful.
Frustrated, he kicked a metal stool, sending it clattering across the workshop. This was a stupid test. It was a test for chefs who used tweezers, not blowtorches.
He slumped onto a workbench, defeated. He watched Izen, who was in the corner patiently sharpening a set of old, rusted garden shears. The rhythmic shing-shing-shing of the whetstone was the only sound.
"This is impossible," Grit grumbled to no one in particular. "The husk is the problem. It's a flaw in the design. It's armor you can't get through without destroying what's inside."
Izen paused his sharpening. He looked at the shears in his hands.
"Armor can also be a tool," he said, his voice calm. "Sometimes, the strength you need isn't your own. You have to borrow it from the thing you're trying to break."
He went back to his work. Grit stared at him, then at the sack of oats. Borrow its strength? The strength of the husk? The husk wasn't strong; it was just tough. Obnoxious. A barrier.
Or was it?
A thought began to spark in Grit's engineering-focused mind. A crazy, inefficient, probably-dangerous idea. But it was the kind of idea a member of the Titan Tools Club was born to have.
"Fire," he muttered. "No… more than fire. Pressure."
His entire demeanor changed. The slump was gone, replaced by a manic inventor's grin. He wasn't a chef stumped by an ingredient anymore. He was an engineer who had just identified a new power source.
He ran to a blackboard and started sketching. He barked orders at his two Titan Tools guildmates who were there to assist him. "I need the old pressure cooker! The big one! And the manifold from the compressor! And get me the fine-mesh steel filters!"
For the rest of the day, Grit wasn't a cook; he was a mad scientist. He didn't use a stove. He constructed a bizarre, intimidating piece of equipment. He took an old, industrial-sized pressure cooker and reinforced its seals. He then connected a complex series of pipes and valves to it, linking it to a high-pressure air compressor. It looked less like a cooking device and more like a bomb.
He poured the entire sack of raw oats into the pressure cooker, added a little water, and sealed the lid. Then, he started pumping air into it, his eyes glued to the pressure gauge.
"What are you doing?!" Elara asked, hiding behind Kael.
"Popping," Grit explained, not taking his eyes off the needle. "Like popcorn, but a thousand times more violent. The groat inside the husk contains moisture. When you heat it under extreme pressure, that moisture turns to superheated steam. When you release the pressure instantly…"
The needle on the gauge hit the red zone. "Fire in the hole!" Grit yelled.
He yanked a large lever.
FWHOOMP!
A deafening, explosive release of pressure rocked the guild hall. A huge cloud of steam erupted from the machine's exhaust valve.
Grit cautiously unsealed the pressure cooker's lid. The others gathered around, peering inside.
The interior was filled with what looked like fluffy, white, toasted blossoms. The bitter, indigestible husks had been completely obliterated by the explosive expansion of the groat inside. Each grain had been turned inside out, transformed from a hard, dense nugget into a light, airy, wonderfully toasted morsel. It looked like a field of flowers made of cereal. The air was filled with a warm, nutty, incredibly appetizing aroma.
He hadn't fought the husk's toughness; he had used it. He'd turned its structural integrity into a tiny, individual pressure vessel for each grain, borrowing its strength to unleash the hidden power within.
But he wasn't done. He took the "popped" oats and gently folded them into a mixture of salvaged honey-dregs and the rendered pork fat he'd gotten from Izen after their duel. He pressed this mixture into a shallow tray and baked it.
At sundown, he presented his dish. It was a single, golden-brown bar, glistening slightly. It looked dense, rustic, and powerful.
Izen came to the judging table.
"I call it the 'Pressure Bar,'" Grit said, his voice rumbling with pride.
Izen broke off a piece and took a bite.
CRUNCH.
It was the single crunchiest thing he had ever eaten. It wasn't the light, airy crunch of Ciela's puffed rice; this was a deep, satisfying, shattering crunch. The flavor was immense—the toasted, nutty taste of the exploded oat, the savory richness of the pork fat, and the subtle, floral sweetness of the honey. It wasn't mushy or boring. It was robust, complex, and incredibly satisfying. It was a bar of pure, concentrated energy. A perfect meal for an engineer, a forgemaster, a titan.
Izen chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. He looked at the bar, then at the proud, anxious face of its creator. Grit had done more than cook; he had invented a whole new process, born from his unique, engineering-first perspective. He had found the ingredient's power.
Izen broke off another, larger piece of the bar.
"The Titan Tools Club is going to need a bigger furnace," he said with a smile. "Because after the Feast Rite, every guild in this academy is going to want one of these."
Grit's massive chest swelled with pride. It was the highest praise he could have received. A compliment not to his cooking, but to his craft.