The return to Aethertaste Academy was like stepping from a quiet monastery back into the heart of a bustling, chaotic metropolis. The ancient, salt-scented air of Shiosai was replaced by the modern, energized atmosphere of a campus in the middle of a culinary renaissance.
Izen, Grit, and Ciela were welcomed back as returning heroes. The story of their journey, which Ciela had artfully documented and was now releasing in a serialized, wildly popular documentary called "The Shiosai Diaries," had added another layer to the Hearthline legend. Izen wasn't just a competition winner anymore; he was a culinary preservationist, a healer of lost flavors.
Upon their return, Nyelle and Kael gave them a full briefing. Their new government was working perfectly. The C.H.U.N. Mandate was a massive success, and the new educational programs were reshaping the minds of the next generation of chefs. Peace and prosperity reigned.
Almost.
"There's… one problem," Nyelle said, her expression darkening as the core team sat around the long table in the Hearthline hall. "A new restaurant has opened in the academy's 'Five Petals' commercial district. It's called 'Essence.'"
"I've heard of it," Ciela chimed in, scrolling through her tablet. "It's the hottest ticket on campus. Impossible to get a reservation. Five-star reviews across the board. The head chef is a mystery—no one knows their name, they go by the moniker 'The Purist.'"
"And what's the problem?" Grit asked, tearing off a piece of bread. "Good food is good food, right?"
"The problem," Nyelle said, her voice dropping, "is their concept. They claim to have perfected Izen's philosophy. They're serving what they call 'Idealized Cuisine.' They take a single, common ingredient—a carrot, a potato, a simple fish—and create a dish that is supposed to be its 'truest,' most perfect form."
She pushed a food critic's blog post across the table. It showed a picture of Essence's most famous dish: 'The Memory of a Carrot.' It was a visually stunning plate. A single, perfectly spherical orb of vibrant orange sat in the middle of a white plate.
"The reviews say it tastes more like a carrot than an actual carrot," Kael explained, his voice laced with confusion. "That it's the taste of the memory of every perfect carrot that has ever grown. Pure, sweet, earthy, without any of the flaws of a real, dirty vegetable."
Izen froze, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. The description was eerily familiar. It sounded like… it sounded like what Judge Marrowe Pastiche had experienced when tasting his Leftover Stew in his very first duel. A flavor that was an idealized memory, a Platonic form of the ingredient itself. But that was a phenomenon born from the chaotic, unpredictable art of Residual Alchemy on scraps. How could someone be replicating it, consistently, with pristine ingredients?
"It's a direct challenge to us," Nyelle said, her eyes flashing with a competitive fire. "They're co-opting our philosophy but twisting it. Izen's cooking is about embracing flaws and celebrating the story of an ingredient, garbage and all. This… this is about creating a perfect, flawless version and erasing the original's identity. It's a perversion of your art."
"So who is this mysterious chef, 'The Purist'?" Grit demanded.
Ciela sighed. "That's the other problem. Everyone thinks it's Reign Voltagrave."
The name fell onto the table with a heavy thud. It made a strange kind of sense. The obsession with perfection, the immense, untraceable funding required for such a high-concept restaurant, the subtle, passive-aggressive challenge to Izen's reign. It all pointed to him.
"So Voltagrave is back," Nyelle growled. "And he's learned some new tricks."
Izen, however, was quiet. He was staring at the picture of the carrot sphere, a deep, thoughtful frown on his face. Something felt wrong. This flavor profile, this "idealized" taste… it wasn't Reign's style. Reign's cooking, for all its arrogance, had been honest in its elitism. This felt different. Deceptive.
"We need to get a taste," Nyelle declared. "But reservations are booked for months, and they'd never let us in if they knew who we were."
"Leave that to me," Ciela said with a sly grin. A little social engineering to get her friends a table at the most exclusive restaurant on campus was a challenge she was more than happy to accept.
A few nights later, under the cover of carefully constructed false identities, Izen and Nyelle, dressed in plain, inconspicuous clothing, sat at a quiet corner table in the hushed, minimalist interior of 'Essence.'
The restaurant was more like a laboratory than a dining room. It was sterile, white, and silent, the staff moving with quiet, eerie efficiency.
They ordered two dishes: the famous 'Memory of a Carrot,' and 'The Soul of the Sea,' a dish said to capture the ideal essence of a sea bream.
The dishes arrived. They were visually stunning, marvels of molecular gastronomy. The carrot was a perfect, jellied orb. The sea bream was a completely clear, shimmering consommé.
Nyelle tasted the consommé first. Her eyes widened. "It's… incredible," she whispered, her voice laced with grudging respect. "The flavor is so pure. It tastes like the memory of a perfect ocean breeze. I don't see how anyone could make a sea bream taste this…"
She trailed off, unable to find the word.
Izen, however, was focused on the carrot. He took a small bite of the orange sphere.
His reaction was immediate and profound, but not in the way Nyelle expected.
There was no look of awe. No silent contemplation. A shadow passed over his face, an expression of deep, soul-shaking disturbance. It was the look of a master musician hearing a beautiful symphony played perfectly, but soullessly, by a machine.
The taste was exactly as described. A powerful, impossibly perfect carrot flavor. But to Izen's palate, a palate that listened for stories, for history, for the faintest whispers of an ingredient's journey… it was a deafening silence.
There was no memory of the soil. No hint of the sun. No ghost of the farmer's hand that had pulled it from the earth. The flavor was a perfect, beautiful, hollow shell. It was a masterpiece of taste, but it had no soul. It was a lie.
"Izen? What's wrong?" Nyelle asked, seeing his expression.
Izen put down his spoon, his appetite completely gone. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, what he was tasting. This wasn't Reign's cooking. This wasn't even Residual Alchemy.
This was something new. Something sterile, artificial, and deeply, fundamentally wrong.
He looked at Nyelle, his eyes dark with a dawning horror.
"This isn't a flavor that was discovered," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "This is a flavor that was stolen."