The Greenhouse Project was a resounding success, creating a living pantry of ingredients with character and history. The Hearthline Miso, cultivated on this new terroir, became a sought-after culinary treasure, a symbol of the academy's new philosophy. Their fortress was strong.
The first attack from the Shadow Market was not a frontal assault. It was subtle, insidious, and it came from a direction they never expected.
It started in the lower rungs of the academy, among the first-year students. A new trend was sweeping through their dorms: "Auto-Seasoning." It was a series of small, sleek, silver devices being sold by a shadowy online entity. There was the 'Salt-Synth,' the 'Sweet-Spire,' the 'Umami-Unit.' The devices were simple: you'd point them at your bland cafeteria food, press a button, and a targeted sonic frequency would resonate through the dish.
The effect was uncanny. A bland piece of steamed chicken would suddenly taste perfectly salted. A watery soup would gain a deep, savory umami backbone. It didn't add any physical substance; it just… made things taste right.
The technology was dismissed by the upper echelons as a cheap trick, a lazy shortcut for students who couldn't be bothered to learn proper seasoning. Ciela's investigative streams identified the seller as an untraceable shell company, likely a low-level Shadow Market subsidiary, but it seemed like a minor nuisance, not a major threat.
Izen, however, was deeply disturbed. He acquired one of the devices, a 'Salt-Synth,' and brought it back to the guild.
"This is not a 'trick,'" he told the Hearthline council, his voice grim as he held up the small silver cylinder. "This is a weapon being test-marketed on our children."
Grit took the device, his engineer's eyes scanning its flawless construction. "It's just a sonic resonator, kid. A fancy tuning fork. How's that a weapon?"
"Because of what it's tuning," Izen said. "Get me a glass of pure, distilled water and a plate of plain, unsalted rice."
Kael brought the items. Izen pointed the Salt-Synth at the glass of water and pressed the button. The device emitted a faint, inaudible hum. "Taste it," he said to Nyelle.
Nyelle, skeptical, took a sip of the water. Her eyes went wide with shock. "It's… salty," she said, her voice full of disbelief. "But how? There's nothing in it!"
"Exactly," Izen said. "It's not adding salt. It's vibrating the water molecules at a frequency that tricks the taste receptors on your tongue into thinking they're tasting salt. It's a neurological hack. It's bypassing the food entirely and seasoning your palate directly."
He then aimed the device at the plain rice and activated it again. "Now taste this."
Grit took a pinch of the rice. "Tastes perfectly salted," he grunted, impressed. "So what's the problem? It works."
"Now," Izen said, his voice dropping, "take a pinch of our Shiosai-smoked salt and taste that."
Grit put a few crystals of their finest artisanal salt into his mouth, the salt he himself had helped create, full of the complex, smoky memory of their forges.
His face went pale.
"I… I can't," he stammered, his big voice small with confusion. "I can't taste the smoke. I can't taste… anything. It just tastes… like a chemical."
Izen nodded, his expression grim. "The device doesn't just create the sensation of salt. It overwhelms and temporarily 'deafens' the salt receptors on the tongue to anything other than its own synthetic frequency. After you're exposed to the 'perfect' synthetic salt signal, a real, complex, nuanced salt just tastes like a noisy, imperfect error."
The horrifying truth of the Shadow Market's new strategy dawned on them. It was a war on two fronts.
To the elites, they were selling the lie of 'Essence'—perfect, stolen flavors.
And to the masses, they were selling this. A slow-acting poison for the palate. They were addicting the next generation of chefs and consumers to a diet of synthetic, flawless sensations. They were conditioning the world's palate to prefer the lie. In a few years, an entire generation would grow up physically incapable of appreciating the complex, "flawed" beauty of a real, authentic ingredient. They couldn't steal every tradition, so they were going to make the world unable to taste them in the first place.
This wasn't just a culinary war anymore. It was a sensory war.
"They're not just stealing souls," Nyelle whispered, staring at the small, silver device with utter horror. "They're building a world without them."
Izen looked at the Salt-Synth, this ghost in the machine that created a perfect sensation with no origin. He thought of his conversation with Dean Quirin, about fighting a global network.
"This is how we fight," he said, picking up the device. "Nochelli thinks his technology is untraceable. But everything leaves an echo. Every sonic frequency has a source, a signature. Grit…"
He turned to the master engineer, whose face was a mask of cold, focused rage. He now understood that this device was a personal insult to his craft.
"We need to build a better kitchen," Izen said. "And we need to build a better radio."