The discovery of the Auto-Seasoners sent a chill through the Hearthline Guild. Their Greenhouse Project was designed to create flavors so authentic they couldn't be copied. But that strategy was useless if the next generation's palates were being systematically rewired to reject authenticity itself.
Izen's strange directive—"build a better radio"—became the guild's new, top-secret priority. While the main Hearthline kitchen continued its daily routine of food production and campus governance, the old, disused wine cellar beneath the guild hall was being transformed.
Under Grit's obsessive, round-the-clock supervision, it was converted into a high-tech sensory analysis lab. It was a bizarre fusion of culinary artistry and signals intelligence. He and the Titan Tools Club worked in a feverish, hushed haste, installing strange new equipment. There were sensitive acoustic sensors, molecular gastronomy centrifuges repurposed to analyze resonant frequencies, and at the center of the room, a custom-built, heavily shielded "sensory deprivation" chamber for tasting. They weren't building a kitchen to cook food; they were building one to listen to it.
Their primary mission: to dissect the Salt-Synth.
While Grit worked on the hardware, Izen began a different kind of training. He gathered Nyelle and Kael, whose palates were the most refined after his own, for a series of grueling "listening" sessions.
"We have to learn to taste past the flavor," Izen explained, setting out three identical bowls of plain congee. "We have to learn to taste the intention behind it."
One bowl was seasoned with their Shiosai-smoked salt. The second was seasoned with regular salt. The third was "seasoned" with the Salt-Synth.
Nyelle tasted the first. "Rich, smoky, complex. A living flavor."
She tasted the second. "Clean, simple, mineral. An honest flavor."
She tasted the third. "Just… salty. A flat, perfect, boring saltiness."
"Go deeper," Izen urged. "Don't just describe the taste. Describe the feeling. The signature. The frequency."
They spent days in training, refining their palates into diagnostic tools. They learned to identify the subtle "fuzziness" of a mass-produced ingredient versus the "clarity" of one grown in their own greenhouses. They learned to distinguish between the taste of a flavor made with passion, one made with simple competence, and one that was hollow and synthetic. It was a strange, almost mystical form of tasting, more akin to a wine sommelier detecting terroir, but applied to the very energy of a dish.
Finally, Grit announced that the "Listening Kitchen" was ready. The main piece of equipment was a device he'd nicknamed "The Palate-alyzer." It was a complex apparatus involving a tasting probe connected to a sensitive oscilloscopic display.
Izen took a sample of water "seasoned" by the Salt-Synth and placed it under the probe. He activated the machine.
On the screen, a perfect, clean, digital sine wave appeared. It was a pure, unwavering frequency of "saltiness."
Then, he took a sample of water with their own Shiosai salt dissolved in it. The display changed. It was still a wave, but it was far more complex. It was a jagged, organic-looking wave, full of tiny, chaotic spikes and dips. It was a visual representation of a real flavor—noisy, complex, full of history and imperfection.
"There it is," Grit growled. "The signal versus the noise. Their synthetic flavor is a perfect, sterile broadcast. Ours is a symphony."
"It's a signature," Nyelle breathed, seeing it clearly for the first time. "Nochelli's tech leaves a fingerprint."
Now that they could see it, the next step was to trace it. For weeks, Grit and Izen worked in the cellar. Izen would use his refined palate to isolate the exact, core frequency of the synthetic signal. Grit would then use that data to build what he called a "Flavor-Finder," a highly sensitive directional antenna, tuned to that specific sonic wavelength.
The work was slow and frustrating. The signal was weak and deliberately masked with random sonic interference. But they were relentless.
The breakthrough came late one night. Izen was in the sensory deprivation chamber, a pair of acoustic headphones amplifying the subtle frequencies of a Salt-Synth, guiding Grit's adjustments.
"A little to the left… higher frequency… hold it…" Izen whispered into a microphone, his eyes closed. He could almost hear the clean, synthetic ping of the salt signal through the static. "There. That's the core. Lock it."
"Locked," Grit's voice crackled back over the intercom. On his console, a single, clear spike appeared in the data stream. He triangulated the signal, running it through the academy's network maps. It wasn't a broadcast from off-campus. The signal was weak, but it was definitely originating from somewhere within the academy grounds.
He cross-referenced the signal's location with the academy's architectural blueprints. The result made his blood run cold.
"Izen," he said, his voice grave. "You're not going to believe this. I've found the source of the broadcast."
"Where?"
Grit stared at the blinking red dot on his holographic map. "It's not coming from a hidden lab or a Shadow Market safe house."
He zoomed in, the image resolving into a familiar, high-end building in the Five Petals commercial district.
"It's coming from inside Voltagrave Manor."
The revelation was a body blow. Reign was not a broken puppet languishing in obscurity. He, or someone using his family's powerful, shielded infrastructure, was an active part of the Shadow Market's new war. The ghost wasn't just in the machine; it was in the house of their oldest, most bitter rival. Their quiet war had just found its first battlefield.