He tries again.
Once his heart calms from the fast pace, once his hands stop shaking, once his head feels somewhat steady and clear and he can breathe-
He takes two more powders, and tries again.
And again.
And again.
He discovers a variety of information, which is both… useful and concerning. Money is useful, having a supply that isn't hard to come by means if he ever gets sick or injured, he has backup. It's also concerning that he can make said money.
He can make spirit powders, and obviously can create spirit stones, too. There is a limiting factor, which is mainly that to create powders, he has to use single elements, which decides the color. Powders can only be a single element, so they are only ever yellow, white, black, green, or red, not a mix.
Then creating stones, he has to use two different elements. Spirit stones cannot be any amount of elements besides two. They are always, therefore, mottled and streaked with the two colors they come from. It takes more energy to create than to merge. He can merge two different elemental powders into a single stone, which is still an increase to the value.
He can technically create jades, though the effort is rather tiring, albeit also releasing an immense amount of tension from his chest. He can also merge jades from three elements. Jades have to have three elements but are not limited, unlike the other two forms of currency.
Which means that merging a powder with a stone for three elements is 'cheaper' than merging two stones, and even more effective than creating them on their own.
He, in his experimenting, ends up with the equivalent of ten stones, fifty-five jades, and a remaining two hundred fifty-some powders. Even one jade is far more than he can hope to ever spend with how he currently lives. He likes the work, likes the chores, likes that he doesn't have to walk down a hallway just to get to a closet!
He found a cellar! He has storage and he has what he needs! What use has he for money?!
Well, he might not have much use for it, but he can think of several people who could use it. Who could use any extra money they can get.
Who might not accept it from anyone else, but they would take it from someone that understands where they stand better than most.
He might not like it, but he's not really Cade anymore. He's Lyan in body, becoming Lyan in mind, and sooner or later, he'll be called 'Ly' and 'Liar' and 'Lyan' enough to think of himself as…
As the man he's become.
Great. He's Lyan. Wonderful. He can handle that. He can manage it. He can deal with it.
It's fine!
~
He starts the distract- the project by taking out a bit of paper and inventorying all of his storage. Every piece of food, every bit of material, all of the things he has, he puts in.
He's not big on cultivation, never was, but he thinks there's probably a technique that would allow him to change the writing without having to rewrite the whole thing several times over.
Still, once he's done, he at least knows he has a piece of slate and charcoal, and that can be reused as long as he keeps cooking hot food. He uses it to make a grocery list, full of all the things he needs, from vegetables to a few dried herbs to rice and flour and some meat. He doesn't need much, of course, but he should probably buy to stock up, instead of just buying for a week or so.
He might not know where it is, but he's pretty sure that there's some sort of long-term storage for the house. Surely if Lyan has so much stocked that he only needs staples for the next decade, then the rest of the family was the same.
What does he need, then? Salt, probably. It's always useful and easy enough to store. Oil of some sort, probably a vinegar to pair with it. Soy sauce, maybe? He thinks Barek said it's a historical staple. Beans and grains, tofu for protein, vegetables he doesn't have, most anything dried.
Meat is hard to come by, but fish and pork are probably common enough. Just a bit can last him a long while.
He finds himself letting that memory take over with less confusion. He knows that licorice and ginger and cinnamon are good both for seasoning and for health. He has no clue why he'd want chili, but at least he has some decent spice tolerance. Dried fruits, dried noodles, flour, paper, parchment, all things he normally wouldn't think of.
Well, the flour and the noodles he'd probably get because those are easier to use and last forever if he just keeps the packaging sealed.
Paper… for herbs? Or buying more jars, but he thinks that if he was doing smaller batches, he'd be using paper packets. After all, only because the amount was large enough did he use jars in the first place.
He has eggs, so milk? No, that would be by getting a goat. He knows what pasteurization is, though, so he could do that once he figures out the acquiring of the milk.
How will he carry it all? That's an issue, isn't it?
He wanders the house. There are baskets, bags, jars, small boxes, and a few ceramics for specific things. He could potentially just use baskets, but he would need multiple trips, wouldn't he?
With a deep sigh, he stops wandering, standing in the center.
What to do…
His hand slips to the pouches on his waist.
There's one more than he remembers.
He pulls off the one of powders, the one of stones, the one of roots, the one of herbs. It leaves the final one in his hands, looking exactly the same but bearing only enough weight he'd notice if it left his side.
And when he opens it, he finds nothing inside.
What is this?
He reaches a few fingers in, searching for crumbs or-
There is something soft and warm inside it.
He pulls it out, and finds a steaming fresh bun, white and round. He doesn't hesitate to take a bite out of it, to test this. It's good, not that he knows much about these foods, and he thinks… He was thinking about crumbs, which usually means bread, but the cultural translation wouldn't really be just what this place's bread is. It's something common enough, warm enough, comforting enough, and that means this bun.
He puts his hand in and wills it to give him an explanation. What is this? What does this pouch do?
He pulls out a small bit of paper, and on it is an image he knows well: his inventory screen.
Not his character's, but rather the house he'd lived in. Cade was weird in that game for the passive approach to cultivating, but he also knows he was weird because he always kept only the bare minimum on himself.
He'd only ever told Barek that he took everything he could from that game, everything that regrew or came back or regenerated, and he stored it, saved it. And when he talked to an NPC enough, there was that old pop-up, the less-used mechanic of the NPCs as apprentices and servants and consorts and retainers and so on.
What better way to celebrate getting that level of familiarity with a generated character than to give them the best rooms and the best foods they could ever want?
So this pouch must have all of that. Every stored thing, every saved item, every bit of food or furniture he put in, that wouldn't spoil because the game was realistic but never with famine, is in a small bag that fits in his palm.
Which means he knows how to carry the items.
As long as he can get away from others' views, he should be completely fine.
He'll just put it in his second home.