Posted by “Little boy this dish was absolutely exquisite; can you tell me what your inspiration was and what you call it?” Sampson who still hadn’t managed to open his eyes was still deeply entranced by the soft and airy delight that Aker had prepared.
For Sampson who lives for the purpose of creating new and beautiful dishes this was another creation of Aker’s that would open a new world of possibilities.
“Teacher I want to be honest, the dish I just made wasn’t my own idea. While I did experiment and figure out how to make it, it wasn’t a concept that I created. On my home planet this dish is called a Cheese Soufflé and it can be found at countless restaurants all over the world.” Aker didn’t want to give the impression that the idea for the Cheese Soufflé was his idea. While he wasn’t sure if he recreated it perfectly, he was perfectly delighted with his result.
Hearing Aker’s words Sampson opened his eyes which were now completely focused on Aker. He thought about his words as though he was trying to organize them in his head “And the Dragon Roll was that also a dish of your home planet?” Sampson’s voice couldn’t hide the tinge of excitement as he asked.
“Sort of, as I was making the dish, I was contemplating a pot pie a dish from my home world. I altered slightly to allow for the roll concept but in essence that was the basis.” Aker didn’t keep any of the details to himself as he spoke to Sampson.
“Is this pot pie a rare dish that can only be made by the greatest of chefs?” Sampson was anticipating the answer, he was hoping beyond hope even though in his heart he truly felt it would be impossible.
“Not at all, pot pies are a very common dish that can be found all over the world also in countless restaurants.”
Suddenly tears glistened down the side of Sampson’s face as he spread a joyous smile. He couldn’t contain himself as he muttered “To think that such a holy land could really exist.”
For Sampson just the two simple dishes that Aker had introduced were already revolutionary in terms of the culinary arts. Aker’s words penetrated into the very fiber of Sampson, it touched his very being and as such Sampson made a decision, as he turned to Aker, he exuded certainty as though reinforcing his resolve.
“Little boy, someday I will walk on your home planet and partake in all of the wonderful and superlative food it has to offer. It shall become my life’s goal to learn the different culinary cuisines of your world and spread their grandness through the universe. Perhaps someday your world will become the source of inspiration for countless chefs in the future ushering in a new world of beauty and grace.” Sampson was zealous as he spoke about his pilgrimage at Aker’s home world. Every word that he spoke was with his utmost sincerity and respect.
From that day on Sampson would ask questions to Aker about his home planet. He wanted to know the different types of cuisines as well as the many different types of cultures the world had to offer. Sampson was delighted and amazed at the diversity that one small planet could house. When he found out that earth was only several thousand kilometers in size and was home to only a few billion people he was beside himself. Could such a tiny and insignificant planet really have so many wonderful creations in one place?
As Aker watched the reverence in Sampson’s face as he spoke about the extraordinary miracle that earth was, Aker felt a sense of skepticism. Certainly, Aker missed his home planet, but he didn’t feel there was anything special about it. However, Sampson seemed to indicate that earth was a one of a kind existence within the vastness of the universe. A place untouched by the greed and dominion of power and strength.
As Aker enjoyed learning from Sampson, he figured it was a small price to pay to answer some questions and listen to his ideas. Already Aker had considered Sampson’s philosophy in regard to cooking and food more extreme than he wanted to be, so any time Aker heard him speak about a topic that included food he took it with a grain of salt. Of course, Aker missed home and wanted to go back but after seeing the expanse of space he felt that there wasn’t much special about earth.
With no life and death battles looming over him Aker went about his day much as a regular person would. There was one major difference between how Aker’s normal day presented itself and how everyone else’s would, Aker’s time was filled with practice of many varying and different skills.
In the morning Aker would start the day practicing with his weapons. He still practiced with the throwing darts, knife and sword but he had recently added staff and spear practice. He had added an extra hour of weapons practice and cut down the time he spent on knife and throwing darts practice to make time for the spear and staff. Aker had begun to view the sword as his primary weapon and as such he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his practice with it, so he was adamant about not cutting his sword practice time.
He had also in the first couple of weeks managed to increase the gravity from 3.5 times normal to 4 times. Initially as he practiced under the 3.5 times, he had that weighed down and pressured feeling, however, after a couple of weeks the gravity stone was having no impact. It normally took him several months to adapt to the heavier gravity, so he wasn’t sure if it was related to being in space or if the gravity stone was somehow weakened.
Following his morning practice, he would head over to the forge and work with Mavis. Now that they were no longer in The Pit Mavis was much more vocal in his training with Aker, no longer standing by idly while Aker toiled away. Mavis still preferred to show Aker how to make the corrections with a hammer in his hand and then brag to Aker endlessly afterwards, but after having spent over two years with Mavis, Aker had come to enjoy his bragging. Aker would never admit it, but it was listening to Mavis’s constant bragging that helped him talk down to Alex when they were fighting in the arena, it was those words that drove Alex mad with rage.
Aker lost count of the number of times that Mavis would begin a story with “A real man can’t be no coward, let me tell you about this time I……” and of course he told Aker stories of people he had beat into submission. After beating them into submission Mavis would lecture them “If you’re not going to act like a man and you just want to turtle up over in that corner then I can’t be bothered to pay attention to you.” He would brag that nothing would piss another fighter off more than ignoring their existence. When they were in The Pit and Aker first heard Mavis mention it, he was skeptical, so he tested it on Mavis. Sure enough Mavis was fuming mad within minutes.
After Aker finished in the forge and worked up a good appetite he would run over to the kitchen and listen to Sampson discuss the glory and beauty of cooking. He would quietly go about his practice and nod and agree with Sampson. When Sampson would ask questions about earth Aker would answer them to the best of his ability. Every day the excitement that Sampson had toward earth would grow.
Primarily Aker focused on practicing magic cooking in the kitchen. He could now successfully make dishes that had roughly thirty percent of their ingredients with nature particles. This was a remarkable improvement and Aker was ecstatic with his progress. He hoped by the time they reached where they were headed, he would be above eighty percent.
Finishing his magic cooking training in the kitchen he would head over to the ships magic converter and spend time studying how it worked. As far as he could tell it worked by siphoning out the limited nature particles in space that it encountered and converting them to energy. Aker hadn’t quite figured out how they were doing the conversion. He would form several different hypotheses after doing reading in his room and then show up and check his guesses. He had figured out some small inner workings of the converter, but he was still just scratching the surface.
Once done with studying magic engineering principals he would head to his room where he practiced the Dizi. He wanted to learn a musical instrument so that when he met with Kara again, they could play a piece together, so he diligently practiced every day to the dread of everyone that heard him.
Having no formal teacher, no books to read and no understanding of music Aker was teaching himself one note at a time. The reason that Aker elected to learn the Dizi was simply based on the material they had on hand; it was the easiest for him to make in the forge. He thankfully had a book that listed some common musical instruments and he built the Dizi based on the picture, other than that he had no guide at all.
Once he was done torturing everyone else on the ship, he would put his Dizi away and focus on absorbing nature particles and reading.
Every day Aker was growing and improving. It had also gotten to the point that Vance or Cap would come by and spar with him every day. Cap was a tough fight, but he would generally defeat her after hundreds of rounds. Vance on the hand was a monster. The worst part of practicing with Vance was he didn’t seem to understand the concept of “hold back” as he would attack what seemed to Aker full force. He would drive Aker into a corner and only stop just before Aker was seriously hurt.
Breathing heavily, sweat running down his face, Aker had a slight bruise on his shoulder where Vance had hit him with the stick “You….is….that…….all…..you……….got!” Aker was finally able to get the words out as he sucked in a huge breath between each word.
“Hahahahahaha…..I’m going to have to keep you away from Mavis with all that bragging you’re doing while I’m handing you your butt. I’m convinced he stopped teaching you about forging and he only spends his time teaching you how to shamelessly boast.” Vance who was genuinely having a great time practicing with Aker was all smiles as well.
It wasn’t just Aker who was getting a reprieve at the moment as Vance had been living a life of self-torture and blame as well. Vance who had fought and survived The Pit elected not to leave and stayed for years for his vengeance and Aker. He lived walking a tight rope as he had to keep Aker alive fighting off assassins and schemes. He also had to plan and facilitate an escape from a place many had deemed impossible to escape from alive. Every day was pressure filled and one mistake could result in the death of not just him but everyone else who supported Aker.
When they had first boarded the ship and left Vance who found himself alone in his room felt a sudden moment of loss. He had been living with a blade to his neck for so long he now didn’t know how to live normally. For a year as they traveled there would be no risk. There was no planning. There was no fighting. There was only Vance and his demons with nothing to distract him.
It was after the fourth day of sitting alone with the devil that Vance got up and knocked on Aker’s door. Upon Vance walking in Aker had a confused look, he wondered as he watched Vance walk to the corner of his room.
Without saying a word Vance picked up a sword and tossed it to Aker and grabbed a staff for himself.
Seeing this scene, the battle intent in Aker shot through the roof, a grin spread across his face and a thrill for battle consumed him. Vance had shown him many different fighting moves over the years, but never once had they crossed blades.
So many times, Aker had wanted to show Vance how much he had improved since Vance had taught him the basics but there was never an opportunity.
As Aker was pondering over his strategy to defeat Vance, he felt the room was spinning and he couldn’t figure out why. With a loud bang Aker hit the ground, it was only at the moment his face made contact with the cold hard metal that he realized that it wasn’t the room that was spinning but him.
“First lesson, when fighting a human never lose your concentration or take your eyes off your opponent. I told you early on that while magic beasts were stronger and faster, they were destined to lose to humans, do you remember why?” Vance was lecturing Aker as he laughed. Vance was super proud of himself catching Aker off guard and flipping him through the air.
As excited as Aker was a moment ago he was that frustrated now, his brows were scrunched together his face slightly red, he was especially irritated hearing the laughter in Vance’s voice as he spoke “You told me that humans could strategize and scheme while magical beast could not.”
“That’s correct, humans are not magical beast. You have to plan how you’re going to defeat them. You have to use feints, you have to use traps and you have to use your environment as well as your opponents weakness. Now get up! Make mistakes, fall for my traps, just don’t make the same mistake twice!” Vance’s voice echoed in the room as he moved forward to attack.
Everyday Vance and Aker would fight, and every day Vance would give Aker advice. One day Aker would use the sword and Vance would use the staff and the next day their weapons would be reversed.
Vance even encouraged Aker to use his throwing darts which immediately convinced Aker that he would win easily. Upon trying them Aker was rudely awakened when he missed on every throw. As Vance explained “Magical beasts move in linear lines whereas humans are completely unpredictable. In order to master throwing darts on humans you’re going to have to learn how to tell which direction they are moving in.”
“You…..are……jusssst…….saying…….that……because……I’m…….getting…….close……to……beating you!” Aker had finally gotten the words out of his mouth. Towards the end of his sentence he was starting to catch his breath.
“Sure…sure…you’re getting close to beating me. You look like you got hit by an Oppression Ox, you’d know I wasn’t lying if this room had a mirror…hahahahahahahha….” Vance was speaking sarcastically to Aker and having a good time doing it. He also decided to throw a jab at Aker since he had once been pummeled by an Oppression Ox and he looked awful.
Just as Aker was getting ready to respond the entire ship shook and came to a sudden stop.
Just as Aker and Vance were trying to figure out what was happening Cap’s voice came in over the loudspeaker “Vance get your ass up here, were about to be boarded by pirates!”