Ch.183183. Cloud Sugar

If I had to describe cloud sugar in one word, it would be exactly this.

“This is totally like ramen seasoning!”

A magical powder.

Of course, if you add too much, the sweetness becomes overpowering, so you need to use just the right amount. But it has the effect of automatically adjusting the sweetness of food to a certain degree without having to taste-test it.

“Wow… can sweetness really be this clean?”

Kim Sujeong’s recent hobby is cooking.

After farming, the first thing she does is prepare meals, and when she has time, she experiments with various recipes to learn about flavors.

If you add this, it tastes like that.

That’s why she was expressing her thoughts about cloud sugar’s sweetness like someone who had achieved some philosophical enlightenment.

“This is revolutionary.”

Sugar is used in many places.

These days, sugar substitutes often replace regular sugar, but this seemed to have a completely different taste.

Even someone like me with an undiscriminating palate could tell the difference when eating it.

“Hmm. It is different somehow.”

“Right? It has this sticky yet clean sweetness. It makes you want to keep eating, but the aftertaste doesn’t linger, so it’s incredibly clean.”

The downside of sweet things is that after eating them, your mouth stays sweet for a while, and that sweetness hangover lasts quite long.

Should I call it being saturated with sweetness?

Even when you eat other things, you can’t properly taste them because the lingering stimulation dulls your senses.

But this provides just the right amount of sweetness and then evaporates like a cloud.

So even with other foods.

You can properly taste both the food with cloud sugar and appreciate the flavor of whatever you eat afterward.

“Oppa. Can we get a lot of this?”

“Well, from what I’ve seen, there’s quite a bit. Once we clear the Steam Forest, we should be able to get a large quantity.”

“Even if we don’t sell it, let’s secure enough for ourselves. This is truly revolutionary.”

Kim Sujeong pleaded with me, her eyes sparkling.

That look begging me to provide cloud sugar for life.

“Can’t we grow it ourselves?”

“No. Cloud trees are hard to find, and you need to plant them for at least seven years. Plus, they can only grow in tropical rainforests.”

“Ah… I want to breed and mass-produce them.”

“Maybe we could do something with selective breeding? I’ll research it later.”

Well, in the Farming World and Rift Dimension, there are always ways if you try.

We could create an environment similar to a tropical rainforest and plant selectively bred varieties.

Or after clearing the Steam Forest, we could use fertilizer or something to help the fruit grow faster where the cloud trees are and cultivate more.

Anyway, since cloud sugar is quite an important resource, I thought we should be careful when developing the Steam Forest to minimize damage to that area.

“Smooth mushroom trees, hair-growth trees, and now cloud trees. We might as well turn the east side into an orchard.”

Ironically, the orchard that the previous owner worked hard to create only grows star fruits, while all the trees with marketable fruits are naturally growing in the east.

Until now, only the Black Monkeys have been using them, but with cloud sugar added, I was worried that the workload might become a bit tight.

Even at a glance, there were quite a lot of cloud trees.

I was about to go quickly clear the level 2 biome quests and think about how to utilize the cloud sugar when…

“Yuuuu…!”

“Oh, Unir. Long time no see?”

Unir approached me affectionately after a long time.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t paid much attention to her since she returned from her last outing because I was busy.

I see her every day during meals, but it’s not like I’m raising a child, and Poongpoong just quietly guards my surroundings, so I’m not as conscious of the spirits’ presence as I should be.

It’s fortunate that Unir is a top-tier spirit with self-awareness.

If it weren’t for Unir, I might have forgotten that Poongpoong was still hovering around me.

“Yuu!”

Unir strongly expressed her desire to be helpful.

“Hmm. Really? Want to do something?”

It is a bit of a shame to only use a top-tier water spirit as a fancy sprinkler every day.

If I didn’t have purified ice spirit liquor, Unir’s skill spamming might have been a burden, but now my mana has increased to the point of being nearly infinite, so using an SSS+ grade spirit’s abilities freely isn’t much of a problem.

So I decided to sort things out.

“I should use spirits properly too.”

With skill effects increasing by 30% and the required spirit cost decreasing from 30% to 21%, I now had a surplus of 290 spirit points, so I decided to teach Unir some abilities or skills related to her.

Spirits can serve as high-grade sprinklers, but on the other hand, if you have mana to spare and can use high-ranking spirits, a spirit summoner can perform as well as a mage in battle.

In fact, they might even be better than mages if there’s mana to spare.

Mages have to cast spells one by one during battle, but spirit summoners can simply command their spirits to use skills at desired locations with just mana.

“Hmm. What skill would be good?”

Unir could learn a tremendous number of skills.

Skills are generally determined by one’s abilities, and Unir’s ability was Master of Water (SS).

She could learn almost all water-related skills.

In truth, her existing Master of Water (SS) skill could be used as an extremely powerful lethal skill depending on how it’s used, but such abstract skills, like spraying water over a wide area, consume a lot of mana.

No matter how abundant my mana is, using it inefficiently isn’t good in battle.

Not only is it inefficient, but its killing power is also lower.

Skills should be concise and precise.

“Do this and that to deal this much damage”

VS

“Vaguely use water to block the opponent’s airway and drown them until they die”

That kind of feeling.

So if I wanted to use spirits for hunting, it was better to teach them separate attack skills even if they already had existing skills. Since I was going to hunt Guava Snakes this time, I wanted to choose skills that would help with that.

“Hmm. Would this be good?”

[Water Cut]

– Grade: SS

– Extracts the essence of pure water to create a thin, sharp blade. Can be applied to swords.

– When applied to a sword, water blades can be freely used. Mana is consumed upon use.

– Attack power +300%

– Cutting power increased by 100%.

– Through the power of pure water, healing effects on cut areas are reduced by 100% for 60 seconds.

I was tempted to consider skills that would allow Unir to act more independently, but I still preferred skills that I could use in conjunction with her.

This way, I could use it myself and also utilize Unir’s skills in a threatening manner when needed.

Even with only 21% of the cost, it was an expensive skill that consumed nearly 50 spirit points.

After learning Water Cut, I applied it to my Light Demon Sword.

Swoosh-

A thin layer of water wrapped around the blade.

It didn’t feel heavy at all.

If I swung it without looking, I probably wouldn’t even notice anything was applied.

But when I swung the sword, the feeling was completely different.

Swish-

The water cut through the air.

The sharp, keen water blade left only a few drops as traces, becoming one with the sword as if ready to cut through everything, painting a picture.

“That’s cool.”

Then I tried using a water blade.

Whoosh-

The crescent-shaped water blade followed the trajectory of my sword swing, cleanly cutting through a distant rock and continuing onward.

“…”

I quickly withdrew it, thinking that if I swung it carelessly, it could lead to quite a dangerous situation.

“This is pretty good, isn’t it?”

My only weakness, if you could call it that, is that I don’t have ranged attacks.

Well, with Leap Slash, I don’t really need ranged attacks for most distances, but having a ranged attack I can use without moving is quite a profit for what was just a casual shopping trip.

“Unir. Get ready. Your role today is extremely important.”

The war has begun.

I’ve seen enough of the Black Monkeys’ efforts to fulfill the quest requirements, so now it’s time to see if the so-called dense chaotic energy can handle my uncontrollable power.

With Unir gently perched on my shoulder, I quickly headed toward the eastern forest.

Past the Hair-growth Tree Forest, empty due to the Black Monkeys being out hunting, to the middle of the Steam Forest where a misty fog had settled.

Hissssss-

When I heard the sound of giant snakes moving.

I leaped toward the sound and slashed.

Papapapapapat!

Dozens of strikes with my Water Cut-enhanced sword hit one snake.

Thwack- The cleanly severed head of the Guava Snake was a pathetically anticlimactic end for such a large creature.

“Yuu!”

And I didn’t even need to carefully search for snakes.

This was the Steam Forest.

The moisture permeating everywhere was like a playground for Unir, the Master of Water.

Unir marked locations with water where snakes were hiding.

Even underground.

Even in the trees.

“Wow, Unir. That’s great!”

“Yuuuuu!”

The praise made Unir dance.

Dancing excitedly, Unir even demonstrated the strange feat of binding hidden Guava Snakes and bringing them out.

“Yuu!”

“…Uh…yeah. Thanks.”

Snakes being water-tortured were dragged before me, writhing with their heads extended, ready to be chopped off.