When Hana returned home, she casually placed the fruit can on the table and went straight into the kitchen to make mashed potatoes with butter.
She was one of the wealthiest women in the town, owning not only a bakery but also a grocery store. However, she was the behind-the-scenes owner of both shops and was only responsible for making the bread sold in the bakery, which was her unique skill. The procurement and sales of the grocery store were all entrusted to her husband, Beck.
So it was quite a coincidence that Ina bought flour at the grocery store last time. Beck wasn't always at the store, as he would go to Bante City for supplies and be gone for almost a month. During this time, Hana would take care of both shops, with the bakery and grocery store opening alternately.
When Beck returned home, he saw the strange cylindrical box on the table. "Dear, what's this?"
Hana poked her head out of the kitchen, "It's a gift from the owner of the Dragon Flame Restaurant. It's called a can." She added, "You can open it by hooking the ring on top."
"Well, I'm going to open it." As Beck pulled open the can, he said, "I hear the sound of liquid inside. It must be beer." He lifted the metal piece from the lid, "Oh!"
Hana wiped her hands and walked over, "Is it really alcohol?" She bent down and her expression became the same as Beck's, "Oh!"
Layers of orange-yellow fruit segments were piled up in the can, shining with a faint light in the clear juice. A sweet orange aroma rushed out.
Hana picked up an orange segment with a fork and put it in her mouth. The burst of juice spread throughout her mouth, accompanied by a hint of sour sweetness. With a satisfied look on her face, she asked, "Dear, do you remember the last time I had fresh fruit?"
Beck's expression was unpleasant, "Last year, a mage gave you an apple, and you gave him ten loaves of white bread in return."
Hana: "What about the time before that?"
Beck became even more unhappy: "I brought you a box of apples from Bante City, and you hit me on the head with a rolling pin! My forehead swelled up!"
Hana raised her eyebrows: "You mean that box of dried apples, right?"
It took almost half a month for ordinary people to travel from Mist Town to the nearest city, Bante City. The treacherous terrain was even impassable for horses. The primary transportation method for food depended on spatial rings. For ordinary people with low mental power, the spatial rings they could use were not only small but also unable to preserve freshness.
The goods Beck transported to Bante City were mostly food. To ensure the food stayed dry, he placed a simple drying spell inside the spatial ring. As a result, the apples turned into dried fruit.
Beck was quite aggrieved: "I even put the apples in a wooden box filled with sawdust, but it still didn't work."
Hana shoved an orange segment into Beck's mouth and said menacingly: "Didn't I give you a kiss"
Beck's eyes squinted with delight as he savored the sweetness of the orange, completely forgetting about the rolling pin.
At the same time, chaos ensued at Keira's house. She and her husband both reached out to grab the fruit can. Keira pulled, and the can slid over to her side of the table: "This is the restaurant owner's return gift to me!"
Keira's husband argued, and the can moved back to his side: "If I hadn't reminded you, you wouldn't have even remembered to bring a gift!"
Seeing the juice inside the can spill out due to their actions, and a coconut fruit almost escaping, both Kaira and her husband's faces flashed a hint of heartache.
Together, they exclaimed: "Half for each of us!"
————
In the most beautiful white house in Mist Town, Mayor Rosa, and her family were gathered around the dinner table. Rosa looked at her daughter with gentle eyes: "This time, when Professor Derek leaves Misty Swamp, he'll take you to the capital's Group of Stars Academy to study alchemy." She added, "With your foundation in alchemy, you might directly start as a second-year student."
The Group of Stars Academy was a renowned magic academy in the Silver Empire. It offered a wide range of subjects, from magical botany to necromancy, and from popular elemental magic to niche lingual magic. Lillith's father was the only pharmacist in town, but she had been learning alchemy from a young age.
Lillith looked serious: "As soon as I learn to make a potion that allows the land in our town to grow vegetables, I'll come back."
Rosa couldn't help but smile: "Our life is not bad now, as long as the Dragonflame Restaurant is there, we'll always have vegetables."
"But Dragonflame Restaurant might not always be open!"
Rosa didn't understand why her daughter was so fixated on the fact that the town couldn't grow vegetables, but she patiently explained: "Actually, the Dragonflame Restaurant will always be open. From the time your grandmother was born to my birth, and then to you growing up, it has changed owners, but it has always been there."
Lillith's eyes dimmed: "Grey came back from outside and told me that other towns are different from ours. Bushes and small trees grow on both sides of the roads, and the leaves are green in summer and yellow in autumn. If you want to express love for someone, you give them a bouquet of flowers. But we don't have any of that."
Grey was the son of the red-haired werewolf Keira. He left Mist Town a few years ago to study at the Knight Academy in the capital and was the first child of his generation to leave Mist Town. Rosa could only try to comfort her daughter: "We also have bushes growing in front of our house. Tender yellow bushes are rarer, and their fruits emit a unique fragrance, which makes them more special than other plants."
Lillith's father, who had been silent the whole time, couldn't help but remind his daughter so that she wouldn't find out she was working in vain in the future: "What we lack is sunlight, not potions."
Lillith looked up, determination flickering on her face: "Then I'll bring back the sun."
"No sunlight all year round?" Ina repeated no wonder there were so few plants in the town, and every household only had two wilted yellow shrubs by the door.
Lusen spread his hands: "Not all year round, there are only two seasons here: Misty Month and Clear Month. However, the division of seasons is only meaningful within the boundaries of the Midnight Swamp. During the Misty Month, the swamp is shrouded in thick fog, cold and gloomy, without any daylight. In Clear Month, the fog on the ground dissipates, but there's still a haze above. Strangely, although the town is close to the Midnight Swamp, it maintains the Clear Month's condition, but only a little light penetrates the fog above, making it gloomy and rainy. Common plants find it difficult to grow here."
No wonder the townspeople looked at her so eagerly; she was the only vegetable vendor in town!
The idea of expanding her business burned in Ina's mind. How could a bathtub farm supply ingredients for her future restaurants throughout the continent? There was plenty of open space around the Dragonflame Restaurant, and there was no reason not to utilize it.
"Sunlight..." she murmured to herself, her gaze shifting to the luminous stone she had embedded in the wall.
The stone was said to contain pure light elements, making it the preferred gemstone for the staff of a priest of light. Using it to provide sunlight for the vegetable fields should be more than enough.
"You know about luminous stones, don't you?" Ina suddenly asked. Facing the mysterious boss's sudden question, Lusen felt guilty and said, "Did I... show any signs?"
It had been a long time since any new luminous stone veins were discovered on the continent, and they were treasured by the nobility, hardly circulating in the market. He had the opportunity to see them only when he was involved in related research projects with his mentor. In the days he worked at the restaurant, he had come to realize that Miss Ina was no ordinary person in terms of wealth, strength, or behavior. So he had been cautious, never showing that he recognized any other peculiar features in the restaurant other than the Cold Thornfish when they first met!
"No, you didn't show any signs of unnormal," Ina smiled. "But when you first enter the restaurant you didn't find a glowing stone odd at all."
Lusen stood there, dumbfounded.
Ina reassured him, "I don't mean anything by it. Since you know about luminous stones, can they replace the sun?"
Lusen, regretting his poor acting skills, listlessly gestured with his hand, "If it's big enough, it can."
The volume of a luminous stone and the richness of its light element increase geometrically. A luminous stone the size of a bird's egg would be enough to illuminate a restaurant and one the size of a fist would definitely provide enough energy for a large vegetable field. Ina thought her plan was perfect, but her hand stopped as she searched her backpack.
Each of these stones was a different size, and every luminous stone took up a slot in her backpack. She had found them cumbersome before, so she sold most of the luminous stones, leaving only a small one embedded in the restaurant wall and a huge, prized piece that was taller than a person and weighed 500 pounds.
If she brought out this huge luminous stone today, everyone in the town could come to the entrance of Dragonflame Restaurant tomorrow to watch the sunrise.