Ina was diligently honing her cooking skills in the kitchen. Several dishes that were about to reach the standard for mass production were perfected by her (made more than 100 times and the average completion rate exceeded 80%), and they could now be produced instantly.
At the entrance, a fluffy black coal ball was peeking inside. The kitchen had a magic array specifically designed to keep it out, so it squatted at the door watching.
Ina was about to go tease the black cat when the system reminded her: [Neranka's food has arrived.]
Elvys watched the girl in the kitchen without blinking. She had inexplicably disappeared again yesterday, and he didn't know what she had done. When she returned, even the color of her hair had changed. Elvys, with his keen sense of smell since becoming a cat, could assure that at one moment he smelled a hint of sea breeze on Ina. The icy plains she had visited before were not by the sea, so she must have built a teleportation array connecting more than one place.
Just as Elvys was speculating on Ina's intentions, she disappeared in front of him again!
Ina put the delivered food into her backpack and paid the bill. Because she purchased in large quantities, the grocery store also gave her a few baskets of fruit. Ina saw that most of them were mangoes and coconuts, along with a basket of pineapples, pomegranates, and dragon fruits mixed together.
"Does Neranka also produce these fruits?" she asked the porter at the food store.
The other party wiped off a handful of sweat, pointing in the direction further south: "Neranka only has coconuts, the rest are transported from Vosli City. The merchants there bring fresh fruits every morning."
Ina gave him a silver coin as a tip, and he was overwhelmed. Ina then remembered that this was not Misty Town, and it might take her a while to get used to the low prices here.
As she walked into the restaurant, a young man appeared at the door. After confirming the address from the sign at the door, he showed Ina a white-toothed smile: "Good morning, ma'am, I'm Donne. Captain Gavin sent me here, he said you were hiring."
Ina opened the door: "That's right, but before that, we might need to talk."
They sat at a table by the window, not far from the beach and the azure sea outside. The sea breeze blew the white gauze on the window curtain. On such a beautiful morning, Ina felt like she was conducting an interrogation.
"Donne, I'd like to know what crime landed you in jail?"
"Uh, it was for accidental injury, and I was sentenced to six months."
"Can you be more specific?"
Donne nodded, "I was patrolling the streets at the time and saw a nobleman insulting a vegetable vendor. So, I slapped the nobleman, just like he did to the vendor. He accused me of abuse of power and assault on a nobleman, which was originally a minor matter. But I heard that some nobles were pushing this case behind the scenes, trying to reduce the size of the Imperial Knights, so it alarmed Knight Commander Asland."
"Knight Commander Asland thought that the nobleman was overly emotional and inadvertently used his cheek to hit my palm, disrupting public order, so he fined him ten gold coins. Although this was not my intention, it caused the nobleman to lose two teeth, so I was sentenced to six months."
Ina suppressed a smile at the corner of her lips and asked with a serious face, "Then why were you sent to Neranka? I remember there is a prison in the Imperial City."
Donne shrugged, "That nobleman was not satisfied with the verdict and said he would make me pay in prison. Coincidentally, Knight Commander Asland told me that I could serve my sentence in Neranka. Here, if professionals cooperate with the orders, the sentence is halved, and I could return to the Knights in just three months."
Cooperate with the orders? Ina thought for a moment and realized he must be referring to farming and harvesting wheat.
Donne showed a bitter smile, "I was too happy and forgot to bring money in my haste. Gavin and the others wanted to help me, but the fare from Neranka to the Imperial City is really too expensive, so I decided to make a living on my own."
Ina thought to herself: By the time you save enough money, my branches might have opened in the Imperial City!
"How about twenty silver coins a month?" Ina asked straightforwardly. Dusì's salary is also ten silver coins a month currently, and Ina has been thinking about giving her a raise recently. Donne could both serve as a waiter and help watch the shop, so twenty silver coins wouldn't be a loss.
Donne was surprised. He initially thought ten silver coins a month would be good, but he didn't expect the boss to be so generous. If Miss Ina didn't take him in, Donne might have to go to the port to work as a porter. Actually, he thought being a porter wasn't bad, at least he was strong and could earn a lot, but Gavin reminded him that if he got too tanned, he wouldn't be chosen for the honor guard when he returned to the Knights of celebration.
In the Imperial Knights, more than half of the members are dream lovers of noble ladies, all handsome and upright. The competition within the team is fierce, and Donne still hopes to have a chance to meet Duke Elvys up close after being selected for the honor guard at the celebration, so he can't afford to be tanned like a piece of coal.
"However, I hope you can live in the shop because I'm not here most of the time."
Of course, Donne agreed immediately. He didn't want to stay at Gavin's house all the time.
Ina arranged a room for him on the second floor, and Donne went around the entire shop without finding a kitchen.
"This is a restaurant, right?" He confirmed with Ina.
"Yes," Ina reminded Donne, "We'll be opening for business soon."
Donne looked around, wondering where the chef and the ingredients were. The boss surprisingly entrusted him with an empty shop, without even assigning a trusted cashier.
Of course, Ina was not worried. She could see every transaction of her branch restaurant from a panel.
Ina led Donne into an empty room with a strange machine. It was a magical device that Ina had obtained from the system, which could solve the problem of her not being able to manage several shops as the only chef.
She pointed to the LCD screen on the machine and asked him, "You can read, right?"
After receiving an affirmative answer, she asked Donne to read the text on the screen.
Donne didn't understand but read it out anyway, "Red lorry, yellow lorry, green lorry...."
The machine made a sound, "Voiceprint collected successfully. Grant permissions?"
Ina: "Yes."
The machine coldly replied, "Permissions granted successfully."
Donne was completely confused. He just wanted to find a job in a restaurant to earn enough money to go home, but it seemed like he had encountered something extraordinary. What was this talking silver cabinet in front of him? Was it the legendary intelligent magical device?
Ina patted the "Food Transporter" and had already changed its operation mode to voice control. Now she taught Donne how to use it: "After the customer places an order, tell the machine the food and the number of servings. It will repeat it back to you. After confirming, open the cabinet and take out the food."
Donne was puzzled. Could this machine cook? How could food appear out of thin air from inside it?
This machine had been modified by the system and connected to the refrigerator cabinet in Dusì's Misty Town shop. After Donne said the required dishes, the transporter would send the prepared dishes from the refrigerator cabinet.
If the refrigerator cabinet happened to run out of the required dishes, the system would prompt Ina to choose whether to make the missing dishes immediately. If Ina refused, the machine would notify Donne that the dish was sold out.
In the end, Ina patted Donne's shoulder, "You'll understand after using it a few times."
Next, she taught him how to make ice cream. All the machines were quite intelligent. As long as the raw materials were poured into the appropriate slots, the machine would automatically mix the proportions to make waffle cones, hard ice cream, and soft ice cream.
Donne would then combine them into cone ice cream and various ice cream scoops for sale. Ina added, "The food transporter might also ask you to provide ice cream. Just follow the instructions and put the finished ice cream in the place where you took the food earlier."
Although Misty Town had a cold and gloomy climate, nothing could stop people from wanting to eat delicious ice cream.
Before leaving, Ina gave her final instructions to Donne, "If you have any problems you can't solve, just tell that machine, and I'll receive the message and find a solution immediately."
Donne nodded in confusion: when Ina wasn't around, that machine would be his boss.
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Ina had gathered enough food, and finally, the greenhouse and rabbit hutch for the Polar Ice Fields could be planned.
But before that, she needed some expert opinions.
Keira and Frank were invited by her to the Polar Ice Fields. Despite wearing their warmest clothes, the two men could not withstand the freezing winds of the area, their faces turning blue from the cold.
Ina had to give them two pieces of heat-emitting Lava Hearts to tuck into their clothes.
Their role in this journey was to advise Ina on the selection of suitable construction sites. Keira ran the largest ranch in town, and although the number of livestock had never exceeded 20 at its peak, this was because the grass grew sparsely and stunted in Misty Town. Frank not only owned a chicken coop, but he was also a bricklayer. No one was more suitable than them to help Ina scout locations for the greenhouse and rabbit hutch.
Keira looked at the black cat in Ina's arms and wondered, "Isn't it cold?"
Ina smiled and said, "It's a strange black cat."
Choosing a suitable construction site first needed to consider that it should not be too far from the Rize tribe's village and Ina's cabin, and secondly, there should be a nearby river for water. The fertility of the soil, the height of the terrain, and the slope of the land were considerations for later.
Fortunately, the Rize tribe was located next to a river, just a 10-minute walk away. A large area nearby was fertile due to the growth of trees and the accumulation and decomposition of fallen leaves, coupled with the long, cold winters that accumulated a large amount of organic matter, creating a very fertile humus soil layer.
Keira didn't know how this thick layer of black soil was formed, but when she brushed away the snow and saw the uniform soil particles, the loose soil layer hiding leaves and grassroots, she knew it was suitable for farming, let alone growing grass for rabbits.
With the location decided, the next step was Frank's advice. He first asked Ina, "Miss Ina, I might need to take a closer look at the soil quality here. If you want to start building soon, I assume you'll need to remove the accumulated snow on top."
Since the general area had been decided, Ina could clear the snow. She sent Keira and Frank to a safe distance and used several powerful Fireball spells. The fireballs rolled over the snow, quickly melting it and revealing the dark brown soil underneath.
The thick layer of snow melted, wetting the soil, but the layer of snow was so thick that the soil seemed overly wet. The land in front of Ina was like a mud pit, and she had to use other magic to drain the excess water.
Frank and Keira approached. Frank dug down several tens of centimeters into the soil layer. The topsoil had been thawed by Ina's recent fire magic, but the underlying layer was still hard permafrost.
Frank straightened up and tossed his shovel aside, "Miss Ina, since you want to build a farm and ranch here, I assume you have a way to deal with this permafrost."
Of course, she has.
If she didn't find a way to affect the permafrost and the temperature, the Polar Ice Fields would have a pitifully short growing season each year. But Ina's bag was filled with gems from various schools of magic, and changing the environment of a small area in this magical world was not a problem at all.
"Yes, Mr. Frank, the construction of the rabbit hutch doesn't need to consider the permafrost. This area will be warm as spring."
Frank's expression relaxed considerably. Permafrost had a significant impact on construction. The frost heave of the soil layer could damage the foundation and need to be handled very carefully.
Frank and Keira discussed it, and the final plan they offered to Ina was to build a circle of rabbit hutches around a sufficiently large enclosed area, with the central space used for growing pasture.
"Livestock that doesn't move around don't taste good." This was Keira's reason for insisting on leaving a large enough activity space in the center of the rabbit hutch.
"These rabbits are not a combative breed, and as long as there's enough food, there shouldn't be any fights. The height of the rabbit hutch doesn't need to be too high, just enough for people to get in and out, so the foundation doesn't have to be dug very deep, which can save construction time."
Keira seemed to think of something and added, "We need to leave a special room for the doe to give birth, and the newborn rabbits also need separate care."
The three reached an agreement, and Ina suddenly asked out of the blue, "Would it be okay to build the entire hutch in a circular shape?"