Colby opened the door to his bedroom as softly as possible. Hours had passed after his arduous battle in the bathroom. As expected, Brie was sound asleep. He snuck to his table, as quiet as a mouse. The moonlight from the window guiding him.

  It was time to experiment with mixing cheese and ginger.

  What did he remember when he ate a piece of Ms. M’s candied ginger and Brie’s little mozzarella heart? Subtle sweet spiciness mixed with a layer of soft creamy chewiness. The flavors contrasted with each other, while the textures complemented. That was what made it work.

  But how could he achieve such depths of flavor?

  Closing his eyes, Colby honed in on his Core.

  He got his Core Constructs to gather around him—the maneuverable ones at least—as he started his speech.

  “Okay, guys. We’ve got a new goal tonight.”

  Smart Waiter opened and closed his hatch repeatedly, excited for what’s to come. Colby knew what he was hoping for, but unfortunately, now wasn’t the time.

  “Sorry, Smart Waiter. I’m not expanding to a Tier 1 Core yet. That’s next up on the agenda.”

  The Core Construct let out a slow and whimpering flap of his hatch.

  “I know. I know,” Colby said, patting his metallic hatch. “But don’t worry. You’ll be the first one who gets an upgrade, okay?”

  A single slow open and close of his hatch indicated Smart Waiter said yes. A very reluctant yes, but a yes, nonetheless.

  Colby turned back to the rest of his Core Constructs, resuming his address.

  “Today, we’re going to be making ginger cheese.”

  The Core Constructs turned around to discuss with each other. They lacked mouths, so they communicated using their noodle-like limbs, moving them in a continuous arm wave.

  “Settle down. Settle down. Now, I know earlier we were trying to make mozzarella using Skate Goat Milk. And I know that we haven’t exactly accomplished that yet, but trust me. This one will be real quick. Then I’ll—probably—try to expand my Core, and then move on to using Skate Goat Milk to make mozzarella. Good?”

  The Core Constructs resumed their arm waves, discussing amongst themselves about the sudden change in plans—again.

  It’s not his fault. He was a capricious man, one who followed his every whim. He blamed his mother for eating too much caprese salad when he was in her womb.

  Moving on.

  “Okay, same process as before, but this time we’re adding the Shell Ginger I picked up from the beach earlier. When, how, and where I’m going to add it? That’s a problem for future me. So let’s just start and see how it goes.”

  All of his Core Constructs pumped their limbs, hatches, and doors swinging open in excitement—except Stove.

  Colby walked over to The Cheesetastic Fridge, grabbed a bottle of Daisy Cow milk, and poured most of it into Pottingham. It was the usual process of heating up the milk, adding some rennet and citric acid powder, then using Curd-Cutter to cut the curds into a checkerboard pattern. After another round of heating, Cheese Bowl and Cheese-lander fused into the mighty Bowl-lander, where they drained the whey and kneaded the curds into mozzarella.

  All the while, Colby was thinking.

  Normally, he never added anything extra to his cheese—other than some salt at the end. Flavored cheese was a thing, typically made either using herbs, spices, or wood smoke. His mother was particularly good at it, adding an extra punch to her already impressive cheese.

  The simplest way would be to add it at the end of the cheese-making process. Yup, he’d go with that for now.

  Colby grabbed a Shell Ginger from the door that led to his Inventory. It was brown and fibrous in the shape of a seashell. Rapping his fingers against its surface, he felt how sturdy its shell was. There was only one way to retrieve the treasure held within.

  “Curd-Cutter, do you mind?”

  The knife folded its limbs across his blade, turning away from him.

  “I’ll let you cut the ginger?”

  Curd-Cutter turned back, looked at the Shell Ginger in his hands, then begrudgingly unfolded his arms.

  “Thanks. You’re the best.”

  Colby picked him up by the handle, angling Curd-Cutter toward the Shell Ginger. He moved the blade closer, inserting him into the little slit of the Shell Ginger. With a flick of his wrist and a metallic groan from Curd-Cutter, the shell popped open, revealing the golden riches inside—it was actually a bit more yellow than gold, but close enough.

  Instead of the earthy aroma he associated with regular ginger, this one reminded him of the sea. It made sense since this variation of ginger grew along the coasts.

  Colby paused. He had decided that he’d incorporate the Shell Ginger into the finished ball of mozzarella, but he hadn’t considered how. It’s not like he could dump the entire thing and call it a day. Okay, technically, he could, but even he could see that that was going to be a waste of time and resources.

  How should he prepare the ginger?

  Raw or cooked?

  Sliced or grated?

  Curds! This was going to be harder than he thought.

  Cheese was what he was good at, not ginger.

  Colby looked at the opened Shell Ginger in his hand. Raw probably wouldn’t go well. He didn’t need to be good at ginger to tell that sort of thing. As for cooking it. How long? And at what temperature?

  What about sliced or grated? Both could work depending on how much of the ginger flavor he wanted to impart into the cheese.

  He shrugged. He’ll figure it out.

  Flipping Curd-Cutter around so that he was grabbing the blade of the Core Construct, Colby dug the handle into the Shell Ginger, cutting out yellow, salty, spicy chunks from the shell.

  Once he was done, he placed Curd-Cutter down next to the chunks.

  “Do you want to do the rest yourself?” Colby asked.

  The knife nodded, bending its entire body down like it was chopping the air.

  “My requirements, okay?”

  Curd-Cutter bent down, paused for a second, before finishing his nod.

  “Good. I need them in small enough slices to fit within a standard-size mozzarella ball and also really fine pieces—like a minced ginger—since I don’t have a grater Core Construct. Is that okay?”

  He nodded enthusiastically.

  Great. While Curd-Cutter was cutting something other than curds, he’d have to figure out how to actually cook the ginger.

  Pottingham was the closest thing he had to a frying pan. He would have to do. Though convincing him to accept something other than milk was going to be difficult.

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  Something poked him in the leg, forcing him to look down.

  It was Curd-Cutter and Cheese-Bowl, who had unfused itself with Cheese-lander. Within Cheese Bowl were the sliced up Shell Ginger pieces all mixed together. That gave him another idea.

  He saw how violent the fused Bowl-lander could be when they kneaded the mozzarella. What if he got them to mash some of the ginger into a puree?

  Bending down, Colby whispered the idea to Cheese Bowl. Without even a second thought, he gave a thumbs up with its glass noodle-like limbs. Leaping into the air and landing on top of Stove, he dumped out about half of the ginger onto Stove’s top before fusing with Cheese-lander. The colander Core Construct didn’t even know about the plan, just going with the flow.

  After the flash of light vanished, their four glass and plastic hands raised to the air and started pounding the ever-living curds out of the Shell Ginger.

  While they did that, Colby moved to the dumped pile, grabbed the thin slices and minced ginger, and separated them into four piles. Sure, his cheese sense could already tell that adding raw ginger would make his cheese taste disgusting, but it would be better to confirm it—especially since his ginger senses didn’t even exist.

  Grabbing half of the ginger, he turned to Pottingham.

  “Hey, buddy. I’ve got a new ingredient for you to try,” he said, slowly lowering the thin slices of Shell Ginger into the pot.

  Upon making contact with its metallic bottom, Pottingham immediately spat the ginger slices out. It landed on Stove’s top. In retaliation, Stove turned his dial. Hot flames poured out of his burner, sapping Colby’s Mana and roasting Pottingham’s bottom.

  The bottom of the metal grew red hot. Pottingham tried to stand, but his noodle-like legs became even noodlier, drooping into metal pasta.

  That was bad. If this kept up, Pottingham’s metal might warp or even crack, and he’d have no choice but to put down the Core Construct. He couldn’t even lift up the pot without burning his Core Manifestation.

  Colby rushed to The Cheesetastic Fridge and grabbed a bottle of Daisy Cow milk, dumping its contents into Pottingham. Steam erupted as the cool liquid made contact with the searing metal. Milk bubbled, and Colby could already tell that it was going to be useless for making cheese—well, any good-tasting cheese at least.

  Temp-tation came over and slapped Stove’s dial, turning him off. She lambasted him, using a slur of gestures. He whimpered with a slow release of fire from his other unoccupied burners.

  Curds! He really should just get rid of Stove. That project on his ever-expanding list of projects just got bumped up in priority.

  But…

  When life gives you milk, make cheese.

  “Say, Pottingham. I just saved your life and gave you some milk. Do you think you could do me a favor and let me cook some ginger inside of you?”

  All of the milk within Pottingham disappeared, well, almost all. At the bottom of the pot, the remnants of burnt liquid spelled you the word, “Yes.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then he looked at Temp-tation.

  “Do you mind helping?”

  She nodded using her entire body.

  Her glass-thermometer hands moved downwards, slowly caressing Stove’s knob until it rotated just the tiniest bit, turning him on. A low gush of flames leaked out of Stove’s burner, slowly warming up Pottingham.

  Colby placed the Shell Ginger slices into Pottingham, letting them cook for a while. He didn’t know the right way to cook ginger, so he just left it to his gut instinct—which was kind of useless towards anything but cheese. But once it turned golden-brown and smelled like the spicy parts of the sea, he decided that it was good enough.

  Then he received some notifications.

  Congratulations! [Cheese Bowl] has reached level 7!

  Congratulations! [Cheese-lander] has reached level 7!

  His Core Constructs had leveled up again. He wanted to celebrate, but right now it was cheese time.

  Bowl-lander had finished mashing up a ginger puree. It was a soft golden color, almost like a young cheddar. But instead of a sharp bite, it was slightly spicy, and definitely not cheesy.

  More stuff to be cooked.

  Soon enough, he had all of the things he needed to try out his first phase of experiments. With that single ball of mozzarella, he split it into six equal pieces.

  One by one, he incorporated the various pieces of Shell Ginger into them, mixing them into the mozzarella balls. The thin slices, the minced bits, and finally the puree. Both cooked and raw versions. With a touch of salt, it was done.

  Time to see how his first batch went.

  Loading them all up into Smart Waiter, he closed the hatch.

  Back in the real world, the six different balls of mozzarella materialized in his palms. Visually, only those with thin slices stood out. Small yellow bits—golden brown in the cooked case—peaked out in uneven edges. The rest looked nearly identical, just a small and round ball of cheese.

  Time to see the fruits of his efforts.

  He put the first ball in his mouth. It was the raw one. The mozzarella was delectable as expected, but the small pieces of Shell Ginger ruined everything. It tasted like the sea and not the good part.

  On the other hand, the cooked one fared better, though only slightly. It was salty, slightly spicy, and weirdly crunchy.

  This was nowhere near the level of that accidental combination. That’s okay, he still had a few more to sample.

  One by one, he plopped the remaining cheese into his mouth. As expected, those made with raw pieces were just plain bad. Gross was all the flavor description he was willing to spare.

  The cooked minced ginger was miles better than the thinly sliced ones—it wasn’t as overpowering. An even blend of spice that contrasted nicely with the mozzarella. The pureed version had a softer texture that blended best with the mozzarella’s creaminess.

  He was definitely on the right track.

  Or at least on a track that was close enough to the right one.

  One thing was for certain: Shell Ginger was not the ginger Ms. M used in her ginger candy.

  All of these tasted too much like the sea. And they weren’t nearly as sweet—though it might be because he didn’t add sugar. But as far as he was aware, the candied ginger Ms. M offered him didn’t have any sugar. It must’ve been naturally sweet. She must’ve leveraged the natural sweetness of Butterfly Ginger.

  But there was something else missing from the equation.

  Colby moved his mouth, hoping to relive the taste of that delicious combination. It was when he made a chewing motion that sparks flew. The candied ginger was chewy, while his was mushy. That was what he needed to do: he needed to make the ginger chewier.

  Another idea popped into his mind.

  Instead of using Daisy Cow milk, he could try using Su-Sheep milk. Su-Sheeps were creatures of both the land and sea. Their salty, oceany milk would pair perfectly with the Shell Ginger.

  Another avenue for him to travel down. But first, he’d have to ask his parents for permission to use this milk. It was the most expensive type, and even he didn’t dare to overstep that boundary.

  But, for now, it was sleep time.

  Slinking into bed as quietly as possible, Colby closed his eyes, ready to enter slumberland. Hopefully, he would dream up a new cheese recipe.

  Just as slumber was about to claim him, he felt something nudge his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he found Brie.

  “Broby,” she whimpered.

  “Yeah, Brie. What’s wrong?”

  “I had a nighty-mare.”

  “Oh, Brie, are you okay?”

  Clutching her hands together, she vigorously shook her head, hair flying back and forth.

  “Can I sleepy with you?”

  “Sure, Brie,” he said, moving over to the other side of the bed and letting his younger sister crawl in.

  “Anything else you need?”

  “Can I have some milky?”

  “Sure, Brie,” he said.

  It would’ve been so much simpler if she had just asked for cheese. Milk was a bit harder, especially since he had moved it out of his Inventory and into The Cheesetastic Fridge.

  Once anything was modified inside the Core, the only way they were coming out was by being cast–or if the effects of the modification disappeared. That was the case if you just left it alone for a period of time, if not he’d never be able to get those empty glass bottles of milk out of his Core.

  Still, the only thing he could cast was cheese.

  And he tried to cast anything other than cheese, it’d fail spectacularly in his face.

  When in doubt, ask a parent. Though they didn’t seem to be in their room.

  Walking down the stairs in search of them, he could hear their voices through the door that led into the shop floor.

  “Looks like the war really is coming,” his mother sighed.

  “And the taxes? It’s insane? Is the King trying to bankrupt us?” his father asked.

  “It’s okay, hon. We have enough savings. We’ll be able to pull through.”

  “I know, dear. It’s just. We really have to cut down on expenses. Only order exactly what we need, no more, no less. It’s just that…” he sighed.

  “You don’t know how to break it to Colby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love cheese, but cheese is his life. How do we tell him that we can’t afford his cheese experiments anymore? At least until the war is over.”

  Colby slammed the door open.

  “You what? No more cheese!”