Jason rolls his eyes, “Of course magic would make food taste better. Do the different power types do different things to flavor? I am sure that fire attuned stuff is spicy or some such nonsense.”
Rosha chuckles, “And what? You have personal experience with how powered food would taste? But you aren’t wrong. Mana tends to give things a lighter complex flavor. High class chefs from our world are really enamored with what it does. Qi goes in the opposite direction and creates a more robust though still complex flavor. Energy is rare enough, even in plants, that even the locals haven’t pinned down exactly what it does. Oh, and yeah, the fire equals spicy is in full force.”
Jason scoffs, “As if reality would be that kind. Fire attuned stuff tends more towards an overcooked flavor. Think roasted instead of spicy.”
Rosha rolls her eyes, “Cool story. Though we should move on. Lily has finished what she plans to eat and we can move on. There should be enough time for another fight if we find anything.”
They did not find another fight. The rest of the day goes by smoothly, much to Lily’s disappointment. Next day however has a lot more fun and fighting for her.
Next morning Jason is actually the one to spot the first monster for Lily to fight. Rosha and Courtney had focused on plant-based monsters which wasn’t a terrible thing. Jason however had gained a bit of horticultural knowledge and so was able to notice when a mushroom wasn’t just that.
Named “Orange Mushroom” this monster looked just like any other mushroom except for a false face on one side and the fact that it wasn’t connected to the ground. Instead, this mushroom monster hops around and attacks through, trying to land on its enemies.
Once pointed out to Lily, she hops down off of Jason’s shoulder on her own and goes on the attack. The mushroom now recognizing it was spotted hops out of the way. Frustrated, Lily tries to kick out with her back legs as the monster bounces away, but the mushroom simply jumps too high to be hit.
For the next few moments their fight devolves into the two hopping after one another. The orange mushroom will try to jump on Lily and she easily moves out of the way. Lily bats at the mushroom with her paw, and the mushroom responds by trying to jump on her again. Back and forth this goes on until Lily figures out the solution.
The mushroom gets one more jump in, but this time Lily hops a slight distance to the side. While the orange mushroom’s attack still misses, Lily can now attack right away. She lunges forward and sinks her teeth into the monsters.
It tries to jump away but despite the two being of similar size the mushroom is actually quite light with most of its attack power coming from Qi. With Lily hanging on the orange mushroom simply cannot jump away.
Lily shifts her weight onto her back legs and bats away at the mushroom with her paws. The fight is for all intents and purposes over. Her hold on it with her bite is draining away health while her paw attacks are just piling on more damage. Soon enough the orange mushroom dies to the continual damage, unable to do anything once it couldn’t jump.
With the mushroom monster dead Lily nibbles at it but breakfast was not an hour ago, so she soon hops back to Jason. She looks up at him with teary eyes and he laughs. Jason reaches down and pets her. “All right, we can harvest some of it and cook it up at lunch.”
Jason walks over to the dead mushroom and turns it over. After he looks it over, he smiles. Despite having been a monster, it was really just a regular mushroom an excess of Qi had animated. Not the rarest of things. The leaf walker from yesterday was basically the same thing. However it does make his job of harvesting materials from it easier.
He takes out one of his throwing knives and gets to work. First, he slices off the mushroom’s stalk as close to the cap as he can manage. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is simply too tough for a quick fry. Stem out of the way Jason with great care peels away the skin of the mushroom cap and scrapes out the gills. At the end all that is left is the meat of the cap. Jason wraps it up in a large leaf from a nearby tree.
The next couple of fights follow a similar pattern. Lily would charge at the monsters and after much dodging, sink her teeth into it and finish the fight. Rosha was happy that she could win without being hurt, but after lunch Jason shuts this down. He looks at the two of them and raises an eyebrow. “No more biting.”
Lily tilts her head to the side and Rosha freezes. Once she processes it she complains, “but that’s how she fights! It isn’t like it has been doing badly either. Her bite attack is actually quite successful.”
Jason nods, “exactly the problem. Lily, your bite attack is too good against these minor plant monsters. What happens when you fight the boss and it just shakes you off? Take the orange mushroom as an example. What if it had even just twice your mass? How well would the fight have gone if it could just have continued to jump around with you dangling off of it helpless?”
Rosha crosses her arms and frowns. “I guess that is true enough. However! However, you should let Lily use her bite attack if it seems appropriate. She probably has a biting skill of some sort being a rabbit and all so she should train it up some.”
Jason shrugs, “Lily, do you have a bite skill?”
Lily tilts her head to the side again. Jason laughs at this, “I guess we’ll just have to wait till you can share your status screen with us to know that. Now I know the fried mushroom was delicious and filling, but we shouldn’t laze around. Instead, let’s set out and walk it off.”
TFTC!
Bun! ?