Purifying Xenoan rock salts was far more difficult than she had anticipated.
According to her database, Terran rock salt should've been finished by now. She had to study a lot of the composition and the differences with Terran salt and had to do some more trial and error for quite some time after that.
It took her a few more hours to finally end up with a powder that had few enough impurities that it wouldn't cause any damage to even the weakest human (i.e. her babies) long-term.
She looked at the bowl of beautiful edible crystal that had finally formed. It was even more glistening than she remembered, and it had hints of pink at certain angles.
Quite pretty.
She placed her pinky on the bowl and closed her eyes to focus on the taste. As the powder melted in her mouth, her eyes brightened at the taste of the perfect saltiness.
"Hm~" She mumbled in satisfaction, though her face scrunched a little at the saltiness.
She opened her emerald eyes and admired her work again, tilting it to different angles. She tried testing its consistency and it was almost like snow.
Snow…
Suddenly, an image of a beautiful leaf appeared in her head. She couldn't help but remember those beautiful snowflake-shaped leaves that now gathered at the corner of her space from as early as their arrival in Xeno.
She completely forgot about it.
No way, so much had happened since then…
Curiously, she rummaged the space to a small box and revealed the snowflake-shaped leaves that had already dried up a bit. After all, it had already been a few weeks.
If she remembered correctly, she didn't even have the Appraisal skill back then. She looked at the leaf and used her skill.
[Estancia (Lv1): Relieves hunger, adds trace amounts of energy.]
"Oh?" She mumbled and immediately handled it so she could test it on Tori.
She didn't expect much, probably some additive to a medicine or something. She was staring at her precious salt while waiting for the results to come out.
Ping!
Tori called and she turned her head to check on it. When she finally saw the summary of its composition, she gaped.
Her eyes widened the more she read, but she dared not make any assumptions. After all, there were some plants with similar composition but they couldn't extract 'that' at all.
She immediately scuttled to her testing area for more detailed examinations. She dissolved the plant in water. Using ceramic mortar and pestle, she ground the plant to a fine paste, later dried to a powder.
It went refractory test and also a density test, putting some powder in a test tube solution, making it cloudy.
The density of the solution changed, as it should if it became sweet because of the presence of… sugar compound.
She gulped but decided to make an extract to test its taste. Using a makeshift distillation process, she soon created a concentrated liquid.
A little shakily, she placed her pinky to the solution, tentatively putting in her tongue.
When she tasted the sweetness she hoped for, she almost cried.
So much time wasted!!!
Sugar!
Sugar was with her all along!!!! Her pregnancy cravings wouldn't be so horrendous if she had this! She wouldn't have had to eat the sweets she reserved for her babies!
Regret!
Much regrets!
The uncharacteristic exclamation made Harold and Sheila (who were trying to sneak the babies in to get her to rest) run to her.
"What's wrong?!"
"What happened!"
She looked at them with pitiful eyes and the two gaped, really not used to it.
For a moment, they thought some sort of tragedy happened without them knowing. The babies also started mumbling sadly, as if beginning to cry as well.
Eh, no, they really started tearing up.
But then Althea suddenly showed them browning leaves with complex shapes. "Sugar! I found sugar!"
Their tense shoulders slumped immediately, and the children cooed and they extended their hands to reach their mother.
Althea's eyes softened and she took them both, handing over the 'leaf' to Sheila.
"Sugar? A leaf?" Sheila looked at the beautiful leaf for a while, not seeing the sugar.
Harold looked at the leaf carefully, and nodded, looking at Sheila.
"Silly, haven't you heard of Stevia?" Harold said and then turned to look at Althea with sparkling eyes filled with anticipation.
"May I?" He asked, extending his palm. Sheila handed him a leaf and he put a nail to take a bit to taste.
It was a bit bitter, but he had tasted unprocessed stevia before. This was similar.
Althea nodded. "This looks different, and the processing was probably a bit more cumbersome, but this is definitely a source of sugar…"
And Harold was right: It had a lot of similarities to Stevia. Not only did it contain less calories than conventional sugar, it was also much sweeter. A pinch could do with what other types would need a teaspoon of.
This was a natural sweetener of her dreams.
Better, she saw how dense those trees' leaves were, and she knew the source would be no problem at all!
"Try this as well." Althea smiled, pushing the bowl of salt to the two.
They placed their pinkies for a taste and their eyes brightened. "Salt!! You succeeded!"
The two of them stood up in excitement, blood boiling. How much this could change!! How much more they could develop from this?
The purification of the rock salt had been completed and now they also had sugar.
Harold felt he had never been so happy since landing on this wretched planet.
As they said, a bit of salt and sugar went a long, long way!
Now they had both!!!
How happy!
Althea also chuckled, very happy. However, more than the taste, to Althea, the taste of salt and sugar meant a bit differently.
She couldn't help but recall some fond memories from her childhood, and she looked down at the children in her arms.
Feeling their mother's loving stare, their large eyes gaped at her and she smiled, kissing their cheeks.
She didn't have to worry about the little ones missing these important tastes anymore.
Salty and Sweet: The taste of home.