Eric returned home, excitedly putting down the bucket of milk, then took out several buckets from the kitchen.
"Arthur? Why are you here?"
Stepping out of the room, he was startled to see Arthur standing silently in the courtyard with his head bowed.
"You ran too fast; I was worried about you," Arthur turned his head, looking intently at Eric, and spoke slowly.
For some reason, Eric always felt a chill down his spine. He tilted his head and approached doubtfully, unsure if Arthur looked strange because he hadn’t paid much attention to him lately.
"Are you still angry? I didn’t want to do that either, mostly because you were really too clingy before. I already have a partner; if others saw, they would definitely gossip again," Eric sighed: "Haiz, I’ve really had enough of being the center of rumors."
Hearing the word "clingy," Arthur’s expression stiffened slightly, but quickly returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
His gaze didn’t leave Eric: "It’s fine."
Scratching his head, Eric consoled him: "To apologize, I’ll make milk candy for you to eat today."
Understanding the concept of using a carrot after the stick, Eric began preparing to make powdered milk.
Anna’s words just now had reminded him. He didn’t have modern machinery, but he had magic. This was truly a divine cheating tool!
It was just that he had always treated Water magic like a faucet and a washing machine, so he didn’t know if he would succeed this time.
Eric condensed his mana and began to sense the surrounding magic elements. Aside from the first time he meditated to communicate with the elements, magic elements were usually invisible, only manifesting when their concentration was extremely high.
People without mana couldn’t easily see their existence.
Points of light representing different elements appeared before his eyes. He found the Water elements among them. The elements near him were inside the milk, obviously much denser than the Water elements in the air.
He recalled the sensation of summoning Water magic and tried to extract the Water elements from within the milk.
The good news was that the Water elements actually separated from the milk under the summons of his mana. The bad news was that, unlike directly summoning Water elements as usual, this process was at least ten times slower.
As long as he could realize his idea, Eric felt that any wait was worth it.
While casting magic to separate the Water elements, Eric suddenly had another thought. He didn’t like fighting, but if others also had this ability, could they drain an opponent’s blood dry in battle...
He was scared by his own imagination. His mind was now filled with images of dried corpses, and he frowned in discomfort.
Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder: "What happened?"
His eyes were filled with worry, but he didn’t abruptly get close like before.
Patting his chest, Eric was almost scared again by Arthur’s action. He turned his head and saw the familiar expression, and the nameless anxiety in his heart dissipated: "Nothing, just thinking nonsense."
It seemed the "cold war" of the past few days had been effective. Arthur finally knew how to keep a distance from him and treat him normally. Before, it had always felt weird.
Focusing his mind on casting magic, Eric controlled himself not to let his thoughts wander. Water mages surely weren’t that brutal; just thinking about it made him shudder.
According to his imagination, a high-level Water mage like that would be no different from a dark mage.
Time passed minute by minute. About an hour later, the water in a bucket of milk was completely drained.
Snow-white milk powder appeared at the bottom of the bucket. Eric put the extracted water into another bucket. This stuff was cleaner than purified water because it was composed of pure Water elements; it couldn’t be wasted.
The only regret was that a full bucket of milk, after being made into powder, resulted in only a layer at the bottom, weighing just over ten catties.
No wonder milk powder was sold so expensively; it turned out the loss was this huge, Eric thought to himself.
Arthur took a basin and poured the milk powder into it.
"It’s done. Are you going to the dining hall?"
Eric excitedly tasted the flavor of the milk powder: "Let’s go. We’ll use the milk powder to make milk candy."
If he had known it would succeed so easily, he would have done it at the dining hall to save himself the trip back and forth.
The two carried the basin to the dining hall. Ack and his sister Aly were busy baking cakes in the kitchen, and Anna was helping roll the dough, almost unable to keep up with the starving beastmen in the dining hall.
There weren’t many cotton fields, so planting was relatively easy. The beastmen went home to eat at noon to save the dining hall staff the time and effort of delivering food.
After all, to them, a distance of a dozen kilometers wasn’t far. Moreover, the fast-working groups had already finished their assigned fields and could help others in their free time.
The human slaves were responsible for observing whether the beastmen were planting up to standard. At first, they needed to hold shovels to correct spots planted too deep or too shallow, but later, as the beastmen became more proficient, there wasn’t much need to worry.
Many beastmen finished work with empty stomachs waiting for food. Ack decided to bake cakes on the fly, so he was busy up to his ears. No matter how good his temper was, the moment he saw Arthur, he angrily glared at him.
Anna was even more direct. Holding a rolling pin, she frowned and said: "So many people here are waiting for you, and you, good for you, didn’t even say a word when you left!"
Recently, Arthur had been quieter than before. Even Anna didn’t scold him much; she gave him a glare and didn’t say anything more, considering him spared.
"Turns out you sneaked away. So unreliable!" Eric whispered a reproach to him.
"It won’t happen next time." Arthur’s expression remained unchanged.
This dragon’s skin had gotten thicker. Eric, speechless, put down the milk powder.
By this time, apart from the cakes not yet finished baking, the other dishes were ready. Eric found a pot and placed a small fireball underneath it.
"Eric, the white sugar you need is over there. Is this much enough?" Sam carried two large basins of vegetables out of the kitchen. While pointing out the sugar to Eric, he didn’t forget to shoot Arthur a warning glare.
There was indeed a small, exquisitely made silver jar added to the kitchen. Eric took it and opened it to look; sure enough, it was high-quality white sugar.
Eric was intently examining the quality of the sugar and didn’t see that behind him, Arthur’s pupils suddenly turned dark gold, constricting into thin slits as he stared coldly at Sam’s back.
Milk and sugar went into the pot together. Eric didn’t remember the ratio, so he estimated and added them, then turned on the fire to boil.
After boiling for a while, the liquid in the pot began to thicken. At this point, it needed constant stirring, or the bottom would burn.
The sweet smell of milk permeated the kitchen, causing the beastmen who hadn’t intended to drink milk to run to Sam with bowls, demanding some.
"Every time Eric makes a new dish, it causes such a commotion."
In the dining hall, Luci took a sip of the rich, fragrant milk and smiled at her partner.
Thomas laughed heartily and pushed his bowl to her: "You drink it. I’m not used to this smell; it’s even stronger than magical beast milk."
Looking toward the door connecting the dining hall to the kitchen, Luci curiously pointed, wanting to go in and see what exactly Eric was making. The smell resembled milk, but it was more fragrant.
If it were before, she would have gone straight in to look, but now there was someone inside she didn’t want to meet most, so she had to suppress it and sit still on her chair, looking out.
In the kitchen, the condensed milk was done cooking. Eric scooped it out to let it cool.
The method for making milk candy was very simple. Lacking coconut powder, Eric found some cornstarch, added the condensed milk and the freshly made milk powder, put it all in, and stirred well. Finally, like kneading dough, he kneaded the mixture together and rolled it until smooth.