“How is it so, hard?” Ryellia asked, looking at Aleister in utter disbelief.

Aleister stammered as he failed to come up with an appropriate answer, or in this case, a good excuse. Instead, he gave up and sighed. “I guess some weren’t aren’t born to bake.”

“Do you think I knew how to cook and bake at birth?” Ryellia asked, shaking her head.

“Yes.”

Ryellia didn’t even bother to entertain him. “Of course I didn’t. I was a baby. Let alone the concept, even the word meant nothing to me.”

“I was just making a joke,” Aleister said.

“And I’m just explaining myself,” she said with a huff. “For baking, all you need to do is follow the recipes exactly. You shouldn’t try to break the rules until you have them memorized and know why you’re breaking them.”

“But, I followed the recipe exactly.”

“Then, let me ask you again, how is the cake hard?”

Aleister picked up the slip of paper given to him and read over it once more. I had to have missed something, right? Otherwise my final product would defy all common sense and reality.

“Did you over-mix it? Mix it with too much force? Did you cream the sugar and butter first? Did you incorporate the milk slowly? Or did you splash all of it in thinking it didn’t matter?”

Aleister shrugged. “All of those are excellent questions that I don’t have the answer to. Except for the parts when I combined the sugar and butter first, then added the eggs, and then slowly mixed in the milk. I wasn’t lazy about it. Well, then that leaves that fact that I messed up on mixing it.”

“You could have also messed up when weighing the ingredients, cooked the cake for too long, not sift the flour properly—”

“Holy hell,” Aleister exclaimed, taking off his apron. “I can’t believe I wasted so much of my time with this garbage.”

“Did you think baking was easy?”

“No. I assumed that my alchemical skills would transfer over.”

“They did transfer, but there still are differences you need to learn,” Ryellia said. “It’s only your third day, you still have a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll try again later. I don’t have the time right now,” Aleister said as he finished cleaning up his work area with a wet rag.

“You’ve had enough time to practice baking for the past couple of days, so why are you suddenly in such a rush?” Ryellia asked.

“Because of the stupid fish down in Crystal Lake,” he said with an exaggerated groan. “It should have been like catching regular fish, but no! I have to catch those slippery bastards with my hands.”

"Ok, but you didn't answer my question. Why are you in such a hurry to catch them?"

"Because I learned that the solar eclipse tomorrow lasts for thirty minutes! I thought I was going to have much more time, but of course I don't."

"Mo—" Ryellia cleared her throat and corrected herself, "Master didn't even tell me about there being a solar eclipse tomorrow."

Aleister rolled his shoulders as he let out a short yawn. "I already know that Master is your mother, no need to try to hide it."

"She told you?" Ryellia asked with widened eyes.

"About being your mother? No," Aleister said. "I only know her name and general relationships to some people I know which allowed me to deduce her relationship to you."

"Not bad!" Ryellia said, impressed. "I didn't think she would have told you her name yet."

"She didn't."

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Master didn't tell me her name."

Ryellia gave him a confused look. "Then how do you know, if you know at all."

"Oh, it wasn't that hard to figure it out," Aleister said as he made his way to the door. "I figured it out with my mind reading abilities."

Ryellia raised one eyebrow at his statement.

Aleister shrugged, but before he left added, "Or maybe I met Princess Kyoko and she told me, but that one seems way more unlikely if you ask me." He didn't wait for a response and headed down to Crystal Lake, where he engaged in his fish catching, or rather lack of fish catching, practice.

There a multitude of problems he encountered. First, he needed to find one isolated from its school, and then lunge down and grab it. However, once it was in his hands, that was when the actual struggle began. The carps were much larger than they appeared from above the surface, and along with their size, not only were they slippery, but powerful as well. Along with that, the jars Master gave him were barely large enough to contain them. Unfortunately, he realized that she crafted them out of a special material the hard way.

It wasn't perfect, but he developed some consistency in his method. The diminishing returns of how much he could accomplish in one day already appeared, and thus—left. Of course, being bored out of his mind influenced this decision more than he wanted to admit.

He sighed as he walked back. There was so much to do, so little time, but right now, he didn't want to do anything. Maybe it was because the sun had started to set unusually early that caused the effect of his mood. Seeing it become dark signified that day had come to an end. Even the streets weren't as busy as usual.

An icy shiver ran up his spine. This entire ordeal didn't sit well with him. The situation felt off. Maybe he entered an alternative dimension. Or someone put him in some sort of trance. HIs mind raced with all sorts of crazy ideas. All of which he knew weren't true. It was his tired mind engaging in paranoia to keep himself entertained. Although some of these ideas weren't completely impossible, just—improbable.