The Sweetest Sabotage of Porto Zeffa
By @john1208
Pellita Marno is thrilled to receive a mysterious crate of highly volatile Snap-Peppers on the first day of her final exams at the Zeffa Culinary Conservatory. Assuming it’s a generous gift from a secret admirer, the kind-hearted baker whips up a legendary spicy jam - completely oblivious that her childhood best friend, Briska, sent the peppers to blow up her kitchen. Briska has bound herself to the Fate-Siphoning System, tasked with stealing Pellita’s luck by making her fail every major exam. But the system's insidious rumors are laughed off by Pellita's fiercely loyal friends, and its lethal traps only help Pellita accidentally impress Casimir, the academy's notoriously grumpy prodigy. What Briska missed in the fine print is the System's strict thirty-day trial period: if the host fails to steal the target's destiny in time, the system automatically reports them to the royal guard for magical fraud. As the final exam approaches and Pellita continues to kill her rivals with kindness, will Briska's escalating desperation finally crack Pellita's sunny disposition, or is the cheating system about to serve up cold, hard justice?
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The Salt-Stained Star
By @john1208
At the Sunstone Spire, culinary arts are a form of combat magic, and Iktan of the Low Quarter was once a prodigy. That was before Ixchel, the noble-born swordsman he served, stole his signature technique and framed him for treason, leaving Iktan publicly shamed and stripped of his status. Now, exiled to the academy's scullery, Iktan discovers a new power: the ability to see the stats, skills, and even the pre-written 'fates' of everyone around him. Armed with this knowledge, he begins a calculated revenge, using his anonymous, god-tier meals to secretly empower Ixchel, pushing the arrogant hero towards a glorious destiny that Iktan plans to shatter at its peak. He carefully cultivates a found family in the shadows, allies who see his true worth. But when a calamitous entity from beyond the known world ignores the celebrated hero and targets Iktan as the only real threat, he is forced to question everything. What if the fates he's been reading aren't prophecies, but shackles placed upon the world?
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