Ling smiled as he got to work. His greatest challenge yet was before him. Infiltrating Agiera properties, both physical and virtual had nothing on this. Even the rigors of combat in Ontario before the Dark Matter Storm came were trivial compared to the challenge before him, and he eagerly accepted this task.
A mix of any kind has purpose. The drinks he made were to reflect the personalities of the person they were served to, with the exception of Drake's, which had the intent of opening his mind to sake through a familiar medium. A drink that matches the personality of the drinker will ease their mind, and reassure them of themselves. A matching drink can calm even the most livid of drinkers. Likewise, a mismatched drink can bring the most serine and peaceful of people to blows. Ling's duty now was to match a personality he could not read, a personality which, instead, he seemed to sense reading himself. The final boss of bartending had appeared.
Ling began finely shaving ice into a glass, spreading it widely. The result was a glass full of the finest powder snow that can be found outside of nature. As he needed it to melt lightly before the next step, he got to work on the drink itself. He motioned to the bartender, who brought well-chilled whiskey and umeshu, and a bottle of ginger juice. After adding equal amounts of whiskey and umeshu and a small amount of ginger juice to his shaker, Ling added a single shard of ice and began shaking it. After a short amount of time, frost began appearing on the top of the shaker, so Ling poured the mixture into the glass. Ling then added a small amount of plain soda, and stirred it very lightly. As the swirling mixture slowed, Ling put the end of the bottle of ginger juice into the drink, and a thin ribbon of juice twirled around the center. The end result was a refreshing and bold cocktail, stylized by the brown ribbon swirling around the middle, suspended in time. However, that wasn't quite the end. Ling had one last trick up his sleeve. Ling had used very cold ingredients, and had added the finely shaved ice to the glass so that the end drink, while being liquid, was well below the freezing point. He took his long spoon, and struck the side of the glass. As the harmonic ring sounded out, some of the drink in the glass froze from the bottom up. The very final result was his take on a Highball Slushy, the ribbon of ginger still suspended in the middle, but now it was almost pixelated through the slush in the glass.
Ling offered the drink to Mariko, hiding his nervousness. "Here's your drink", he said, resisting the temptation to add such suffixes as "Your majesty", "Your holiness", and "Empress of mankind". "I hope you enjoy drinking it as much as I enjoyed making it"
