She already drew deeper into her reserves than the average unicorn at the best of times, so finding options for this was tough. Eventually she settled on a very old and purely interior spell, recorded as Hoofin Tongue's Cloven Knowledge Condenser... Although she was positive the spell actually traced back to Snowfall Frost, and the self-styled Cloven Cast was just taking credit for the work she had rediscovered. Which is valuable work! Just, maybe not 'put your name on it' valuable.
The spell's concept was incredibly simple and extremely stupid (even though Twilight tried to avoid using that sort of term about theoretical magic): Just make knowledge appear in your brain.
Of course if you actually said you were trying to do that? Most ponies would assume you were weird at best while knowledgeable spellcasters would try to get you restrained for your own safety. The details were... a little more simple.
The mechanisms of the spell had been firmly established in her mind, and she continued what her body was doing (talking with Pinkie and Spike as they finished setting the table, apparently) while triggering the overwrought spell at the same time.
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Spike had settled on the idea that his enormous growth today was influenced (at least in part) by the quest he was on. That feeling was being backed up with new information as he trained and ground out new skills... It was going to get harder from here. As skills levelled up their growth slowed, hypothetical influence of his quest aside. As Observe went past 20 and up towards 25 it slowed even more. However, Spike wasn't too worried: He had spent a lot of time with the Crusaders and other ponies as they developed new skills and talents, and that gave him an educated hunch.
If his hunch was right then things would actually balance out after that, making 25 a benchmark beyond which things would be a bit easier. The theory made sense if you compared it to actual self-improvement, where there was a rough wall before you hit the plateau of achieving basic mastery. Once you knew what you were doing, getting better was easier as well (up to a point): If his power worked the same way, the experience-per-level might even end up lower after the bump.
The combination of that theory and the much more clear-cut idea that his 'first day' quest was actually boosting his growth provided him a good excuse to do what he wanted anyways: Try and get as many skills levelled as possible before the day was out. This put Spike in an experimental mindset, so he tackled making the drink for their snacks as if it were more a chemical brew than a beverage... Try to find the boundary between Cooking and Crafting, and level them both either way.
Even if he messed up as badly as possible, it couldn't actually out-catastrophe some of the food he'd been exposed to. The Baked Bads alone were a masterstroke of failure: The most his mistakes could do was kneel in their crumbly, wormy shadow.
So to start... Precise ratios, use some lab glass from the washing rack, measure syrup against seltzer with mint and ice. Crush and mix and fuse it together... The experience went into Cooking.
Alright then. Next time be more methodical, step back and look at it like assembly as opposed to mixing... Cooking. Hrm.
Well, if that failed... Spike the mix with some emeralds, hold back on the syrup a bit, focus on the tonic aspects... Crafting! Perfect.
Now he had a few drinks made up, albeit one of them only he could drink safely... But even more importantly he had a good idea what the divide was. There was a line between something you'd eat or drink under normal day-to-day circumstances, and something that was meant as a curative or palliative, something closer to medicine... That's when it shifted from Cooking to Crafting, and vice versa, was when something crossed that line.
