Chapter 28 - Potion

Chapter 28: 28 - Potion

This line of thought had only appeared for a short while before King immediately dismissed it. His superhuman hearing now was no longer the same as when he was still an ordinary person.

Clearly, there hadn’t been any sound of birds or any sound caused by flying just now. Elias had simply fallen down and then suddenly disappeared...

"Could there be something special on this cliff, like a secret cave?"

King narrowed his eyes and tried to look carefully, then he noticed a small part of a tree growing on the steep cliff. Judging from what he could see, it had just been broken by something heavy pressing down on it, but he had no idea where the broken part had fallen.

"Looks like I have to go down and check that place."

Without thinking too much, King jumped straight down the steep cliff. When he got close to the tree, he stabbed his sword hard into the mountain to stop himself.

From this position, he could clearly see that there was a cave on the cliff. This wasn’t an ordinary cave because inside it, there seemed to be some kind of vortex that looked like a gateway to another space.

"System, what is that?"

[Master, this is a dungeon. At the end of every dungeon is an extremely good wand. As for exactly how good it is, that depends on luck.]

Hearing the system’s explanation reminded him that Elias didn’t have a wand yet, and King’s eyes looked as if everything had suddenly become clear.

"Luck? That thing is meaningless to the protagonist. I guarantee that even if that wand isn’t the best wand, it’s at least the second-best wand in this world."

As he spoke, he pulled his sword out and jumped toward the entrance to the dungeon. Putting one hand into this strange gate, King felt a very strange sensation in his hand because of the difference in temperature and environment.

He continued putting his hand in and pulling it out a few more times, but King still couldn’t understand how this thing actually worked.

"System, can I create a dungeon? Or is there a way to interfere with it and modify its structure?"

[I’m sorry, Master. Dungeons are a ’local specialty’ formed by the rules of this world, and aren’t created by anyone, so you can’t create one yourself.]

[As for interfering with them, there is no way to do so. A dungeon will disappear when there is no treasure left inside. The dungeon gate is immune to all types of damage, so destroying it from the outside is impossible.]

"So boring. Whatever, I’ll go inside and see what it’s like."

Although he was a little disappointed, it actually wasn’t that bad. Wouldn’t the experience be even more surprising if he couldn’t interfere too much with the dungeon’s structure?

Stepping through the dungeon gate, a gloomy space appeared. It was like a dark prison with dim torches mounted on the walls for light.

As soon as he stepped inside, there was a very strange smell that made King frown because he had never smelled anything like it before. The smell seemed to be something being cooked or perhaps burned.

A few meters from the dungeon entrance, Elias was busy cooking something. Pots and utensils were scattered everywhere.

In front of him was a strange-looking wolf or dog with many sharp objects stuck into its body. It was probably some kind of fantastic beast.

Looking at its wounds, then at the old backpack that was about to fall apart and the small tree branch lying on the ground, King’s eyelids twitched.

"Hey, you fell down the cliff at high speed and got caught on the tree, then you were flung into the dungeon. After that, the sharp tools in your backpack accidentally stabbed and killed this heavily wounded fantastic beast and finished it off. Am I right?"

King walked closer to Elias, but Elias didn’t react at all and only stared at the pots boiling in front of him. The lighting was quite weak, so it was very difficult for someone as nearsighted as Elias to see clearly.

Was the protagonist really worth being arrogant about? How dare he ignore the reader like this? Even if he was the protagonist, it was unforgivable.

"Are you deaf?"

King frowned but didn’t touch Elias because he saw how focused he was on doing something. Being so focused that he didn’t care who came, even in a situation where he had almost died, was truly rare.

"Don’t bother me. I’ll give you some potion later."

Only after being nagged did Elias reply with two sentences. Then he didn’t pay the slightest attention to King. His calmness, to the point of looking like an idiot, made King really unable to understand him.

[Master, look. As expected, the protagonist is extraordinary, right? Even though he hasn’t received much proper education for the past three years and has lived like a lowly servant, Elias is very talented at brewing potions.]

The system’s praise of Elias made King pay closer attention to every one of his actions. There were many things in Elias’s backpack that were meant to be cooked together with the blood of fantastic beasts, but King couldn’t understand what any of them were.

Perhaps there were many ’local specialties’ in this world. A traveler like King couldn’t possibly understand everything just by looking at it. He could learn, but after learning it there would be nowhere to use it, so King was too lazy to learn.

After fiddling around for more than ten minutes, Elias held up a bottle of bright red liquid under the firelight. The color wasn’t like blood, and the smell was even more different.

"Great. It worked."

After admiring the finished product for about thirty seconds, Elias finally let out a sigh of relief.

"Your heart is beating faster just because of a bottle of medicine. Is this thing really that difficult?"

The expression on Elias’s face wasn’t very intense. He was probably worried that getting too excited would ruin the potion. But King could hear his heartbeat very clearly.

King had no basic knowledge of potions, so what he saw was like an ordinary person standing in front of a chemist. Cook this, add that, stir it around, and you get something with an unknown purpose.

"Of course it’s very difficult. I’ve never brewed a potion before and only got to watch others do it. Brewing potions requires extremely high precision, so successfully brewing one on the first try is very rare."

As he spoke, Elias divided the potion up. He only kept two portions. The remaining eight portions were all given to King.