Too convenient...
With pain in my heart and determination in my mind, I started to experiment with different concentrations of magic powder in water, trying to find the optimal saturation.
After hours of mixing and wasting precious magic crystals, I came up with a pretty decent potion.
Its colour was a luminescent blue, fainter than the first mana potion but visible light nonetheless.
The pain had slowly subsided and I gulped down the potion, hoping I wouldn't suffer that pain again.
To my surprise, not only did I not suffer from pain, I felt refreshed all over my body. My muscles still ached, but my mind was clear and all signs of mental fatigue completely vaporised.
[Mana Potion(Low)]
[Status: 34% Concentration]
[HP: 100/100]
'Even a potion has HP... it's just a liquid, why does it have HP?', I wondered as I stared at the blue, luminescent liquid in the earthen pot Desmond created.
'I need some way to bring a lot of this stuff with me... Portable containers... When I think of mana potions, I think of blue liquids in glass flasks, but forget about glass, I can't even get metal here... '
I looked at Desmond and made up my mind.
'It's gonna be heavy, but beggars can't be choosers...', I sighed.
"Desmond, make some small pots for me.", I commanded.
Desmond followed right away and conjured 10 small pots from the ground.
After cleaning it with ice water, I filled it up with the mana potion.
'Now, let's see if I can last away from the dungeon core...'
--- After 2 hours of walking ---
'There's that feeling again...', I thought as the feeling of hunger, thirst and sleep seeped into my mind.
I wasted no time and brought out one of the mana potion pots and gulped it down.
Suddenly, those feelings just vanished!
With a wide grin on my face, I thought 'Let's Go! This works!'.
--- after 30 more minutes ---
My grin had completely disappeared and was replaced with a frown as I stared down the last mana pot.
'I have to drink these every 10 to 15 minutes... the efficiency is garbage...', I thought with disappointment on my mind.
Without much choice, we all returned back to the throne room.
'Damnit! What should I do?! How do I make the potions last longer?!', I yelled internally as I sat on my throne.
I kept brainstorming ways to make the potions last longer without any significant side effects, but alas, no solution came to mind...
'Damnit! Why am I stuck here?! Don't isekai protagonists get some kind of help when they transmigrate?! Why am I all alone here?!', I complained.
'*Sigh... Calm down... Complaining about anything doesn't help anyone... just wastes energy... Let's just keep thinking.', I consoled myself.
I still had around 6 days left till the quest closed. I still had plenty of time to think of some way to make it work out.
'if there was some kind of inventory-type item with some kind of 'subspace' magic in it, I would fill it with mana potion and the job would be complete... But sadly... I don't have any of those...'
As I kept sighing while sitting on my throne, Corvis suddenly flew towards me out of nowhere and yelled "Craw! Craw!".
"What is it, Corvis?", I asked, rather annoyed.
"Craw!", he yelled as he projected that window in the air with his eyes again. It didn't even surprise me anymore since I had already seen it so many times before while hunting.
The display was covering some kind of room. I had never seen that room before but it looked oddly similar to the one in which the chimera's corpse was in.
There was a box in the middle of the room.
'Wait... that box...'
"Corvis, zoom in on the box.", I commanded.
"!!!", I gasped.
'Is that box... eating a zombified orc?!', I yelled internally.
The treasure box-looking thing was casually 'munching' its lid and chewing on a zombified orc, half-eaten by it already.
'Is that perhaps... a mimic?!', I wondered.
In the many fantasy stories I've read and RPG games that I have played, a monster known as the 'Mimic' appeared... A seemingly unsuspected treasure box teases the players to open it, but when interacted with, snaps open and reveals its teeth and tongue, intending to eat the player.
'Those things... If memory serves correctly... Mimics are supposed to have spatial magic abilities... Kind of like a subspace...', I recalled.
A smirk appeared on my lips.
"Heh... Am I really living in some game...?", I said to myself aloud.
'Although there's no guarantee that this mimic will have some kind of subspace ability in the first place...', I pulled down my ascending expectations right back to the ground.
"Desmond... Spectre... Let's go hunting...", I commanded to which both the skeletons stood up and bowed simultaneously.
"As... Your... Wish... My lord...", they said in unison and we left the throne room to go to the mimic.
'Let's hope this mimic is what I need to complete this quest...', I hoped and followed Corvis through the decrepit corridors of my own dungeon.
I had never explored this section of the dungeon; it appeared to be a hidden passageway located behind one of the numerous identical doors.
'Hmm... my dungeon's 'auto repair' function should be active... The description said that the dungeon core will repair the broken parts of the dungeon automatically as long as I feed it the 'necessary materials'... I don't know what these materials are... it could be stone, cement, bricks, or it could also just be magic crystals... I'm willing to bet it's the latter...', I had strings of thoughts as we walked through the corridors.
The floor of this part of the dungeon looked different than the floors near the throne room.
It also had dried patches of blood and some scattered bones, but it seemed to be newer than the other parts.
The bloodstains, although ancient, seemed fresh compared to the other side of the dungeon.
'Hmm... Now I'm getting curious about the history of this place... I need to know the history of the dungeon I now rule, after all...', I smirked.
"Craw! Craw!", Corvis yelled, indicating that we had arrived in front of the mimic's room.
"*Sigh... Desmond, Spectre get ready... we are going to be fighting that mimic...", I commanded and got ready to cast spells.