Vol 2 Chapter 4: Morning Tea Part 3

With his wooden tool, Foin walked over to his pool, which he had turned into a massive reservoir for tea. He looked down into it to see that the dragon had drunk most of the tea, leaving only a small amount in the bottom, just like before.

"I guess it still needs to be expanded..."

He sighed as he climbed down into the pit, but before he started working, he once again opened his inventory. He took a shovelhead of dirt and pushed it through the panel. He was curious to see whether it would work or phase through as the bucket did. Though he was at first sceptical about it, the dirt vanished from his shovel, and a new icon appeared beside the pepper and the potato.

As he stared at the menu, he couldn't read the small number beside the newly appeared dirt, so he pulled it closer to himself just to see that the number was zero.

"What the... ZERO?! Could it be that it uses such a large quantity of dirt that it is only zero? But why would I store such large amounts of dirt?"

Foin mumbled as he lowered the panel back down and started further expanding the pit, but this time, the work was much easier, as he didn't need to throw the dirt out; he just needed to put it into the panel.

Just like before, he greatly expanded the pit just to be sure that the dragon would not decide to eat him because he didn't provide enough tea, and he could still use some more extra dirt for his house.

Once done, he climbed out of the pit; since he made it deeper, a few extra steps needed to be implemented, but as soon as he was out, he opened the side of the river to fill the pit. As he watched the flowing water slowly filling the pit, he had a strange idea.

With a swift movement, he brought the inventory's panel over to the flowing water. The panel started absorbing the water, and on the panel, a pictogram of a drop of water appeared. And just like with the dirt, it had a zero in its corner.

Foin soon pulled the panel, as he didn't want to collect water; he was only curious. After all, he had more important things to do, such as picking more Élion flowers to make his tea. However, since he had drastically expanded the pit, he decided that he would need to expand his Élion plantation as well.

As a result, he quickly harvested a handful of flowers and planted more of them along the river bank. But just before he was done with the planting, a new idea flashed before his eyes, and he looked back at the green peppers.

He remembered that he had used more seeds to grow those two plants, which made him curious. What would happen if he planted more flowers very close to one another? Maybe it would achieve the same effect as the pepper did.

Strengthened by that idea, Foin quickly grabbed another handful of flowers and planted them tightly packed together. However, this one was not around the river bank; it was planted not far from the green peppers.

While the pool was still being filled, Foin decided to harvest the rest of the flowers and drop them into the pit; it was so much larger than when it was first dug out that Foin wasn't even sure that this amount of Élion would be enough to turn the water into a strong enough tea, he was afraid that it might be diluted, however, that he would only be able to find out tomorrow.

"Phew... The flower is quite useful; however, what about its leaves?"

He mumbled as he looked back at his plants and took a single leaf off. At first, he smelled it; feeling a very slight mint-like scent, he decided to go further and tore the leaf into two. At that moment, he felt a much more significant and powerful mint smell emanating from.

"Fascinating... This really is another fantasy world... Let's make something new..."

Quickly, he jumped into the stairs of the pit, grabbed a handful of wet flowers, and dropped them onto the ground. He quickly fetched his bucket and gathered a few leaves. Still being able to smell the previous leaf's scent, he only grabbed a few. Then, he used a smaller stone to grind the leaves. Each leaf was full of minty liquid, though when he tore one apart, he didn't notice, but the reason he could smell its scent was peculiar.

The liquid in the leaf splashed everywhere and even hit his head and clothes. As a result, the smell permeated from him. He just realised how much liquid was in the leaves, as from such a low quantity of leaves, a spoonful of liquid came out.

He ground the flowers till they were nearly infused with the liquid, leaving almost nothing but pure liquid in the bucket. Then, he quickly filled the container with water, and as a finishing touch, he dropped the retrieved flowers into the bucket.

He had hoped that he would be able to create a refreshing tea, which would give him a brand new start the next morning; though the tea he normally made was still enjoyable and better than anything he had ever drunk, still, the thrill of tasting something new was big.

The bucket was brought next to his house so that in the morning, he could start with that, and then, he walked over to the now shrunk pile of dirt from which he was making bricks.

He was ready to test how he would be able to take the items from his inventory out, and he could think of nothing better candidate than the dirt.

After opening his inventory panel, he could see that the dirt was still showing a zero in its corner, so with determination, he pushed the dirt's icon. At that moment, a panel popped out right in front of the previous one.

"Notice! Soil! Tier: 1 Quality: F+ (watered)."

Although the text he saw was greatly surprising, that was not the main reason he was stunned. Before his eyes, he could see a floating see-through cube.

"What the hell is going on?!"

He voiced his shock and shook his head. The way his head moved, the block mimicked his head's movement. Not being able to comprehend what was going on, he extended his hand to touch the floating frame, but his hand phased through it as if it was also a panel.

He couldn't help but sigh and close his eyes. At that moment, the cube was filled with dirt and fell to the ground, not far from where the other pile of dirt was.