After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 293

Chapter 293: Mana Problems
[5 days of Protection Period]

Althea created several pieces of all her bombs before feeling satisfied enough to move on to the next, perhaps more important, concern.

Mana potions.

The Bellagio Bow could indeed deal with enemies until much, much later down the road, but it could only be used if her own level and mana could keep up with it.

She had been killing monsters way below her so the mana per shot was tolerable, but it needed a disconcerting 1 to 3 mana per shot.

This wasn’t including the Perfect Shot skill and the others. She could only imagine the mana required for stronger opponents.

Mana potions were essential.

She had been trying to study it, little by little, primarily from the NPCs, but without much luck.

Mana was based on a person’s capacity to channel a force called Aether. In Xeno, it was the basic unit of life and magic.

She theorized that people who didn’t have the capability to handle aether wouldn’t have survived the transfer. Or, in their case, the first wave of transformation during zombie apocalypse.

Elementalists could channel this in the form of elements and those physical transformations like super speed and super strength channeled it through their blood and muscles.

People who gained skills were also able to master a ‘formula’ of a channel. Similarly, using a skill successfully required Aether.

To be able to refill a person’s capacity to channel Aether, one must find ingredients that could do the same.

At least, there was no such plant she knew so far that could use this. She had asked the NPCs and it was apparently another one of those ‘secret formulas’ of certain pharmacists. They and the occupation guild-owned Pharmacy Building (available in Towns, apparently) had full monopoly of the item and their ingredients.

However, her territory was not a town (yet) nor did she want to be so dependent on other people’s works.

She thought for a while and teleported to her warehouse.

She rummaged through her warehouse for the plants sold by the citizens, to see if she could get lucky.

Unfortunately, other than the ones she already studied, the new ones—while interesting—couldn’t assist her, for now.

However, it wasn’t a complete waste of effort because she did find materials she’d find use for after everything was settled.

For example, she found a plant called Jacoba. The assessment ability indicated that it was used as an ingredient for mosquito repellants. Tori showed that it was similar to Citronella but more potent.

Another one was a purple grass called Hoisen. A leaf of this poisonous plant that could paralyze a 100-kilogram monster, if ingested, at the drop of a hat. It was a perfect ingredient for one of her bombs.

And then there was a stone called Blackstone in Xeno. In Terran, it was similar to Graphite.

Once developed, they would have pencils and ink, which was an integral part of the territory’s next phase of development. She needed to find the person who sold this first, of course.

In any case, she returned to her experiments in a somber mood, wondering when she’d be able to create her own Mana potions.

…

She ate her sandwich for lunch and decided to try out the version of the potion again.

She struggled for hours until a knock on the door pulled her out to the present.

It was Harold.

“Boss. Would you like to have a snack?”

Normally she’d tell him to leave, but she was stuck in a rut and wanted a bit of respite.

More importantly, she also missed her children.

When she went out, she was met with two of the loveliest eyes in the entire universe.

“Mhmmmamma…”

“Guwggwgwgw…”

Her heart softened and all her tiredness was swept away, taking them both into her arms, placing dozens of pecks on their chubby cheeks.

She went to their play area and bonded with her babies for half an hour, finally noticing the new snacks that Harold showed her.

“You’re still here?”

“I want to see how it tastes.”

Her eyebrows rose a bit and she looked at the food plated delicately on the plate.

These were a sweet treat made from various fruits and sugar. Other than the newly-discovered sugar, there was a taste of Terran strawberries, and the taste of the local Guia berry, a fruit that was a known ingredient for energizers.

She also felt that it had special effects.

When she could, she taught both Harold and Sheila the effects of the plants they had on hand, and they had studied it very seriously. Harold also seemed to have learned it by heart.

She curiously used her ability to assess its effects.

[Magic Tart (E): Adds 1% Mana to consumer every 5 seconds for 2 minutes.

[Applicable for level 1-10 consumers.

[Eating a portion will have corresponding reduction effects]

She froze and her head whipped to Harold.

Of course! Mana was also life, it was Aether. What better source than food?!

Not to mention, the increase in percentage instead of an amount would be extremely useful.

The increase in mana, in numbers, didn’t seem much compared to the amount of mana required to fight higher-level monsters. This was especially true when fighting against strong opponents which could easily suck out a person’s mana very quickly. It was just that mana recovered in percentage, so it was still practicable as long as one held on.

And now this snack could increase this % recovery!

“Harold, you’re a genius!” She exclaimed and Harold looked very proud. Althea looked at him curiously, “What did you get?”

A little smug, the old man took a beautiful blue-silver kitchen knife from his space.

[Chefs Knife (D): Increases chances of special effect dishes by 30%]

Speaking of, the NPCs said it was basically impossible for chefs below level A to get a 100% special effect rate. She reckoned that guy Cooke also received rewards for him to get such a percentage of success.

Althea thought a lot of the Terran professionals would probably obtain, if they hadn’t already, a gift pack in a year.

Very nice.

If the NPCs knew how many accumulated gift packs the territory had received after a month, they would be shocked.

Even towns established for years would not have this amount!

But Althea and Harold did not know this. But even if she knew, Althea would only smile, never complacent.

Instead, they were still planning on how Harold could make as many magic tarts as he could without killing himself. She needed as much as he could make to even feel a semblance of calmness.

She would never dare underestimate this damned world.