Episode 29 – Increased Magic Power Capacity Approximately four days later, I succeeded in finishing all of the Magical Grass. On the first day, I was able to eat 50 portions of Magical Grass and got really fired up about my magical power capacity doubling. So when I tried to finish the entirety of the remaining Magical Grass on the second day, I was met with cold, hard reality. After the first day, the stomach pain had carried over to the next day and beyond, but I still had to keep eating Magical Grass. At times, even though I was always full, I kept having cravings to eat something other than Magical Grass. But I couldn’t eat much else due to the stomach ache I was always feeling, so I was starting to suffer a bit from malnutrition. But I still had to eat Magical Grass, but I was kind of stuck in a bad cycle here. Due to this bad cycle going on, the amount of Magical Grass I could ingest in a single day was greatly reduced, so it ended up taking me four days to finish all of it. I finished all of the Magical Grass in these few consecutive days since I didn’t want to waste any time. I figured I could at least take a bit of time to rest at this point. The next time I eat Magical Grass, well… I didn’t want to think about it now, but I really had to make the most of this time’s experience. I mean, rather than ingesting such a large amount of Magical Grass, it would probably be better to learn the essential knowledge of creating potions. It would be nice if someone I knew could teach me about potions, but… I didn’t know any such person. (TL Note: In Chapter 2, I made a small mistake in translating and thought that Magical Grass had to be eaten raw in order to have the increase in magic power capacity effect, but it turned out that it just had to be used (in any manner) when magic power was full. My apologies, I’ve gone back and fixed that to reflect the change and also did some proofreading of the earlier chapters while I was at it.) Setting aside the matter with the potions, since I consumed all the Magical Grass and used about 5 silver coins to buy ingredients to help me eat it, it was about time to go on the next plant collection trip. I wanted to request the [Azure Alliance] to go with me again, but there was only a week left until the end of the month. They probably had to make some preparations to depart Grezesta, so I didn’t want to trouble them by wasting four of their remaining days to escort me on a quest commission… well, they probably wouldn’t accept another request within their remaining time in the first place. I had no choice but to go to the Adventurer’s Guild to put in another quest commission. It would be nice if I didn’t end up with a strange party, but it was also the Adventurer’s Guild that introduced me to the [Azure Alliance], so I decided to trust them for now. After making a few preparations to head out, I set off for the Adventurer’s Guild. My stomach was bulging full and my stomach ache was terrible, but since there was a chance they could do the introduction to the adventurer party on the same day, I would have preferred to be in a better condition. As I was on my way to the Adventurer’s Guild, I thought to myself that I really should have kept at least one All-Herb for these kinds of situations. Once inside, I walked to the quest commission reception desk with measured strides, like a regular customer. “Welcome. This is the reception desk for putting in quest commissions, how may I help you?” (Receptionist Lady)
“Yes, I’ve come today to put in a quest commission.” (Lewin)
After exchanging the usual greetings with the same receptionist lady, we immediately started discussing the details. Speaking of which, the receptionist lady didn’t ask for my name this time. Did she manage to remember my name, or…? Anyway, it’s a good thing. “Then I will repeat the request information back to you. The destination is Mount Cornello and the length of the stay is 4 days. Priority is given to adventurers with escort experience. Reward for completion is 4 gold coins. Is that correct?” (Receptionist Lady) Upon returning to the rundown inn, after spending a while on the toilet my stomach pain died down a lot. Since I didn’t have too much to do, I decided to measure my magic power capacity. As I was ingesting the Magical Grass, I realized it was necessary to set a base unit for measuring my own magic power capacity. The standard I decided on for that was going to be one low quality Medical Herb as 1 base unit of magic power. By setting a base unit, I could easily understand my magic power capacity and also understand how much it cost to synthesize other species of plants in relation to the base unit. If my magic power capacity were to increase by a lot in the future, it would be a little annoying to have to make hundreds or thousands of Medical Herbs to measure my magic power capacity. But when that time came, as long as I knew how much it cost to make other herbs in terms of base units, I could easily shorten that measuring process. By the way, my magic power capacity was 12 yesterday, but it seemed the increase in magic power capacity depended on the quality of the Magical Grass. On the first day, the rate at which my magic power capacity increased wasn’t as high as the following days since I was only eating low quality Magical Herbs at the start. In the following few days, I was eating medium quality Magical Grass, so even if the number was lower, the rate of increase in magic power capacity was higher. The Magical Grass I finished eating earlier today were all high quality, so even if there were only 16, my magic power capacity should have increased a proportionate amount. In preparation for synthesizing plants, I immediately got ready for bed. Lying down so I could fall asleep as soon as I was hit with the weakness symptom, I started to synthesize. Of course, I was able to generate up to 12 with no problems. Anything past this was the amount of increase I received from today’s high quality Magical Grass alone. On the 13th one, I was still good with a little bit of leeway. But when I finished the 14th one, I started to feel dizzy and couldn’t move my body. Hmm, I see. My magic power capacity right now was 14, huh? To summarize the results of these four days, eating 142 portions of Magical Grass increased my magic power capacity by 11.