"I'm back!"

"That was quick."

"Yeah, I call it efficiency, you know? I'm amazing like that!" I said with a proud smile while puffing out my chest.

She glanced in my direction before returning to her work and said, "Please give me your report."

"Oh, yes, report..."

I told her about everything that happened in the tunnel. There really wasn't much at all.

"Well done. As for your next assignment, I'll arrange something in the upcoming days. We're a bit short on personnel, but I'll send a messenger to let you know once we have that sorted out."

"Okay. Do I get free time now?"

"Our Civil Affairs department want your assistance with manufacturing some carriages and carts for them. Are you up for it?"

"Eh, actually, I want to speak with Vorte again."

She flipped through some files before answering, "Tomorrow afternoon is fine. After that, he won't be taking visitors so be sure to ask all your questions."

"Okay, got it, tomorrow afternoon."

"Here, take this visitor pass. It's a special pass imbued with Vorte's mana. Don't give it to anyone else and don't lose it. Return it once you're done with it."

"Alright, will do!"

She passed to me a silver token with an engraved coiled serpent. A faint trace of mana could be felt emanating from it.

"Please, don't absorb that mana." She glared at me.

"I won't, I won't! I was just checking it." I replied in panic.

"Give me your map, I'll indicate the location of Civil Affairs. Please go help them." She extended her arm towards me.

"Eh, do I have to? I can't create things from nothing, you know? I don't have the resources to help them and I have something to do."

"Something to do? Like, what? Tell me, because I have a bad feeling about this." Her eyes narrowed.

"Ehh..."

And so, I explained to her what I did at the border.

She pressed her fingers on her forehead and said sighed with exasperation, "Guhh, why didn't you inform me about this first?"

"Like I said, you weren't in your office... So, you know, I decided that defense was important?"

"I can't believe you! I almost praised you earlier for asking permission to visit Vorte, but this! What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to explain the situation to His Majesty?"

She's pretty even when she's angry! But I did it with good intentions...

"Are you even listening?"

"Yes... Um, what's the problem? It's just a deep trench?"

"Big problem! How many in the empire is capable of such a feat? Your action is equivalent to saying the empire is surrendering its territories to the humans. Not to mention, our scouts would have trouble returning with critical information."

"Wait, wait! I can add bridges! I can also dig up trenches to include the lost territories."

"No, leave it for now. I'll send a messenger to have a meeting set up with the higher ups. In the meanwhile, don't do anything disruptive."

"Say, I won't get punished, right?"

"I can't say. It could have been worse. Is there anything else you should report to me?"

"No, nothing at all."

"Good, you're free to go. Don't forget to report to Civil Affairs when you have time. It's not urgent."

After that, I decided to hit the books. Even without Smoothie, it wasn't like I couldn't read. The difficult part was the language barrier. It because most of the important documents seemed to be written in their native language instead of the common language.

Bummers. Where's the dictionary? What's their word for map? Map... Map... Where are you?

A fantastic idea came to me earlier. I remembered there used to be a time when I wanted to create a strawberry empire. I honestly felt like that was from ages ago. Yet, now that I thought about it, that idea was very much feasible at the moment. At least, I could easily build a city if I wished provided I had the resources and mana. The easiest way to do that was to do so within my subspace and eventually transfer the constructs outside.

Basically, I wanted to find a suitable location to set up my new base, preferably on this continent.

How many continents are there on this planet?

Eventually I did find a world map. I wasn't sure how accurate it was since I didn't understand the description that came with it. However, from the looks of it, there was one continent and maybe some islands attached to it. If I really wanted to find an accurate map, I probably needed to visit the reptilian nation.

I think I'm having a migraine from studying too much. Yep, I'm done studying.

After that, I left the library and returned to my residence. There was a lot of things I could do but I was feeling lazy. However, my inability to sleep hit me like a truck once again.

"Damn it, I want to sleep! I demand the ability to sleep!"

Unfortunately, the closest thing to sleep was meditation. It wasn't something I was keen on doing.

"You know what? I'm going to try to create some food. Food is important for my mental health."

One of the first things on the list I wanted to replicate was ice cream. Interestingly enough, I was able to find a creamy fruit in Gurok. I remembered it was called a "pahoeh"? This fruit wasn't popular and it was only by chance I came across it. Thinking back, I must have been very lucky.

Since I couldn't find any dairy products, the only other option was to use substitutes. Well, technically there was a way to obtain dairy products but I didn't want to receive strange gazes. Hence, this fruit would have to do the honor.

The creamy texture was homogenous, and I was somehow able to replicate the creamy part of it. Although, it probably had some missing molecules like proteins and minerals because those couldn't be isolated. To be honest, I still didn't know exactly how [creation] worked. Sometimes it would isolate things and sometimes not. There might be criteria that I wasn't aware of.

Anyhow, the first step was complete. The next step, I added a mixture of egg whites and egg yolks that I had replicated near perfectly. Originally, these were eggs from a large bird that lived in the mountains in this region. I was no expert but any type of egg that could act as an emulsifier should work.

Then, I added some sweet water into it and began mixing everything together with a spatula. Of course, I took note of how much I was adding each into the mixture.

I was like a scientist!

"Mm... Looking good! Maybe I should add some nectar?"

The fruit was completely tasteless, like pure butter. If it wasn't for its mild refreshing scent, I doubted anyone would eat it. In the first place, I doubted folks here ate it like the way I did.

Once I was satisfied with the mixture, I opened a tiny gap into my subspace. This time, it was directly connected to the liquefied air storage. White cold steam spewed out and began freezing the mixture in my extra large bowl.

"Oops, better stir fast! Eheheh... I can hardly wait."

The mixture was becoming harder and harder to stir and at the same time I could feel a bit of my mana being automatically applied to my arms as if to strengthen them. Normally, machines were used to mix ice cream but to think I was weak enough that I had trouble making ice cream. It meant either I messed up or I was super weak.

"No way!? It's automatic? Huh, wait, wouldn't this mean I can intentionally increase my strength with mana? Wow, I'm discovering new things left and right. First it was ice cream, then it was that mana can be used to boost strength! Pfft, at this rate, I'll discover a new continent by tomorrow. Ahahaha..."

After a good chuckle, I ate some ice cream off the spatula.

Mm... It's good?

It was sweet but the texture didn't seem to match the ones I had before in my previous world. It just wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped.

I don't know... It still tastes good but something must be missing from it. Is it the fruit or because I'm substituting too much?

Since the first try wasn't as successful as I wished, I tried mixing the ingredients with varying ratios, and altering some ingredients. My afternoon was indeed well spent! Because, I managed to come up with a satisfying result, with a strawberry on top. It wasn't perfect but good enough to make me happy. The trick was to add fillers, flavors, and lots of sugar.

"I did it! The one and only, strawberry ice cream!" I announced gleefully. The final product somehow ended up in my [creation] menu which meant I could recreate it anytime as long as I had enough resources.