Monarch of Solitude: Daily Quest System

Chapter 20 - The Power Of Depression

Seeing how dyeing the silk and other threads would take a long time, Rino decided to quickly search for oak galls even when the sun was still up. It was evening, and Rino took advantage of the shadows to dodge the killer sun rays. In a forest like this, it wasn't difficult to locate some oak trees.

Checking the tutorial, Rino figured that he needed more than just a handful of oak galls. Once again, he brought one of the handy woven baskets with him.

Contrary to popular belief, oak galls, also known as oak apples, aren't fruits. They're wasp eggs. Rino didn't know about that until he started collecting them.

"What the heck?!" the lich dropped the gall he was collecting after it broke open. Something white wriggled inside, and Rino shuddered.

The oak gall wasp larvae continued to wriggle, and Rino stared at it for a very long time. That's right, why didn't he think about it? Insects could also be familiars. The monster traps he created did not seem to attract any monsters. However, some clever birds made off with his bait when he passed by to check on them. However, Rino felt dejected thinking about it. He did not know much about dark magic, much less enslave a living creature or summon the dead.

There was simply so much to do and so little time, not to mention resources. He hated his new life.

The sour mood made Ark slightly startled. Wasn't everything progressing smoothly? The lich was enthusiastic about making underwear not too long ago. Why was he back to being a grouch? That was odd. It's not as if liches were capable of biologically triggered mood swings. Rino wasn't a female skeleton either. Why was he so bipolar?

Despite the complaints, Rino continued to collect oak galls, no longer caring if they were wriggling and alive on the inside. If he was suffering, every other living creature should suffer and die alongside him. They were going to become dye for his fabric, and Rino did not feel sorry at all for their sacrifice.

The sun was down by the time Rino returned with his basket full of oak galls. Here, the lich realised a problem. He didn't have a lot of things capable of boiling things. Thankfully, he had a third of the reservoir empty for now that he could use. However, it might be a little too large.

"I'll just use earth wall to temporarily change the size," Rino reasoned. If he had to drain the water, all he had to do was activate the magic gate at the bottom of that tub and dump that wastewater somewhere.

The plan was simple. Rino smashed the oak galls with rocks and tossed the smashed bits in a new basket, lined with leaves thoroughly so that it acted as a kind of filter in the boiling water. According to the tutorial, he should boil the crushed oak galls in water and sieve the crushed bits out, then dump the fibres into the dye water overnight to allow the colour to sit in before letting the fibre dry to take all the colours in. It didn't sound difficult at all, and Rino had confidence the silk would be ready for weaving tomorrow.

In less than two hours, there was a pit of very strange smelling murky water. Rino discovered that there wasn't enough oak gall after the first soak, so he collected four more baskets of oak gall to transform the clear water into a pitch-black solution.

Slowly and carefully, he unwound the silk yarn into the half-filled black dye pool. The water levels rose slowly but significantly as silk filled the bottom of the pool. Rino was afraid that those at the bottom would not have the chance to absorb the black dye after he put everything in, so he stood by the dye pool and consistently stirred it using his shadow tendrils. The night passed quickly, just like that, but Rino's mental state wasn't the best.

As he stirred, Rino's thoughts started travelling in a dark direction. He recalled all the horrible things he had to put up with in his previous life and compared them to his current situation. Neither situation made him happy. When he was human, he had the ability to sleep but not the time. As a lich, he had the time but not the ability to sleep.

The reward for his side quest was an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. However, Rino didn't enjoy that. It felt like a time skip, if anything, because he couldn't enjoy the rest. There were no dreams either, making Rino grumpy. He took inspiration from only a few things - bath, sleep and in his workshop.

As his depressing thoughts spiralled, something else happened. It took Rino a while to realise that while his mental state was progressively getting worse, his physical condition was getting better. He no longer felt that sluggish or fatigued, even if he had been using magic very consistently for hours now. His depleted mana was recovered to eighty percent of what Rino thought would be his maximum. He was surprised but soon figured out the reason behind this sudden recharge.

Dark magic fed on the pain, sorrow, and fears of others. It was good at emotional manipulation. As long as someone understood what fear was, they were vulnerable to dark magic. His mana's power as an undead fed off negative thoughts and emotions. This new discovery made Rino thrilled. He wasted no time and started planning a mass production cycle. He needed more threads of other materials. It was never too late to start flax and hemp production. Even without the sun, as long as he had magic, Rino could produce more threads.

Now, all he had to do was put his mind in a dark place to refuel his mana supply while he put his shadow tendrils to work. Rino finally understood why some dark magicians enslaved people. Their magic grew stronger with more suffering. By raising humans with hatred in an unhealthy environment, that toxic mentality will only fester, feeding the dark magician's strength.

Fortunately, Rino didn't need that kind of sickening mana farm. He had enough painful experiences from his previous life to make up for it. Yet, it didn't sound like a good thing to his ears to be so resourceful. He wondered why.