Monarch of Solitude: Daily Quest System

Chapter 231 - Mighty Mattock

Several forges and fine-tuning later, the first Mattock was born. Rino wasn't sure if the mattocks of his old world looked like this. He heard that farmers who were tired of constantly carrying a heavy hoe and axe made this. They simply bought two tools and removed the tool heads to reattach them to the pole length they wanted. 

The practise became popular, and nobody knew how mattocks got their names. All that mattered was the double usefulness of the tool. The idea spread all the way to the capital, and from that moment forth, toolsmiths sold their tool handles separately from their tool heads. The empire came up with a uniform size for poles and casting holes to refit tool heads on those poles.

Likewise, Rino borrowed the name and practice of size standardisation. He did not let anyone else see the newest tool yet. It was a little heavy without magical enchantments, but Rino was a magician. Naturally, things that could be made easier with magic should be simplified.

After the tool was enchanted, Rino had to test it for all the intended functions.

The first place Rino visited was the jungle of doom. It was currently night, so Rino did not need to worry too much about burning under the sun. The soil in the jungle was soft but still fairly hard. It was a good chance to test the new mattock's hoe function.

Finding a clear area full of weeds, Rino lifted the mattock high above his head and brought it down without using any force. His arms were literally bones. There was no way for him to apply more physical pressure on the ground.

The oddly shaped hoe made a V-shaped dent in the soil, cutting through grass blades and weed stems. It weighed close to nothing in Rino's hands, thanks to the weight-reducing enchantments. Rino made the tool heads out of a copper alloy with iron and tin. The metal was cast from mostly iron and copper, making the tool heads very durable but heavy.

Lifting the mattock up from the ground took more effort than ploughing it. Rino decided that physical labour like this was better left to the trolls who carried heavy loads regularly. Instead, Rino tested the intended shovel function and dragged the loosened dirt across the ground, curious to find out how easy this would be.

In his previous life, Rino knew some tricks about using a shove. He frequented the forestry garden grounds in the magicians' tower whenever he needed a change of pace, frustrated from his repeated experiment failures. The gardeners there were very old, and Rino helped them out from time to time. The action of stepping on the shovel and tossing over heaps of loose soil or fertiliser came to Rino easily. However, Rino quickly realised he could not do what he was so used to with a shovel with the modified four-headed mattock. The mattock must be pointed downwards and dragged towards him instead of away from him.

The difference made Rino struggle to find a comfortable way of digging holes in the ground. Eventually, he found his pace and deemed the easiest method to dig holes using the 'shoevel' head was to smack it into the ground and walk the other way so that the soil would loosen as he walked. Then, he could use the side of the 'shoevel' to carry the dirt and toss it elsewhere.

The success of his first tool gave Rino the confidence he needed. Conveniently enough, there were plenty of trees in the vicinity that he could test the axe head on.

Unsure of how many swings it would take to fall a tree, Rino decided to look for a branch to chop instead. He did not want to destroy the environment too much, and these trees could be homes to some deadlier monsters that he did not want to antagonise. At the same time, Rino listened to Mutt's warning whenever he approached something that he thought looked harmless. The sabre tooth wolf's senses have improved again, and now, Mutt can distinguish monsters in disguise.

"Master, be careful of that vine! It's actually the hair of a sleeping monster."

Rino stilled and retraced his steps. Even though there were many trees in the area, it wasn't easy to find a branch to cut.

With some difficulty, Rino navigated around the lurking dangers and climbed up what Mutt assured him was a safe tree to test the axe on.

Rino used his shadow tendrils to help him get on the tree and settled on a higher branch. He wasn't going to start chopping the branch right beneath his feet. Instead, he was looking at chopping the thinner branches above him within reach of the axe's swing.

With the help of shadow tendrils, Rino steadied himself on the branch and swung the mattock, aiming the axe head at the thinner branch.

Thwack! Thwack! Boom!

Sleeping birds in the area flew away, startled by the sound. Rino cringed and remained motionless for a moment while Mutt scanned the area from his master's shadow for any approaching dangers.

A minute passed, and Mutt deemed the coast safe to proceed. Rino put a hand to his chest. That was a little nerve-wracking, but thankfully, the axe head did what it was meant to do. The branch fell in two swings, but Rino had a feeling the trolls and hobgoblins would be able to cut the branch within one swing.

The only thing left to test out was the pickaxe. For that, Rino took to the skies and flew to the rocky mountain range. He did not know if the mattock was a good idea for miners who needed to break sterner metals without the hassle of having multiple tool heads. However, Rino thought that adding a pickaxe could be good for farmers tilling new farmlands and might need to clear rocks in the way. Hence, the test was to break stone and perhaps hammer in poles for the construction of fences.

Rino did not have fences to hammer, but he had faith in the hammer surface. If the hammer surface could create a crack in the stone surface, it would surely be strong enough to pound stakes into the ground.

After flying to the mountain range, Rino didn't even bother finding a flat surface to stand on. If anything, he only accelerated and swung the hammer surface of the mattock in time to his crash.

BOOM!

Right in the middle of the mountainside, Rino emerged from the dust cloud and looked at how much damage the hammer could do.

The wall cracked outwards from his initial impact, much like a spider's web, and Rino dusted pieces of shattered rocks from his hood and studied the mattock. Everything on the mattock seemed in place, the metal remained strong, and the enchantments brought out their full potential.

Satisfied at the sight of a demolished rock surface, Rino deemed the hammer part of the mattock sturdy enough to handle any other crisis. At this point, it could even serve as an emergency weapon during an invasion.

The last thing that Rino needed to test was the ability to break rocks into smaller pieces using the pickaxe head on his mattock.

Finding the biggest boulder he could on the rocky mountain took Rino and Mutt almost the rest of the night. Yet, it was rather anticlimactic to smash it apart in just five swings of the mighty mattock.

"That's all," Rino told Mutt, who howled in celebration as the huge boulder shattered and cracked into almost perfect half-spheres.

Concluding the experiment on a positive note, Rino told the smeltery workers to start producing these mattocks. The hoe might not be well-liked by everyone, but the mattock was more than a hoe.

It was a symbol of unity and resourcefulness. Anyone with skill could wield it, and it wasn't very difficult to learn how this tool worked. It looked unorthodox and slightly bulky, but once Rino demonstrated how the different tool heads could be used, he had a feeling nobody would think of the mattock as degrading.

The only thing Rino needed to do now was to summon Zerg and Erika once more after he returned to Town Zera for another meeting. Before introducing the mighty mattock to his townsfolk and villagers, Rino wanted to do a population survey and determine how many subordinates required this unique tool. 

Not everyone needed a mattock. Rino decided that courier rabbits, cookhouse ladies and seamstresses have their unique tools for their jobs. The miners and smelters also do not require mattocks for pickaxes, and hammers were more appropriate. The tool handles were also not as long as this mattock, making movements easier within the enclosed space of the abandoned mines.

The more Rino thought about it, the more convinced he was about the idea of introducing currency. Money might be the root of all evil, but only because of the value people placed on it. If anything, Rino did not want to make this currency divide the unity of his subordinates. It should be a sign of reward and recognition used to inspire friendly rivalry and respect.

Anyone who did their jobs dutifully will be rewarded with the same token that could be exchanged for certain benefits within his growing empire and returned to the treasury that Rino had to build to be redistributed on "payday" again. The jobs are not measured by quantity, speed or quality across the board. Rino had to create personal milestones for every individual to determine if they would receive more or fewer tokens for exchange purposes.

To prevent the concept of rich and poor, Rino considered implementing an expiry period for tokens so that they could not be kept for long. The expiry period rule would also resolve his rare material issues.

By the time Rino had the plan in his head, Erika and Zerg were already waiting outside his study.

"My liege," they greeted with a bow.

Rino nodded and beckoned them inside.. There was much to discuss.