Monarch of Solitude: Daily Quest System

Chapter 57 - Weave Squad

By the time the weaving faes arrived, Rino knew the break-even point. He could summon one hundred and two shadow slaves before the mana regeneration could not keep up with his mana consumption. That was a lot more than he expected. Only five shadow slaves were lurking within his shadows to conserve mana, but even so, Rino had more hands than he knew what to do with them.

As it turned out, the more sprites he had under the World Tree's contract, the greater his mana capacity and faster his mana regeneration. It was truly a legendary tree, and that was not all it could do. Through his soul bond with that legendary tree, Rino was now capable of borrowing the different elemental spells his undead body previously could not control. This included his very weak affinity with wind and poor compatibility with light magic.

That rune circle wasn't just an amplifier for magic, a shackle for the space rock and a power cell for mana storage. It was also an elemental magic converter and a spare body for the lich. Before this, he was close to an immortal. Now, Rino could be considered a demi-god existence. That World Tree could not be easily destroyed or harmed by regular monsters or magicians. It took someone on the same level as Rino's pre-tree fusion skill to cause a scratch.

From above, the Gods of the small world started to rethink their choices. They allowed Rino to proceed with his rune circle because Phil deemed that it wasn't created to destroy the world. However, this was still quite the predicament. How could a mortal surpass a God in terms of power? Rino was coming very close to being able to fight a God. Even with the system, it was scary to think about going against such a magician.

Ace was very silent as his team started to have second thoughts about this rapidly growing threat to their existence. Even Phil regretted his judgement to allow Rino to continue with his spell. If they prevented the lich from succeeding, Rino would not be this powerful.

"Great Monarch! We are here to assist you on the World Tree's orders!" the leader of the weaving fairy squadron shouted as she knocked on Rino's front door.

Inside, Rino looked around. The shadow soldiers were currently made to run resource collection errands. He might have weavers now but not enough threads for them to work with.

Opening the door, Rino stood at the entrance and told them to follow him to the weaving machine. He did not have many weaving machines or spools, but he could demonstrate how it worked to the fairies for now. Perhaps, they could help him build more weaving machines after seeing how they worked.

The explanation was kept short, and Rino only showed them what they needed to know before turning to the weaving fairies.

"Any questions?"

The squadron leader took a look at the unprocessed flax, hemp and cotton that Rino's shadow slaves were slowly bringing in.

"Would you like us to create threads as well? We have enough fairies to coordinate thread production and cloth weaving. The brownies are good tailors. They helped mend human clothes for a while until they were chased out.

Rino was pleasantly surprised to hear that there were experienced tailors and nodded happily. The two brownies stepped forward and bowed to the tall lich. They were very tiny on the ground, barely the height of his hand, so Rino lifted them up.

"You're very tiny. Can you really sew?"

The brownies puffed their chest proudly, much to Rino's amusement. As it turned out, they were siblings. The brownies had experience sewing everything from shoes to curtains, although they like to split their jobs when doing it. Rino listened to the brownies explain how the older brother was in charge of measurements and cutting while the younger sister was a speedy stitcher.

"We can produce up to eight pairs of shoes in one night if all the materials are ready. However, we need some kind of way to get to your crafting table to reach the sewing materials because we don't have wings to fly. Fairy dust magic only works for a while, and it isn't very reliable."

Offended, the fairies who lent the brownie siblings spluttered in indignation at the ungrateful siblings until Rino put a stop to it. He gave a chiding look at the older brother, who pulled at an eye and stuck a tongue out at the fairies playfully.

"The crafting station for tailoring can be arranged easily, but I would prefer if you got along when you work. There's nothing wrong with preferring not to fly, but these fairies mean well when they lend you some of their flight magic."

Cheeks turning red at the lecture, the older brother bowed his head and hid his ears under with his hands while his younger sister apologised on her brother's behalf to the fluttering fairies.

Rino moved on from the topic so that nobody continued to dwell on it now that the feelings were resolved. He split the fairy group into two so that those with water and wind elements could help to process the raw materials and spin them into threads. The other group of fairies were in charge of keeping the current weaving machines smooth running.

In the weaving squad, eight tiny bearded men tagged along. They introduced themselves as gnomes who were the equivalent of fae handymen. Rino quickly left the task of building more weaving machines and wood treatment to them.

"If you require tree sap or amber, you can use the teleportation pad and set it to the following coordinates for wood treatment."

The gnomes waved their hands and shook their heads when RIno wanted to show them where they could get the materials they required.

"No, my liege. Gnomes have special bodily fluids that can be used as varnish to treat wood. Our beards are also the roughest sandpaper file you can find. There is no need to use the precious resource from the forest for this."

Hearing how convenient these gnomes were, Rino lamented he did not meet them earlier. His farmhouse could use some sprucing up too from his shoddy craftsmanship.

"In that case, I shall leave it to you. Look around my territory and improve on what you see. I would like a proper storage house and a proper granny for harvest before the end of next month."

Beaming in happiness that they were entrusted with such a huge responsibility, the gnomes bowed and thanked Rino for the opportunity to do what they did best. It was a little odd to the lich to think that such actions made these little creatures so happy. Just how badly were they mistreated?

For now, he shelved that question and turned his focus back to the familiar sound he had been waiting for since he turned the fields upside down.

Ping!

It was time to check out his new daily quest.