Rino awoke and found a window waiting for his confirmation. The eight hours passed too quickly! He barely dreamt about anything!
===
Daily Quest #2 (60% in progress) [Chain Quest]
Objective: Build 10 bricks.
Tutorial here.
Reward: Textile Crafting Skills. Side Quest available upon skill unlock.
Claim your reward here.
===
Thankfully, there was progress while he slept. Now, this was what he liked to see. Everything in life should be automated except for new creations. Rino hated menial tasks such as eating and showering. It took up so much time, and preparing for a formal event was the worst. However, one such luxury he allowed himself to have was sleeping. It was usually through sleep that Rino found some of his best ideas.
Now that the chain quest was sixty percent completed, Rino decided to check his side quests. The Gods must have updated it in his sleep. They had eight hours to do it.
===
Side Quest #4
Objective: Build a loom.
Tutorial here.
Reward: Recipe for basic dyes.
===
This time, Rino stared at the side quest. For some reason, laughter bubbled from inside him. This was too funny. A loom of all things?
The Gods watched Rino laugh in silence with only teeth chattering as he did so. The lich really needed to learn some dark magic transformation to look less creepy when he did that. However, none of them understood why he reacted like that. A loom was a basic tool required for weaving cloth. It might be a tedious process, but ultimately, it made creating fabric easier.
"I think he's crying," Phil commented even though liches were incapable of crying physically without tear ducts.
Alone in his mud hut, Rino wanted to die. Why did it have to be an inefficient loom of all things? Rino was the saviour of his empire's tapestry industry with his advanced weaving machine inventions in his previous life. It didn't even require magic because most civilians were not capable of controlling magic. At the same time, mana conducting materials and magic stones were considered rare resources that only a handful of nobles could afford. Rino could not create something too complicated, even if it were a hundred times faster. His weaving machine made his country the biggest producer of fabric and tapestry after the king ordered his weaving machine to be mass-produced. Almost every lady who wasn't in the cooking industry were recruited into weaving fabrics.
Yet, funnily enough, Rino had little idea about how to make his own clothes without the recipes or skills from Gods. He was only good at creating neat little works with his hands. Weaving became a useful pastime for him as the weaving widows taught him some tricks of their own. Unfortunately, they're all dead now.
Seeing how nobody could stop him from abusing magic, Rino decided to redesign his old weaving machine from scratch. Normally, he would use air magic to move things around. It was a useful ability. However, air magic was his weakest magic element as a lich. Rino had to work around it. Thankfully, he discovered the shadow tendril skill.
The concept of weaving was simple. All Rino had to do was tangle the threads in a criss-cross method until it created a fabric of his desired size. Criss-crossing fabric neatly can be difficult without a frame structure to help hold the starting strings. A traditional loom was simply a wooden frame that ladies could loop their long threads over tautly while they pulled strings in a criss-cross fashion horizontally, line by line until it made a fabric.
The weaving process for a meter long cloth could take a weaver several months to complete. If the pattern was more intricate, it would take even a skilled weaver almost a year to complete. Rino did not have the time, patience or dedication for such a project. He wanted his cape and underwear as soon as possible. Hence, automation was the answer.
Phil and Ark studied what Rino was scratching on the ground. The lighting was poor, but they could make out some of Rino's writing. It looked like Math, and the Gods wondered what he was up to this time.
As the scribbles on the ground spread out, Ace started to understand what Rino was doing. Unlike the other Gods, he was in charge of their divinity accounts. These numbers looked oddly familiar.
"He is counting mana output and maximum efficiency," Ace explained. "I think he wants to make a weaving machine and not just a simple loom."
"Is that allowed?" Stephanie asked. "The side quest said loom. It has specific instructions in the tutorial. Should I prepare a punishment?"
All three male Gods looked at her with dead fish eyes, and Ark smiled without humour.
"Sister dear, are your brains for decoration? Do you have any idea what a weaving machine can do compared to a regular loom? You want to punish someone who is giving you a diamond ring just because you requested a brass ring and they didn't give you the right one? Do you know how difficult it is for us to collect divinity in our current situation? If you have nothing better to do or say, kindly remove yourself from my field of vision."
Ace felt slightly bad for Stephanie. While the Goddess could be annoying and was the youngest in their group, Ark can sometimes be a little too harsh on her. However, he wasn't going to interfere in this sibling fight. Ark was their leader, and he had heavier responsibilities than all of them. Phil simply sighed as Stephanie yelled at Ark, cried and stomped on his foot before running away.
Ark glared at his younger sister and swore in a colourful ancient language. Phil only looked back at the reflecting pond. Rino found his answer and was getting ready to work on this incredible idea. He wanted to watch the process but knowing Stephanie and Ark, someone had to be the mediator before things become worse.
"I'll talk to her," the old God told Ark, who nodded. Of the four Gods, Phil was the oldest. He was like a grandpa to them, and even Stephanie respected him when he had something to say.
Ace ignored everyone else. He was excited to see the birth of something incredible.