Rino looked at his checklist. Just like that, a day passed.

Ubel was working on the moulds, and Bink was taking care of the stone foundry constructions. Rino gathered a few troll labourers to help with the heavy lifting while putting Sheila and Bink in charge of the blacksmith workshop extension construction. Now, he had to build non-permanent furniture such as tool racks and cooling racks. 

Rino visited the sawmill in Cypress County with an inventory full of chopped jungle wood from the jungle of doom. At the same time, he cut down some trees from the forest near the waterfall at the edge of the mountain range. It took Rino nearly an entire day of flying to gather logs and some saplings so that the fairies could grow them on the tree farm.

"You're here faster than we expected," Kragami greeted Rino.

Rino tossed a leather sling bag enchanted with spatial magic at the old man, nodding to his teacher.

"Everything is inside. See if you can grow the saplings and ask Griffith to treat the logs. I need good planks, lots of them. The blacksmith workshop project has to be completed within the next few days, so this takes priority. I'm going to check on Rina in Spudville and drop by the clay mines to get more cement mix."

Knowing that his student was in a rush, Kragami did not stop him for tea. Sometimes, he wondered if Rino was truly lazy. There were moments when all Rino did were sleep and roll around, trying not to do anything. However, there were also times when the lich was burning with passion for getting things done.

Everyone grew to understand how to read the lich's mood after a while. On days that Rino did not feel like coming out to work or answer calls, they left him alone and reported to the district managers instead. If it wasn't world-shattering problems, the capable district managers would take care of the issues. However, when Rino got off his bed and started firing orders left and right, it was time for the district managers to pile all the pressing matters in front of the lich.

Rino might not be the sort of worker that reported to work in the office daily. However, he was the kind who would easily finish up work that was piled up for the last few months in just a few hours. It was his efficiency over quantitative results that left everyone in awe.

Teleporting over to Spudville briefly to check on Rina, Rino made a quick offering to the Noir statue there before rushing over to the clay kiln to check on Ubel's newest mould models and grab his sack of cement mix. The lich was so busy that he lost track of the day and night cycle by the time he returned to Town Zera.

With the treated wood, moulds, stone casts and cement mix ready, Rino checked Bink's progress with the stone forge.

"How is everything going?" Rino asked and eyed the extended shelter built using bricks and wood.

Instead of a gaping hole beside the stone cottage, Rino realised that the earth gnomes found a way to build an extended shelter outside the window, with the forge facing a different direction than initially planned. They resolved the falling ashes and smoke issue by building a chimney and underground air vent into the foundry. The ceramic rack design was improved as the earth gnomes modified the rack plates with holes into ceramic bars.

Impressed by their resourcefulness, Rino praised the workers, who beamed with happiness at his casual acknowledgement. The lich went inside the blacksmith workshop to set his tool and mould rack when he noticed something else was added inside.

"I thought that you might want to build a cooling tank on the inside as well, so I set it up and had the genesis fairies to help with the runes. The bricks were laid, and we used cement to fill the gaps. The bottom is slightly sloped so that all the water drains at the centre, but nobody knows how to link the rune at the base of the tank to the sewer system in your design."

Thanking the hardworking crew, Rino assured them that they did a good job. He would link those runes himself, seeing that there were still some administration rights that required him to handle personally. Bink was proving to become a more and more reliable leader in Town Zera, much like Aiden and Giffith are.

===

Daily Quest #28

Objective: Create Blacksmith Workshop

Time Limit: 7 Days

1/1 Stone Forge

1/1 Stone Quenching Basin

1/1 Stone Hammer

1/1 Stone Anvil

0/1 Wooden Tongs

1/1 Ceramic Metal Bar Cast

Tutorial here.

Reward: Alloy Smelting Recipe

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

===

Thanks to Bink's initiative, Rino did not have many things left to do before his humble blacksmith workshop was considered completed.

Setting the stone anvil near the foundry oven, Rino checked on the coal supply pile and noticed that basic fire safety enchantments were already in place. It must be the work of those genesis fairies. Rino felt proud of how well Town Zera's members were working together. He still remembered how many fights there were initially. Now, everyone knew exactly what to do without him monitoring them.

Adding onto the existing enchantments for the furnace and foundry, Rino checked the flooring and reinforced it so it would not cave inwards from all the weight put on top of it. At the same time, Rino checked the air vents leading into the bellow and foundry. He wanted to add air runes to them, but the genesis fairies were one step ahead. They already added the air runes and linked them to the mana web array. All Rino had to do now was configure the settings for activating the air runes.

Inside the blacksmith workshop, Rino discovered a pile of tools that the trolls helped to make. He could recognise their handicraft because of how they tied the rope around the hammer. It wasn't an actual smithing hammer, but it was good enough. The earth gnomes must have sanded the surface of the stone hammer head flat, and once again, Rino inspected it to find some basic enchantments on the stone hammer.

Unfortunately, nobody made the wooden tongs yet. From observation, the earth gnomes must have tried to replicate the tongs using the rusted examples lying around in the grand furnace room but failed. Rino didn't blame them. He would give them an A for effort. Those tongs were made from wrought iron and could be bent easily with a little force in the right places. Wood and stone were not malleable materials that could bend in such a manner.

Fortunately for Rino, he knew a kind of tongs fashioned from wood that would work. It wasn't conventional, but it should do the job. The only thing he feared was the wood catching fire and turning into cinders. Hence, that was where magic came in handy.

The concept of the wooden tongs Rino had in mind was very different from the tutorial's design. In the tutorial, those tongs were disposable and could only be used once. They were literally thick sticks tied together to withstand the weight and heat used to lift the ceramic containers containing molten metals and tilt the liquid into waiting casts.

Rino's design was a little simpler to use. He learned a few things from the earth gnomes and pygmy dwarves while they were building the windmill. Interlocking gears were tight, but they sometimes needed something called a track to keep them from grinding into each other continuously and wearing out the edges. 

That gear track inspired Rino to create a wooden tong with a clipping grip method from the top.

Rino did not want straight wooden sticks. He wanted those at an angle sharp enough to grab onto the side of the clay cast. At the same time, Rino would secure the weaker bound edge with an adjustable band so that the mould would be gripped securely between the wooden tongs before it was transferred to a moving trolley with a stone surface that could be tilted for the molten metal to be poured neatly into the cast without spilling.

It might not be the most original design, but it minimised workplace injuries. Rino decided to sketch the moveable trolley designs and let Bink finish it at his own pace tomorrow. For now, Rino flew towards the jungle of doom to search for suitable tong sticks. He still had a few days left before he needed to complete the quest.

Time management wasn't Rino's strongest suit, but he had to learn a trick or two with such a huge population under his command.

Finding the sticks he wanted easily, Rino cut them off the trees they were growing on and quickly swaddled them in enchantments. Now, all that was left was finding a suitable material for the adjustable band.