Chapter 176: Wind Vanes and Hidden Storage

It was regretful that Rino did not have time to reward the hardworking minions for helping to complete the grand Nightless Underpass. There wasn't even an opening ceremony before Rino ordered it to be put to use.

Although there were only a few dimensional storage items ready by the time the highway was operational. Rino was still low on mana reserves, but the killer rabbits made rapid trips to and from Noir Province to provide the earth gnomes with the materials they needed. The other killer rabbits were called to help Rino level and raise the windmill building ground while digging ample spaces beneath Town Zera for a gigantic storage system. There was no point in building upwards when they could go downwards.

Rino hastily cast his enchantments on every piece of accessory the brownie managed to create and dumped everything to the killer rabbit monsters to sort it out among themselves. Those who could fit into the enchanted accessories were given the role of courier bunnies while others could only settle for patrol duties, underground storage construction labourers or windmill foundation builders.

"Kamiya," Rino summoned.

The horned killer rabbit leader appeared, and Rino wondered if this human hybrid form was better now that he had a named monster minion with higher intelligence than Mutt. Kamiya was a very short male who looked like a child in his human-monster hybrid form. Those fluffy paws, cotton puff tail and long ears remained despite the more human appearance. He wasn't any physically stronger in this new appearance, but Rino sensed an explosive power difference in his summons's magical aura.

"You called for me, my liege?"

Satisfied with Kamiya's conduct, Rino told the leader of the killer rabbits to sort it out among themselves to prepare the necessary building materials for the windmill as designed by Deezer and Bink. 

Bowing and melting into the shadows after receiving his royal command, Kamiya gathered his family and assigned every rabbit a role to play. The courier rabbits could only bring limited items in Rino's enchanted accessory. Each trip took, on average, two hours to come and go. Acht and his shadow spectres worked tirelessly, bringing the bulkier custom made items such as the wind vanes from Cypress Cont overusing the sky palanquin.

Even so, Rino looked at his remaining time. There was much time left before the daily quest needed to be completed. He spent too much time preparing the needed materials while building the highway and designing the underground storage. The windmill's external structure was ready, but there was still a problem with the grindstone.

"Mutt, find Deezer and Bink. I want to see them in the study with the modified prototype. Make haste."

Howling and wagging his tail, Mutt melted into the shadow to carry out his master's order. As the sabre tooth wolf left, Rino mentally slapped himself. He forgot to tell Mutt to make haste but exercise consideration for the two earth gnomes. They were definitely going to be motion sick for a while when they arrived, but the shadow monarch shrugged. There was little use in worrying now.

Acht and his ex-bandit buddies were bringing the windmill vanes and massive grindstone plates that the elemental sylphs worked hard to cut and grind from the stone mine. Rino heard that Aiden and Griffith worked together to polish it and tested the weight of the new axle. Honestly, he should have consulted those pygmy dwarves earlier about the problem of axle and shaft materials. The earth gnomes proposed a very complex design of interlocking gears to drive the grindstone's axle.

In theory, the design was simple. Once the vanes were attached to the primary windmill rotor, the gears behind the vane rotor would power a series of closely packed gears of different sizes that could move according to the level system they designed to connect or disconnect gears, controlling the speed of the grindstone. Those gears are connected to the grindstone's main axle attached to the moving stone plate's handle, causing it to turn continuously when there is wind.

Rino struggled with finding a strong enough material for the axle holding the top grindstone above the bottom fixed stone plate. Wood was too weak to hold up the moving stone plate weighing over two thousand kilograms per grindstone piece.

The total weight of both stone plates scared Rino when he first learned about it. The sky palanquin could only transport one stone plate at a time, excluding the heavy and bulky vanes.

Furthermore, Rino calculated the weight of the windmill's structure above the underground storage and concluded that not only must the ground be fortified and raised, but his windmill's base structure also cannot be made from flimsy wood.

Stone was the best material the architects came to agree on when it came to building the windmill. In addition, after several hours of recording wind patterns, Deezer informed Rino that they needed to make the top part of the windmill rotatable to catch the various winds from different angles. As such, Rio found himself designing something far more complex than he thought was possible.

Thankfully, when Deezer and Bink met the pygmy dwarves who travelled over in the sky palanquin just for this project, they got along very quickly and crunched the numbers Rino needed.

"I think the stone walls need to be made out of basalt because it is more resistant to the weather and prevents moisture."

Deezer disagreed, siding with the logic that anti-dampness conditions of the mill can be taken care of using magic.

"What we need is a material strong enough at the base but light enough on the top that can hold the weight of those vanes and grindstone," the earth gnome reasoned.

"In that case, we could opt for slate on the base. It is stronger than granite," Aiden suggested and brought out the stone samples he packed from the mines before coming over.

Griffith took out several treated plank samples he packed from the sawmill in Cypress County and placed them in front of Rino and his earth gnomes.

Rino and the earth gnomes inspected the proposed materials. Aiden claimed that basalt was stronger and better as a material because of its properties to prevent dampness. The material was accidentally discovered one day but after several tests, the pygmy dwarf ordered more to be mined to replace Rino's clay reservoir walls. In addition, the pygmy dwarf ordered a layer of cement to be covered on the basalt walls to prevent moss from growing on the stone, destroying the structure and covering tiny gaps between stone wall slabs. 

Not long after, Kragami told Aiden to regularly coat the cement wall surfaces with vinegar as it effectively killed moss. The necromancer discovered vinegar and its usefulness after experimenting on it in Cypress County, much to Rino's amusement.

"We'll use the treated jungle wood for the grindstone plate axle because it is the only wood that could withstand the most weight. The handle and gears should be made out of treated jungle wood as well but the wind vanes were made out of cypress wood because it is much lighter but relatively strong."

At the end of the discussion for materials, the design team put together a list of materials they needed. Rino gave every villager a task to gather everything they needed within two days. 

With only the last two days to perform a miracle and build his windmill after the lengthy preparation process, Rino wondered if he should have tasked the farmers to increase their crop output instead.

Surely, buying time was a more practical solution than trying to rush the windmill building process, right?

From above, Ace looked at the daily quest and the countdown. He wanted to find a loophole in the system, but there wasn't much he could do without alerting the siblings about his intentions. Phil was mostly helpless as he did his best to assign different resources like basalt in the most convenient locations in the past week that Rino needed for his windmill.

Feeling useless, Ace wondered if he could go down again as an incarnate to cheer the stressed lich. Noir wasn't always around when Rino wanted him to be. However, the cat always showed up in front of Rino during his darkest times, offering the lonely lich solutions in a roundabout way.

Looking at his divination points, Ace fumed when he realised what his team leader did. Ark actually locked his incarnate ability! That jerk knew Ace would intervene with this daily quest and locked it while Ace was busy answering prayers.

Sitting in his office, Ace pulled at the roots of his hair. There was only one more day before Rino had to use his few remaining day-offs, failing the time limit. Once that was over, it was punishment time - something Ace desperately wanted to avoid.

Walking over to the reflecting pond, the God of Prayers wondered if Rino had a solution. He might be able to use his remaining day-off credits, but apart from that, there wasn't anything else to save Rino from receiving divine punishment. Everything about this daily quest was part of the siblings' ploy to make Rino produce more offering items for them.

With other god clients pestering them for goods, Ark was finally showing his true colours, and Ace wondered how long it would take before Rino plotted a revolution. If he could blow up a world once, he could do it twice.