BXBX NOVEL Chapter 139 - Ranch Life
When Rino woke up from his nap, he saw that the daily quest updated itself. He groaned. There were still two more days before his vacation ended. What did the gods want?
Ping!
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Daily Quest #15
Objective: Build an animal pen
Time Limit: 3 Days
Tutorial here.
Reward: Herding Skill
Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.
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Oh, he was expecting this but an animal pen? Rino looked over at his town planning map draft in his vault study. It was still evening, and there wasn\'t much to do around here now that the tannery was working. Hence, he gave the spectres and Mutt a break.
To make matters a little more interesting, Rino saw how his side quest updated too.
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Side Quest #18
Objective: Craft fish trap
Reward: Intermediate Trapping Skill
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The rewards this time weren\'t bad. However, Rino wondered how useful the herding skill was. He had a wolf here who should be able to herd sheep. Why was it part of his package of useless skill? The gods were really cheapskates.
Then again, he didn\'t mind. This was an easy daily quest, so he could save those day-offs for now by completing the animal pen within one night. The side quest should not take too long either, as Rino was talented at weaving.
The ranch life was a new phase of Rino\'s life. Originally, he moved to a new town because he knew the gods would eventually make him focus on animal breeding eventually. Humans did not survive on only potatoes. There was a need for variety before malnutrition kicked in. Hence, the new town was chosen in a fertile spot for plants and a huge space for animal grazing.
This couldn\'t be a better spot, even if it was rather far from where he originally started. Thankfully, it was still within teleporting range. Rino still couldn\'t think of a way to transport goods from one province to another. Even by flight, the journey would take Rino almost five days for a round trip. There was no safe place to stop in between either. The jungle was too unpredictable, and Rino did not want to put any of his minions or precious cargo in danger.
The hemp trees were not growing too well in the valley. Rino could not understand why. Perhaps it was the lack of mana in the new environment, but there was hardly anything the lich could do about it at the moment. He thought about spending some GF credits to purchase Water Bell Flower seeds to resolve the issue but thinking about how many of those flowers he needed to plant to cover the entire town, Rino decided to shelve that idea. He was too poor to afford them.
Using stone for ranch walls was out of the idea. Rino did not have enough manpower to carry heavy stone slabs to create the ranch perimeter. Even if he did, relocating was going to be a pain. Not to mention, the animal pens had to allow animals in and out. Rino couldn\'t make the gate out of stone. It was too inefficient.
Thus, Rino decided to settle for basic material with the help of magic now that he was almost fully recovered from the mana depletion. He used earth walls to mark out areas in his town for future building projects. Why couldn\'t he do the same for animal pens?
The ranch life chose Rino. Rino did not choose the ranch life. Hence, it would have to suffer a little. There was absolutely zero effort in making animal pens. Besides, why did farm animals need good living standards when they were going to become food by the end of their lifespan? It made little sense to Rino.
Once the sun dipped below the mountains, Rino quickly teleported to the building site and started work. It was on the opposite side of the tannery, closer to the jungle because that was where the juiciest grass and laziest of meadows were.
There were no lights in the area, so Rino spent a good amount of time extending the mana web array so that he could at least see what he was doing at night.\'
The lights lit up beautifully under the stars, and Rino built himself a temporary platform to get a good overview of the animal pen. He wanted to build a huge barn in his grand plan that he modelled after the royal stables. Animals should not be left out in the open, especially when the climate changes. Rino also did not know if the vultures lurking in the area would steal his livestock.
Honestly, in the past, shepherds often complained about wyverns stealing their sheep. Rino did not have the time or energy to complete the mana web array set up in his new town, and setting up a basic defence barrier did not deter any beasts from visiting. He had to modify the barrier for this section of his town, but Rino was too lazy to do it now.
He was a professional procrastinator and hoped that he would not forget what he wanted to do later when he wasn\'t so preoccupied with bookbinding and writing research archives.
There was much to learn about this world in the few months that Rino was here. There simply wasn\'t enough time to record everything, and Rino did not want to waste more time than he already did on stupid kingdom-building projects.
In the past, he often wished that he had a body that required no sustenance or sleep so he could lock himself up and work for years at a time on his projects. Now that his wish came true, they were interrupted by stupid daily quests.
Life was difficult, even in death. How ironic!
Section by section, Rino raised the level of earth from the ground to act as walls. The landscape slowly changed, and Rino made a huge animal pen with several subdividers.
Knowing the gods, they wouldn\'t stop at sheep. Even so, the pregnant sheep, young sheep and regular sheep must have space of their own. Rino did not know much about ranch life, but he knew enough to create at least four sections in the pen, one reserved for the birds and the bees.
With that, he triumphantly declared the quest as complete and collected his herding skill.
With two days left before the quest timer ran out, Rino happily returned to his study, forgetting all about that temporary platform he made.