Slogging the night away, Rino was finally done with the preparations he needed. With his hooded cape, pants and underwear, the lich was fully prepared for the dangers of the day.

The improved mud hut was demolished swiftly, and Rino thanked it for being such a good shelter for the past week. It was finally time for a decent shelter that he could be proud of, something Noir would come to like too.

The schematic was easy to understand even without the tutorial, so Rino put his best foot forward and raised the shadow tendrils from the ground. The farmhouse wasn’t close to any farms at the moment, but the Gods did not specify where he should be building it. Compared to a tacky townhouse or a stuffy castle, a farmhouse sounded nice.

Rino laid out bricks for the flooring and created a fenced area fashioned from carved hemp wood. A neat little pathway leading to there, his tentative door was created using roughly cut rocks embedded into the ground. Rino could remember when he used earth and water magic to build things, but they made the process a lot easier.

Marking out his building plot, Rino brought the carved hemp wood over using shadow tendrils and hammered them into the ground with evenly spaced intervals. All that was done in a jiffy without lifting a single finger. Rino had a good feeling about this. The sun was up, and the hooded cape worked wonders. As long as he continued to hide in this oversized fabric without moving from his spot, the sun would not be able to get him.

Rino was very prepared. He did not need to refer to the schematic as much as he built the fences, crossing the carved wood and tying them in place with thick vines. With so many shadow tendrils, the fencing and pathway were complete in record time. Stephanie felt her jaw slacken when every fence was hammered in place and tied. It was starting to look like a very homey place with the fencing, and suddenly, the Gods could not wait to see what else Rino would do.

Levelling the land, Rino started laying the ground foundation for his farmhouse. The bricks were laid close to each other, and cement was slathered on the brick flooring before thin wood slabs were placed above them. More impressively, Rino took measures to coat them in resin as a form of varnish to prevent the wood from absorbing humidity in the air and spoiling too quickly. On closer inspection, he did something similar for the fences as well, even if the varnish wasn’t as glossy as the flooring.

Once the flooring was finished, there was still a little edge around the perimeter that wasn’t covered in flooring wood slabs. Rino got to bricklaying at once with the help of many shadow tendrils. Stacks by stack, the bricks were utilised, and Rino found himself hopping through the teleportation pads more frequently to resupply his stash of bricks and cement. This was the inner wall, and Rino hoped he made enough bricks for the outer wall and tiles for the roof.

After several resource runs, the shape of Rino’s farmhouse was starting to appear. Even a non-builder like Stephanie was able to tell which was the door and which were the windows. A lovely fireplace was incorporated into the design. Ace approved the open space concept between the guest receiving area in front of the fireplace and the kitchen at the back with a door leading to the backyard where the outhouse was located.

Although Rino did not build a space for the well that Phil included as optional, the Gods had no issues with it. The lich was very resourceful, and any water he needed, he could use a magic circle to transfer his clean water supply from the private underground reservoir below the farmhouse.

Layer by layer, the walls were built, and Rino looked proudly at his incomplete farmhouse. Things were slowly coming together as he envisioned. It was time to build the outer wall before he stuffed the insides of the wall with dried flax and hemp waste product.

Over the next few hours, Rino calculated the size of bricks he required while laying them and refilling his cement mixture. The corner bricks had to be sliced to fit the measurements, but everything else progressed smoothly. Phil looked proud when the outer wall was finally complete.

Digging into his storage pit, Rino retrieved all the dried waste products from processing so much material for fabric. It was finally time for them to shine!

Apart from the strange leaks from the window and door holes when Rino tried to stuff the space with dried products, everything else went smoothly. To fill the gaps in the compacted dried waste products between the walls, Rino used a lot of cement mixture, pouring it until it filled the places he wanted. Some of the cement spilt out of the window and door holes despite Rino’s attempt to keep everything in with some earth magic barriers. However, they were quickly filed off and sliced to pieces with water magic.

When the walls were ready, Rino used shadow tendrils and constantly refilled cement to spread a thin layer over the ugly bricks. The cement was mixed with some black dye, and Rino loved the results when a thick consistent cement mixture smeared all over the orange bricks. This was more like it.

While the shadow tendrils busied themselves over the wall, Rino took a look at the unbuilt roof. He had the tiles neatly stacked to one side. The wood beams, treated planks and straw packing sat beside the stacked tiles, but the cement mixture for glueing everything together needed refilling again.

Amazed by how everything was coming together beautifully, the Gods could not call this a farmhouse anymore. It was a very gothic cottage befitting of a humble lich. As Rino laid his roof tiles, he could not help but sulk over the colour of these tiles. He did not have enough time to paint everything black, so they were a shade of brownish-orange for now. The contrast between the roof tiles and the black cement plastered walls made Rino wonder if Noir would mind. He still had about half a day to finish decorating, but first, the outhouse and luxurious bath needed building.

All eyes were on Ace when the Gods heard Rino’s thoughts.

“Do you mind orange roof tiles?” Ark asked playfully, and Ace huffed.

“Nobody looks at the roof tiles when they’re inside. He better not mess up with that chimney.”

Phil looked back and chuckled. INdeed. RIno might struggle a little with that.