The sun was already quite high in the sky when I finally awoke the next day. Today was going to be the day we regained our strength and prepared ourselves for our upcoming mission. There was no pre-sunrise XP party appointment, no eight hours of rigorous training or dull administration tasks. Actually, there were a couple of things to do but today's tasks were of a more satisfying nature.

My beautiful goddess was just coming into our bedroom again, carrying a tray filled with all kinds of delicacies.

"I thought you might want to have breakfast in bed today," Aphrodite said, and kissed me as she put down a tray filled with pastries and baked goods on the mattress.

"That's very sweet of you," I replied, while she placed a tray filled with meats and cheeses on the other side. "I don't know where to start."

"Start wherever you want, but wait until I've brough you something to drink as well," Aphrodite replied.

She left the room again, only to come back with glasses and jars filled with juices, milk, and what was, without a doubt, watered down wine.

"Are we celebrating something?" I asked.

"You take care of us," Aphrodite said, "so I’m taking care of you too."

"Are you talking about last night?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows.

"Last night, last week, all the time we spend together," Aphrodite replied. "May the good times never end."

"I'll drink to that!" I said, and grabbed the first filled glass I found in front of me, which happened to be filled with orange juice.

After a very lengthy breakfast, we all dressed and headed out into the city. One of the two tasks I had on my to-do list for today was checking the farms that had finally been upgraded after almost three weeks. The goddesses agreed to come with me, as they also wanted to see this change firsthand.

The outside space of the farms had grown enough to qualify as a homestead on its own. Dozens, if not hundreds, of animals now roamed around the fenced prairies and the large crop fields were being worked by scores of mortals.

* * *

Name: Farm #3

Level: 5

Livestock: 120/120

Crops: 498/1,200

Job Slots: 72/72

Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6

Level-Up Cost: 12,000x Lumber Units (12,0000 MP)

Level-Up Time: 72,000 minutes (43,200,000 MP)

Description: A farm that allows for a variety of small, medium, and large-sized animals as well as a large selection of crops. Owning a farm increases the food ration production rate.

* * *

I couldn't know for sure without going through all thirty of the farms we now had but it certainly looked like Aphrodite had been planning around this upgrade for quite some time. The livestock slots had immediately been filled on this farm and the crops, which were at four hundred before the level-up, were now already increasing as well. The people tirelessly working the fields were planting more crops as we watched. Everything including the job slots had tripled, even better than the doubling of livestock and crop slots we'd been expecting.

Not only would we be able to stock up on food rations and manage the daily dietary needs of our citizens, but pretty soon we would be putting anything that could be stored in our warehouses and exporting whatever had a low shelf life. In other words, we would be growing at even greater rates than originally planned.

The interesting part of today's tasks was connected to the farms having leveled up to five, but I wasn't going to look into it just yet. First we needed to visit our crafters and look at the flying vehicle they had prepared for us, the one that would take us to my uncle's prison and hopefully get us away from it as well.

"Master Zeus!" the pygmy elder said as soon as he saw us. "How grand it is to have you here on this fine day, and to present to you something that you will be able to make good use of."

* * *

Name: Deimos Choron

Race: Pygmy

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Class: Order of the Club

Level: 40

* * *

"Whether or not we will be using it depends on the quality of your work, Deimos," I said, quickly scanning him to make sure I'd got his name right. Though I spotted something else as well. "But first, I can see you gained a level."

"I did indeed," the man said, and smiled. "Thank you for noticing. It is very important for us as pygmies to never stop evolving in an effort to reach the best version of ourselves."

"That's a great code to live by. Will you be doing your class-upgrade quest soon?"

The man didn't reply immediately. In fact, he seemed rather taken by surprise by this question. It was only natural that if he wanted to excel, he should do his second class-upgrade quest so that he would unlock new skills and be able to craft recipes and items of higher levels.

"It is in my plans, Master," he finally said.

"What do you mean it's in your plans?" I asked. "You said you want to continue becoming better. I don't see how you could do that without completing your quest and getting your new class first."

"There are many tasks to be carried out here and--" he started, but I raised my hand to stop him.

If it was running this place that was keeping him back, I guessed that he needed express permission to do what was best for him instead of staying here and making sure everything ran smoothly.

"Your class-upgrade quest is more important and should have the highest priority right now, Deimos. Even if it takes days or weeks, we have much more to benefit from you doing it rather than staying here and running the workshop."

"Of course, Master," he said, his face shining with happiness now. "I will leave as soon as your vessel is finished."

"Speaking of the vessel..." I said, and looked around, "I thought it was ready?"

"It is nigh ready for you to use it," the man said. "There are only a couple of smaller things that we would like to improve upon before turning it over to you. It will, of course, be ready for your trip tomorrow."

Aphrodite had told me that she'd given him a tight deadline so the man knew that we were going to use it the next day, but she hadn't told him where we would go or what we would do with it.

"Where is it then?" asked an impatient Artemis.

The man nodded to his fellow crafters who rolled a veiled cart toward us.

"Master, I present you with the mana bird," the pygmy said. With a theatrical swipe of his hand, he pulled off the thin white fabric covering the vessel.

* * *

Item: Mana Bird

Type: Magic Item - Flying Vessel

Durability: 2850/2850

Grade: D Grade

Weight: 4000st.

Description: This glass vessel is able to fit five people seated inside, and fly for as long as mana is funneled to its levitating crystal. Each second of flying and maneuvering this vessel consumes 1 MP from the person touching the crystal, and the person responsible for funneling mana can be changed simply by switching places. This vessel was crafted on the peak of Mount Olympus.

* * *

The vessel looked even more bare-bones than I had imagined. Essentially, it was collection of transparent materials, probably mana-enhanced unbreakable glass, bent and formed into the shape of the vessel. Other than five extremely uncomfortable-looking seats, three in the back and two in the front, everything else was made of glass.

The seats were inside what looked like a glass box, with an opening on each side, presumably for people to enter through. Between the two rows of seats, was a crystal that spun slowly in the air. That must have been how mana flowed into it and the way it was controlled.

"Are you sure this thing works, Deimos?" I asked the crafter.

"Definitely, Master," he said with certainty. "There are a few stabilization kinks that we need to address today but the bird is almost ready."

I hadn't considered that crafting a magic item would give the man the right to name it as well. As much as I didn't particularly like the idea of flying around in a vessel called "the mana bird", its name was perhaps one of its less embarrassing attributes. The whole thing had been thrown together hastily and it showed. Then again, it wasn't like we were going to use this to visit a foreign realm where first impressions were going to be important. This was literally just our getaway vehicle until we reached a place where we would be able to teleport back home. It probably wouldn't even make the trip back.

Even if the trip was going to be uncomfortable, chilly, and more than a bit scary as we would be able to see the ground far beneath us at all times, its two most important features were all I really cared about.

"You said it can fly," I started, and the man nodded his head enthusiastically, "but how quietly?"

"Absolutely silently," he responded.

With that, he entered the glass box, which looked much larger now with such a small person in it. He sat in the middle of the back row of seats and touched the crystal. Without taking his eyes off of us, the pygmy lifted the vessel off the ground, gradually gaining altitude in complete silence.

After making a circle above us, during which I realized that it wasn't exactly super fast, he headed down to the ground again. If we covered ourselves in white sheets while riding this thing, I could easily make us invisible by coating us with a thick cloud. At least that way, the speed wouldn't matter much.

"Impressive work, everybody," I said, looking round at all of the other crafters as Deimos got out of the vessel.

The pygmies cheered and hooted, happy that their hard work had paid off by satisfying me. After the head of the workshop got out of the vessel and dismissed them, they headed back to whatever project they'd been working on before putting all of their efforts into creating this diamond in the rough.

"I'm glad you find this satisfactory, Master Zeus," Deimos said. "I will make sure the bird is ready to fly by tomorrow."

"You do that, Deimos," I said, and extended my hand for a shake with the tiny man. "Great job. And good luck with your quest."

"Tha-- Thank you, Master," the man said, bowing his head repeatedly until I retrieved my hand.

Leaving the workshop, I noticed that Ares had also been watching the demonstration, having joined the crowd who gathered to look at the mysterious thing the pygmies had been so hard at work on over the past week. I nodded at him and he joined us, then all four of us walked back toward the center of the city.

"If they managed to make something like that in one week," Ares said, "it would be interesting to see what they'll be able to make with more time on their hands and with a head-smith who has upgraded his class."

"And to think that they literally came from under the ground to become part of our city," Artemis said.

"It was exactly what we needed" I agreed. "Alright, everyone. Do what you need to do to relax your bodies. I want you at peak performance tomorrow."