Conqueror

Since there's still nothing to do until I contact Herold again, then upgrades are needed. I'll be focusing on upgrading Izgoy's facilities and everything. Then for the first thing that we need. "WE NEED TO BUILD A WALL!"

But it seems that our resources are scarce. We still haven't made a mine for ourselves to mine minerals like iron, gold and other stuff. We've been gathering our materials from wood only and the only reliable structure here is the castle itself. My citizen's houses are just practically just wood. So that means that we need to upgrade our kingdom somehow.

The defenses needed for a house that can basically deflect natural disasters is pretty expensive. We're going to farm it. 

I went into Lam's workshop and asked him where to find this mineral. 

"Do you mean the Xend minerals?" Lam asked.

I then replied, "Is that the name for that material?"

"Well depending on your description, that's the only conclusion I have. It has been said that the Xend mineral was created so that the people of this world could handle the battle between the players. But it seems to not be the case considering that everything you people go everything gets destroyed."

"Well... I can't deny that. Anyway, we really need this Xend material. It can help fortify our defenses and will be able to hold off against bandits or small armies. In the end wars in this world are dependent on the generals which are the players. But it's still enough to hold off the fort when I'm gone."

"Well. You can find those."

"Really? Where?"

"By mining."

"..."

"..."

"So we do need to make one..."

"Well that's the only way you can get it. There's no way that other kingdoms will give you Xend materials since those things are extremely expensive and difficult to find."

"Well then. I guess I'm going to work to create a giant mine."

"How will you do it?"

"I guess I'm just gonna create an explosion and then dig about 60 meters deep then just let the people mine from there."

"Well that's a good plan and all. Just make sure to tone your magic down. I think you can make a giant hole in just a second but if you do you'll be destroying other materials and Xend material itself. Just be patient and limit your magic power by 95% or something to prevent from completely destroying the materials."

"That'll take forever."

"Well you're gonna lose a lot of minerals if you just blast it."

"Argh... this is annoying. Fine. I'm going to do it. Thanks." 

I left Lam in his workshop and ordered ten of the citizens to join me. I told them they're gonna mine so I ordered Afal to buy some pickaxe at Ruz and Ruf's at Itz.

Now I'm here, I'm going to create a mine. If I make it diagonal, the ground above it will just crumble since there's no support. I guess I'll just make it a straight hole.

Since this is a need for explosion, I guess I'll use this. "Torched Body!"

I entered the ground by melting it as I go. Now that I'm in ten meters deep, I guess I can use skills now. "Flame Pillars!" The ground suddenly began to combust explosions in which I didn't understand how it happened.

With my plan to open up a five meter wide and 20 meter deep, I completely melted off everything in the vicinity of 50 meter wide while only being 10 meters deep. 

"Ah-" I didn't know how to hold back. I dispelled my torched body and I looked back and it seems that the people I have with me are safe and undamaged but they're pretty shocked. "I'm sorry about that. Oops-"

I didn't know what to do in this situation. "I guess he's the right person."

I went ahead and barged in Zeta and Greta's leisure time and apologized at Greta since I need to take Zeta. "Sorry about this." 

"Why are you saying sorry? This is also getting weird since you're acting pretty different at us." Greta replied.

"Well things change. I guess I just don't know how to face it."

"Well do your advice that you gave us."

"And that is..?"

"Be natural isn't it?"

"Heh. Yeah. I'll be borrowing Zeta. It'll be just for a bit."

"Take care."

I then brought Zeta to the hole I created. 

"This is... the thing you did?" Zeta was scractching his head out of disappointment.

"Yeah..." I replied.

"Well I guess that's a start. What'd you need?"

"Create a 60 meter deep hole for mining."

"You're already doing a great work. So, what'd you need me for?"

"Well Lam said that we need the materials for structuring the houses so that's what we're doing. We're going to create a hole in which the materials aren't going to be destroyed."

"What kind of materials?"

"Our top priority is the Xend material."

"Its breaking point is around the blast of a level 40. But since we will need the other materials, I'll control my power to around level 10 or so. Alright then. Fireball." A basic spell and a small orb of fire appeared on Zeta's hands. As he threw it on the ground, it created a hole but it's not big enough.

"That's going to be..."

"Yeah... This'll take a long time. But this is for the sake of creating a mine. How will we build it?"

"Horizontally. We won't have pillars if we build it diagonally. The cave itself will crumble if you do that."

"Alright then."

"Anyway can you teach me how to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Control the output of the mana to lower the power of the spell."

"You don't know how to do this?"

"Nope."

"You're a stronger mage than me and..." Zeta let out an exasperated sigh. "You don't know this? Well fine. I can teach you about this."

We spent the next five days blowing stuff on the giant mine we're creating. I was being taught by Zeta how to control the output of mana so our progress got delayed by a lot. 

I managed to destroy some Xend materials here and there and other minerals to practice since my output was too much. But we finally did it, making around 60 meters of hole. In that process, we found about 90 Xend materials. After all this, I let Zeta go and go to wherever Greta was to enjoy all the moments they have.

I brought the minerals I found to Lam and let him examine it.

"Hey Lam! Here's basically everything that we found." I then pulled out from my inventory all the things that we found.

"90 Xend materials, gold, some diamond? It's practically worthless here, diamond that is."

"I didn't think I'd hear the day when diamonds are useless."

"And some other stuff that we might not use. At all. But for 90 Xend materials, we can fortify around eight houses from that. Or we could use all of this to fortify the castle itself."

"HOLD UP, 90? There's 90 Xend materials in there and you're saying that we can only fortify eight houses?"

"Bring Ortov here."

"Alright then."

I called over Ortov and let him see the Xend materials on the table.

"Woah." Ortov was amazed. "This is a lot of Xend materials. This surely should've cost you a fortune my lord."

"Well, not really. I told you that we already made a mine?" I replied.

"Oh! Finally! We can finally mine some materials. Can you assign some of my underlings on the mines?"

"Sure, you and your group can just go in the mine. I already told this to the other people but anything you find in the mine is yours. But if you find a Xend material, you have to give it to Lam."

"That seems generous. I'll take that in mind."

"Alright, for our question, how many houses can we cover with Xend material?"

"Around eight or your whole castle."

I let out a sigh of disappointment. "Fine... I guess there's that. Ortov, just convert all the houses in Izgoy into stone houses by mining in the mine and cover them in Xend materials. I'll also give you the authority to use any Xend material that Lam receives from the citizens."

"I'll do just that. I better get to work."

"Thanks for everything."

As I watched Ortov leave I then saw a smirk on Lam's face. "I guess we found the exact number as I said from a builder."

"Argh..." I let out another sigh. "Fine, fine you win. Anyway, as I said earlier, you'll be the one that'll be handling the Xend materials. So I trust you NOT to sell it. Got it?"

"Yes, yes."

"Alright then."

I went outside to get some fresh air.

As I inhaled the air, relief was felt through my whole body. I guess it's about time by now. "Telepathy, connect me to Herold."