"Dinner is ready!" Jack yelled upon reaching the golden room.
Gondo and the other dwarfs stopped working when they saw Jack and the food.
They hurriedly laid down the pickaxes and rushed to him with smiles and happy shouts.
It took no more than ten seconds before they had eaten everything in the bowls.
Jack could clearly see the dwarfs was disappointed, this was barely an appetizer for them.
'Dwarfs surely eat a lot..' Jack grumpled.
"Lord, is there more food?" One of the dwarfs asked and they all bowed respectfully.
It wasent a hostile question. The way he asked and how they all bowed, showed Jack that they were just very hungry, and asked sincerely.
Jack was just a little disappointed in himself. He knew that he was the one who summoned them, and it was his responsibility to provide as their lord.
"No. This is all for now. But if you've worked hard and collected some gold, then we can all enjoy a much larger meal next time!" Jack replied.
Gondo smiled and stepped forward.
"Mylord! Follow me, we have indeed been working hard!"
In a corner of the room a small hill of gold was piled together.
"When we hit this resource, clumps of gold just drops off, yet the vein remains intact! It is truly wondrous mylord!" Gondo and the others had completely forgotten about the food, when they directed their attention towards the gold.
"How much have you mined here?" Jack looked happily at the small batch of gold.
"About 17.8kg" Gondo replied instantly.
'17.8kg? So precise?' Jack thought surprised.
"How do you know its 17.8kg? I do not remember buying a weight measurement?"
"Mylord, dwarfs just know such things." Gondo just shrugged his shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Amazing… I'm very proud of your work here! Keep working hard and I will send more food as soon as I can!" Jack collected the gold in his inventory and walked back up the way he came, as the dwarfs firmly resumed the labour.
[Do you want to transmute 17.8kg of gold, into 1780 gold coins?]
Jack immediately pushed yes.
'Finally I'm not broke anymore.'
Jack immediately sent a thousand gold coins to Xena, who instantly replied with a lot of gratitude.
'Surely she did not truly expect him to honor his word', Jack thought with a smile.
When he reached the entrance the sun had set, and he gave 780 gold coins worth of food items to Gynda, who immediately began cooking again.
'This is enough for one day, tomorrow Gondo will surely have a lot more gold, so I can begin housing all my people. But for today, we sleep around the plateau and the fire.'
With this, Jack found a place to rest near Gynda and the cooking pots.
Hours later, it started to rain and the civilians woke Jack up.
They all relocated inside the main tunnel, and the housing issue became just that much more important to Jack.
He saw them, together with the guard shifts, trying to rest against the rocky tunnel sides.
There was nothing he could do about it now.
The two men who had taken the lumber axes had returned some time ago, at least they had an abundance of firewood and jack erected a larger stone circle in the middle of the tunnel.
He ordered a large bonfire to be started there and cared for. At least he could keep them warm for the rest of the night.
When he finally awoke again, the rain had stopped and his body was sore after laying on the stone floor.
"Goodmorning lord!"
Gynda came over with the last bowl of food for him. The civilians and trash troops had eaten everything else last night. Especially the dwarfs was heavily digging into the supplies.
Jack thought that just buying food from the other lords in the tradehub, would not suffice in the long term. He really had to explore outside for a steady food source.
'But one thing at a time' Jack stretched and thanked Gynda for the food, before walking with long strides towards the gold mine.
"Goodmorning Gondo. How's the mining coming along?" Jack spoke warmly as he entered the gold-glittering cave.
"Oh is it morning already, lord." Gondo came over with a tired smile.
"We have been working as fast as possible, and gained a huge profit this night. Please lord, go check for yourself, there should be about 200kg of gold last I checked."
"Well done Gondo, you look tired. Go rest somewhere now." Jack replied and thought that now he would build a trash house for them so they could sleep properly.
[Do you want to transmute 211kg of gold into 21.100 gold coins?]
Jack was exhilarated and finally had a look at the building designs before deciding how to proceed.
[Treasure blueprint: Mithril forge, Epic rank. Description: A very large forge that is able to manipulate and refine most ores, including the very rare Mithril, into various designs. Building Cost: 20 square meter empty space. Wood x125.000. Stone x265.000. Iron x50.000. Mithril x5000.]
Jack discarded the Mithril forge for now. That would have to wait until he could amass such resources.
He went to the summoning portals before he stopped, and had a look at the rest of the blueprints.
[Drill-zone blueprint, trash rank. Description: A militia drill-zone. Used to upgrade and refine Troops. Can be upgraded to further advance the troops. Building Cost: Wood x500. Stone x1000.]
[Common house blueprint, trash rank. Description: You know you can just manually build your own house right? But with the common house blueprint, you can easily upgrade your house and it comes fully furnished! There is no better house for civilians! Living space: 10. Cost: Wood x1500. Stone x500.]
[Lords mansion blueprint, trash rank. Description: This is the lords home and most important building. Sleeping here increases sleep value. It provides basic lord features such as [Territory Map] and [Lords Missions]. Building this is fundamental to any Lord. Upgrade to unlock additional Lord features. Cost: Wood x5000kg. Stone x15.000kg]
Jacks head was spinning with ideas. But he knew that he had to properly plan where to place the buildings.
So far he had 10 dwarf civilians and 10 human civilians.
The humans could ideally be housed in the main tunnel and plateau.
But he wanted to excavate a large area in the mountain for the dwarfs. That would take some time and needed a lot of labor and pickaxes.
He could use his ability, but clearly, hollowing out such a huge area would leave him exhausted for days, if not weeks. So that idea was scratched.
As for the troops, Jack didn't know how to house them yet. He needed some kind of garrison.
'Maybe I can get a blueprint of such when I go out to explore my surroundings. The gods protection should be long gone, and whatever dangerous beasts and monsters roam here, should be coming back.'
Jack thought about many things, and remembered that even his mansion could somehow provide missions. Maybe that would fill up some blueprints as well.