Chương 41: The Subterranean Factory

The dark limestone fault lines of the lower nahal groaned as Ethan uncoiled his spine. He stood deep within the pitch-black subterranean cavity, completely invisible to the corporate dragnets sweeping the surface. He did not light a torch. His massive Perception metric, now scaled to a staggering fifty-four points by his recent level milestones, allowed him to see the raw geological grid lines of the cave as clear as day.

He swiped his hand across his visual interface, his eyes navigating straight to his character profile's core allocation bars. [Class Statutory Entity Allocation Update] Your Level 32 milestone has expanded your baseline Attribute Caps. Current Constitution (CON): 51 (Class Multipliers Applied). Entity Anchor Threshold: 1 Golem Frame per 15 CON. Maximum Active Construct Slots: 3 / 3 Active Frames. Current Status: Emmett-01 Active (2 Slots Available).

The allocation ledger is open, Ethan calculated, his eyes tracking the numerical cells. I could channel my entire expanded stat pool into a single, high-tier combat construct. But Emmett doesn't need to fight. For raw, mindless manual extraction, three low-stat units are three times more efficient than a single powerhouse. His inner calculus locked onto the ancient, hard-coded geometry of the engine.

A single construct was a temporary point, but three active nodes formed a complete legal testimony under the server's archaic Levantine code strings. By dividing his 51 points of Constitution into exactly three balanced 17-point threads, he was executing the server's version of a three-fold cord—a structural alignment where the shared weight of the attributes stabilised the entity frames so flawlessly they could never buckle under the environment file. He did not waste a single frame.

Driven by his Structural Analysis passive's 300% multiplier, his hands moved with an aggressive, mechanical velocity. He gouged another six hundred kilograms of high-purity iron oxide mud straight from the wet bedrock vein, dividing the massive crimson heap into two identical, towering vertical blocks. His gnarled fingers flew across the wet mass, kneading and smoothing the heavy clay until two new homuncules rose from the unpaved stone floor.

They were simpler, leaner frames than his first worker—built not for war, but as minimalist, functional tools of pure alluvial mass. Ethan stepped onto a limestone ledge, his infinite-durability, oxidised bronze trowel held firmly in his right hand. He raised the patinated green edge, driving it directly into the damp clay forehead of the second homunculus, carving the three structural anchors of reality: א-מ-ת.

He slid the trowel across to the third mud face, his hand completely steady as he carved the exact same script: א-מ-ת. He leaned forward, channeling a sharp, ten-unit pulse of his remaining mana across the inscriptions. Hiss. A sudden cloud of white steam erupted into the cave as the high-purity iron oxide particles inside the silt condensed. The soft red mud executed an automated, cold-bonded crystallisation loop, turning into a dense, stone-hard slate-grey shell that rang like cold iron.

The blank, iron-rimmed sockets of four new eyes cracked open, and Ethan immediately opened his Stat Distribution Grid to allocate his attribute weights, dividing his 51 CON and 44 STR evenly down to the minimum operational thresholds across all three slots—allocating exactly 17 CON and 15 STR per unit.

The moment the attributes locked, a sudden bronze system notification layout illuminated his split screen, a multi-unit synchronisation loop flashing across his visual field: [System Alert: Multi-Unit Optimization Menu Unlocked] Active Workforce Matrix: 3/3 Automated Construct Units Detected. To differentiate active labor threads, select an ancient occupational sub-macro suffix from the class directory: 🔲 עֹבֵד אֲדָמָה (Oved Adama) ➔ [Tooltip: Tiller of the Deep Earth. Maximizes raw mineral and copper-slag extraction velocities from deep bedrock files by +150%.] 🔲 חֹרֵשׁ נְחֹשֶׁת (Choresh Nechoshet) ➔ [Tooltip: Purger of the Copper Silt. Coordinates structural impurity extraction. Kneads out raw sulfur blocks into high-density cakes for continuous refining operations.] 🔲 יוֹצֵר כְּלִי (Yotzer Keli) ➔ [Tooltip: Shaper of the Vessel. Coordinates high-velocity container fabrication, locking clay compression matrices straight into [Keli Cheresh] storage outputs.] Ethan's eyes raked down the translation boxes, his clinical mind instantly matching the three linguistic paths to his unrefined material hoards.

"Assign," Ethan muttered, tapping the terminal interface with three swift, cold-blooded strokes of his finger. Ping. Ping. Ping. [Workforce Suffix Calibration Complete] Unit 01 Assigned: Emmett-01_Oved (15 STR / 17 CON) Unit 02 Assigned: Emmett-02_Choresh (15 STR / 17 CON) Unit 03 Assigned: Emmett-03_Yotzer (14 STR / 17 CON) Combined Active Maintenance Cost: 0. 00 Silver Shekels.

The visual field tracked three independent inventory tickers and minimal stat bars scrolling across his visor in real-time, completing an entire primitive economic order right inside his limestone cavity. He wasn't looking at random numbers; the system-enforced prompt had just laid out the literal pyrotechnic triad of the Bronze Age—the exact pre-industrial division of labor recovered from the lower slums of ancient Levantine excavation sites.

Ethan sat back down on the cold gravel, a sharp, cynical smile cutting through the red soot on his face as his visual feed confirmed the clean ledger lines. His private wallet didn't take a single point of resource drainage. They were weaker individually, but together they formed a flawless, synchronised three-man factory line that didn't demand a single grain of food porridge to remain active. Traditional mining guilds are bleeding capital, Ethan analysed, his inner voice flat and clinical.

Pixel Rex has to buy expensive iron picks, pay a fifteen percent municipal forge tax, and fund massive guard detachments just to operate a standard quarry. But my entire workforce runs in the dark for absolute zero upkeep.

"Emmett-01_Oved, lock onto the lower copper-slag vein," Ethan commanded, his voice dropping into a cold, flat register.

"Emmett-02_Choresh, execute silt-kneading to purge the copper silt. Emmett-03_Yotzer, initiate high-pressure vessel molding. Form the Keli Cheresh jars. Go." The subterranean factory came to life with a heavy, scraping shhhk-shhhk-shhhk that echoed through the stone faults. The three Golems moved with a tireless, mechanical, synchronised predictability, forming a flawless three-stage industrial assembly line. Emmett-01_Oved tore heavy nodules of raw sponge copper from the lower bedrock faults.

Emmett-02_Choresh step-moved to the clay beds, his blunt hands kneading the unrefined iron-ochre mud to separate the toxic yellow sulphur bonds. He compressed the raw sulphur sludge into uniform, high-density fuel cakes, throwing them directly into the charcoal-heaped kiln cavity where they roasted into clean, high-temperature gas clouds, clearing the copper lines for zero cost.

Emmett-03_Yotzer caught the purified material instantly, pressing the refined red silt into high-durability clay storage jars with high-velocity precision. Within hours, the cavern floor was lined with hundreds of identical storage vessels. Every time a Golem's hand completed an extraction, flipped a roasting cake, or pressed a vessel, a continuous, automated stream of experience characters funnelled straight back into Ethan's master ledger interface via the Artisan Class Balancing Matrix.

He didn't drop a single milligram of stamina. He didn't expend a single copper piece on raw materials or leases. He simply rested in the camouflage shadows, his eyes turning into cold data rows as his private industrial empire expanded deep within the blind spots of the Levant slums.