Chương 74: Hammer and Nails

Second guy.

"You won't believe it; they found kobold miners, and they had real metal picks. And they got to loot and take them out." Mark perked up at that last sentence. Metal picks, miners. That could be useful. He did not have time today to worry about that, but first thing tomorrow he was going to Cave Camp and figure out what was going on. He was tired and had a long day, so he was going to sleep on it. Mark dreamed all night about mining, the metal industry, and tools. Real tools.

Hinges, nails, There were so many things that would make all the projects he had move so much faster. But he needed to head to the cave this morning and find out what's going on and see if he could get some people organized and see what was going on. He showed up at the cave just after breakfast, and the camp was even busier than last time. His first objective was to upgrade Cave camp to a level 3 outpost, which he started right away as they already qualified for it.

He then went over and found a group sitting around a table with 3 pickaxes on them. When Mark first heard the news of a pickaxe, he thought the axes were mass-produced and sold at the local hardware store. These were not that. In fact, if he had not been told they were a pickaxe, he might not have realized they were one. The group was arguing over their value. Saying things like this changes everything, and there could be valuable veins everywhere. To a carpenter who joined in saying someone can make nails.

Mark went into the interface for the outpost and looked at the contribution list and filtered it by metals and was shocked to find a huge list of metals and metal-type objects. There were a couple of crude, rusty knives, a pickaxe, and a lot of ore-type items. Most of it was a chunk of rock with metal bits and things like that, but it showed that there were real possibilities. Mark went back to the group and asked them about the discovery.

He was told that recently the cave did another upgrade and opened level 12 and now supports 4 instances. The first group that ran level 12 found kobold miners and had to kill small groups of them. They were mining ore and had buckets with ore bits and a few of these pickaxes. They were able to only partially finish cave run because they had challenges that involved mining they could not complete. Since then, one other group at level 10 has found mining-related items.

The camp had gone crazy about mining ore, a get-rich-quick scheme. Others just wanted to learn. One guy talked about how he was in a club in his youth that did simple forging and would like to try it out. Mark asked everyone interested in smelting, furnace building, ore refining, and metal shaping to follow him; he wanted to have a discussion with them. Taking a group of 10 people, they grabbed one of the tables and moved it about 15 feet away from the others, and all sat down and waited for Mark to speak.

"My goals are simple. I would like to see metal tools. Things like saws, shovels, axes, and hammers. And items like hinges and nails, but we have to start somewhere." One of the people lost interest, but the rest stayed. Mark then pulled out his Basic Metal Forming Principles knowledge book he got from the recent zone event. At that, he had all of their attention. He explained to them that he would let them read through it and work as a group to learn its skills but that it must be protected and returned to him.

They were all excited. He then pulled out of his inventory a huge pile of the ores that he found in the contribution store and told them to start going through them. He then found who would be their leader, which turned out to be the guy that had done prior hobby smithing. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. His name was John, and Mark gave him access to create tasks in the outpost task list for people to gain contributions and skills in smithing.

Mark realized this was the first time he had handed someone else the ability to direct settlement work. He then transferred a large chunk of the contribution to him, as it takes personal contributions to create tasks if you're not the settlement leader. He then handed over the metal-forming book and thanked them all for their willingness to help their community grow. As he left, he asked John to check in with him every couple of days so he knew the progress they were making. Mark then traveled to Eastwatch.

He could see that they had staked out where the 4 bunkhouses, the cookhouse, and the crafting hall would go. But other than the stakes and two piles consisting of stones and wood, there was no visible progress. He was hoping to see more progress but understood that it would take time. He verified the outpost settings as level 1 and that it had very small settlement storage. He opened his inventory and found a few items he had been packing around and donated them to the settlement storage for Eastwatch.

It had not progressed enough to level up, which would give it task ability, so that would have to do. He then headed south to Crossroads. Crossroads had more progress going than Eastwatch. The Inn had a foundation dug, and he could see that people were actively putting in footings for the construction of the inn. There were lots of trees nearby that had been piled up, and roots of trees had been pulled out of the ground where the forest had been cut back for the outpost.

Across the road, Mark had a hard time calling it that, as it was just a path right now; he could see the stakes and locations for the 2 longhouses that would be built there. There were two other plots staked out that must be for crafting buildings, but he could not remember what they had agreed to. Anyway, things were moving along. Again he looked at the outpost settings; this one was still level one and did not yet qualify for an upgrade to level 2.

Mark then headed east to see how the development of Wayrest was going. He had heard that the healer had moved along with an alchemist and a forager to that location. He also knew that Garrick loved the place and had not been back to Forest's rest since he started the project, so he expected big things there. He was just passing through Forest's Rest when he got a system message. [Regional Infrastructure Opportunity Detected] Settlement development thresholds reached.

Regional coordination and contribution reserves now support sanctioned infrastructure development. Only one Regional Infrastructure Project may be active within a controlled zone at a time. Projects require: • Assigned personnel • Sustained contribution investment • Long-term regional support Available Projects: • Sanctioned Forgeworks • Regional Road and Bridge Network • Infirmary and Alchemy Workshop Additional regional projects may become available as settlements develop.

Warning: Beginning a Regional Infrastructure Project will heavily impact regional contribution reserves and labor availability. Mark decided that his trip to Wayrest would have to wait for another time and went and sat at the lunch table to bring up the three available projects and figure out what they were and what was needed to do. Ben, the little boy he had met the other day, hustled over with a plate of food.

"Dale said when we see you to make you eat. He said you keep missing meals, and Clara and I had orders to find you and force you to eat." Mark replied.

"And how did you intend to force me to eat?" Ben looked at him and ran behind his sister's back and hid his head.