Construction and the Mithril Trade Problem

Construction and the Mithril Trade Problem

For seven or eight consecutive days, the town's expansion had mobilized more than half of its idle residents. As long as they were paid, nothing was a problem.

They blasted through mountains and built roads leading straight to the Iron Ore Vein and Mithril Vein.

The Mithril Vein had not been occupied by the Orcs, so William naturally intended to mine it. After all, no one ever complained about having too much Mithril.

They widened the streets and repaired the houses.

He consolidated every building in town and planned to divide it into six residential districts.

Humans, Half-Elves, Elves, Dwarves, barracks, blacksmith shops, and various production workshops...

Of course, entertainment and cultural facilities could not be neglected either.

A bathhouse had to be built. Many commoners had complained to him that there was no public bathhouse in town. There was only the Rainbow River. Men did not really care—they could find an empty spot, strip naked, and go pick up soap...

Women, however, had to carry water home, which was truly inconvenient.

Most of the daily water also came from the Rainbow River. The thought of it made people feel awful, like there was something stuck in their throats!

Even worse, many single men knew perfectly well the even more terrible things they had once done in that river, such as with fish...

At the same time.

William also planned to build a magnificent central fountain above the Rainbow River. The Mages and Dwarves would work together to handle the technical details.

The thriving Border Town had finally put the commoners in the territory at ease.

Many races lived together in town, yet there were not many communication barriers. After all, this was the Legendary Continent...

Everyone spoke the common tongue...

Although every race had its own language, those were generally only used for internal communication.

As for inconveniences caused by differing lifestyles?

William had already done his best to separate their residential districts. If there really were any inconveniences, they could roll up their sleeves and settle it. He could serve as the referee...

The Dwarves had considerable talent for construction. If one ignored aesthetics, every building they made gave people a sense of security. Their skill at building defensive fortifications ranked among the best on the Gods Continent.

However, Dwarves were truly at their best when forging equipment, and they were also gifted at researching new types of equipment. Though they could not compare with Goblins in that regard, they were still outstanding.

The blazing sun hung high overhead as insects chirped and birds sang.

Whether in town or in the dense primeval forest, there was no sense of coolness to be found.

The damp air in the forest only made people feel more stifled. The trees felled to clear roads were not wasted either, but carried back to town as building materials.

Odom carried a massive tree that took three people to encircle by himself, then casually threw it onto the ground, sending dust flying everywhere.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, picked up a waterskin, and poured the water directly over his golden hair, which gleamed dazzlingly beneath the sunlight.

This was the thirty-second tree he had carried back!

It had to be said.

Professionals had a greater advantage when it came to hard labor, and they earned more money too...

Wearing only a white linen shirt, with his chest slightly exposed, his scarred and muscular body was partly visible, carrying a strangely enticing appeal.

He looked at William, who was drinking fruit juice. "The town's full-scale construction is taking too long. I have no idea when it will truly be finished."

William stroked Second Bear, who was biting at his trouser leg. "How long will it take?"

"There are 4,300 residents in town and 800 soldiers. Of those, 300 soldiers are constantly guarding the two veins and acting as overseers. That leaves only 2,700 people available to join the town's expansion.

"At our current numbers, even if we build houses day and night without stopping and then construct the fortifications afterward, it will still take around half a year.

"That is only because there are many Professionals among the workers. Otherwise, it would take even longer."

Odom took a drink and continued, "I know what you are thinking. You want to build a sufficiently solid foundation, even an underground system, to lay the groundwork for future expansion. But with this construction method, we simply have too few people. It will really take a long time."

William kicked Big Bear away with one foot when it kept chewing on his shoe, then said bluntly, "I'll think of something. I'll go to the Blackrock Duchy and buy a batch of slaves!"

"How many gold coins does the town have left?" Odom twitched his mouth. Building a town was not free; wages had to be paid.

"Don't we have Iron Ore? The Iron Ore produced recently, along with quite a bit of Iron Essence, should be enough to sell for more than 500 gold coins. And then there's that Mithril..." At this point, both William and Odom became somewhat dejected.

All the Mithril the Dwarf Race had mined over several years had been refined, amounting to a total of 1,680 jin!

What did that mean?

It meant a fortune!

Mithril was as light as a feather and as hard as Dragon Scale. That might have been an exaggeration, but Mithril was several times harder than steel while weighing less than half as much.

With 1,680 jin of Mithril and a sufficiently skilled blacksmith, they could forge 3,360 pieces of Silver Equipment.

Or it could be used as magical material for Mages, with countless applications.

In short.

One jin of Mithril could be exchanged for at least 100 gold coins.

The scarcer Mithril was in a region, the higher its value. In a small place like the Blackrock Duchy, which produced no Mithril at all and relied entirely on imports from other countries, asking nearly 150 gold coins per jin was not impossible. It might even still be a case of demand exceeding supply.

Iron Ore, however, was basically not worth much. The name Steel Duchy made that obvious enough. It had three to five Iron Ore Veins within its borders, with so much steel that they practically had to throw it away. It truly was a sad story...

That was why William had chosen the Blackrock Duchy as the place to trade.

The situation between the two duchies was extremely tense. The old king of the Blackrock Duchy had been bedridden due to old injuries and now looked as though he was on his last breath, ready to descend into hell at any moment.

This had given the Steel Duchy certain unpleasant ideas—namely, preparing to start a war.

Naturally, some critical wartime resources would not be sold to the Blackrock Duchy. Even if nobles traded privately, the quantities would be very small. Therefore, Iron Ore could fetch a decent price in the Blackrock Duchy as well.

But no matter how the princes of the Blackrock Duchy fought for power or how incompetent they were, once Dawn City revealed that it possessed such a treasure as Mithril, it would attract a great deal of attention and greed.

"How about engraving some markings on it?"

"Hm?" William did not understand. Only after Odom explained did he gradually grasp the idea.

Odom had some special methods for stamping Mithril with the marks of other nations. The one he was most skilled at was the emblem of the former Lonely Mountain Empire...

This would make people believe their Mithril had been acquired somewhere else rather than mined from a Mithril Vein.

"But if we really stamp another country's mark on it, we can't sell too much Mithril at once. Otherwise, people will get suspicious!" William had no good solution for the moment.

They could also sell the Mithril elsewhere, such as in another region.

But he had neither the time nor a flying mount. This godforsaken place did not even have teleportation arrays or Spatial Gates. He would definitely get robbed on the way.

The place where he had appeared was basically a Novice Village. Even the strongest people were only a little over level sixty. If he ran into them, he could at least struggle and resist. If they really insisted on killing him, William could even make a little PY deal...

But if he left the Novice Village to roam around, even Lotner could not protect him completely no matter how desperately he fought.

"Lotner!"

"Lotner!" William suddenly shouted in delighted realization. His excited expression made Odom retreat several steps, thinking there might be some filthy relationship beyond friendship between the two of them.

"Who says we have to trade with humans? We can clearly trade with Elves!" William slapped his forehead. He had spent too long as a player in his previous life, still thinking with a player's habits, and had forgotten the advantages his identity brought him.

Although Border Town was very far from Dark Night City, he knew that more than a hundred li to the east stood a prosperous Elf town inhabited by many Black Leaf Elves.

He could sell part of the Mithril to those Elves, then use the gold coins to buy other supplies in the Human Duchy.

It would be more troublesome, but the safety factor would increase enormously.

Rolling around in cat-ear women's clothes, begging for votes... and rewards too~