It took me a bit to find the cook who accepted my job offer at a food stall selling some sort of meat skewers and a few other food items. He looked quite well-built with a short beard but kind eyes. He spoke as soon he saw me. “My name is Val it's a pleasure to meet you in person Rich Dirt. Your job offer was quite interesting, and I could get the job done with my current equipment, but I would be in the village, and you would have to come to me every time you need your required food.”
What followed was him explaining to me that he was previously a restaurant owner but had lost everything after having to escape from the war. He had his wife and two kids left which was quite rare, so I was glad that he at least had some luck even though it did seem that he had lost quite a few family members. He wanted to run an inn, but the village already had one and will probably have a few more as there were more innkeepers here that wanted to open their own establishments.
He had learned that the dungeon on my land was being clear quite often and the building there was quite shabby for the amount of people who went there. To solve that problem and my food problem he wanted me to build an inn close to there that he would own so I would have a place close by to get food and the dungeon would have a better place for people to stay and eat. He would also get his own inn. I have to say that he had quite the set of balls on him to ask me this. The fact that he wanted to own the inn was quite bold, but I took a few moments to think about it while eating some of the food that he offered me for free.
I would be building the inn, so I didn’t just want to give him ownership, but otherwise, the idea was not bad. “I will build you your inn but I want 40% of the profits.” After saying that it was his time to think.
“That is too much, there is only one dungeon there so it will not have too much traffic. The profits will be low leaving my family almost nothing. 15%,” he said. He made a good point but there wouldn’t be only one dungeon there.
“I can’t say exactly how I know this but there will be more traffic there than you think. There will be room for a lot of growth in the future. 30%,” I finish saying while looking at him a bit more intimidating. I didn’t activate any of my abilities as profits were really not that important to me, it was more about principle. It took him longer to think about this and he excused himself for a few moments to speak with his wife. When he came back, he offered me his hand and I shook it.
Well, now I was going to need to build an inn. I asked him about his requirements and what was needed. After I took my leave and headed towards my home. There are still three new apprentices I need to give my class to and three more apprentices that I need to check up on and see their progress.
My run to George's place was quite quick. When I made it there, I was quite impressed by how much of the foundation was built. To my surprise, his girlfriend was also there helping him out. He quickly filled me in on what he was doing and after looking over his work I had to praise him for the quality.
The reason he was able to accomplish so much was because his girlfriend was helping him, and it seems that they were working quite well together.
I spent a bit of time catching up and listening to a few of their stories before I continued onwards until I reached Emma’s place. She was doing a bit worse as this was a job that required strength and stamina, but she was slowly getting the job done. I was able to give her a few pointers that'll decrease her workload, but she will just have to grind through this stage of the build.
After visiting her I had a choice to make but I had a bit of time today, so I headed towards Arthur’s place. Thanks to his house being so small he was almost done with the foundation so he will soon start to bring lumber over to start building the rest of the house. He was a bit worried about the next stage of the build and was glad to see me. After answering some questions, he felt a lot better, so I left him and finally made it to my home.
The place was in tip-top shape and that was thanks to the three people working here. Even now they were in the vegetable fields removing parasites. To show them some appreciation I entered my home and started to make dinner for them.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
They were so concentrated on their work that they didn’t even notice that I had arrived, which is one thing that I will have to correct about them. This world is a dangerous place and being too absorbed in one thing can lead to your death.
It seems that they were working a bit too hard and had forgotten it was dinner time. I had to call them to dinner, which frightened them for a moment. I gave them a small talking to to be more mindful of their surroundings but after that, they seemed to enjoy the dinner quite a lot.
When they were finished, I began. “You are doing a really wonderful job. I do have to apologize that I have been gone for so long but it's time for you to officially become my apprentices. Let's head outside so I can give you your future class.”
I did the small ceremony and gave a simple speech, afterwards, they accepted my offer and I now had three new apprentices. The rest of the night I spent explaining things and answering questions. The more we spoke the more amazed they seemed, which was a bit amusing. After that, they all went to bed, and I went outside and started to exercise. My free time was over, so it was time to get back to my training schedule.
My schedule was tight, and I barely had enough time to sleep but I didn’t mind that much. Every moment of free time I had I helped my apprentices or helped my country. A week went by fast, and I just finished giving a lesson on energy control.
After I headed to the market to pick up some more things made for me to prepare for tomorrow and the day after that. My plan on recruiting more apprentices was in full swing and tomorrow I will start with the interviews. There were 8 open spots out of 12 ready to be filled. Three of them were already at my farm and one was the promised spot to the person who was interested in the greenhouses.
For the new people, I needed to build bunk beds. The three rooms in my house will have two bunk beds giving me 12-bed spots. I also needed to pick up a large supply of thread and needles as I needed to work with them for my training plan. I will need to spend quite a lot of time working with my fingers so I can keep them dexterous and strong. In the coming months, I will also have to do a lot of bow crafting to train my abilities and skills.
The rest of the day and night I spent building the beds and towards the morning I was able to finish assembling and placing them. The bought bedding was good, and the bed frames looked smooth and strong. They were quite good beds, at least in my opinion. I spent a bit of time just admiring my work.
The quiet moment made me contemplate. I was a bit hesitant about having so many apprentices, but it was going to be important. The faster we can get more people to become full homesteaders the faster we can give this class to other people. Still, it was going to be a lot of work and with my schedule, even my free time will now be taken up with instructing others.
The interviews were quite tiresome, but I saw a lot of potential and honesty I had too many qualified applicants. In the end, I used the large gathering room in the village hall to do a drawing from a hat on who was going to be able to get the apprenticeship. This way it was random so I wouldn’t have to think too much about the choices. We ended up with five men and four women. My new apprentices packed everything up and followed me back to my farm.
The oldest was a 42-year-old man who used to be a labourer in a small town. The youngest was a 17-year-old girl who used to have a farming class. Even while walking I started to explain to them everything they needed to know.
After making them all my apprentices in a small ceremony I continued to teach them especially about nature connection. I also finally got some feedback from my class informing me that I was getting close to my limit of how many apprentices I can support. This was still an incredible amount, as usual, other classes will have one or two maximum apprentices at the same time.
With so much workforce I was able to start replenishing my diminished resources. The first thing that I started to teach them was logging. Teaching people who are eager to learn was one of the most satisfying things that I have come across but even more important they were gaining new skills and abilities at a decent speed.
After a week I took some of my new apprentices to help my older apprentices build their houses. I did supervise them, but I let my old apprentices do the teaching as they also needed to practice teaching others.
I usually spent my early mornings crafting bows or stitching house patches and heraldry. Until lunch, I usually instructed my apprentices or performed my duties. Towards the evening I concentrated on building or training, at night I was usually training or hunting. Like that time went by quickly and I gained a lot of skill levels, especially in bow-making.
Towards the end of July, the forge’s main structure was built but there was still a lot to do. I wanted to use the river so I could power the air supply, that way I wouldn’t have to manually pump air into the coals which was a time-consuming activity.
I also wanted to use the water wheel that I was going to make to help transport water closer to the vegetable fields so watering them wouldn’t take so much time. Currently, almost 70% of the time needed to water the vegetables was just transporting the water from the river.