The trip to the goblin land was simple enough, but sneaking through the forest was a bit harder due to my size. I made a note to myself to come back here and practice until I regained my previous skill level.

I went straight to one of the scouts, where I had a small problem. They didn't recognize me immediately, but when they did, they couldn’t figure out why I had grown so much, which was funny to explain.

I asked for an audience with their leader and it didn't take long for me to be granted one. Their village had grown a lot, not by the number of goblins living there, but because they were now constructing real buildings, and that took a lot more space than the tents they were using before. I was led to an impressive building where I found Stebs Soot. He was also taller and he didn’t have the pronounced belly goblins were known for.

"It's been a long time, my friend," I started and offered my hand. Stebs Soot only hesitated for a single moment before he took my hand. "It really has. Is something wrong? I heard that the construction on the road had begun. Is there something more you require from us?" It seems that our relationship really had strained.

"No, no, Stebs Soot. I am here to catch up with an old friend and offer you a gift. It was quite a lot of work, so I hope that you will like it. But before that, perhaps we could eat and catch up?" Stebs Soot’s mood seemed to brighten immediately and I was led to a proper dining room.

We spoke for a few hours about absolutely everything. The food was also incredibly delicious. It seems that they had improved their stew even more. But I could see Stebs Soot getting a bit restless as I still hadn’t given him the gift I promised earlier.

"I see that you can’t wait any longer, so here, take this." I took out the book and handed it to him. He was a bit confused, so I started to explain. "From our previous talks and the current one we had, I figured that you guys would have a lot of trouble fighting stronger monsters. While evolutions help you close the gap, only you having a class doesn't help the other goblins protect your lands."

"So, I made a book that explains and teaches how to make crossbows and other weapons that are similar to them. I figured that for you guys it would be perfect, as those weapons can be very powerful and would require less strength than expected. With them, you should be able to protect yourselves even better."

It was at this moment that I saw a single tear fall from Stebs Soot's eye. "This is truly magnificent. Usually, complex constructions go over my head, but even I can understand how to make a crossbow with your instructions. This will really help us a lot, but I still don’t fully understand why you would give us a treasure like this." Stebs Soot continued to leaf through the book even while he spoke. I was pleased to see him liking it so much.

"Well, we have not been the best neighbors as of late, but I hope that this will show that we appreciate you as well." There was silence for a long time, and it was finally broken when Stebs Soot gave me a solid nod and then continued to flip through the book with a smile on his face.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I offered to show how to construct a crossbow and quickly, Stebs Soot got some of their best crafters together for a demonstration and instruction on the book I gave them. They were all incredibly excited, especially by the more powerful weapons that came later in the book. With some of those weapons, even wounding the dragon that I fought would be possible. However, it will take them a long time until they reach the competency to make such weapons.

After a short tour of the village, I headed back home, but I did spend two days in the forest learning to move silently again. The forest was however just too dense to not make noise because of my large size, but I was still satisfied with my progress.

When I made it back home, I finally felt that my earth sense started to calm down. There were many points of interest that drew my attention, but the first thing I noticed were the empty black voids underground. At first, I didn’t understand why they would be there, but I soon figured it out. It meant that there was a hollow space there.

They were basically a large hollow space underground and one was under the lake that led a long way downward. It kind of made sense. There were two rivers that fed the lake and the water needed to go somewhere otherwise the lake would have long ago grown much larger. But that didn't answer the question of how there was any water in the lake; it should all be flowing downwards.

I was incredibly curious, but I had to put that on hold as there were more things to find. For one, some of the rabbit burrows went a lot deeper than I ever thought. There were also some underground rivers, but they either disappeared beyond our borders or went too deep.

I did find a few buried treasure chests near the town, but I didn’t expect them to hold anything too valuable. Thanks to our expansion into the nearby mountain, I also got a clearer picture of the resources there.

I could see quite a few unique materials inside the mountain and many metal veins. The iron vein we were currently mining was big, but the most interesting was the underground river that surfaced on the mountain and brought so much salt.

I don’t know how, but a large section of rock had changed into a unique material that produces salt, and when the river flows through it, it collects it. It would be interesting if we could get to that rock, but it's really deep inside the mountain.

One of the most important resources, however, was in abundance. We had a lot of rich soil, so we should never run out of food. Unfortunately, the grasslands weren't as fertile, simply because of the type of grass that grows on it.

It’s still an incredible resource, especially because of all the rabbits that live there. I was skimming through the grass fields, but there wasn’t anything that interesting. That was until I reached near the edge of our territory. There, I found a large concentration of iron in the soil that extended all the way to the mountains on the other side of the grass fields.

Mining here would be quite pointless as we would need to sift through a large portion of soil, which I didn’t even think was possible with the current technology. However, I was quite certain that the concentration was high enough that the iron oak saplings would be easily able to absorb the iron there and become like the large iron oak that’s on my land. This was incredibly useful and we will certainly need to use that area of our nation in the future.

I took out my notebook and started to mark down everything I thought would be useful: the multiple sources of clay that I found, the information about the mountain, and so on. When I was done, I headed to the town where, where I started to explain the information I had, an emergency meeting was held when it was understood what information I had.

Some plans needed to be changed with the new information, while others needed to be made about the future. There were also talks about specialty homesteaders, and I really liked the idea. So, a new procedure for new homesteaders was put into paper.

When the meeting was done, I received a message that a letter had arrived for me. When I reached the town's mailing station, I found out that it was Luana who had sent me another message. When I finished reading it, I was surprised that she still seemed to want me as one of the party members. I guess exploring the lake can be done at a later date. If I wanted to do this, I should do it correctly. So, I went off and found Roger.

After I talked with Roger, I notified others about my plans. I wrote back that I would meet them in the Verdia city-state in one week. Well, technically, I could have left immediately, but Roger also wanted another merchant trip, and it was always safer to travel with others. That way, I would have a guide that I know, and we were able to travel quite fast thanks to Roger's connections.