We arrived at the village safely, the sun was about to go down, and I could see some houses already being built.

I know it's only been a little over a day, but the experience of the dead town made it feel like we spent a lot more time there.

But we were back at the village, which is starting to get bigger and bigger, soon enough I think we can call it a town.

The guards on top of the wall soon saw us galloping towards the gate, and since we didn't have any Amor, we were easily recognized and let in without a problem.

"Welcome back Village Head. Sir Toby is with the construction crew if you want to talk with him."

"Thank you, and please call me Bobby like everyone else."

With one final salute, we were back with the living.

Most of the people were busy building their new houses or gathering more materials for those houses. But not all of them did that, the ones that already had a place to live, set up shops instead.

It wasn't much, just some bread and other foods to the hungry workers at low costs, or station to repair tools that have been overused recently.

Soon we were at the construction site where Toby was yelling at everyone about what to do, and to keep things organized, it was not a place to live in yet, but in a few days everything would be done.

This is one big advantage in this world, a project can take days to be finished, even hours if you have enough people to work with.

The fact that there's no safety structure or waiting for the concrete to dry helped a lot.

After Toby was done yelling his instructions he finally saw us.

"Oh, you got back pretty quickly. How was the expedition?"

"It wasn't the best, but we got what we wanted."

"That's good? Anyway, my people asked me if they could use your mine to gather some ores. Or if they should start a new one much further away."

Bobby looked at me instead, since I was the one that used it.

"I don't have a problem with them using my mine. But I think I'll have to show them what system I use."

And to hide the portal room better, or at least keep them away from that part.

"That's great to hear, I'll call the miners to meet you in front of the mine soon, you can talk with all of them then."

Toby then walked away too look for the miners.

"I think I'll trade with some of the villagers here, and maybe get another 'quest'."

Merry informed us of her plans for today.

"Well, I finished everything here, so after I take some items from my place I'll get back to the castle."

Since he had to prepare for our meeting, Bobby was leaving soon.

"See you in four days then, I'll send you a message, keep a look out for it."

With a final hug, we split up once again. And for the first time, It wasn't because of an accident.

Merry went to trade with some of the villagers and grind her Trader skills. I don't think she realizes how powerful this skill can be, but I do think she likes to see numbers go up like me.

As for me, I was in front of the mine, or at least a small hut to hide the hole so nobody would accidentally fall in.

Around 15 minutes later three villagers were in front of me, one old man with a dark beard and no hair on his head, but his eyes didn't back down from any challenge.

The second one was also an old man, with small eyes with a white beard that was well kept, while he looked a little hunched, his arms were full of muscles.

The third and the last one was a young man, younger them me from his looks. A beaming smile was on his face, and his eyes were full of curiosity about his future job.

While his appearance looked young, his muscles were nothing to scrap off, he wasn't a greenhorn in this domain.

"Gentleman, this is a mine that I did it In a few weeks. I don't know how you usually mine, but since you're using this one to get some ores, I'm here to explain what system I used in here."

I got a different reaction from everyone, the two old villagers gave me an annoyed look or a polite smile. While the young man had his eyes full with excitement ready to see the secrets of the underground.

But in the end, it didn't matter what they thought about my mine, I was only worried about the portal beeing found out.

I went down the stairs and waited for the others to arrive, the temperature was already a little higher than the surface, even if the furnace room hadn't been running for a while, everything was still isolated in there.

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Soon everyone was down and I could see their surprised faces once they saw the huge room already at the beginning.

"This is the largest room in the mine, as you can see there are a few chests on the walls, they are all full of materials that I got from mining. You can take anything from there except for ores."

The villagers started to wander around the room, sometimes opening a chest to see what was inside, but the more chests they opened the bigger their eyes got. There were a lot of blocks in each one of them after all.

"This is the Furnace room, you can use it as well if you want to, but restock the fuel from time to time. I don't suggest you stay in here when everything is running."

"Why are there so many furnaces?"

The young villagers asked.

"I usually work with a lot of materials that need to be smelted, iron, copper, cobblestone, and even gold. So I need a different furnace for each one of those. But if I leave it like that it would smelt too slow, so I'm splitting all the stacks into smaller numbers and I can smelt a lot more a lot faster."

"I see, fascinating!"

All three of them seemed to appreciate the efficiency of the furnace room and probably would use it themselves later.

"Ok this is more impressive than I thought, so what is the tax of the mine?"

The bald man spoke with a heavy voice.

A tax of the mine?

I haven't thought about a system like that, and they seemed used to this kind of deal, so it's not like I'll give to them the permit for free now.

Unlike Bobby and other friends that I have I don't know them that well so I can't really sympathize with them that much.

Sure they're in danger of being attacked by the army of zombies but we're already working against that, and unlike Bobby's villagers they can take care of themselves if times get tough.

"How about 1/10 of the ore you mine?"

All three of them seemed surprised by my offer.

"Is this the final price, or will it rise with time?"

Looks like it's way lower than they expected it. But I know if I want ores it's faster to get them myself than to wait until the tax chest gets full.

"This is that final price."

The older generation seemed more smiley all of a sudden and didn't look at me with the displeasure that was on their eyebrows a few minutes ago.

"Ok, let me show you the mining system otherwise you can get lost."

"This is not the full tour?"

"Oh no, this is only the beginning."

So we went in one of the larger tunnels, on each side there were other smaller tunnels but two blocks apart each.

Since it was so close to the surface it only had around 10 tunnels 100 blocks deep each.

"My strategy when it comes to mining is to dig until I find a cave system or make new tunnels every two blocks. This way I don't have to walk hours every day only to arrive at the end of the tunnel so I can start working. Of course, everything is well lit with torches so I don't have problems with mobs. Now since those are higher levels, I only looked for vines of coal. At the lower levels, I have a lot more tunnels for more precious ore."

"Wait, so are you saying that the lower we go, the higher the chance to find precious ores?"

The young villager asked.

I should really ask for their name at some point.

"Of course. I mean at this level you won't find any diamonds no matter how much you mine. You have to go past the deep slate layer to have better results."

"Diamonds?! You mean the legendary ore only nobels have seen?"

"Yeah?"

This seems to catch the attention of the old people as well.

"How did you mine until now?"

"We only minded in the stone layer since it's faster, and we do the same tactic as you but the tunnels are further apart from each other. And if we find a cave system we try to not go too deep into it. "

The hunched man said with embarrassment.

"Oh boy, that's such an inefficient way to mine for resources. OK, I'll tell you the right way to mine but you'll have to give me all the lapiz you'll mine. Deal?"

They seemed confused about that ore, and it's not surprising since only rich people use it. But the system will tell them which one it is once they find it, so I'm not worried about that.

In the end, they accepted the deal, so I proceeded to tell them about the strip mining strategy, even the one black tall is they're not too claustrophobic.

I told them about the levels of depth, the ores they can find, and what pickaxe they need to break it.

I also encouraged them to take a guard with them and explore the cave system to get much better results.

They all absorbed the new knowledge like dry sponges, and the light in the younger man kept getting brighter and brighter.

It was starting to scare me a little.

After a few hours of showing them, teaching them, and warning them on what to look out for, we finally split up to start the work.

They already had their iron pickaxes with them, ready to put to the test the newfound knowledge, and they all swore to repay me later for the shared wisdom.

With that out of the way I went up the staircase and stopped at a small tunnel, I walked inside, and soon I was at the portal room.

"Ok, time to work a little bit on you so there won't be any accidents in the future."

I didn't work a lot for this room and its design. But now I have to do something so the other won't accidentally mine into it.

Any resistant block is either too hard to get or would get more attention than deter people.

So that's why, I'm going to use a strategy I used for my secret base, lava walls.

First I made the room a little bigger and then decorated it with a few blocks so it wouldn't look so plain. A few chests here and there, in one of them I put different stone blocks and a sign that says to leave the money in exchange for the stack.

Hopefully the piglings will understand what I'm talking about.

I then got out of the room and mined a layer off beyond the exterior of the walls.

With a few crafted buckets I went into one of the deeper cave systems to get some lava, fortunately, I didn't see any miners so the operation was still a secret.

The next step was the hardest and the most claustrophobic one, I had to get on top of the room on my belly and put nine buckets of lava in all corners of the exterior of the room, so it would flow and look like a natural lava pool.

It was an awful experience that I don't wish to recreate anytime soon.

The entrance of the room would be blocked by an iron door that would have a laver only on the inside, I crafted a few more and put them in the chest, keeping one to myself so I can give to Toby once I'm done.

I also made a sign that read 'village head property' and put it on the small windows of the iron door.

Now you truly couldn't see what was inside, hopefully, this would keep people away.

With this work all done, I finally went to the surface where I saw that it was getting late.

I walked around the village, talked with some people, and made a few trades. I also gave Toby his lever and went to look for Merry.

It wasn't too hard to find her, she was helping with construction of the new houses. She hasn't developed her inner builder yet, so she only followes instructions for now. It looks like she found her new 'quest'.

"Merry, don't forget to get a good rest, tomorrow we'll be leaving early!"

She looked away from the walls and saw me waving at her.

She didn't yell back, instead gave me a thumbs up and got back to work.

But since she didn't have thumbs to replicate that gesture, that whole action looked more like she called for a taxi.

I smiled to myself and went into my temporary home, I needed to be well rested for tomorrow.