Alex clicked on the trade order message and finally saw the name of the cunning merchant.
The moment she saw the name, her mouth dropped open wide enough to fit an egg.
"Holy Fuck!!!"
"QuartzStriker! It's him!"
Alex hadn't expected that the one trading iron ingots would be her first friend, [QuartzStriker].
Playing possum, huh? Trying to pull one over on me?
Alex felt like her persona as a big shot crumbled in front of [QuartzStriker], who turned out to be the real big shot.
At this moment, Alex couldn't bring herself to approach [QuartzStriker] about the iron ingots.
Should she just buy directly from the trading post? But that would be a huge loss.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away from Alex's castle, next to a large mountain, stood a castle built primarily of stone.
The castle was surrounded by white stones and several large mountains, with nothing else around. It was located at the foot of the largest mountain.
Inside the castle, a sexy young woman was sitting in the kitchen enjoying her 'delicate' lunch.
It was actually just a piece of overcooked roasted rabbit.
The girl was about 6 feet 3 inches tall, with long, wavy black hair and a beautifully made-up face.
She was pretty, but her looks were not quite on par with Alex's.
The young woman wore a tight white shirt that showed off her belly button, with the first button undone to reveal her cleavage. Due to the size of her breasts, the second button was also under immense pressure, almost popping off.
She wore a black micro-mini skirt that showcased her long, sexy legs, covered by black semi-transparent stockings that extended up to the private area under her skirt.
The girl sat on the dining chair, crossing her legs in a relaxed pose, with a high heel dangling from her toes.
This girl was none other than Alex's first friend: [QuartzStriker]!
QuartzStriker's real name is Sophie, and she's 21 years old, three years older than Alex. She's also an orphan.
To make a living, Sophie chose to leave school early and started working as a clerk at a company.
Sophie's job wasn't very demanding, and she enjoyed playing games in her spare time.
With her understanding of games and her own intelligence, she quickly adapted to this new world.
Sophie's summoned troops are dwarf artisans, capable of summoning ten per day. These dwarves are experts in construction, mechanics, smelting, and forging, though they are somewhat weak in combat and consume a lot of food.
On her first day in this world, Sophie surveyed the surroundings of her castle, which was entirely encircled by mountains with few wild monsters, indicating both a lower risk and fewer high-level monsters.
This provided Sophie with a relatively safe and stable development location.
However, the dwarves needed food, and they ate a lot. Sophie sent them hunting, but they often returned empty-handed.
During one of their outings, the dwarves surprisingly brought back other dwarves of their kind, all wanderers who agreed to join Sophie's castle as long as she provided them with food.
Consequently, the number of dwarf artisans in Sophie's castle expanded to two hundred.
Sophie learned from these wandering dwarves that the old Dwarf King had passed away, leading to a civil war within the dwarf kingdom that was so severe it threatened to split the kingdom. These dwarves were civilians affected by the war.
Feeling sympathy for them, Sophie took them in. Although this significantly increased the efficiency of stone mining, the daily food requirement also grew...
Later, Sophie realized the combat limitations of the dwarf artisans and decided to abandon the idea of having them hunt. Instead, she focused on having them mine stone, which they then traded for food.
This was far more efficient than hunting and avoided any casualties.
Food prices were outrageously high, and although there was a slight price drop from yesterday to today, the quantity of affordable food remained too low.
Sometimes Sophie could only manage to grab one or two portions, and sometimes she couldn't get any at all. This amount of food was simply not enough. Sophie spent her days glued to the trading post, ready to snatch up any low-priced food that appeared.
Fortunately, her troops were skilled at mining, and there were several large mountains just outside the castle. Resources were not an issue, especially with the trading post feature that allowed for continuous exchange.
No wood? No problem, trade stone for it!
No food? No problem, trade stone for it!
The one thing they weren't short of was stone.
While mining in the mountains, the dwarves suddenly discovered an iron ore deposit. During a castle upgrade, Sophie also unexpectedly obtained a special structure blueprint, which made her even happier.
The special structure was a furnace. Sophie successfully unlocked and built the furnace, which smelted the iron ore into iron ingots. Although it was her first time seeing iron ingots, she understood they would be extremely useful.
Yesterday, the dwarves brought back over a hundred more dwarves, which became the last straw for Sophie. Her strategy of snatching up low-priced food at the trading post was no longer viable. Reluctantly, Sophie had to turn to lords who had plenty of food.
For instance, Alex. Of course, Sophie wasn't foolish; she didn't rely solely on Alex, but his food supply was the most abundant and stable.
Today, Sophie finally managed to trade stone continuously for wood, magic crystals, and various other resources, upgrading her castle to level 9.
Sophie also learned about the uses of iron ingots. With such a large iron mine and the furnace's output combined with the efforts of over three hundred dwarf artisans in her castle, they could produce five hundred iron ingots daily. However, upgrading the town required ten thousand iron ingots. At this rate, it would take Sophie twenty days to upgrade the town.
Sophie had her own plans and preferred to be independent.
Seeing that the castle couldn't be upgraded to a town anytime soon, Sophie decisively planned to trade using iron ingots.
Taking advantage of the fact that most lords' castles hadn't reached level 9 and although they didn't know the uses of iron ingots, they would surely understand it was a high-level material.
Currently, it seemed she was the only lord trading iron ingots at the trading post, so Sophie planned to follow the other lords' example and trade at high prices.
This was an opportunity to make a substantial profit. With an endless supply of stone, over three hundred dwarf artisans, and the ability to smelt iron ingots, Sophie didn't need to rely on anyone else to secure a continuous flow of resources.
At this moment, Sophie was brimming with confidence and hopeful about the future. She had already surveyed the area around the castle and knew it was safe from any dangers.