Be it the forest's edge that Theo was already familiar with or the outer forest, the layer of dirt Theo had to dig through before reaching the solid rock was quite annoyingly large.
'If this was the blocky game, I would be a fifth of the way through to reaching the bedrock, while here I'm barely touching the stone…'
Rolling his eyes, Theo knelt down and touched the block of stone he dropped down to from the cube of dirt above.
It was this difference in feeling in his feet that gave Theo the information he needed, yet he still went ahead to confirm.
"Since this is the mine directly below the manor, I guess it won't hurt to give myself some room to work with here," he muttered, resisting the desire to sheathe his shovel and whip out his pickaxe, opting to take some time to widen the breach in the ground instead.
Bit by bit, the blocks of dirt vanished into Theo's inventory. And by the time he took a moment to take a break and behold the fruit of his short labor, a series of notifications came in.
[Storage room: Completed]
[You can now access all the chests within the area of your claim from the manor's storehouse]
[You can now access the manor's storehouse from anywhere within your claimed area]
'Great,' Theo thought, quickly whipping out his inventory and stashing away the two stacks of raw dirt he gathered while merely digging a swirling staircase down to the level of the stone and then by creating a small cave—mining base, one could say—at said level.
"I guess that means I no longer need to bother with the limitations of my inventory…"
Even with all the upgrades that pushed the size of Theo's interdimensional backpack or whatever his inventory actually was to a whopping twenty-six slots… once down in the mines, it was only a matter of time before those slots would fill up anyway.
Adding up his tools occupying a slot each, a stack of raw and then dried berries and the likes, and the impressive twenty-six slots would quickly decrease to only about twenty—and that many, Theo could fill with a single zoned-out mining run.
'Now then…'
With his underground base now prepared, Theo finally sheathed his shovel before switching over to his pickaxe. A bite of the dried berry mush complemented with a quick devouring of the raw berry later, he wiped his mouth and grasped his tool's handle before bringing it high above his head… and then gently dropping it down against the stone.
By the time he raised his pick above his head again, his consciousness already started to falter as the algorithm he came up with for his zoned-out ability kicked in.
In essence, it was but a simple, short list of instructions he planned to follow while letting the time pass, saving himself the drag of enduring the pain and boredom of the prolonged task while also improving his ability to gather the materials.
An ability that, given the costs of all the upgrades in tier 1 already forcing him to work for hours just to get one of them, was pretty damn likely to come in clutch the moment his manor upgrade would finish.
And so, there were but a few paradigms Theo made himself follow while his consciousness would rest.
First, it was to keep an eye on both of the threat meters and the status of the zone itself, the status that Theo could vividly remember changing back when he was the one challenging the Oilrat for its territory.
Secondly, it was to follow the specific rules of mining, never directly striking down at his footing, ready to wake up were anything unexpected to occur.
Thirdly, even upon the discovery of a vein of ore of any kind… he would opt out of mining it, in fear that affecting it directly could mess up his manor's ability to exploit it through other, potentially infinite means.
Finally, the last order Theo set for himself was just to mine away, only stopping if any of the earlier steps would warrant the ability breaking… or if a new notification appeared before his eyes.
'I've already gone into the zoned-out state only to later find out I could get much more from all the mining I did if only I had confirmed my achievements and accepted those flashing messages,' Theo bit down on his lip right as he was about to let his sense of self float into the nothingness.
"Never again."
Gritting his teeth to the point of pain, Theo closed his eyes…
Only to wake up who knows how far later into the day.
The algorithm he set for himself worked out like a charm. It did so well, in fact, that Theo could still see the slight side effects of the new notification appearing before his eyes, artifacts that would normally vanish within the first few seconds from the system contacting him.
[Stone Manor: Upgrade completed!]
[Your Manor leveled up to tier 2!]
[Accounting for wooden foundations]
[Stone Manor > Woodstone Manor]
[Your Manor leveled up to tier 2.5!]
The first set of short notifications, Theo discarded with hardly any hesitation.
'Is that the gradual development perk the system mentioned before?' he thought, still sparing the notifications just enough thought to properly process the messages hidden behind them. He then shrugged his shoulders. 'If so, isn't this quite disappointing? I mean, I've ended up sleeping under a solid roof, something I couldn't do if I went straight for the stone manor, but still… if it's just a matter of getting a slightly higher number than I would otherwise do…'
Regretfully, there wasn't really any way for Theo to verify the situation, not unless he conquered another zone and decided to establish another manor there, all just to figure out whether or not his system screwed him over on this detail or not.
And no matter how he looked at the issue, doing something like that wasn't just stupid—it would be outright crazy in its pettiness!
"Now then, for the meat of what this upgrade comes with," Theo muttered to himself as his eyes drew to the hefty notification that appeared as soon as the initial ones dispersed.
[You can now upgrade the mansion by adding the following rooms:
- Hall of Arms - Allows you to remotely control your defenses
- Map Room - When inside, gives you a map of your whole claimed area with all friendlies, enemies, and structures marked in real-time
- Meditation Room - A place for restoring mental fortitude, can be used to practice magic
- Craftechamber - Improved Workshop, upgrades the speed and complexity of existing technology
- Study - A place of silence and learning, provides a discount for unlocking new abilities and technologies]
[Gradual progression mansion upgrade:
- Constructor's Office - Increases the construction speed of manor rooms, upgrades, and extensions, decreases their cost]
[You can now upgrade the manor by adding the following extensions:
- Smithy - A proper forge allowing the expansion of the range and the automation of smithing purposes
- Lumberjack Guild - Provides passive income of wood-related materials, gradually removes trees from marked areas, can reforest marked areas
- Mining Guild - Allows the exploitation of the area's resource veins, marks all the other resource veins on the map, provides passive income of stones and ores
- Warding Tower - Decreases the strength of approaching enemies, increases the threat-detection range of the manor
- Outer Stone Wall - A combination of a ditch, rampart, and a stone wall designed to keep even the strongest enemies at bay. Comes in three forms that can be either selected separately or constructed jointly at an increased cost]
[Gradual Progression manor upgrade:
- Specialized Industry - Allows the selection of one industry the manor specializes in, possibly influencing the perks provided by other buildings while providing a passive income from the selected industry]
[You can now upgrade your claimed area by constructing the following:
- Throne Hall - Part of the mansion, a prestige project necessary to unlock more advanced technology
- Guild - Universal prestige project, can be built outside of the manor limits, provides passive income of the fruits of the selected industry
- Monument - Customizable building, has to be placed within the limits of the manor, upgrades a selected building to a higher tier (only applicable before reaching tier 3)]
[Your manor has now reached tier 2 while you were still within your grace period. The ferocity of the nearby monsters increases]
[Time before the first wave of challengers: 20:00:00]
[Time before the first wave: 19:59:59... 19:59:58...]