He started selling food again and went back into the trade channel.
"Collecting scrap! Gather round, everyone — fresh food just in. First come, first served, snooze and you lose!"
"Holy crap, the Scrap King is back?"
"I knew the Scrap Bro would have new stock. I saw a busted saddle on the way to chop wood and grabbed it back specially for you!"
"Been waiting ages for you. Come on, let's trade!"
This round of trading went even more smoothly than the first. Normally nobody would bother picking up trash and junk out in the wild, but because Han Huohuo wanted it, people grabbed it along the way and wasted nothing.
He didn't trade away everything — he used 600 food to swap for 480 iron ingots.
Han Huohuo was delighted. He thought, as long as I can recruit a big batch of robots, won't my camp develop at lightning speed?
No wonder this was an SSS-grade building. It really delivered!
And of course, when everyone else needed food while he needed iron, this advantage of staggered development would be absolutely enormous.
Just as he was walking happily up to the Mecha Workshop, he suddenly froze, realizing he'd miscalculated something.
The three giant mechanical wolves were lined up recharging!
He smacked his forehead and let out a roar, breaking into a cold sweat.
Damn it — he'd forgotten these robots needed to recharge periodically, and recharging meant queuing. With so few robots right now it wasn't a big problem yet, but if he recruited a few more, recharging would become a bottleneck.
This Mecha Workshop could only recharge one robot at a time! And judging by the mechanical wolves' charging, it didn't finish in a flash either!
This really was a big headache; he absolutely couldn't blindly scale up his robot force.
Han Huohuo was a careful man. He crouched off to the side and studied the charging time. Fully charging one Mechanical Wolf took about ten minutes. If a mechanical worker took the same time, then over six hours, at most thirty-six mechanical workers could rotate through recharging before hitting the ceiling.
That was only a theoretical figure. In practice the number he could recruit was lower — probably thirty was the cap.
And that didn't even include recharging the giant mechanical wolves!
He didn't dare recruit more Mechanical Wolves. Workers mattered more in the early game, there were no enemies nearby threatening him, and three giant mechanical wolves were plenty. What he needed right now was a large amount of resources.
Once he'd thought it through, Han Huohuo gritted his teeth and recruited another twenty-six mechanical workers in one go, bringing the total to thirty.
He assigned ten workers to log wood and ten to quarry stone.
Then he decided to take the remaining ten mechanical workers to seize the iron mine.
Gou San's calves were still cramping, and now his boss was dragging him off to take the iron mine too.
He shot his boss a little look, signaling: do I really have to go? Han Huohuo ignored him completely.
He cursed his rotten luck in silence!
This time the procession was even larger — three Mechanical Wolves plus ten mechanical workers, a mighty column marching off to seize the iron mine.
The mechanical workers had low combat power, but in such numbers the column's momentum surged all at once.
This was the power of strength in numbers!
Out the stronghold gate, a hundred meters brought him to the iron mine.
Just as he reached it —
【The goblins guarding the iron mine, terrified of your powerful army, have fled at the mere sight of you. Do you wish to pursue?】
What was going on?
The iron mine's guardians were three little goblins. Seeing Han Huohuo's column come surging up in full force, they didn't look back — they bolted off into the distance.
These goblins had spotted Han Huohuo's column from afar, and their hearts were filled with utter shock, eyes nearly popping out. Is this divine punishment? We three little goblins — what did we ever do to deserve such a massive army coming to attack us?
The little goblins instantly lost all interest in guarding the iron mine. They ran and shouted as they went, "Brothers, scram! There's a total freak of a Lord coming — how does he have such a huge army? Bullying goblins like this! Run, run!"
Slipped away in a flash.
Han Huohuo was in a hurry to mine the iron and had no time to waste chasing goblins. He chose "Do not pursue!" and then seized the iron mine directly.
Those fleeing little goblins had even their shorts in tatters — broke as could be at a glance. Han Huohuo really couldn't muster any interest in chasing a few penniless goblins.
"You ten — you're in charge of mining the iron!"
The ten mechanical workers were even smarter than Gou San. On receiving the order, they immediately moved to the optimal mining positions and began mining in very orderly fashion.
For a while the clink and clatter never stopped.
Ten workers could theoretically mine 20 iron ore an hour. Mining iron ore was far slower than chopping wood or quarrying stone.
The time to gather one iron ore was equivalent to gathering ten wood or food, or five stone.
Trailing behind, Gou San finally let out a long breath. No fighting — wonderful. He didn't have to be cannon fodder at last.
Thirty mechanical workers began toiling away.
Wood +10
Stone +5
Wood +10
Iron ore +1
Stone +5
Iron ore +1
......
The resources gradually piled up before his eyes.
Han Huohuo returned to camp, sighing and groaning, watching the bustling worksite yet regretting that he couldn't make more mechanical workers.
Right now, every other Lord was out there in person, leading a few farmers to do farm work, or playing lumberjack, or quarryman, each of them worked to the bone like a dog. If they heard Han Huohuo's complaints, they'd probably leap up in fury and want nothing less than to split his skull with an axe.
And then curse, "A spoiled brat who whines about nothing!"
While the workers all toiled and no enemies were nearby for now, Han Huohuo began studying how to upgrade the Main Base.
【Main Base】: Tier 1, an Ancient-Era building. This is your center of power. Upgrading unlocks more building sequences. After the Main Base reaches Tier 10, it can evolve into the next era.
【Population Cap】: 100 (including workers and troops)
【Buildable】: housing, market, warehouse, Tier-1 farmland, Tier-1 wooden wall, recycling furnace, smithy, well, Catapult Barracks, Cudgel Barracks.
【Upgrade】: the next tier requires 1,000 wood, 500 stone, and at least three Ancient-Era buildings.
Hm?
Han Huohuo counted. He'd only built a market and a recycling furnace; he needed to build one more.
A smithy was a must — without one he couldn't smelt iron ore into iron ingots.
A well was a must too — he was nearly dying of thirst.
He hesitated, then decided not to rush smelting the iron ore into ingots. Building a well was the most important thing first.
【Well】: provides a freshwater resource
【Build】: requires 100 wood, 50 stone.
Han Huohuo glanced at his resources — without even realizing it, he already had enough, and tapped Build directly.
【Confirm building the Well?】
"Confirm!"
Wood -100, Stone -50
A square platform appeared in an instant, a round well at its center, right in the middle of the camp. Beside it sat a windlass and a wooden bucket on a rope — a quite complete setup.
Han Huohuo's throat was practically smoking. He hurried over, drew up a bucket of water.
The water was crystal clear — truly worthy of an ancient world, all about that zero pollution. The well water carried a hint of sweetness going down.
Good water!
Just as Han Huohuo was savoring it, a sudden thunderclap split the sky, startling him so badly he spilled the entire bucket.
"Damn it, the rotten heavens just love scaring me!"
He was still complaining when the rain came crashing down in sheets.
"Holy shit!"