Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!-Chapter 38: One part of the schedule Theo failed to factor in

Just like it happened many times before, strings of light emerged from Theo’s chest… although in a much smaller number than what he expected.

Upon closer inspection of what this string of white light transformed into, however, the reason behind the change became quite obvious.

’Most of the cost was covered not by the stuff in my personal inventory but by the resources in the Manor’s storage. In fact, all I’m personally providing are the nails and ingots,’ Theo reasoned before turning his attention to the other, vitally important aspect.

[Time until the construction’s completion: 29:38]

’Wait, doesn’t that mean…" Squinting his eyes, Theo then leaned his head back.

A gesture that made absolutely no sense in a practical manner, for Theo couldn’t get a better, wider view of his system by simply leaning his head back. Still, following nothing but the habits he attained back in his lifetime in the modern world, Theo took a moment to analyze not the construction timer itself but what it meant for the rest of the upgrades.

’Does this mean that’s how long it’s going to take to construct those towers and the wall?’ he thought, only to then press his lips into a thin line as the obvious downside of this line of thinking quickly came to the forefront of his mind.

’Even if, it’s not like I can just assume it, not when those are absolutely vital to how I plan to defend the place!’

On one hand, Theo could just assume that that’s how long it would take for his system to turn his resources into the buildings he desired. Yet, on the other hand, if this assumption was wrong…

Merely picturing the outcome of being wrong in this matter was enough for Theo to abandon the idea of min-maxing every last second of time he had before the attack would come. Or, at the very least, he decided to put it off for later, for when he would gain more information!

"And that means, for now…" he muttered, only for his eyes to turn right back to the dark mouth of his mining tunnel.

Then, without any further ado, Theo set up his mental algorithm before sinking into the zoned-in state.

[Construction of the Mining Guild (level 1): Completed!]

[Mining Camp: +30 ore per hour]

[Vein usage: 1/7]

[Mining Guild Can be Expanded!]

"Not bad…"

Waking up from his trance, Theo managed to gather his wits a bit faster than before, saving himself the few seconds he would usually waste just trying to get his bearings on the reality around him.

And with the notification flashing right before his eyes, he couldn’t help but whistle a little, only for the sound he made to reverberate throughout the narrow confines of his mining tunnel.

This was, by no means, a huge amount. On his own, Theo could mine that much out in a few minutes at most, the trip down to the vein included.

But if he did it by hand, the ore would, sooner or later, run out. Meanwhile, the chances were…

"Oh right, system, can I still mine the ore, or will that negatively affect how many mining guilds I can set up?" Taking his chance, Theo asked the air out before turning silent as he waited…

Yet, just as expected, to no avail.

’It really seems like those system responses only come at the most random of times,’ Theo thought, only to push the notification aside before weighing his pick in his hand and ultimately putting it back.

For now, he had more than enough stone for his purposes, especially with all the costs of his upgrades now falling to a quarter or a half of what they used to be. And with that in mind, there was something else that he could finally prioritize, given how robust of a stone stockpile he had between his personal inventory and what he already stashed away back at the manor.

With the decision made, Theo rushed up the long mining shaft, only to end up cursing his own stupidity before even reaching his mining base.

’Why didn’t I think about mining out in parallel?’ he thought, biting down on his lips in frustration as he continued to run up the tunnel, wasting precious seconds doing nothing but running. ’Well, from now on, I will have to add this one instruction to my mental algorithm.’

In the end, it took Theo around three minutes to return to his underground base where, as per usual, he took a few more moments to clean out all his furnaces and then split up whatever ore he found during mining back into their bellows. Regretfully, while it was nice to have a passive chance of striking ore while mining raw stone, this chance was nowhere near great enough to satisfy Theo’s needs.

’Thinking about this, why won’t I…’

Squinting his eyes as he moved away from the furnaces and started to climb the blocky stairs up to the surface, Theo nearly stopped in his tracks.

’Isn’t ore the one thing I lack the most right now? Then why should I limit myself to just one guild?’

With scores of wood and more stone than he knew what to do with, Theo didn’t really need to hold back on using those materials. And while iron and nails were a different topic, in his bid to gather as many nails as he needed for the specialized industry, he still had enough to expand the mining guild pretty much right away!

’Actually… this doesn’t sound like all that bad of an idea,’ Theo thought, quickly summoning the usual set of the system prompts, only to then sigh out in slight frustration.

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"Just a little bit short, huh?"

With more than enough iron to craft the necessary nails in his inventory… Theo still had to climb all the way back up to his manor before he could craft the last few missing nails. Alternatively, he could just take a quick trip back to his mining base, but seeing how his next goal lay on the surface…

’Yeah, let’s not waste my time on it,’ Theo decided before finishing up the climb, all the while ignoring the pain of the exhaustion that was starting to slowly build up in his body.

’Thinking about this, I should take better care of the state of my body too, unless I want to collapse from exhaustion once the fighting starts,’ he thought right as he climbed the last few steps.

Yet, giving himself the time to rest came with its own set of problems. Starting with a lack of anything to serve as an alarm to wake him up in time for the fight, forcing him to get some sleep way in advance, through just how precious time was to Theo given how much more work he had left to do…

"Okay, let’s do it this way, then," he decided pretty much as soon as he started the crafting of the last few missing nails, forced by the crafting timer to settle down and just wait. "I will try to get the walls, towers, and the industry up as soon as I can. And as soon as the system starts to build them up… No matter what, I’m going to sleep!"