"Why are you still wearing that old and worn robe?" Styx asked Wolf, whom warded off his wolfish hands from inappropriately fondling her body once again.
"I don't have more than one."
"You didn't consider taking some at some point in the past?"
"Do I need more than one?"
"Yes, you need multiple clothes, and when they get too old or dirty, they need to be replaced. Therina currently arranges all of our clothes."
Styx wrapped an arm around Therina and squeezed one of her breasts. It was meant to help satisfy some of his lust, but it only made it worse. He gave her a deep kiss, her tongue quickly responding by prying open his lips on her own accord.
He then sent her off to collect her sewing tools to take Wolf's measurements.
When she returned, he didn't bother to hide his grin as he stated, "For her to take your measurements properly, you need to take off that old robe. It will only be in the way."
The wolf-eared woman froze and was unsure what to do. Whilst she didn't have any sense of clothing requirements, she did hold a strong sense of aversion to exposing her body naked and hairless.
Seeing her expression locked in conflict and mood rapidly worsening, Therina panicked and hurriedly offered a solution.
"A-actually, I can take the measurements with her clothes on."
Wolf quickly agreed to that, but Styx glared at her accusingly, his displeasure spreading to her mind and making her panic.
There was tension in the air as Therina had Wolf raise her arms to her side. When she measured her underbust, causing the old rob to pull tight around her large assets.
By this point Styx had to leave to find an outlet for his lust, leaving the elf and wolfgirl behind to arrange clothing.
~~~~~
⠀
When Styx returned, he finally arrange Therina's task for her, which was to head off to the nearby dungeon city with a cartload of manasteel. It may not be worth very much individually, but there was an enormous amount within the cart.
The monsters would carry the cart most of the way to the city, while he had arranged for Irie to meet Therina along the way with a pair of demon bisons to replace them as monsters couldn't enter the city and would also raise hostility against Therina.
She was to sell all of the metal in the city, then use the coins to purchase as many magic books and other key information that would be valuable to him. A portion of that coin was to purchase mana gems as well for powering his own arrays. Gems could be recharged a certain number of times too, so they weren't completely expendable.
Once she left, he led Wolf over to the far eastern side of the dungeon, which she hadn't been to yet.
She was now in clean, new clothes. She wore a stylish skirt with some intricate thread design around the hem, while the shirt was perfectly tailored to fit her bust which was more prevalent than ever. It was basic cotton clothing that could tear if she were careless, but her ability to preserve clothing without tearing it to shreds had been demonstrated by the old robe.
There was also a pair of basic shoes, but she had refused to wear them and remained walking around barefoot.
Therina was apologetic to ruining Styx's plan of getting her clothes off, so she had secretly cut the neckline of the shirt a little lower, showing the top of her cleavage. It was a sight Styx never regretted staring at and had instantly forgiven the elf.
"This is the current ore refinery," Styx stated as he showed Wolf into a giant room which was still being expanded.
Styx had redesigned the basic blast furnace into a larger piece of equipment made from celandine clay bricks and manasteel tools.
He had experimented with and designed a new magic array based on the Light Array Type I and Mana Infusion Array Type I. He called it the Passive Infusion Alpha Array, which was essentially just taking the ambient mana absorption function from the first array, the mana injection node from the latter, and combining them into one product.
It took a lot of trial and error as his knowledge was still rudimentary, but it eventually began working. The amount of mana absorbed was miniscule, but it made a small improvement to any manasteel structures or tools it was inscribed on. It would be even more effective if he rose the mana density in the factory too.
The room had a tall ceiling, with a large number of vents at the top, leading to above ground. He had created a series of fans with rotary mana engines. He had inscribed a bunch of Seldrick's Ambient Mana-Absorption Array Organs outside of their arrays and onto the mana engines.
They now functioned without Styx's or another person's personal mana infusion, but it did suck out a lot of ambient mana due to the sheer number of them, making him feel uncomfortable whenever he entered the room.
Giant pillars supported the room while a total of 35 of the Celendine Blast Furnace's were arranged into three neat lines, a gnome manning each furnace.
Styx's next greatest invention was a conveyer belt, which required mana stones to operate, and his abysmal current stock from Therina's last trip to the dungeon city was used in its entirety.
These were long belts made of interlocking small wooden planks atop a buffer of black sand to reduce friction on the perfectly smooth stone core, which had four Movement Array Type I's engraved in it with manasteel every meter.
Styx had modified the array to have the mana input from an external source, which in this case, was slots on the side of the conveyer for putting in mana gems.
The gems would then be taken to an area of the dungeon with higher mana density for recharging once the were expended. With more gems, he would be able to form a constant rotation of them."How does it work?" Wolf asked as her eyes sparked in interest.
"This is just the first design. The miners mine the raw ore, which is sent into the room by this conveyer. The minions then take the ore and go through the refinement process and cast it into a small mold."
"The finished product is then placed on the outgoing conveyer, which takes them to another room for storage."
Wolf watched the gnomes working with an almost endless curiosity, when Styx informed her of more things planned for the future.
"So you want to have a lot of people here?"
"Of course, and by having those people, resources and products for the public are necessary. For instance, steel cutlery, there should be enough product to supply everyone should they need or wish for it."
"What do they give you?"
Styx shook his head with a smile.
"They are my people, I provide for their needs, and they in turn provide back. Take the dark elves who are currently assigned to expanding the farms, or the bees who are pollenating and breeding new flowers."
"Should they have anything they need or want, I naturally give them, or help them acquire, whatever they need. In turn, they have tasks or work for the dungeon community assigned for them to complete. It isn't measured by amount nor value as we are working as a collective group."
"What if they don't want to do it?"
Styx merely shrugged his shoulders.
"I won't force anyone. There are always alternative things they can do, and should they choose to do nothing, the community simply won't support them back until the choose to do so."
"Will I have to do things?"
"Of course. You are mine, are you not?"
Wolf seemed to want to refute him, but she had technically agreed to that, so his words weren't wrong in her mind.
There was one final component of the factory, which was a side room with an extra large celendine brick furnace. This was controlled by two minions and through the dungeon to create manasteel while also researching new alloys.
Rhea couldn't stand being in the sweltering hot, noisy factory areas, so Styx had taken it onto himself for recording research notes on new materials. He had currently created three new alloys, which were currently undergoing the testing process.
Therina had also taken some samples off to the dungeon city blacksmith to evaluate their worth.
Just as he was in the middle of showing Wolf this room, he abruptly stopped and raised a brow in surprise. Wolf also turned and faced the direction of the dungeon entrance as if detecting the same thing as Styx.
"We have new minions! 10 of them too. It's a good thing I stopped the traps," Styx chuckled joyfully to himself as he watched a group of dark elves timidly entering the dungeon.
"Elena, Rhea," Styx spoke directly into the minds of the dark elves currently in the dungeon, the twins outside on external tasks for new and rare resources in the forest. "A group of your townsfolk have entered the dungeon, go welcome them and bring them to the throne room."
"They are minions?"
"Well, they are here to become mine, so it is basically the same. Minions, villagers, etc… these are the most basic people in games used for gathering resources, building, and other menial tasks."
Wolf nodded in understanding, not towards what he meant in the context of games, but regarding people who complete the small tasks.
"By the way, I finally thought of your name."
"…?"
"Aura."
"No."
"Why?! It is such a good name!"
"I don't like it."
"Too bad, I'm going to call you that anyway."
Styx snorted in derision, adamantly sticking to this name. Aura wasn't insulted by this, and merely allowed him to do as he willed while the two walked toward the throne room, or so Styx called it even though he was a dungeon, not a royal figure.
~~~~~
~~~~~⠀
[
New alloy created.
Testing against existing records…
Record already exists.
Award for discovering existing alloy: Bronze.
+ 100 exp
]
⠀
[
New alloy created.
Testing against existing records…
Record already exists.
Award for discovering existing alloy: Charged Obsidibronze.
+ 100 exp
]
⠀
[
New alloy created.
Testing against existing records…
Record already exists.
Award for discovering existing alloy: Nopper.
+ 100 exp
]
⠀
New BUK entry: Passive Infusion Alpha Array
⠀
⠀⠀6.6 Passive Infusion Alpha Array
⠀⠀⠀⠀6.6.1 Effect:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Absorption of any ambient mana and infuse it into the object. Natural ambient mana is usually too weak to infuse into an object effectively, but this can change as mana density increases.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀There is no control function nor mana filters, so an oversaturation of mana or conflict between mana attribute and infused object may occur.
⠀⠀⠀⠀6.6.2 Components:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀• Basic Circular Horönheim Magic Diagram
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀• Horönheim Basic 5-Point Star Magic Diagram (Inner Layer)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀• Seldrick's Ambient Mana-Absorption Array Organ
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀• Horönheim Mana Injection Node
⠀⠀⠀⠀6.6.3 Additional Items Required:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀None