Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!

Chapter 36 Finally, new tools!

"Come on, man, time is ticking!"

Pushing himself off the ground he had just taken a moment of rest at, Theo stood up.

Then, for the first time in what felt like ages, he properly put away his pickaxe into his inventory. This time, however, for good.

"Finally, it's time to take a qualitative leap!"

By no means was Theo done with the job. In reality, he had more things to do than he realistically had time for!

That's why, as counterintuitive as it might be, he sacrificed a few minutes' worth of waiting at his mining base so that he could speed up all the mining he had in store for the future.

"Now then..."

With the timer in the corner of his vision finally reaching zero, Theo watched with satisfaction as a new position appeared inside his inventory.

[Name: Iron Pickaxe | Amount: 1/1 | Type: Tool | Grade: Common | Level: n/a | Subsystem: Blocky]

Yet, the name itself was of absolutely no consequence. What mattered was what benefit this improvement to Theo's arsenal of tools would provide.

"And for that," Theo muttered under his breath as he summoned the pick from his inventory, only to then instantly wrap his fingers around the iron-reinforced handle while the weirdly familiar weight reappeared in his hand.

Contrary to his expectations, however, this pick felt quite a lot lighter than its stone counterpart, causing Theo a bit of worry as to whether or not he could get used to its balance.

"One, two..." he muttered as he swung the pick through the air, only for his body to quickly adapt to the new weight of the tool. And as Theo's first test came to an end, he smiled before moving over to the corner of his base, still waiting for the other two tools to finish.

After all, according to his tests, the moment he stepped out of the range of his crafting bench, the crafting progress would halt. And if he dared to step far enough from it, some of the materials used for the crafting would vanish, while roughly half of them would just drop on top of the block of the crafting bench.

That's why, while he had no other choice but to wait a few more minutes for his crafting to finish, Theo eagerly approached the edge of his underground base before reaffirming his grasp over the tool and then gently bringing it down to the stone floor.

Thankfully, the iron tools, a direct progression from the stone set Theo had sported up until now, didn't take all that long to get crafted. Yet, contrary to Theo's hopes and beliefs, even once he held the iron sword in his hand... no achievement related to completing a set of iron tools came to him.

[You've held a weapon for the first time!]

[Do you wish to register "Sword" as your main weapon of choice?]

Rather than giving Theo an achievement, the system surprised him with a different notification.

But a notification Theo dismissed with hardly a second thought.

"I'm just a man. And as fancy and cool as it would be for me to wield a blade..." Theo shook his head, amused by his own childish cravings. "This is not the kind of place where I can afford to do what's fancy over what's practical," he stated to himself before looking up, as if he could find the source of his system somewhere in the dirt-based ceiling of his mining base.

"No, I do not wish to register 'sword' as my main weapon," Theo announced out loud in a clear, crisp voice, all to make sure the system wouldn't 'accidentally' mishear him, effectively pushing him into even bigger trouble than the situation he was in right now.

"Well, that does bode well for the future, though," the young man muttered to himself, taking one last longing look at the simple sword before rolling his eyes at his own childishness as he stashed the sword away, pulling out his iron pickaxe instead.

"The times are..."

Turning his eyes to the bottom of his vision, Theo checked the two most important countdowns in his current life.

[Time before the first wave of challengers: 17:02:11]

[Time until the "Constructor's Office" construction finishes: 32:11]

"Half an hour, huh?" he muttered before shaking his head and turning his eyes towards the dark mouth of his mining shaft.

Theo sighed before bringing up his freshly minted iron pick to his shoulder and then locking his thoughts in on the simple algorithm he had followed for quite a while.

'Let's mine away until the construction's end!'