A Base Like No Other

"Hmm… isn't this a little too much… *Sigh*…" Dante couldn't help but sigh at the immense fortune before his eyes.

Having reached the underground bunker facility of the Third Foundation Base, Dante realised Xarl didn't understand the true value of everything stored.

Minerals such as tantalum, gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and even real diamonds were stored in the metric tons, catalogued, and organised effectively for the automation technology of the underground facility to select and use the materials as needed.

To his surprise, the underground bunker seemed to have railway tracks leading further into the ground, however it wasn't included in the territory of the Third Foundation Base, so Dante wasn't able to know the exact reasoning for the railway without exploring.

Instead of sending the Skeleton Labourers out to explore the path of the railway line, Dante got to see the new Skeleton Labourers spawned at work.

They would help along the production line of the factories on the ground level of the Third Foundation Base.

All the necessary materials needed would be transported from the bunker above ground, using the industrial scale elevator system to move the materials up to the specific factory or using the automatic transport system, which appeared like flatbed trays that were controlled to work within the Third Foundation Base boundary.

Xarl could control everything remotely with the strain of the work left to the Tree of Beginnings, that behaved similar to a computing program, communicating through the Mana filled air that it was expelling naturally into the atmosphere.

The Lich also initialised a unique System of its own that connected along with Dantes Pioneer Civilisation System.

It allowed Xarl to program the forging and production factory machineries to make a certain list of items that he knew the production method of, such as weapons like swords, spears, bows and others.

The methods were somewhat changed to suit the technology set up in the factories, meaning the weapons wouldn't exactly be the same as Xarl knew, however they would be much stronger and durable with the help of the precise automation process.

Checking to see how the weapons turned out, Xarl made a variety for the Skeleton Labourers to use while out hunting Zombies throughout Terronious.

They didn't take longer than several hours to be prepared, leaving Dante absolutely stunned when he saw the finished products.

The Arming Swords, also known as Knightly Swords, was known as the quintessential European sword on Earth.

A straight double-edged blade of around 80 cm, and its cruciform hilt were easily recognisable by anyone, regardless of they had any previous knowledge of swords or not, would always see them as medieval swords equipped by Knights who would serve nobles or royals.

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They were also very typically found across all of Agearen, equipped by the Knights of nobles and royals though they would be forged from certain materials that had Mana or Spiritual Energy properties infused into them.

Dantes own sword was made from a combination of Adamantium, Mythril, Black Meteor Steel and Monster processed goods, though his sword was designed closer to a Longsword, with a blade closer to 120 cm.

While the swords made from the robotic arms and automated production line couldn't match with the forging ability of a Dwarf who'd dedicate several weeks on a single sword to showcase all of their skills, they were far ahead in quality compared to the swords owned by human nobility by a mile.

That wasn't all.

Every other weapon forged by the automated machinery had forged items only forged by capable Grand Smiths, capable of forging all sorts of minerals, ores, and fibres into special items with specific properties.

There were some minor issues that Dante picked up in the swords such as the smoothness or resonance and balance, but they were only noticeable because of his own skills as a Blacksmith.

Skyfall, a collection of swords forged by Dante happened to make a great impact on Agearen society, as they were made using modern processing methods, with magic helping to make the forging method unique.

The material happened to be made from Meteor Steel, a type of steel alloy Dante invented after one of his abilities as a Hero allowed him to rain down meteors.

Travelling out to the desert, Dante used a combination of abilities available to him as a Hero to continuously activate the meteor ability until there were several mountains' piles covering the sea of the desert sand.

Most of the Meteor Steel Alloy he'd created was kept for a later time, but a small portion was used to make the Skyfall collection of swords, which were created into a variety of sword types from Earth, such as sabres, tulwars, katanas, and others, with the total 24 swords also having some magical property of their own.

The alloy would be forged along with a unique elemental stone, giving the sword certain abilities like summoning an Ice Storm consecutively or a Fire Blaze.

Though it mainly depended on the person wielding the swords affinity with the respective elemental stone used to forged along with the alloy.

Some of the swords were even made with a mixture of Monster Materials like bones, scales, blood and organs, but only Legendary or Mythological Monsters could be used which became an issue since most of those creatures were long dead.

Only the few alive to hunt weren't much of a challenge for Dante but he was too stingy to use up all of the beasts to finish the Skyfall collection, so he added the elemental stones in the end.

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Thinking back to his time as a Travelling Smith, Dante realised the swords forged by the axle gear machines would easily cause a huge uproar even among collectors back on Earth.

Though he had no plans to sell the swords, Dante planned to pass them out to the Skeleton Labourers to use for now.

Dante ended up leaving the Third Foundation Base in Xarls hands and asked him to get some help Thaestus and Palimus to expand his knowledge pool on various products creating process.

Thankfully he could leave from the Third Base and return to the farm easily.

Dante ended up calling for another taxi to the farm so he could go home and retrieve the truck, as he planned to take it over to Terronious for the High Goblins to play around with.

The idea was to make it driveable on Biofuels made from wheat straw to reduce the cost of expenditure on fuel but also to see if the Biofuel would be sellable in the future on Earth.

Dante had already brought the idea up with Thaestus roughly when the High Goblin was named, but Thaestus still needed to pull apart a vehicle to understand them better.

The Ute wasn't a better choice, but for some reason Dante felt confident in handing over the truck to the High Goblin.

He believed Palimus would be able to rein in the madness of Thaestsus creativeness.

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Dante arrived back at the farm after an hour and a half with the truck and drove it straight into the barn before taking it over to Terrnious.

Everything loaded into the back of the truck were also brought over, as he arrived in a free plot of land on the Third Foundation Base with the Xarl, Palimus, Thaestsus already waiting.

"Huh? You guys knew I was coming or something?" Dante felt a little weird by the whole situation how they were already standing at the ready for his arrival

"… Something like that… anyway Boss, is that the truck you want me to work on?" Thaestus replied, having already made his way over to the truck to examine a new item outside of what he knew.

"*Sigh* Yeah… it is.

There is plenty of stuff in the back of the truck as well so go through that too and see if we can recreate it here or make better versions for our own use." Dante told Thaestsus as the High Goblin opened up the back gate of the truck.

"Xarl… tell me something good.

Have you learnt anything while I was gone?"

"Yes indeed, Master…" Xarl said, before Palimus spoke up.

"Master, Xarl asked for my help earlier to learn some production methods however what happened instead was quite interesting." Palimus activated his own System Interface, catching Dante off guard.

"As the Manager for the Third Foundation Base, I am able to select designers whose items and knowledge can be utilized.

To my surprise, I didn't know another System would initialise for Palimus, with some unique differences to my own." Xarl explained to his Master before Palimus showed how his System worked.

The High Goblin could use the System Interface to plan and design any product with the perimeters already set pertaining to the capabilities of the technology on the Base.

Palimus was able to design tools needed at the Second Foundation Base, and let the machines create them with some small trial and error, since Palimus noticed the small errors that could arise at times with the finished product.

Making the relevant adjustments, the tools all were made exactly to Palimus liking.

They were ready to be taken back to the Second Foundation Base, but Palimus used the pile of tools as evidence of the work that could be performed by the Third Base.

Xarl also received a notification to tell him the crafting process for the tools had been added to his System database, allowing him to recreate them in the future.

Dante ended up asking Palimus to design brewing equipment and supplies needed to craft various alcoholic beverages.

Palimus felt inclined to make the brewing equipment some of his finest work after learning the alcohol produce would also be given to them to drink in the future.

At first, he wanted to drag Thaestus over to help him with the designing process, however decided not to after Dante asked him to work with Xarl to include magical elements to reduce the brewing process.

One of the finished products Dante wanted to sell was whisky, but it needed to be aged for a minimum of 12 years before it could be sold.

Dante knew Xarl could utilise magic, whereas he couldn't right now to the same extent, so he hoped Xarl could create some mechanism that included Time Magic to fasten the ageing process.

Being a former Hero, Dante had an idea on how to incorporate Time Magic in the brewing and aging process however he wanted Xarl and Palimus to come up with their own plans first.

He was interested to see how they would deal with the issue of aging, and whether they would include magical elements in the brewing system.

While they went off to work on their plans, Dante unsummoned the 4 original Skeleton Labourers before hoping back to the farm on Earth and resummoned them to harvest all of the crops.

It didn't take them more than an hour to harvest everything, including chopping down the trees that'd matured to roughly a hundred years' worth within 24 hours.

In that time, Dante contacted David with news that was bound to cause him a brain seizure.

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"Your joking…

It's only been a couple hours since we talked about you 'possibly' starting a brewery, but all of a sudden… *Sigh*…

Is that all…?

Are you also going to ask me to open a pharmaceutical company or start selling rockets are you!!" David couldn't help but lose all of his reasoning after listening to Dante talk about acquiring the necessary licenses to operate a brewery and sell the finished products.

"Of course not!

… Well not right now anyway…" Dante realised there might be a day when he could create his own airplanes or even boats that could be sold to the public on Earth.

However, his sly comment didn't sit well with David who started cursing at Dante with some long-strung sentences that creatively used every swear word in the English language and Australian lingo on end.

Dante even hung up the call mid-way through Davids five-minute abusive tirade, however it didn't stop the young lawyer from expelling all the anger and fury pent up deep in his heart.

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"I'll call him once I've got the brewery up and running." Dante said aloud to himself as he kept watch over the Skeleton Labourers, who were storing the harvested crops either neatly into the underground cool rooms or into the barn.

After they were finished with the work on the farm, Dante sent them over to Terronious with Astakrons help, before driving the Ute home.

He didn't plan to head over to the other world just yet, as it was getting late in the day and his parents were bound to call him to ask his whereabouts.

Once he'd arrived home and spent time with his parents, explaining to his mum how it went with David, that Dante finally felt ready to jump over to Terronious.

Having arrived at the Third Foundation Base again, Dante found himself standing in the middle of an open area in between two factories.

Dante was about to whine that nobody had come to meet him on arrival, but a frantic Palimus appeared out of a door connected to the factory on Dantes left, facing toward the Tree of Beginning ahead.

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"Master!

You have to come see this!" Palimus excitedly shouted, before turning back and raced to the factory with Dante right behind him, a little confused and worried.

It wasn't long before Dante noticed the pile of heavy equipment like large silos and metal piping being moved around effortlessly by the Skeleton Labourers.

The robotic arms connected to the ceiling track network were welding the pipes together with the Skeleton Labourers hold them in place.

Their joint effort made the work seem like it wasn't difficult at all, but Dante noticed with his heightened eyesight that the precise welding on the pipes was top grade work in his mind.

The speed at which the robotic arms operated concerned Dante, as he believed they would cause more problems by missing the small details, but everything he'd seen so far showed him they were more than capable for a multitude of tasks.

"Master, we've already finished making the brewery equipment and started putting it all together.

We did stop for a moment, for specific reasons, but I'll leave it to Xarl as he knows more about it."

Palimus went straight over to monitor the Skeletons, instructing them closely while Xarl went over to Dantes side.

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"Welcome back Master…" Xarl said with grace, while bowing before Dante.

"… Just tell me new absurd things you've discovered… *Sigh* and get me a sword… I think I need to go relieve some of this stress building up." Xarl didn't question Dantes orders and sent one of the Skeletons to go retrieve a sword while he explained what happened.

"After we made the first set of brewing equipment, I noticed a notification from my System asking if I wished to set up a brewing factory in one of the smaller warehouses that haven't been utilised just yet and are empty.

I decided to accept the System notification to see what happened and soon enough, we found the warehouse had going through some transformative changes."

Xarl led Dante over to the specific warehouse to show him the automated brewery factory that could operate without needing too much manual interference.

Dante saw a group of Skeletons carrying bags labelled wheat, barley, rice, over to the far end of the building, as Xarl further explained, "Right now, the factory can produce beer, wine, gin, whiskey, and brandy.

I've taken some of the free Skeletons from the Second Base to bring over some of the stored produced so we could try out the functions of the factory.

So far, the materials needed for the particular beverage of choice to be made must be filled into the silos towards the back end of the warehouse.

Depending on the amount of produce we fill into the silos, an appropriate amount of the alcoholic liquid will be made.

So far, we haven't tested anything yet, but rather have brought over material that we know is required as the foundation of the liquids."

"Whys that?

Looks like you're ready to go and able to produce a wide range of drinks." Dante rather felt a little down after seeing the mightiness of the brewing factory.

The same robotic arms were set up on the ceiling, similar to the main four production factories, leaving Dante to believe most of the work would be done by the sleek steel arms with 6 fingers.

It could interchange the hand component for other equipment and tools built into the entire arm structure.

"Unfortunately Master, we need recipes to produce the alcoholic liquids…

Without it, the factory won't produce anything." Xarl bowed, feeling ashamed he couldn't fulfill his Masters wishes, however he didn't notice Dantes blushed face of embarrassment.

He felt like an idiot to expect a Lich to understand the taste of alcohol, even though he believed Palimus was more than capable of crafting a recipe, only to be proven wrong when he heard the High Goblin felt like making beer with a radish twist.

"Hey Xarl…

I have a question…"

"Yes, Master…?"

"…When did you guys start making bags…?

You know… for the wheat and barley." Dantes mind had been fixated on the bags ever since he saw them being carried by the Skeletons.

They looked like jute bags, which were known for the ability to prevent moisture, bacteria and insects affect the grains stored within.

However, he was rather interested in knowing when fibres were being produced, because it meant textiles had also begun production.

"… Well after Thaestus got his hands on the fabric found in the properties nearby to the Second Base, he worked with Palimus to make their own using some of the harvested produce."

Xarl decided to inform Dante about the loom machine Thaestus had made back at the Second Base.

Though he wasn't entirely shocked about the situation, as Dante was glad to see the High Goblin using his initiative, it still made him question what else the damn goblin had made without telling him.