Dalton shook his head and explained, "Lord Carl, there aren't many people living in Terra nowadays; the total population is likely less than four hundred."
"Most of them are children, women, and elderly people who have lost the ability to work."
"There are few able-bodied men to begin with, and many either fell ill or left during the hardships of the past."
Changing his tone, he spoke with confidence: "However, I believe that under your governance, Lord, the population will continue to grow."
"You have mercifully exempted everyone from all taxes except the tithe, and this news will spread sooner or later."
"Soon, there will certainly be freemen from other places, or serfs who can no longer survive, who will hear of Terra's laws and choose to migrate here to settle."
Carl nodded. He understood that population growth was not something that happened overnight.
In this era of inconvenient transportation and restricted information, news spread mainly through word-of-mouth among traveling merchants and displaced people, requiring time to ferment.
He then asked, "How did the price negotiations go for the iron ingots and other metal Materials I asked you to procure?"
Dalton paused, carefully observing Carl's expression.
He then slowly said, "The ordinary iron ingots sold by most lords and merchants are priced at four silver coins per piece."
"If they are iron ingots from the Mahakam Dwarven Charcoal Mountain, the quality is better, and they contain fewer Impurities."
"But the price is much more expensive, requiring about seven to eight silver coins per piece."
Carl's face was expressionless, but his eyes grew colder. He snorted, "Four silver coins? Seven to eight?"
"With these prices, they could just rob people directly, yet they are still willing to symbolically hand over a single iron ingot. Should I be thanking them for their 'generosity'?!!"
Dalton immediately lowered his head and remained silent, having recognized the strong irony in Carl's tone.
Lord Carl was clearly extremely dissatisfied with the monopolistic and price-gouging behavior of those lords, dwarves, and merchants.
Carl muttered under his breath, "They like raising prices? Then I won't buy it! I'll bring people over later and give you all a beating!"
He raised his head and spoke loudly to Philip and the others who were diligently hammering "horseshoes": "Did you all hear that? Even when purchasing the most basic Materials, we are being exploited like this!"
"In the forging of equipment, we absolutely cannot allow ourselves to be constrained by others in this way again!"
"We may not be masters of the craft yet, but we cannot be incapable of even the most basic forging! This is fundamental to survival!"
Philip and the others heard Carl's words, sensed the determination in his voice, immediately stopped what they were doing, straightened their bodies, and responded in unison, "Yes, Lord Carl!"
After leaving the others in the forge to continue practicing, Carl walked out of the manor alone.
He arrived at an open space, scanned his surroundings, and after confirming no one was paying attention, he lightly tapped the ground with his toe.
The next moment, his body lifted into the air and rapidly ascended high above.
Within a few breaths, he was already hundreds of meters up in the sky.
He did not stop, but began moving horizontally through the air at roughly the speed of a running person.
At the same time, a faint light flickered in his eyes, and his X-ray vision was fully activated. In his sight, the ground beneath his feet gradually became transparent.
The surface layers of soil and rock faded away layer by layer, revealing the deeper geological structure.
Mountains and rivers were like models on a sandbox beneath his feet, and his gaze pierced through them, reaching deep into the earth.
After flying and investigating for only a few minutes, a satisfied smile appeared on Carl's lips.
Beneath this land belonging to Terra lay mineral resources even richer than he had imagined.
In his vision, veins representing different minerals clearly stretched into the distance, including iron ore with considerable reserves.
There were silver mines shimmering with a silvery-white luster, and even an enticing gold vein interspersed among them.
Furthermore, there were large amounts of associated minerals such as copper and tin.
Carl murmured to himself, "The mineral resources are quite rich, but they are buried a bit deep. No wonder no one has found them yet."
Most of these mineral veins were located at depths varying from hundreds of meters underground.
Given the conventional manual mining techniques of this era, they were indeed extremely difficult to access and utilize.
But for Carl, this was not an insurmountable problem.
"I need to mark them first, to facilitate future planning."
His figure rapidly descended from the air, landing near an area where the mineral veins were most concentrated.
He looked around and found several massive, hard pieces of marble, each nearly three times the height of a person.
Carl effortlessly lifted these boulders and ascended again.
He hovered at an appropriate height, his gaze fixed on the general distribution area of the mineral veins below.
Then, like throwing pebbles, he hurled the boulders in his hands toward those crucial locations.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Several dull, thunderous crashes followed one after another, and the ground trembled slightly.
The boulders, carrying immense kinetic energy, slammed violently into the ground, instantly creating several shocking deep pits, scattering soil and shattered rocks.
These deep pits and conspicuous boulders would serve as the clearest markers for the future mine locations.
After determining the location of the mineral veins and marking them, Carl did not delay.
He selected one location, directly above a considerably sized iron ore vein marked by white marble.
Standing in position, he leaned slightly forward, fixing his gaze on the solid ground beneath his feet. He did not use any tools.
He simply spread his fingers apart, like a shovel, and seemingly casually scooped downward into the ground.
"Pfft!" With a soft sound, his hand smoothly scooped into the ground without obstruction.
Immediately afterward, both his arms followed suit, sinking in until only his shoulders remained exposed.
Subsequently, Carl's arm muscles bulged slightly, and he lifted upward, pulling out a giant chunk of earth mixed with grass roots, soil, and shattered rock.
This massive clod was forcibly "gouged" out of the surface and tossed aside.
This was only the beginning; Carl's figure began to blur.
He was no longer satisfied with repeated "scooping," but instead transformed his arms into two highly efficient excavators.
His movements were so fast they left afterimages; his arms alternately dug into the ground at speeds difficult for the naked eye to catch, and each lift brought out massive amounts of soil and rock.
Carl was not digging randomly. During the super-high-speed excavation process, he controlled the path and angle of the digging.
He patted and tamped the excavated soil and rock into the sides of the passage, naturally forming solid support walls.
The entire excavation process was less like digging a hole and more like "shaping" a stable passage leading deep underground.
As for why this vertical passage, hundreds of meters deep, did not collapse despite the extremely high-speed excavation
This was naturally due to Carl's invisible, intangible, yet omnipresent Bio-field.
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