The progress for the Golden Road had gone smoothly.
After the smooth hand-over of both the Bulren Inc. and Barcus Inc., to the Reborn company (thanks to Yuna), Michael was able to speed up the construction of the roads and infrastructure to get the entirety of the Grafted Cluster into the Nation of Reborn.
Bulren's assets consisted of a lot of mountains and mines that were ripe for the picking, which was extremely useful since there was a lot of materials that were needed for the creation of concrete and cement.
He visited each mine with Sheina taking account of all the new resources that the Reborn company had in store.
"There's a lot of iron, coal, copper, and limestone in this part of the mountain ranges," said Sheina as she wrote in her notes.
One of the problems Michael had in expanding the Reborn company was not due to a lack of money, but due to a lack of resources—both manpower and materials.
All the metals and minerals that they used on a day-to-day basis were all sourced mainly from the Dwarven Kingdom and a couple of other mines back in the Kings region.
A good estimate for all the ores and minerals they excavated on a day to day basis was only about 10,000 tonnes daily.
Now that may seem like a lot, but in the context of the entirety of the territories in the Nation of Reborn, it was extremely small.
About 7000 tonnes of materials that Michael gets daily from the Dwarven Kingdom and other sources will be retained in the Kings region where it would be used for the Nation of Reborn.
Even now, their territory in the Parched Lands was continuing to be built day to day. There were buildings, houses, and infrastructure that needed a lot of raw materials to finish its construction.
Michael wasn't even taking into account all the requests from the cities and towns in the Kings region who wanted to become a part of the Nation of Reborn. They, too, want their territory to become as advanced as the Paradise in the Parched Lands.
However, Michael had to reject their proposals for now because he simply didn't have enough resources to do it. He didn't have enough raw materials to make it, and he didn't have enough workers to do it.
He could allocate the rest of the 3,000 tonnes of ores and materials that he gains every day, but that would mean that he would have to stop his construction of the Golden Road.
And for now, Michael prioritized his expansion into the Queens region.
In fact, he was already getting low on supplies after the Grafted Cluster was added into the branch of the Golden Road.
He even thought that he would have to lay low for a few months to back up enough resources to continue his expansion Eastward of Angora City.
But after seeing all of the natural resources that Bulren Inc. had in their midst, he realized that he had found his solution!
"Good Evening, sir…I know this is rude but…have we lost our jobs?"
As Michael was ruminating on the business of Reborn, he was suddenly approached by a few miners from Bulren Inc.
They had coal and grime all over their white shirts and brown pants, which seemingly hadn't been washed in over a month. Their eyes were reddened, evidence from spending 12 hours every day in the mines and inhaling all the smoke and powder inside.
They had heard about the handoff to the Reborn company, which made them unsure of their own fates. From what they heard, the Rebornians were blessed by the Iron Maiden, meaning that they would probably be replaced by those metal machines that they brought in the Grafted Cluster.
"On the contrary. I'm going to need your help now more than ever," he assured them.
Michael looked over to Sheina, who walked forward and explained to the miners about their new job.
"How many men do you have in total?" she asked them.
One of the miners answered, "We have about a thousand in total, three hundred here and the rest are spread around in the Grafted Cluster."
Sheina dutifully noted it down.
"And how much do you think that you can mine in a day?"
The miners all looked at each other, a bit clueless in how they would answer Sheina. "We can gather about two of those large containers."
They pointed to a very large bin near the entrance of the mineshaft.
Michael asked ChatJK4 how much capacity those bins had.
[Each bin can gather around 200 tonnes each.]
"That means they gather about 400 tonnes of ores and materials," Michael muttered, which Sheina jotted down on her notes.
"The other mineshafts can also gather about the same materials each day," the miner added.
Once Michael added it all up, that meant that Bulren Inc. excavated about 1,200 tonnes of ores and materials each day.
This was quite impressive for just a single company. The fact that they could gather this much material with very primitive methods spoke to how competent the company was in mining materials.
He should have expected this. After all, both companies were ranked in the Golden 500 before they became subsidiaries of Reborn.
"Very well," Sheina said, putting down her notebook. "Lord Michael welcomes you all to the Reborn company! Your first order of business is to officially become our employee, which means that you are eligible to awaken your talent if you haven't already.
Not only that, but in a couple of days, our Rebornian Engineers will come here and start construction of conveyor systems, drill rigs, and ventilation shafts to speed up the process of mining."
Sheina began to go on a spiel about the benefits of becoming a Rebornian employee, which thoroughly made the miners completely overwhelmed.
Talent awakening? Permanent residence in the Nation of Reborn? Monetary benefits?
These were all words that seemed too good to be true.
"Just trust Lord Michael," Sheina said to them.
The miners all looked at their leader to see what he would do. And eventually, he steeled his resolve and walked towards Michael.
"We are already extremely grateful that we can keep our jobs. That is enough for us," he said sincerely.
Michael and Sheina both shook their heads. "You guys are now Rebornians. And we hold ourselves to a higher standard."
He raised his hand and activated his Supreme Skill: Gift Bestowal.
The miner was surprised to see his chest glowing in a bright white light. A warm sensation came over him as a disembodied voice whispered unintelligible words in his head.
A couple of seconds later, the light subsided and the miner opened his eyes.
There was a new glint in his gaze—a glint of understanding.
There was power now in his body, power that had been bestowed onto him. It allowed him to sense the mana in his surroundings. It allowed him to intuitively gather them in his body, forming a very small crystal core in the depths of his stomach.
Not only that, but there was now complex knowledge of geology embedded in his mind.
[Talent: A-class Mineral Resource Collector]
"What do you think about your new job?" Michael asked him.
The miner kneeled. "With the knowledge you have bequeathed and the technology that you are about to give us, then I am confident that we can give you almost 5,000 tonnes of ores every day."