Carrying the pickaxe, Reif walked up the sloping tunnel tiredly. He felt like he was about to collapse from exhaustion.
As a skilled miner, a mere four hours of digging — and that was just digging — was not a strenuous task for him. But the troublesome thing was the work clothes he was wearing. The strange clothes were thick and heavy, covering him from head to toe, including his eyes, nose, and mouth. There was a special crystal chip embedded in his eyes, and a special ventilation mask that looked like a pig's snout in front of his nose and mouth. Anyway, it was very cumbersome and stuffy.
He had never thought that he could feel stuffy in the shade of a house and on a day where the ice and snow never melted!
"It's still better in winter!" He could not help but sigh. "Although the mud was frozen and it was hard to dig, at least I didn't have to wear this weird suit!"
Of course, he was just sighing, not complaining. Mayor Felix, who was in charge of the excavation, had emphasized that there was dangerous negative energy underground. Only by wearing this suit could they avoid being hurt by it.
"Negative energy is not a knife, nor is it a poisonous snake. It won't hurt you immediately, but it will slowly harm your body." He still remembered what the beautiful female mayor said at that time. "If you don't wear this protective suit, you'll slowly feel dispirited, tired easily, and your appetite will decrease. Then, you'll get sick easily, and it's not easy to recover from the illness … Basically, you're almost dead at this stage. But if you're lucky and can survive, then what awaits you is the deep erosion of negative energy, turning you into a zombie or a skeleton …"
Felix had repeated similar words to them at least twenty times. She even asked every digger to be able to repeat it — it did not have to be very accurate, but the general meaning could not be wrong.
She even found a group of rats to show the results of the erosion by negative energy. Looking at the originally healthy rats rapidly weakening in the light gray thin negative energy, and finally collapsing one by one, and the lucky ones that survived became stiff and lifeless, with a green light like will-o '-the-wisp in their eyes, all the excavators were scared out of their wits.
Therefore, even though it was very uncomfortable to wear this suit while working, and it was easy for them to get tired, they did not dare to take it off.
"Your Majesty, the equipment you gave them is really luxurious!" Felix watched from afar as the excavators slowly walked out of the tunnel and stayed in the purification circle for three minutes. Then, they took off their protective suits impatiently. He could not help but shake his head and say, "These guys probably don't even know how expensive their suits are …"
Sui Xiong smiled and said, "People are the foundation. The revival of Pyroxene Town required a lot of manpower, especially skilled workers. Moreover, even if the town was revived, it still had to serve the people. In my opinion, these excavators are much more precious than those magic glue protective suits. "
"Five hundred gold coins for a protective suit … If I were to hire mercenaries with this amount of money, I would be able to hire at least ten strong men who know how to use swords and bows.
"Pyroxene Town has you and Josh, which is enough in terms of force. I can save some money and invest it in something more valuable. " Sui Xiong said with a smile, "What's more, these protective suits are not wasted. They are very durable and can be used for a long time. With their help, we can let ordinary people harvest special mushrooms in the future. It will be much safer and more efficient. "
Felix pursed her lips and disagreed with Sui Xiong. But she did not object to Sui Xiong's approach. On the contrary, she liked this way of cherishing human life. Except for a few perverts, almost no one disliked a generous and benevolent leader.
What's more, Sui Xiong was not simply "generous and benevolent." When he returned from this trip, he found that as the tunnel was dug deeper and deeper, the concentration of negative energy in the tunnel was much higher than that on the ground. Although this level of negative energy would not have any immediate harm, and the purification circle could eliminate most of the effects after the work was done, it would still accumulate to the extent that it was enough to cause serious diseases and even death.
So he immediately informed Felix and asked her to start preparing better protective measures for the excavators.
Felix did not have any objections to this. She had planned to buy magic cloth woven with magic plant fibers to make a protective suit, and then add the effect of the entry-level spell "Energy Resistance" to the magic cloth to protect it. But Sui Xiong rejected this idea. He asked her to buy magic cloth that could have the effect of the entry-level spell Energy Resistance, and to make heavy protective clothing that could completely cover the excavators.
This greatly increased the investment. Based on the current thirty excavators, thirty sets of magic-patterned overalls with the "Energy Resistance" spell added together would cost less than 1,500 gold coins. If they went through some internal channels, it could even be reduced to 1,200 gold coins. However, thirty sets of magic-patterned heavy protective overalls with the "Energy Resistance" spell would cost 500 gold coins each, which would add up to 15,000 gold coins — and this was the friendship price!
This price shocked Felix. As a high-level mage who was accumulating knowledge and power to step into the legendary realm, more than 1,000 gold coins was not a big sum to her. It was just a little painful. But 15,000 gold coins … This price was enough to hire a group of top assassins to assassinate a king. How could it be used to make protective clothing for a group of laborers?
Really, this was too extravagant!
But since Sui Xiong had already made the decision, she could only carry it out. Fortunately, Sui Xiong did not make her spend too much. He only let her buy the raw materials to make the protective clothing and enchantment, which were all done by His Majesty the Jellyfish God himself. Finally, the cost was reduced to 200 gold coins per set, and the total cost was 6,000 gold coins.
Looking at this protective clothing, Felix's previous worry of "what if others learned our technology" was no longer necessary. She believed that there was absolutely no businessman in the world who would be crazy enough to invest such a huge sum of money just to do business with the Essence of Negative Energy.
The Essence of Negative Energy was only a low-end magic material. It was not worth spending so much money!
"Actually, after careful consideration, this investment is still worth it," Sui Xiong said with a smile. "These protective clothing can be used for at least 20 years, while the magic cloth work clothes can only be used for three years at most. Looking at the long-term investment, the difference in the protective clothing is actually about half. Isn't it worth it to use this difference to exchange for a group of skilled and reliable workers? "
"And think about it, with such strict protection, the workers can always stay healthy. They will become the strong support for the revival of the town and even the construction of a new society. This is not something that can be exchanged for no matter how much money you have! "
Felix laughed bitterly, tacitly agreeing with this statement.
Outside the tunnel, Lai Fu had already been purified and taken off the heavy protective clothing. He rinsed the protective clothing under the pipe that flowed out of the clean water according to the rules, and hung it in the designated position.
After doing this, he went to the "rest station" and used a bamboo tube to fill a cup of tea made from roasted rye from a large wooden barrel that was supposed to be filled with ale. He took a deep sip.
The lukewarm tea flowed down his throat and into his stomach, calming his originally irritated mood. Unknowingly, a lot of his tiredness had also disappeared.
In fact, he was not very tired in the first place. It was nothing more than the stuffy heat that gave him the illusion of "I am very tired." Now that he had returned to a more comfortable environment, as this illusion disappeared, he naturally recovered.
Under these circumstances, he could have continued working for a while. But his work in the morning had already ended, and the protective clothing also needed time to be drained. So he could safely go home, eat lunch, and rest a little before preparing for the afternoon work.
A digger only needed to work eight hours a day, which was also a rule set by Sui Xiong. Of course, he could find a lot of reasons to explain this, but in the end, the reason was still "habit."
For Sui Xiong, whether it was the need for proper protection for dangerous work or the eight-hour working day, these were all natural habits. There was nothing to discuss.
Whether it was the digger Lai Fu, who only knew how to bury himself in work, or Felix, who was in charge of the revival of the whole town, they could not understand these habits of Sui Xiong.
Just like things like "pension security," "sickness and work injury security," "holidays," "working meals," and "overtime allowance," these concepts did not originally exist in this world. It was all because of Sui Xiong's habits that they were popularized in the Void Mask Amusement Park.
But so far, they had only been popularized in the Void Mask Amusement Park.
Even though there were many good gods who praised these systems and even tried to imitate them, in the end, only the amusement park was able to persist.
If other places wanted to imitate them, first of all, it was impossible to invest as much money as the Void Mask Amusement Park. There were not many places that could make money every day. Secondly, even if there was so much money to invest, there was a lack of a social foundation that could accept these practices. It should be known that every penny invested in welfare was the investor's own profit. The merchants would not be willing to give up such a large profit, and the nobles would not be willing to give so many benefits to their subjects. Even for the churches of good Gods, they might be able to do this internally, but if they wanted to promote it, it was still impossible.
Only the city that Sui Xiong built out of thin air could directly use such a set of rules. Apart from that, no other place could do it!
Even in Pyroxene Town, Sui Xiong did not directly apply the various guarantees and benefits in the amusement park, but decided to take a gradual approach to promote social progress little by little.
He remembered a famous saying, "Communism will not fall from the sky." From another point of view, a system directly promoted by the power of gods would never be the progress he wanted.
Progress had to be made little by little. For the current Pyroxene Town, this level was almost enough.
Of course, this situation would not last forever. When the artificial mineral veins began to produce, or the agricultural situation improved, he would definitely further promote social progress, so that the living conditions of the people in Pyroxene Town would continue to improve, and the town would move in the direction of his ideal.
A tall building was built from the ground up, and now it was almost the foundation stage.
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