Reborn as the Failed Lord with my Resource Gathering System.

Aurelian barony.

"You really planned this far ahead in such a short time?" asked James, his eyes focused on the paper while seated at the table.

Standing at the front was Dorian, with Seraphina right behind him.

With his hand folded, Dorian narrowed his gaze as he spoke.

"I did tell you about it, didn't I?" he continued, "Once I am done with the dragon breath project, you need to take care of everything on that list."

James stared even longer at the paper.

"You're being serious, not pulling my leg, right, Son? There really is a dragon egg under our land?" he asked, slowly shocked by the information he was reading.

Dorian sighed.

"I know it's hard to believe. But do trust them; no one will get harmed in this."

James raised his head a bit.

"Why don't we just take the egg to the royal capital? I am sure they will gladly handle this themselves."

Another sigh left Dorian's mouth. Then the very next second, he paused and turned his gaze to the side…

'That's actually a great plan. What if the royal capital handles it? I mean, a dragon is a national threat from what I have gathered; it's also a national treasure as well, so I am sure the king would be ecstatic to know there is a dragon egg in his kingdom.'

He hummed for a while, his gaze turning to the other side.

'But something feels wrong about this. I will be drawing more attention to the mining ground as it is. Not to mention my mana would still be needed; I'd basically be working overtime, potentially experimented on for having a unique mana as well. I don't need the attention.'

[You just want to be sure you can tame the dragon before anyone does. Stop lying to yourself.]

'Ack!'

Dorian frowned slightly at the system's comment.

Even Seraphina, who was watching from the back, could tell Dorian's main reason for not doing so was fear of losing a major advantage over something he found.

As a businessman, he was taking a risk a lot of CEOs in his former world would definitely take.

After a while of silence, he replied to his father…

"I'd rather we settle this ourselves. Don't you think it would sound nice if we were the first people in hundreds of years to tame a dragon? It does sound cool, doesn't it?"

James chuckled nervously, "You're really serious about this. You intend to tame a dragon. According to history, these creatures are similar to ancient gods; that is what we understand from the little studies we know about them. Are you sure you want to take this risk?"

"Of course, I am not sure. But that isn't enough to stop me from trying." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "Besides, that is why I told you to carry on with this plan just in case. I don't want anyone getting hurt because I am being selfish."

Knowing Dorian, James gave up quite easily. He knew there was no way to change his son's mind once he had set his mind to something profitable.

"Very well. I'll speak to your mother about it and have it done."

"Thank you. Now then, I have a project to take care of."

…

Back at the mining site, the workers had divided themselves into multiple groups, each tasked with building part of the project.

The dragon breath project, as Dorian called it.

This project was, of course, heavily inspired by his knowledge of his former world.

Remembering vividly, there was a time when Yahoshi's father had acquired a contract to help develop an old, deep-level subway tunnel that had been sealed for decades.

The initial plan, devised by the rival company, was brutally simple: place a massive, high RPM industrial fan at the entrance and try to force air through the entire system.

It was a catastrophic failure. He remembered standing beside the engineers, watching the pressure gauges barely flicker. The raw power of the fans was immense, but it dissipated uselessly over the long, complex tunnel network.

The friction loss was too great; the air simply lost momentum and stalled, leaving the deepest sections as toxic and unbreathable as before. It was a costly, embarrassing public failure for their competitors.

The solution, implemented by the team, which Jacob was forced to manage, was a smarter engineering process, that many people refused to acknowledge until later on.

Instead of one giant fan, they built a series of smaller, interconnected intake towers along the tunnel's surface route. These towers didn't just push the air alone; they created a positive pressure cascade, maintaining a single momentum systematically.

Meaning, even with the wind blowing, people could still walk inside the tunnel without fear of being blown to the abyss.

'Yes, that idea was mine and mine alone,' Dorian uttered to himself, standing at the tip of the mining pit, gawking at the darkness.

'We can build the same thing here, the exact same way.' He turned to the left, watching as the workers were transporting the logs from one place to another.

'I was skeptical about it due to this world's current technology. Thankfully, the one issue I found unsolvable would be solved with the use of the volcanic rocks I gathered.'

He then picked up an axe from the ground and placed it on his shoulder while Diggy stood right beside him.

"Let's finish this before these workers start asking for a raise."

"Finish this!" Diggy shouted right after.

…

Drop!

Seraphina placed the blueprint on the small table.

Around the table were the two other project managers working alongside Seraphina, the project manager; Gatty; and the leader of the Diggy clone squad, Diggy himself.

All three were inside a small building inside the mining site, labeled as their office for the leaders of the construction division alone.

All three had their eyes glued to the blueprint for a while. Unlike Diggy, who was rather calm and just waiting to get his instructions, Gatty and Seraphina were quite dumbfounded.

"Lady Seraphina." Gatty called out gently, his gaze lowered.

"Y-yes..." She replied, mimicking the same expression on her subordinates' faces.

"Lord Dorian…is a beast."

...

[A/N]

More focused on the construction, but that would end after it has been built. A lot of damn research went into this.