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When you next open your eyes, you see a trail of minecart tracks have been etched along the floor out of the tunnel, all the way to the storage room. You hear the squeaking of the wheels- and a cart full of gold approaches you.
Gold! Gold! It's real gold!
Greedily grabbing the treasure, you realize that this isn't such some illusion, but really real! For real real! And you found it first! Greedily, you make sure to hide and keep all of this for yourself. Though that doesn't mean the rest of humanity has to go deprived...
Over the next few weeks, you visit the tunnel everyday. There, you make a list of demands and desires, and the tunnel provides. Like an endless, inexhaustible mineshaft, it provides you with whatever you want and imagine.
At first, the gold bullion, gemstones, diamonds- generic riches. You hoard these up, selling some to local pawnshops before upping your ambition. You already quit your job a few days ago. Investing the capital made from these, you quickly grow a stock and bank account to six figures, more money then you'd ever thought you'd have in your life, and then go from there. You realize the tax man might be a problem, but you aren't too concerned with it- after all, what's the tax rate on magical wish-granting holes? You do have to keep your newfound source of wealth a secret, lest your landlord evict you and use this for himself...
Soon after, you move beyond basic treasures and stretch what the tunnel can give you. You create extremely rare or nonexistent forms of bacteria, ones that eat cancerous cells and plastics, and make contacts in the world of science to sell these off, though you first have to buy up a few biotech companies to hide your tracks. Then, you work with software engineers to create devices from the tunnel, things with higher density transistors then thought possible before, or pre-loaded with even smarter general purpose AI that advance the field by several years. While the tunnel provides almost anything you could want, it isn't necessarily repeatable by modern science and industry, so most of what you create is simply used as research or a baseline; with the originals becoming extremely rare and coveted collector's items. The tunnel groans when you visit it now, settling into routine like a crag in the earth.
You already own a few houses in the city- and a really nice one along the river. You only come back to Unit #8 to exploit it some more. Though it's yield seems to drop off, taking longer to produce more gold bullion, more riches, more unknown organisms...
