The only real "grind" for me honestly is iron and flattening land. Iron because you need to find a decent swamp with lots of crypts and wandering through all the water and poison. Flattening land as if it isn't already pretty flat you'll need to build a foundation level to begin with then build above that, which becomes very expensive to do with stone as you essentially need to completely cover the floor in stone wall, then put the floor over that.