Victor stared at the two bluish-white ores on the table, frowning.

Nelson has already reported the matter to him. When Gru led the team on a security mission today, they caught three sneaky free people on the outskirts of the woods and found two pieces of ore they had hidden on their bodies.

After Nelson's interrogation, the three freemen explained the cause of the incident.

It turned out that these three people were members of a free folk camp living in the west of Victor's territory, and they usually made a living by gathering and hunting. Just two days ago, their camp was breached by a group of jackal bandits.

Most of the people were kidnapped by the gnolls. The three of them narrowly escaped, but without their camp and companions, it was impossible for them to survive in the wild. So they wanted to join another large group in this territory.

Freedmen's camp. In order to join the freedmen's camp smoothly, they also brought two strange ores as gifts, which they wanted to give to the leader of the freedmen's camp, hoping to gain his protection.

"Nelson, do you think this is mithril ore?" Victor looked at Nelson with a confused look.

Mithril is an extremely precious metal in this world. It has elemental affinity properties that other metals do not have. Weapons and armor mixed with mithril can more easily adhere to the four elements.

Scholars from the Silver Tower have done detailed research, and they found that mithril equipment allows the Silver Knight to stimulate elemental strength more than three times higher than ordinary equipment, which is an overwhelming advantage.

This advantage makes all high-level knights flock to mithril equipment. The first problem that every knight who is promoted to the silver level must solve is how to obtain a set of mithril equipment.

Unfortunately, the production of mithril is extremely low, which makes the price of mithril extremely expensive. A piece of mithril can be exchanged for thirty times the weight of gold.

However, even with such an exaggerated price, Mithril can often not be purchased, because no nobles are willing to sell such strategic materials.

"Sir, the appearance and color look very much like mithril ore." Nelson also looked worried.

If an ordinary lord learned that there was a mithril mine in his territory, he would wake up laughing even from his dream, but for Victor, this would be a big trouble, because his current strength is really too weak.

"Sir, do you want to deal with those three people?" As a mercenary rolling on the tip of a knife, Nelson has a ruthless side.

"It's no use, we don't even know how many survivors there are in that freedmen camp."

After thinking about it carefully, Victor shook his head firmly, sighed and then said: "Go and call Master Edwin and Knight Bruce over. You know, if it were really a mithril mine, we wouldn't be able to keep it at all.

live."

Nelson nodded, stood up and walked out. Although he was a little reluctant, he also knew that Victor's decision was correct. Instead of facing the risks brought by the mithril mine alone, it would be better to seek cooperation from the York family.

Even if you don't get mithril, you can still get compensation in other ways.

After a while, the door of the barracks was pushed open, and a black bird flew in first.

This was a big crow with glossy black feathers and a pair of dark red eyes. When it saw Victor, it immediately flapped its wings and landed on Victor's shoulder, and used its hard beak to nudge it.

He pecked Victor's hair gently.

Victor looked at the crow that showed affection to him and couldn't help but smile.

This was the first alchemical creature produced for him by King Talling, and Victor witnessed the entire manufacturing process.

At that time, four runes of different colors first appeared in the air above the stone cave altar. These four runes continued to rotate, and gradually hundreds of runes of different shapes were derived. These runes surrounded the four

The initial runes continued to rotate, forming a brilliance on the altar that was intertwined with four colors: earthy yellow, fiery red, sky blue, and green.

The form of a bird slowly appeared in these brilliance. An hour later, an alchemical crow opened its eyes on the altar, and the runes in the void gradually disappeared.

When he first got this alchemy crow, Victor wanted to test the alchemy crow's ability right away. However, in order not to arouse suspicion, he had to resist his impulse and use a few days to continuously test the alchemy crow on the ground.

Spread bait to attract surrounding birds to eat, and mix your own alchemical crows with the birds.

In the end, everyone thought that Victor took back a bold and greedy crow as a pet while feeding the birds.

Through these days of observation and experiments, Victor was pleasantly surprised to find that this alchemical creature worth 50 gold soles was very extraordinary.

First of all, the alchemy crow has a concept of time, and it can accurately appear at the time when Victor is feeding every day. Having a concept of time means that this alchemy creature has memory ability and intelligence.

Secondly, it has strong maneuverability, a very keen sense of smell, and its vision and hearing are far superior to ordinary humans. It can fly at a speed of 70 kilometers per hour, can smell odors 20 kilometers away, and can detect smells from hundreds of meters away.

Victor's gestures can be seen clearly from a high altitude, and human conversations can be clearly heard from a distance of hundreds of meters.

Finally, it also has a strong imitation ability and can imitate different sounds, including human conversations.

Victor did an experiment. While Gru was leading the team on a reconnaissance mission, he gave the alchemy crow a sniff of the items Gru left behind, and followed the method taught to him by the tower spirit and made a special smell to the crow.

With the gesture, the crow immediately flew out and started tracking Gru following the scent.

About two hours after arriving, the crow flew back. In front of Victor, it expressed the results of its investigation to Victor through different flight postures and cries.

The target is 40 kilometers away from here, heading southeast, a small group of people.

After expressing this information, this guy actually imitated a few words that Gru said.

For example, "Each of us can get 11 work points for our task today." "How many times have I taught you, kid, to remember to bury it after pooping in the wild." "How you died, I don't even know!"

The results of this experiment proved to Victor that the Alchemy Crow is an excellent investigation unit. It can describe the investigation results through preset actions and can also imitate overheard sounds.

Although most of the imitations are disordered words, if these alchemical crows move in groups, it will not be difficult for people to analyze extremely valuable information from these disordered words.

The outstanding performance of the alchemical crow made Victor look forward to other alchemical creatures. It was just that there was an extra bird that was easy to explain, but how to cover up an extra large living person or an extra ferocious animal?

Victor could only wait, at least until Bruce and Edwin left the territory.

"The Moon Elf bloodline is indeed a naturally friendly bloodline. Even animals are close to you." Master Edwin walked in and saw the big crow getting close to Victor, and said with jealousy and envy.

Ever since Edwin discovered that this pet crow could imitate human speech, he immediately became interested. In the past two days, he had been feeding the crow unremittingly with dried fruits, wheat, and dried meat in an attempt to abduct it.

Unfortunately, when faced with sugar-coated bullets from scholars, the crow always eats the sugar-coated bullets and throws them back. As soon as it sees Victor, it will immediately drop Edwin and fly directly to its master. This makes the old scholar

Greatly blazing.

"Master Edwin, Knight Bruce, you are here."

Victor stood up, smiled and nodded to the two people who walked in one after another. He could only chuckle in his heart at the old scholar's misunderstanding.

"There's something I want you to take a look at." Victor drove away the crow that was sitting on his shoulder and handed the two pieces of ore to the two of them.

After taking the ore, Knight Bruce's expression suddenly condensed. He looked at Victor with burning eyes and asked tentatively: "Mithril mine?"

Victor spread his hands to Knight Bruce to express his uncertainty, and then everyone in the room looked at Master Edwin with burning eyes.

If this is really a mithril mine, it would definitely be a big deal for the entire Sagittarius Hills.

"Unfortunately, this is not a mithril mine." After careful inspection, Master Edwin relaxed his frown.

"This is softsilver ore. Its color is very similar to mithril ore, but it has a kind of elasticity that other ores don't have. You can tell by pinching it in your hand." Edwin explained.

Knight Bruce immediately squeezed the ore in his hand, and sure enough, several obvious fingerprints were left on the surface of the ore.

"Master, is this the fake silver ore in the rumors?" Bruce regretfully threw the ore in his hand on the table and asked Edwin.

"Yes, it is the fake silver ore that is often used by scammers to pass off as mithril ore." Edwin nodded.

The color and shape of Softsilver Ore are very similar to Mithril Ore. People often mistake Softsilver Ore for Mithril Ore. However, the metal extracted from Softsilver Ore is as soft as sludge and cannot be used to forge equipment, and it has no elemental affinity.

SoftBank has no value to humans, so people call this SoftBank fake silver.

Victor secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although he was a little regretful, Victor had the alchemy tower in hand. As long as he was given time to concentrate on development, what was a mere mithril mine?

If it is really a mithril mine, it will be a big trouble for Victor. Maybe even his territory will be replaced by a powerful noble group, and he will not be able to move the alchemy tower by then.

"Although SoftBank is worthless, there is an associated crystal in its veins that can be processed into exquisite jewelry, which can be considered a good income for your territory."

Edwin tried to comfort the "lost" little lord, and then asked: "Where did you find this soft silver mine?"

"Today Nelson caught three freemen peeping into the camp and found these two ores on their bodies."

Victor then described in detail to Bruce and Edwin the situation of the gnolls attacking the freedmen and the large freedmen camp in the territory.

"Victor, the gnolls are insignificant, but the free people are a big problem in your territory. You must pay attention to this. Is there any more detailed information?" Bruce reported to Victor after hearing that there was a large free people camp in the territory.

Kedo said seriously.

"According to the accounts of these three people, there are currently two large freedmen camps and a few scattered small camps in the territory. I estimate the total number of freedmen to be eight hundred." After receiving Victor's signal, Nelson asked Bruce

said.

"There are two large camps, one is located on the east side of the territory and at the junction of the Earl of Chebman. The free people in this camp are very xenophobic. They never communicate with other free people's camps and will kill people who are close to their camps.

They are strangers, so those three people don’t know much about that camp.”

"The other camp is in the northeast corner of us. The number of freedmen should be about 300. They have been sparing no effort to take in the freedmen who came to seek refuge, and they often exchange supplies with other freedmen camps, so their reputation is

Very loud among these free people."

"The leader of this camp is called Bayer. It is rumored that he once served in the military in Doduo, participated in the Battle of White Water Castle against the Sasanians, and also received a heroic sword. This Bayer seems to intend to have people publicize him everywhere.

Because of his bravery, these three free men just want to bring the ore to him."

After listening to Nelson's narration, Bruce sneered and said: "A year ago, when our family guards came to clean up this territory, they also discovered the free people's camp. At that time, they only had a few dozen people. Unexpectedly, in just a short time,

He controlled so many people in one year. Haha, this Bayer is a bit interesting."
Chapter completed!