In the last days before Anne's departure, the centaur blacksmith set off a forging craze in Alpine Fort.

The slaves and the two-headed trolls worked as coolies, and it took three days to set up several earthen blast furnaces on the banks of the Angry Waves.

In the first few battles, the high mountain fort captured weapons and armor weighing a total of 10,000 pounds, and the quality was generally very poor, but it was still qualified as a raw material for smelting, and finally got the opportunity to use waste.

The most prestigious of the centaurs, Bussmi, was Rooney, who selected a few hundred pounds of pig iron and wrought iron by weight and sent them to the blast furnace, where it was said that after re-smelting, it would turn into fine steel.

When the caravan first arrived, it had presented a cart of flour and a cart of coal to the mountain fort, which were now being shoveled into the blast furnace chamber.

Gunther looked at the cooling ingots like a curious bear, unable to understand why two inferior iron melted together turned into steel.

Rooney was very enthusiastic and patiently explained that this was the principle of the unity of physical nature. The problem is that he himself is obviously a two-knife himself, and the two sentences are repeated over and over again, making Gunther dizzy.

Richard couldn't stand the chatter like chanting, "Do you understand the carbon content, the high and low are neutralized and steel." ”

This time Rooney can't understand, the carbon content, the carbon in the iron, won't it catch fire?

Soon after the steel ingots were baked, a group of mercenaries came to Alpine Fort with white flags and picked up the caravan that had been stranded for many days. Before leaving, Anne left all the coal loaded by the convoy to Richard, and the mercenary captain gave him a very delicate ruby gold badge, which was extremely polite.

Although the mountain fort reveals poverty everywhere, its military strength is really too hard. For a trading house that specializes in wilderness trade, it is a sitting tiger who cannot afford to offend at all.

Richard breathed a sigh of relief at seeing them off, and he didn't want to be seen what he was going to do.

Several experienced centaurs, Busmi, led the apprentices to swing out of the anvil and set about turning the ingots into weapons.

Generally speaking, forging a large number of homomorphic ordnance at the same time is the best choice, which has many benefits in terms of saving man-hours and maintaining quality control. Pompeii has built several large arsenals in recent years, and it is precisely for this reason that Pompeii has set up several large arsenals.

But Richard's demands were completely contrary to this idea, and he asked the blacksmiths to make nearly a hundred weapons and armor, and no two of them were the same.

He's doing an experiment, a very simple experiment.

Richard knew a long time ago that the system soldier had template standard equipment. For example, the rated equipment of the Barbarian Greataxe Warrior includes a heavy battle axe, iron armor, horn helmet, and a few loose accessories.

The equipment is fixed in shape, and there are even sets for sale in the shops.

However, due to the long-term military embarrassment, Richard never gave his soldiers a standard set of equipment. The barbarian giant axe warriors are still using the three treasures of the militia bought in the city of Coron—spears, spears, and leather armor.

The effect of this does not seem to be bad, and their combat effectiveness has increased significantly every time they advance, so Richard can't help but wonder if the system's equipment standards are meaningful.

Some of the ordnance he had the centaurs craft was entirely standard for imitation systems, some were common to Pompeii, and the rest was somewhere in between.

Heating, forging, quenching, grinding, Centaur Busmi is experienced and does this in an orderly manner.

Richard distributed all the ordnance to the Alpine Fort soldiers and asked them to try it out and evaluate it on their own.

The feedback from these poor lord-eaters was staggeringly unanimous.

Everyone loves the standard equipment of the formwork, thinks it feels good, and dismisses the Pompeii system and even feels awkward.

The same is an axe, a long-handled battle axe that comes standard with a template for barbarian giant axe warriors, which can steadily slash into a finger-wide gap between two pieces of wood. And once you put on the Pompeii battle axe, the terrifying control suddenly disappeared without a trace.

This gap cannot be explained by the so-called feel, but can only be attributed to the influence of the system.

Richard guessed that the martial arts that were given to the barbarians at the level of advancement might not be how to use an axe, but how to use the "template long-handled battle axe".

The barbarians are also big living people, and their brains can turn a little bit, so other axes can also play tricks under the touch bypass, but of course the level can't be compared.

This discovery made Richard both happy and depressed, and there was a lot more room for improvement in the overall combat effectiveness, but the equipment update had also become a matter that needed to be solved.

Another big thing about the castle is that the lord has recently issued a sudden mobilization order, demanding that as many trolls be captured as possible, and they must be alive.

Isn't it enough that there are already two dirty and stupid trolls to catch them? No one knows, and the mountain fort is not going to be democratic anyway.

All of the people had recently broken their legs for this, but the troll's bottomless appetite and clumsy body meant that they wouldn't be very widely distributed, and it took a lot of effort to get a dozen of them.

The creatures were kept in captivity by the river, and they ate and drank as if they had arrived in heaven, but the people in charge of the livestock were saddened.

The trolls' appetites are so good that even if they are already fed with mud-soaked horse feed, the territory's feed stocks are plummeting.

Only Nehru, who was a shaman, had a vague premonition that it was not good.

"Did you mention that shamans are easy to appear in trolls, and that spells are very powerful? Richard smiled kindly when he came to Nehru, except that Gunther, who was following behind, had a three-finger-thick cowhide whip rolled under his arm.

Gunther is known to never be involved in daily chores, so this whip is certainly not used for grazing.

Nehru nodded vigorously.

"There are close to twenty trolls in Alpine Fort right now, you go teach them spells. ”

"Your Excellency. Nehru threw himself on the ground and hugged Richard's boots, "It's impossible for a troll with such a stupid brain to learn witchcraft." ”

Nehru, who knew both kinds of sorcery, was definitely a good shaman, so he couldn't understand why the lord thought so much of trolls - with the intelligence of these stupid things, it was impossible to adapt to the complex battlefield environment.

"Then you dare to say that there is a shaman in the troll?" Richard crossed his hands around his chest.

Gunther straightened the coiled whip and raised his hand to flick it. The iron-embedded whip landed on the wall with a loud thud, blasting a piece of pine wood the size of your thumb into scattered strands.

"They're not like us. Nehru shuddered, his mouth faster than pouring beans, "We have to learn from our predecessors to master the power of shamans, but trolls rely on awakening, and sometimes they can comprehend the power of shamans when they wake up." ”

Gunther turned his head to look at his lord, whip in hand, and he thought this thing must be again.

Richard stopped him with a wave of his hand, but Richard himself was inclined to believe the statement - there was no way that the troll's stupid head could have put anything into it, let alone say magic.