The people left the baobab grove in silence, and the awkward atmosphere did not end until half a day later, when they came to a hill where a collapse had occurred.

"This is it." Kong Yi excitedly pointed to the hill in front of him and said.

Wang Lang looked at the hill dozens of meters high in front of him, trembling with excitement, the broken slope was densely scattered with countless green and yellow stones, these stones looked very dazzling in the sunlight.

The fire was also shocked by the scene in front of him, these stones looked so beautiful, he didn't expect there to be such dazzling stones in the world, looked at Wang Lang and asked, "Lang, is this the metal you are looking for?" ”

Wang Lang took a deep breath and tried to calm down his mood, he hadn't gone to check in person, he couldn't help but feel a little worried about the gains and losses in his heart, he was a little worried about empty joy, and said calmly: "I'm not sure yet, I have to go over and take a look to know." ”

When the others saw that they had finally found what they were looking for, it meant that the trip was finally over, and the people excitedly ran towards the hill paved with green stones.

Ten minutes later, people came to the foot of the mountain, Wang Lang picked up a grass-green stone with trembling hands, put it in front of his eyes and observed it carefully, although Wang Lang did not study too much of minerals, but the thing in front of him was by no means jade or jade.

Wang Lang picked up another golden stone the size of a fist, which was very heavy in his hand.

"Is it so good luck that there is still gold in this place?" Wang Lang muttered to himself.

In order to determine whether it was gold or not, he picked up a piece of gravel with sharp edges and made a hard scratch on the surface of the yellow ore, but no trace remained.

Seeing this scene, Wang Lang was so excited that he could hardly help himself, and said tremblingly: "It's actually pure copper, it's rich, it's rich!" ”

Such a piece of copper ore, which is almost free of impurities, is countless times more important to Wang Lang than useless gold and silver, and Wang Lang only knows about gold and silver for circulation, but does not know about other specific uses.

But a piece of pure copper is different, as long as these copper ores are smelted, they can make many useful things, on this hill, in addition to malachite with relatively little copper content, the exposed brass ore Wang Lang is estimated to have several tons, if the copper ore buried in the ground is mined, it is enough for the tribe to use for several lifetimes.

Although people were very interested in these beautiful stones in front of them, they were still a little puzzled when they saw Wang Lang so excited.

"Put it in the back basket, just pick the yellow ones, and we'll go back when we're done." Wang Lang said excitedly.

When they heard that they could go back, they immediately became excited, and they carried baskets all over the mountains and fields to find all the yellow stones they could see.

Due to the large amount of chalcopyrite ore, it didn't take long for everyone to collect a lot of copper ore, and because of the heavy weight of copper, only half of each basket was filled.

Looking at the yellow copper ore in the back basket, Wang Lang couldn't close his mouth with a smile, and he couldn't wait to return to the tribe to melt all the copper.

"Let's go! Let's go back to the tribe! Wang Lang said excitedly.

The people cheered, carrying dozens of catties of copper ore on their backs, intending to return to the tribe along the way they came.

But Wang Lang stopped them at this time and said, "We don't go back according to the original route, let's go directly to the west, so that we can go back faster." ”

"Heading west? So can we find the tribe? Fire asked.

Wang Lang said confidently: "No problem. ”

As he spoke, he drew a simple map on the ground, roughly drawing the location of the place of residence and the copper mine, and said: "You see, now that we are here, we have nearly three days from the place where we went ashore, but we will save a lot of time by going directly to the tribe from here. ”

People looked at the triangle drawn by Wang Lang in a daze, and listened to Wang Lang's plan in a daze.

Because of the heavy loads, people walked very slowly, stopping for a rest every few hours, and Wang Lang asked people to pull out some dead grass in the resting place, leaving an arrow-shaped clearing to leave a signpost for the future mining road.

Two days later, when people saw the familiar river, the long tree line in the distance, they knew they had returned.

After two days of walking with weights, everyone had blisters on their shoulders, but at the moment people didn't care about the pain in their shoulders, and quickened their pace and walked towards the wooden fence that was getting closer and closer.

When the women of the tribe saw that the men had returned, they hurriedly pushed open the heavy wooden door, took Wang Lang's weapons, and brought them cool river water.

Putting down the heavy back basket, everyone sat on the ground and kept wiping the sweat on their bodies and drank a few large bowls of water.

After relaxing, Wang Langxian felt that his shoulders were as heavy as lead, and his shoulders were red from the rope, and it hurt a little bit.

The men sat on the ground grinning, unable to do anything until their shoulders recovered.

Wang Lang called the three women who stayed behind to inquire about the situation of the tribe, and in the communication with the women, Wang Lang knew that during the time he left, nothing major happened, only Jianya brought some people over to see the situation, and knew that after Wang Lang and they left, they returned to the grassland tribe.

For the next few days, because Wang Lang and they were unable to work, everything in the tribe was handled by three women, and it was not until a week later that the shoulder injury recovered.

During this period of recuperation, Wang Lang carefully studied how to melt copper ore.

Although the melting point of copper is relatively high, the temperature of the pottery kiln made by Wang Lang can completely melt the copper ore, and the difficulty is how to pour the molten copper liquid into the template.

Wang Lang now admires the wisdom of the ancients very much, and it is almost impossible for Wang Lang to imagine the time and energy required to study the process of metal smelting without any reference.

After a few days of thinking, Wang Lang finally came up with a very stupid solution, that is, first put the copper ore containing impurities into the pottery kiln for smelting to obtain pure copper, and then make a furnace similar to the pottery kiln, put a fixed dead clay container with a notch in the furnace, and connect it with a fired semicircular grooved pottery, as long as the pure copper is melted, the liquid copper will flow down the groove into the prepared mold.

As for whether this method is useful, Wang Lang is still unsure, and he can only know after trying it.