The next day, in the morning, the sun was shining.

The Black Gold Fort is located on a not-so-high hillside, backed by the sea and flanked by plains and hills.

In the early morning, there was a layer of mist floating on the sea, and Lu Cheng got up early, standing on the bow of the ship and looking at the Black Gold Fort not far away. Unlike other cities, the city of Blackcastle is not protected by walls. Only an area in the center of the city has a wall that is not too high, and according to Tsukamoto, the wall is still left over from the early years of construction, because the city is expanding so fast, the construction of the wall cannot keep up with the speed of the city's expansion, so it has been delayed until the city wall has not been repaired.

As a first-class city, the population of Heijin Fort has reached 55,000 people, and from the pier, the urban area covers a 2-kilometer-long coastline, and the city built on the mountain is full of houses, among which the buildings near the city wall area are the highest and the best, and the highest ones have 5 or 6 floors, indicating that it is a place where rich people live or high-end places. On the outside, you can also see some very shabby houses, including the most rudimentary tents and thatched huts.

Before dawn, the dock area was already lively, the dock workers were busy moving goods up and down, and various types of ships were coming in and out one after another, a busy scene.

More than forty ships are moored on a dozen piers at the pier. Lu Cheng took a closer look, and there were more than 20 warships, and the other half were merchant ships. The largest ship was a seventy or eighty-meter-long merchant ship, estimated to have a volume of more than 2,000 tons, more than a few laps larger than most of the ships of less than 1,000 tons in the vicinity.

"My lord, the exchange of the Black Gold Castle is next to the dock, and it only takes ten minutes to walk over and you can see it."

Tsukamoto, who led the way in front of the team, carefully observed Lu Cheng's face, he didn't sleep well all night at night, for fear that the other party would think he was worthless and kill him directly, Pinaire did too many similar things, and he had unconsciously treated everyone as Pinel.

And early this morning, when he was still in a daze, the other party's crew dragged him up, saying that they wanted him to lead the way.

"Tsukamoto, do you think there's anything on the Black Gold Castle that's more famous? Is there anything particularly worth buying? ”

Lu Cheng didn't bother to explain after he found out about Tsukamoto's careful thoughts, and it was good for him to continue to be afraid, at least Tsukamoto didn't dare to lie.

"There is no specialty in the Black Gold Island, but because the pirates will take the looted goods here to sell, there are still a lot of good things, I heard that three months ago, a pirate group got a few magic crystals and sold them for tens of thousands of gold coins. And last month, an anonymous person sold the blueprints of the dwarves' warhammer-class warships, which was also a transaction of tens of thousands of gold coins. And there are more rare materials of all kinds, and basically every day there are new rare resources sold here. ”

Tsukamoto said as he led the way.

"My lord, one of the most famous places in the Black Gold Castle is the auction house in the castle district, the small one has never been in, I heard that there will be an auction every month, and the cheapest auction item has to be worth thousands of gold coins, not that the person with a head and face is not even qualified to enter."

Auction houses?

Lu Cheng immediately became interested, there must be high-value things in the auction house, if possible, he must go to participate, but he doesn't know when there will be an auction.

"How many days are left in the last auction?"

Tsukamoto scratched his head and thought: "It's definitely not these days, there should be more than a week before the next auction will be held." ”

That's really a pity, it's impossible for Lu Cheng to wait in the Black Gold Castle for a week in order to participate in the auction, at most he will stay in the Black Gold Castle for a day, because he has been away from the territory for many days, and he has to go back quickly.

Walking through the busy dock area and stepping onto the commercial street outside the dock, Tsukamoto pointed to a building with a huge area: "My lord, this is the exchange. ”

Lu Cheng looked in the direction he pointed, this is a multi-storey building with a wooden structure, and there are many gates open on the side facing the street, and all kinds of people are coming in and out of the door, most of them are disheveled pirates, and the merchants are dressed appropriately.

Lu Cheng and his entourage walked into the hall of the exchange along the crowd, there was a lot of space inside, and after entering the door was a spacious waiting hall, and on the other side of the hall was a long row of counters, of which seventy percent of the counters were written on the tag "Consignment Registry", and the rest were "Purchase Registry".

"My lord, if you want to put something here for sale, you can go to the consignment registration office to register the type, quantity and price of the items that need to be consigned, and then move the consignment items to the warehouse at the dock at the stevedore in the dock area, and when the items you are consigned are sold, the exchange will send someone to notify you, and you can come and settle the bill at any time. The exchange will charge a management fee according to the type of item, which is about 5-8% for general items, and the management fee for some rare items will be lower, such as 3%-5%. If it is not sold within a month, the exchange will charge an additional fee of 5/1000 of the total value per day. "If you are planning to buy items, you can go to the purchase registry to check the list of various types of materials, and if you need to buy, you can directly pay the corresponding gold coins, and the exchange also charges a 5-8% transaction fee." ”

Lu Cheng nodded, the fee ratio here is much lower than the 10% fee standard of both sides of the player's exchange, don't underestimate the 4%-10% gap, if it is a transaction of tens of thousands of gold coins, it can save hundreds of gold coins, and the most ordinary merchant ship is only a few hundred gold coins, and the difference is very big.

Of course, Lu Cheng didn't come to sell items, he found a purchase registration counter where no one was and sat down, and there was a young girl sitting at the counter who was still good-looking, and she showed a very professional smile when she saw Lu Cheng.

"Hello sir, welcome to the Black Gold Castle Exchange, what kind of items do you need to find?"

Lu Cheng had already planned, so he naturally said, "Help me check if there are any drawings of the battleship?" ”

"Sorry sir, valuables such as battleship drawings will be auctioned at the auction house in the core city, if you are interested, you can participate in the next auction."

It's actually such a setting, Lu Cheng is a little regretful, there are still a few days left in the auction, and he definitely can't wait.

"Are there any other categories of drawings besides battleship drawings?" Lu Cheng didn't give up and continued to ask.

The waiter looked down at a thick notebook and replied, "There are 7 drawings of ordinary weapons and equipment, well, and 1 blueprint of a ballista, hey, this should be auctioned and sold, right?" ”

The waiter in front of Lu Cheng turned around and asked another waiter suspiciously.

"Oh, the blueprint for that ballista was sold by a pirate group yesterday because they were in a hurry to use the money, so they didn't want to put it on the exchange to sell." The waiter at the counter next to him quickly explained.

"Well, sir, here's the list, take a look."

Lu Cheng took the register handed by the waiter and looked at it, he already had the drawings for the preparation of the 7 ordinary weapons, so he just passed by, and then he paid attention to the blueprint of the ballista that the waiter just said.

[Small Ballista] Normal quality, can fire light ballista with a diameter of less than 25mm, can rotate within -5 degrees up and down to +75 degrees, left and right 120 degrees, weighs 165kg, and has a maximum range of 1 km.

Materials required (replaceable): 10 groups of high-quality wooden boards, 5 groups of high-quality round logs, 1 group of steel bars, 1 group of steel bolts, 2 groups of stainless steel sheets, 1 group of copper sheets, 1 group of steel nails, 2 groups of high-quality beef tendons, 2 groups of ropes, 3 groups of tools.

25mm Light Crossbow Arrow: Steel triangular arrow, 2.65 meters long, weight 5.3Kg.

Materials required (substitutable): 20 units of high-quality hardwood, 1 unit of steel triangular arrow, 5 units of steel sheet, 5 units of tools.

......

Yes, although the power of small ballistas is far less powerful than artillery, it is better than light and agile, which is very suitable for army use. Of course, the navy's warships can also be equipped as supplementary firepower for artillery, and it can be used as anti-aircraft firepower for battleships, after all, the wyvern in Misty Island is still difficult to deal with, so you have to go back to Leah, Jona, and Alice to ask how to load the ballista on the battleship.

Lu Cheng looked at the price marked below.

2000 gold.

It's not expensive, so Lu Cheng asked the waiter: "I bought this cannon, how do I pay for it?" ”

The waiter happily took out a list and handed it to Lu Cheng, she can draw a certain reward from it if she doesn't complete a transaction, if this list is completed, she can get a reward of about 2 gold, which is worth her usual week's income, so her tone became more and more respectful: "Honorable sir, you need to pay a total of 2160 gold coins, the bill of lading here needs you to fill it out, and after payment, go to the VIP room next to you to collect your items directly." “

Lu Cheng happily traded 2160 gold, and the extremely excited waiter quickly completed the formalities of the transaction, and then handed the stamped bill of lading to Lu Cheng respectfully.

"Mr. Arbiter, please go to the VIP room over there and pick up your purchase."

The VIP room was in a very conspicuous place on the other side of the hall, and Lu Cheng immediately walked to the VIP room with Tsukamoto, Li Tiezhu and others.

Just as Lu Cheng entered the VIP room, a big man with a few vicious pirates rushed into the exchange, and went straight to the counter where Lu Cheng had finished handling the business just now.

"Little, take out the ballista that old Lyle consigned yesterday to grandpa, I bought it!" The big man slapped the table hard, startling the young waiter behind the counter who had just finished making a big order and was distracted.

"Good afternoon, Master Leo, what services do you need?" The waiter hurriedly stood up and asked politely, she knew very well that the lord in front of her was something she could never afford to provoke, and once she angered him, it was likely that she would not see the sun tomorrow.

Leo, one of the three bullies of Blackcastle, is notoriously ruthless, and there are more than a few people who have died directly or indirectly at his hands because of all kinds of trivial things. It's not that no one wants to deal with him for so many years, but his father is the leader of the famous Square Pirate Regiment, Firefang, and the Square Pirate Group is one of the five fleets under the Northern Pirate King, and the Black Gold Castle belongs to the most influential free territory of the Northern Pirate King, so no one can do anything to Leo.