The caravan that Leo joined was not a caravan of a local tribe, but a mash-up caravan of people from different small tribes, a caravan like this that was rare in the eastern city-states of Savile, but ubiquitous in the western city-states.

In addition to the fact that most of the tribes in the western part of Savile are mainly small tribes, it is also more because the Saviles here often come into contact with the Maris and the Dariath, and will be more or less influenced by them, so the traditional tribal concept is much weaker.

The caravans of these small tribes were willing to risk encountering sand pirates and cannibalism, and they also wanted to take the dangerous trade route of the Lesser Guth Desert, mainly because of profits, but also because of the contradictions between small tribes and large tribes.

The western city-state of the Savile Kingdom is ruled by seven large tribes with a very long heritage, and nearly eighty percent of the government officials and military officers here are from these seven large tribes, and these seven large tribes also regard the entire western part of the kingdom as their own property, and will not allow other rising tribes to intervene in and get a piece of the pie.

Therefore, these seven large tribes with a long tradition have adopted the method of marriage with each other, and the seven large tribes have been integrated into one, and together they have suppressed the small tribes in this region, and the most effective and obvious means of suppression is taxation.

When the caravan belonging to the large tribe enters the western city-states, it only needs to pay a very small amount of commercial tax to pass through, but the caravan of those small tribes needs to pay several times more commercial tax, if there are many city-states passed, then the commercial tax paid is more, and often the commercial tax to be paid at the end of a commodity exceeds the value of the commodity itself.

In this way, it is difficult for the goods of the small tribe caravan to compete with the goods of the large tribe caravan in price, if it were not for the fact that those people of the big tribe are too greedy and always shoddy, and the quality cannot be compared with the goods of the small tribe, maybe the caravan of the big tribe has completely monopolized the commerce of the entire western city-state.

In order to survive, the small tribes had to find other ways to avoid commercial taxes reasonably and legally, and the dangerous trade route of the Lesser Gusi Desert was one of them.

After Leo joined this caravan composed of several small tribes, the most common words heard from the Savile population of these caravans were the words of cursing the seven major tribes, and the people of these small tribes had no scruples to say these words in front of a stranger like Leo, which shows that the dispute between the large and small tribes of the western city-state has been put on the surface.

As a condition of the trade, the pack carts hired by Leo were also used by caravans to transport goods, which were some of the blankets of the Golden Velvet Woven City, which were made from a plant called the Velvet Tree.

This plant is one of the few trees that can grow extremely tall in the desert, and it is said that the tallest golden velvet trees can grow up to about 30 meters.

The bark of the velvet tree is very hard, and even if you chop it with a sharp axe, it will be difficult to break through the bark.

Only when the velvet tree grows and matures, the bark-wrapped trunk of the tree will expand rapidly, and then like a bomb, the whole tree will explode from the inside out, and the fibers of the trunk will fly far away under the impact of this huge explosion, but when the velvet falls, the seeds will burrow into the sand and grow into a new velvet tree.

The velvet produced by the velvet tree is mostly white velvet and yellow velvet, while gold velvet is very rare, and it is much warmer than the other two types of velvet, and the carpet woven with gold velvet will sparkle in the sun, making this product very popular in cold regions like Dariat, which is one of the most important exports of the Savile Kingdom.

So when Leo saw that his packer was stuffed with a large number of velvet carpets in the caravan, he couldn't help but be curious about the goods that the caravan really caravaned, after all, no caravan would put its most important goods on a stranger's cart that joined halfway, and the only explanation was that this caravan probably used Leo's packer as bait, which could be discarded if necessary, to attract sand pirates, so that the caravan could take the opportunity to escape.

Not only did Leo see the idea of this caravan, but also the owner of the pack car he hired, so before setting out, he found Leo again, told Leo about his discovery, and asked Leo if he wanted to go with the caravan.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. Leo replied calmly.

Seeing that Leo had already made a decision, the owner of the pack car didn't say anything more and began to make preparations for the launch.

The caravan did not choose to set out during the day, and after that, they set off into the edge of the Lesser Guth Desert, and then marched along the edge towards the Little Guth River.

Leo found that he was not the only one who followed this caravan to Dry Steel City, and counted a little more than twenty small teams following behind this caravan, but these small teams did not join this combined caravan, but followed from a distance, it seems that these small teams just want to take advantage of this combined caravan to avoid the attack of the Gussha bandits.

I have to say that there is some truth in their approach, although the two teams are not together, but from a distance they look like the same caravan with a large number of people, and the bluff is very real.

Perhaps because it was only on the edge of the desert, the caravan went smoothly and encountered no difficulties in between, except for a pack cart that had flipped over the sand dunes and almost exposed its goods, nothing unusual happened the rest of the time.

It's just that although nothing unusual happened, the caravan's vigilance has never relaxed, and Leo's request is also to ask him not to get off casually.

It can be seen that in addition to the sand thieves who have not yet appeared, the guards of this caravan are also the small caravans that are following behind.

Obviously, in the eyes of this caravan, the small caravan that followed behind was not a good person, and at some point these seemingly weak small tribes would be transformed into vicious sand bandits, which happened more than once or twice in the desert of Savile.

However, those small teams did not share the same thoughts, and they were also on guard against the combined caravan ahead, beware of the other side turning their faces.

It took about two hours for the caravan to reach the Little Gus River, and then traveled southwest along the Little Gus River and deep into the Little Gus Desert.

Although it is called a desert, compared to the Guga Desert, which is a real desert with floating sand and floating sand, the Little Gusi Desert is obviously a bit unworthy of its name.

Because of the Lesser Gus River and the wet monsoon winds blowing from the Quincy Snow-capped Mountains, the desertification of the Lesser Gus Desert is not very severe, and most of the area is still full of mud and plants.

Because of this, navigating the Lesser Guth Desert is not a difficult task for the Saviles.

The caravan had traveled for a night, and had easily covered nearly half of the Lesser Guth Desert, and when the sun came out in the morning, the caravan did not go any further, but chose an easily defended river bend to set up camp, as if they were not prepared to travel in the heat of the day.

Seeing that the caravan in front stopped, the team behind also stopped, but they did not set up barracks and fortifications like the caravan, they just surrounded the pack carts and simply built a fence.

After the convoy stopped, the packer driver hired by Leo went to the combined caravan to ask for some food, and brought some to Leo by the way, which was naturally not a delicacy, but nothing more than dry food made of dry pancakes, emulsifiable sauce and some minced meat.

Leo was not a picky eater, and after quickly eating the hard dry food, he picked up the metal ball he had bought at the riverbend market and continued his research.

When he first saw this metal ball, he subconsciously thought that it was a part on the Wycombe Abbey spaceship, but after two days of research, he found that this thing did not seem to be a part, or even an object made by the Wycombe Abbey people or any cosmic civilization, it was just a metal ball.

So he put the metal ball aside and ignored it.

But yesterday, when he stayed in the bumpy car and hurried, he felt a little bored, and took out some random items to tidy up again, but when he saw this metal ball, he found that the pattern on the surface of this metal ball had become a little different.

When Leo first got this metal ball, he also saw that the patterns on the surface of this metal ball seemed to contain some kind of mysterious power, but when he researched it, he found that these patterns were like the kind of metal patterns formed when steel was superimposed and forged, and there was nothing special about it.

But now he found that after a few days, the pattern on the surface of the metal ball has changed, and there is no trace of this change, if Leo had not specifically written down the pattern shape on the surface of the metal ball in order to study whether there is a mysterious power on the surface of the metal ball, I am afraid that he would not have found a little change.

Leo carefully recorded the pattern on the surface of the metal ball, and then carefully compared the two patterns, and soon found that the two sudden changes were like natural changes when some kind of fluid moved, which usually occurs on liquids such as pigments, and this should not be the case with this metal ball solid.

It's just that Leo couldn't find out the reason for the change of this metal ball by any means, in his opinion, this metal ball is a metal ball made of ordinary steel, and if there is something special about it, it is that this metal ball is a near-perfect round ball.

You must know that in the industrial system of the cosmic civilization, it is not too difficult to make a perfect ball, but in a primary industrial stage like the Vinylon world, it is obviously impossible to make a perfect ball with such high precision.

"Can I hide here?" At this moment, a rush of footsteps suddenly came outside the pannier, and the curtain of the tent on the pannier was lifted, and a Savile child looked at Leo and asked timidly.

Although the Kingdom of Savile has set up a variety of schools in every city, when not every child can be enrolled because of the high cost of schools, the vast majority of Saviles still adhere to the tradition of the tribe, taking children to trade together, nomadic together, and teaching the children in the tribe their own knowledge.

The same is true of this combined caravan, but because of their walking route and delivery of goods this time, there are not many children who study with the caravan, only five or six, and when the caravan is camped, these little ones who have been bumping around in the car all night are also released, and move their shaking bodies.

Leo nodded and said, "Don't mess things up." ”

"Hmm. The child quickly climbed into the carriage, then lowered the curtain, leaned over the curtain again, removed a small gap, and looked out.

The child looked outside for a while, and found that no one had come to him, so he smiled proudly, then turned to look at Leo, who was studying the metal ball, and came up curiously.

"Hey, isn't this a map of the Little Gus Desert?" said the child in surprise when he saw the pattern on the surface of the metal ball.

"Map?" Leo paused, looking at the child.

"That's right, map!" the child stretched out his hand to the pattern on the surface of the metal ball, pointed to it, and said, "You see this is the Little Gus River, this is the Broken Bone Mound, this is the Sand Wolf Forest, and this is the Widow's Weeping Forest......

The children pointed out the geographical names of the Little Gusi Desert one by one on the patterns on the surface of the metal balls.

After seeing the location pointed out by the child, Leo also seemed to be inspired, and quickly compared the pattern he had recorded earlier with the map of the area he passed through, and found that the original pattern of the metal ball he had written down was the map of the area around Ethiopia.

At this moment, Leo felt more and more that this metal ball was not ordinary.

"You have done me a great favor," said Leo to the child, "I don't like to owe favors," and as he spoke, he fumbled in his pocket, and took out a few other delicate wood carvings that he had bought at the riverbend market, handed them to the child, and said, "Pick one!"

These wood carvings are a set of strange things, on the night of the purchase, Leo has already learned the details of the power and use of this set of strange things, this set of strange objects is very simple to use, you only need to grab the wood carvings, and then release the most primitive battle and killing ** in your heart.

After using the Wood Carving, the user is able to gain a powerful power from the Wood Carving, which is determined by the beast to which the Wood Carving corresponds.

If it was when he first came to the world of Velon, this set of wood carvings would definitely be Leo's most useful set of extraordinary objects, but now this set of wood carvings can no longer play any role in him, it is better to give it as a gift to others.

Even if these wood carvings are not strange objects, their appearance is extremely exquisite, and the carved animals are vivid, which is very attractive to children. After hearing Leo's words, the child was not polite, and his eyes swept back and forth over the wooden carvings, and finally jumped away from a sword-toothed beast wood carving known for its ferocity.