Victor stared at the two pieces of blue-white ore on the table, his brow furrowed.

Nelson had reported to him about the matter. Today, when Gru led the team on a guard mission, they caught three sneaky freedmen on the outskirts of the woods and found two ores they had hidden on their bodies.

After Nelson's interrogation, the three freedmen confessed their reasoning.

It turned out that the trio were members of a free colony to the west of Victor's territory, and they lived by gathering and hunting. Just two days ago, their camp had been breached by a gang of gnoll robbers, and most of the people in the camp had been taken captive by the gnolls. The three of them narrowly escaped, but without the camp and their companions, they could not have survived in the wild. So they want to join another large free private land in this territory. In order to join the free camp smoothly, they also brought two strange ores as gifts, and wanted to give them to the leader of the free camp, hoping to get his protection.

"Nelson, do you think this is Mithril ore?" Victor looked at Nelson with a puzzled expression.

Mithril is an extremely cherished metal in this world, it has elemental affinities that other metals do not have, and weapons and armor mixed with Mithril can easily attach to the four elements.

The scholars of the Silver Tower have done detailed research, and they have found that Mithril equipment allows the Silver Knight to inspire elemental strength more than three times higher than ordinary equipment, which is an overwhelming advantage.

This advantage makes all high-level knights rush to Mithril equipment, and the first problem that every knight who is promoted to the silver level is how to obtain a set of Mithril equipment.

Unfortunately, the production of Mithril is extremely low, which makes Mithril extremely expensive, and a piece of Mithril can be exchanged for thirty times its weight in gold.

However, such an exaggerated price often makes it impossible to buy Mithril, because no nobles are willing to sell this strategic material at all.

"My lord, it looks very much like Mithril Ore in appearance and color. Nelson also had a sad face.

If an ordinary lord learns that there is a Mithril mine in his territory, he will wake up laughing even if he dreams, but for Victor, this is a big problem, because his current strength is too weak.

"My lord, do you want to get rid of those three people? "As a mercenary who rolls on the tip of a knife, Nelson has a ruthless side.

"It's useless, we don't know at all how many survivors there are in that free camp. ”

After thinking about it carefully, Victor shook his head firmly, sighed and continued, "Go and call Master Edwin and the Bruce Knight." You know, if it's really Mithril Mine, we won't be able to keep it at all. ”

Nelson nodded, got up and walked out. Although he was a little unwilling, he also knew that Victor's decision was correct, and it was better to seek cooperation from the York family than to face the risks brought by the Mithril mine alone, and even if he couldn't get Mithril, he could be compensated in other ways.

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

It was a large crow, with dark feathers and dark red eyes, and when it saw Victor, it immediately flapped its wings and landed on Victor's shoulder, and gently pecked at Victor's hair with its hard beak.

Victor looked at the crow that had shown him affection and flattery, and couldn't help but smile slightly.

It was the first alchemical creature that King Taling produced for him, and Victor witnessed the entire manufacturing process.

At that time, in the air above the altar of the stone cave, four runes of different colors first appeared, and these four runes continued to rotate, and gradually derived hundreds of runes of different shapes, these runes continued to rotate around the four initial runes, forming a brilliance on the altar that was intertwined with four colors: earth yellow, fiery red, sky blue, and turquoise.

In the midst of all this light, the form of a bird slowly appeared, and an hour later, an alchemical crow opened its eyes on the altar, and the runes in the void gradually dissipated.

When he first got this alchemy crow, Victor wanted to test the alchemy crow's ability immediately, but in order not to arouse suspicion, he had to resist his impulse and use a few days to attract the surrounding birds to eat by constantly spreading bait on the ground, and mixed his alchemy crow with the birds.

In the end, everyone thought that Victor had recovered a daring and greedy crow as a pet in the process of feeding the birds.

Through the observation and experiments in the past few days, Victor was pleasantly surprised to find that this alchemical creature worth 50 gold soles was not simple.

First of all, the alchemy crow has a concept of time, which can appear exactly when Victor feeds every day, and having a concept of time means that this alchemy creature has memory and intelligence.

Secondly, it has a strong ability to maneuver, a very keen sense of smell, and its eyesight and hearing are far beyond that of ordinary humans. It can fly at speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour, can smell scents up to 20 kilometers away, can see Victor's gestures at an altitude of hundreds of meters, and can hear human conversations at a distance of hundreds of meters.

Finally, it also has a strong ability to mimic different voices, including human conversation.

Victor conducted an experiment, he took advantage of the fact that Gru led the team on a reconnaissance mission, sniffed the items left by Gru to the alchemy crow, and made a special gesture to the crow according to the method taught by Taling, and the crow immediately flew out and began to track Gru according to the scent.

About two hours later, the crow flew back, and in front of Victor, it expressed the results of its reconnaissance to Victor through different flight attitudes and calls.

The target is 40 kilometers from here, in a southeasterly direction, a small group of people.

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

For example, "We can get 11 points per person for today's task." "How many times have I taught you to, kid, after pooping in the wild, remember to bury it. "I don't know how I died!"

The results of this test proved to Victor that the Alchemy Raven is an excellent reconnaissance unit, capable of describing the results of the investigation through preset movements, and mimicking overheard sounds.

Although most of the imitations are discordant words, if these alchemy crows are active in groups, it is not difficult for people to analyze extremely valuable information from these discursors.

The excellent performance of the alchemy crow made Victor look forward to other alchemy creatures as well, but it was easy to explain with an extra bird, but how to cover up with an extra big living person or an extra ferocious animal?

Victor had to wait, at least until Bruce and Edwin left the realm.

"The blood of the moon elves is really a natural affinity bloodline, and even animals are close to you. Master Edwin walked in, and when he saw the great crow and Victor being close, he said with jealousy and envy.

Ever since Edwin discovered that this pet crow can imitate human language, he has been intrigued, and he has been persistently feeding the big crow with dried fruits, wheat, and dried meat for the past two days, trying to abduct it.

It's a pity that in the face of the sugar-coated cannonballs of scholars, the big crow has always eaten the sugar-coated cannonballs and threw them back. As soon as it saw Victor, it immediately dropped Edwin and flew directly to its master, much to the old scholar's chagrin.

"Master Edwin, Bruce Knight, you're here. ”

Victor stood up, smiled, and nodded to the two men who walked in one after the other. For the misunderstanding of the old scholar, he could only snicker in his heart.

"There's something I'd like you to see. Victor drove out the crow that had stopped on his shoulder, and handed the two ores to the two of them.

Taking the ore, Bruce Knight's expression suddenly froze, he looked at Victor with burning eyes, and asked tentatively, "Mithril Mine?"

Victor waved his hands to the Bruce Knight, indicating that he was not sure, and the entire room looked at Master Edwin with burning eyes.

If this is really the Mithril Mine, it will definitely be a big deal for the entire Centaur Hill.

"Unfortunately, this is not a Mithril mine. After careful examination, Master Edwin loosened his furrowed eyebrows.

"This is Softsilver Ore, and its color is similar to that of Mithril Ore, but it has an elasticity that other ores don't have, just pinch it in your hand. Edwin explained.

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

"Master, is this the rumored fake silver ore?" asked Edwin as Bruce regretfully dropped the ore in his hand on the table.

"That's right, it's a 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 Mythril Ore, and some people often mistake Softsilver Ore for Mythril Ore, but the metal extracted from Softsilver Ore is as soft as silt, which cannot be used to forge equipment at all, and has no elemental affinity, so Softsilver has no value to humans, so people call this Softsilver fake silver.

Victor secretly breathed a sigh of relief, although there were some regrets, but Victor had the Alchemy Tower in his hands, as long as he was given time to bury his head in development, what was a mere Mithril mine?

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

"Softsilver is worthless, but it has a companion crystal in its veins that can be processed into fine jewelry, which is a good income for your territory. ”

Edwin tried to comfort the "lost" little lord before asking, "Where did you find this Softsilver mine?"

"Today Nelson caught three freedmen peeping into the camp and found these two pieces of ore on them. ”

Victor goes on to describe to Bruce and Edwin in detail the Gnoll's attack on the Free Folk and the presence of large free camps in the territory.

"Victor, the Gnolls don't matter, but the Freedmen are a big problem in your realm, and you must take that seriously. Is there any more detailed information?" Bruce said to Victor solemnly after hearing that there was a large free private land in the territory.

"According to these three men, there are currently two large free camps and a few small camps scattered in the territory, and the total number of free men I estimate to be eight hundred. Nelson said to Bruce after receiving a gesture from Victor.

"Two large camps, one on the eastern side of the realm and on the border with the Earldom of Chebman. The freedmen in this camp are very xenophobic, they never communicate with other freemen, and they kill strangers who come close to their camp, so the three don't know much about the camp. ”

"The other camp is in our northeast corner, and the number of freedmen must be about three hundred, and they have always gone to great lengths to take in freedmen who have gone to take refuge, and have often exchanged goods with other freemen, so their reputation is very high among them. ”

"The leader of the camp was called Byer, and it was rumored that he had served in the military at Dord, fought in the Battle of Fort Whitewater against the Sarsanians, and had been given a valiant sword, and it seemed that Byer intended to spread the word about his prowess, and the three freedmen wanted to take the ore with 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 found the free camp, when they only had a few dozen people, I didn't expect to control so many people in just one year. Hehe, this Bayer is kind of interesting. ”

"It's time to meet this Bair. Victor's eyes flickered and he whispered.