On the third day of entering Invercargill Forest, Surdak and the Thunder Rhino Caravan finally arrived at the copper mines in the middle of the forest.

This is Surdak's first return to the mine after a year away.

When you enter this mountainous area, you can see the chaotic buildings on the hillside in the distance, which were originally occupied by miners, but now they have been transformed into wooden houses of various forms, and some plaques have been erected on the outside of these wooden houses.

Although it was too far to tell what was written on the plaques, Surdak learned from Selena that the free market outside the copper mines had expanded to occupy the entire hillside during the year.

The dormitories for the mine workers have also been moved from this hillside to the mountains further north, which are closer to the mine.

At the top of the mountain, the large chimneys of the three copper furnaces emitted thick smoke, accompanied by some rumbling sounds, and occasionally strong steam from one of the overflow valves, like three steel giants lying on the top of the mountain, constantly devouring the copper ore transported from the mountain.

On the southern side of the hill, the three steel beasts spit out truckloads of copper ingots, which they carry to the base of the mountain along the steel rails erected on the hillside.

The copper mine has been operating normally for nearly a year, and has successively produced 25,000 tons of copper ingots and one ton of magic red copper, which were transported from Invercargill Forest to the trading market in Wilkes City, bringing Surdak nearly 20,000 magic crystals, of course, about seventy percent of the labor expenditure, and excluding some miscellaneous expenses, there are about 5,000 magic crystals that can be put into Surdak's pocket.

Five thousand magic crystals can buy almost thirty sets of magic pattern structures.

So for Surdak, this mine is a continuous and stable income.

When Surdak and Selena walked out of the wooden hut on the back of the Thunder Rhino, the fourteen directors of the mine were already respectfully waiting at the material transfer station at the foot of the mountain.

Andrew and Tygo did not follow Surdak to the copper mines, but instead made their way straight to the bridgehead camp north of the Rift Chains.

The only people who followed Surdak were Selena and Gulitham, and during Surdak's absence from the White Forest Plane, Selena was always in charge of the copper mines, and she had to visit the mines almost every two months.

Checking the shipping lists at the transfer station, and occasionally checking the shipping lists in the Malacombe Thunderrhino caravans, Selena rarely interfered in the management of the copper mines, as long as the documents were fully commensurate in terms of amounts.

Although Selena will not interfere in the management of the copper mine, she will strictly monitor the living conditions of these workers in the copper mine, as required by Surdak.

At present, the workers in the copper mine are mainly composed of three parts: the mine management, the technicians in charge of refining the furnace, and the ordinary miners.

The mine's management has now grown to 14 people.

There is a mine manager, a magic apprentice who can easily maintain the refining furnace, and twelve supervisors each manage nearly five hundred miners, these twelve groups of miners are divided into three large groups, each large group supplies the smelted copper ore required by a furnace, and the four teams need to take turns pushing the mined copper ore to the feed port in front of the furnace.

According to Surdak's requirements, the miners at the bottom need to have a perfect welfare package, not only do the miners eat and live in the mine for free, but the miners also have strict weekly food rules, in addition to a sufficient supply of wheat cakes and vegetable porridge every day, there will be a meat meal every three days. Every six days of work there is a day off, and the mine cannot be occupied for any reason, and the miners are also given two sets of sturdy, hard-wearing overalls and anti-smashing shoes each year.

Of course, these are only small benefits, and the most attractive part of the copper mines is the high salary, ordinary miners can get one gold coin a month, even in the town of Dodan, the trading houses can rarely pay such a high salary.

The mine currently has 6,000 miners, and the mine pays for these miners in the salaries alone, which is almost 6,000 gold coins per month.

For an indigenous person of a local tribe, earning one gold coin a month is enough for him to marry ten wives and raise a large number of children in the tribe, and his life will be no problem.

So for a long time, the place of miners in the copper mines has been contested by 37 indigenous tribes.

This time, Surdak came to the copper mine and invited these thirty-seven tribal leaders to the copper mine to discuss the future development of Invercargill Forest.

The Thunder Rhino caravan will line up in a long line outside the yard of the material transfer station, and the huge shelves will be parked outside the courtyard, and these Thunder Rhino will be led to the stream to drink and feed.

Standing on the platform of the wooden frame, Surdak saw that the compound of the transfer station was almost full of stacks of copper ingots.

Selena has a separate wooden building on the side of the material transfer station, and this wooden building even introduces a mountain spring and builds a small pool in the courtyard.

Selena was exhausted by the bumps along the way, and after arriving at the material transfer station, Selena did not follow Surdak to inspect the copper mines, but ran back to the small building with her assistant to rest.

Surrounded by a group of mine supervisors, Surdak first walked around the transfer station, and Surdak casually picked up a few copper ingots, and saw that these copper ingots were a soft purple color, and there were almost no impurities in sight.

It seems that the three refining furnaces designed by the Victor mage are still very good.

Afterwards, Surdak took everyone around the free market again.

In addition to some food, spices and daily necessities, this market mainly trades in Warcraft materials, and many adventuring groups after entering Invercargill Forest, usually reluctant to run back to the farther town of Dodan, will come here, dispose of the Warcraft materials captured on their bodies in this market, and then replenish some supplies.

Occasionally, some aborigines come here to buy some daily necessities, so business here has always been good.

The vendors in the free market saw that the supervisors of the mines were crowded with a nobleman, and they did not know the identity of the nobleman......

The name 'Surdak' is almost a household name in Dodan, so when the news spread from the free market, there was an immediate influx of onlookers, at first, Surdak's name was only suffix Commander, then the Mayor of the Town, and now the Lord Lord.

After nearly a year away from the White Forest Plane, many people have not seen Surdak's true face, and now that they have heard that the Lord of Invercargill Forest has appeared in the copper mines, many people are eager to see Surdak's appearance.

So as Surdak walked, he noticed that the stalls were barely visible on either side of the market, but were filled with excited onlookers.

I don't know who shouted: 'Surdak ......'

For a while, everyone in the market shouted at the same time: 'Surdak...... Surdak ......'

The shouts almost pierced through the valley, sending the flocks of birds perched in the woodlands on the opposite hillside into the sky.

Surdak was not prepared to make a speech in such a chaotic place as the free market, so when he saw that the order of the free market was somewhat disordered, he immediately left the market with the mine directors.

Walking up the stone steps on the gentle slope, you can see a minecart filled with red-hot copper ingots slowly rushing down the hillside, each with a tow rope tied to the back, and these minecarts loaded with copper ingots rush down the hill and pull an empty minecart down the hill to the top of the hill.

Looking at the miners in the mine wearing gray and white overalls, anti-smashing shoes, and hard leather hats on their heads, Surdak felt like a world away for a while......

It was only when he saw three magic-powered steel behemoths that he instantly returned to reality.

These three refining furnaces emitted a huge amount of heat, and a wave of heat could be felt from a distance of more than ten meters......

Surdak withstood the heat and asked all the key nodes of the furnace before nodding slightly, and then inevitably felt a little disappointed.

Now he learned about the specific situation of the refining furnace on the spot, and finally completely understood that this kind of refining equipment cannot be used in the iron ore field, the reason is that this kind of refining equipment that uses magic crystals as energy consumption almost swallows dozens of magic crystals every day, and the output of copper ingots is only seventy or eighty tons, but this is still a relatively valuable copper mine after all.

Compared to copper ingots, the value of iron ingots is much lower.

If iron ingots are still smelted in this refining furnace, then I am afraid that the value generated by all the iron ingots produced by the mine, after deducting the high labor costs and transportation costs, the last remaining little profit will also be devoured by these steel giants, and Surdak will also pour money into it.

But Surdak didn't think about deducting the workers' income, after all, digging stones in the mines is not something anyone can do.

It seems that the relocation of the abandoned steel mill in Ruyt should be put on the agenda as soon as possible, and the problem of high costs can only be solved by using a cheaper steelmaking process.

Surdak left the mountaintop refining furnace and followed the mine supervisors to the mine that was being excavated, where a large gap had been dug and the exposed ore was pale green.

Some miners were stuffing some black powder into the cracks in the excavated rock, and with a muffled sound, the rock wall loosened and shattered.

The rest of the miners began to process the loose fragments, chiseled them up, loaded them onto flatbed trucks, and transported them to the three refining furnaces not far away.

After making a round of inspections, Surdak finally came to the canteen of the copper mine, and saw a few pork legs boiled in a large iron pot in the canteen, and the smell of delicious meat wafted far away, so he casually called out to a young aboriginal miner and asked him, "How many days can you eat such meat?" ”

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