"Patu, what's the catch this time?" the blue dragon asked, leaning over the sand dunes, staring at the rattle-tailed dragon family prostrate on the ground.

"Honorable Quez Fetan," Patu replied in a hissing dragon with a hissing voice with his forked tongue, "your servant has unearthed a small ruin, some strange gadgets, and has not found any suspicious magical items, and I have stored some samples in the cave that I have brought back." ”

Quest rummaged through the ruins that the rattle-tailed dragon had dragged out of the crypt where he was hiding, and the items did not have any signs of magic attached, mostly fragments of mechanical parts.

"I guess this area is a desert, the air doesn't have a high moisture content, and the dry environment keeps these metal parts from rusting, but ......," Quest flicked with the tips of his claws as he flicked a few pieces of Pattu out of the exploration, "These metals seem to be made up of many alloys, which are not the same as those found in the ruins in the past." ”

The discovery of the ruins proves that the ancient civilization of this land not only mastered powerful magic, but also seemed to have in-depth research in the field of science and technology, or rather, in metal smelting. As Quest flipped through it, there were many interesting widgets scattered around in front of him, but most of them were remnant fragments, and it was difficult to find any valuable traces from them.

Just as he was about to finish this inspection, a square-shaped cube caught his eye. The blue dragon has a natural elemental affinity for electricity, and the powerful blue dragon can control the electric charge. Just as Quest's fingertips touched the cube, a flash of electricity was captured by the blue dragon's eyes, which was different from the occasional tip discharge [1] phenomenon of the charge on the surface of the blue dragon's body, Quest could feel that the transferred charge did not calm down, and the electrical energy did not disappear, but was stored in the cube.

"Can you store electricity? It seems like a battery," Quest thought for a moment, using a simple prophecy spell, Discovery, to determine what the cube was. However, the feedback of the spell is interfered with by the object itself, and the interference of casting is ruled out, indicating that the cube is rich in lead. "Most likely it's a lead-acid battery. ”

I have to say that the magic is wonderful, although the knowledge inherited as a blue dragon does not allow Quis to become a master of spellcasting, but spells do provide more than one effective tool for solving some problems.

Although the "Detection Technique" of the Prophecy System will be skewed in the face of the lead plate, there are a variety of arcane visions that can come in handy, such as "True Vision".

"Maybe you should keep some useful arcane vision," Quest was also trying to solve problems for the first time using magic.

Under "True Vision", looking at the surface of a cube can reveal all the physical information in the brain, and at the same time, it has a perspective similar effect. The composition and geometry of the cube are clearly displayed in a list form under the collation of Quest's brain. Moreover, when it was displayed, some of the world's most common weights and measures (length rulers, mass derby) were automatically converted into the earth units that Ques was more familiar with

Name: Ancient Civilization Energy Module (Damaged)

[Form]: 666 cubic decimeter cube, about 54.3kg

[Function]: The battery module made by using the principle of lead-acid battery has the lead-containing structural metal inside soaked in sulfuric acid to generate current. The part engraved with the yang text on the surface of the battery is the positive electrode, and the negative part is the cathode. Under normal circumstances, it is suspected to provide energy for small and medium-sized mechanical structures. The discharge is stable and can be recycled, but due to too long time, the acid leaks and volatilizes, and it has been partially damaged......

Looking at these introductions, Quest realized that he might have picked up a treasure. There are all kinds of magic in this world, but it is precisely the limitation of knowledge that these creations without magical aura are easily ignored by those who discover them. It is likely that Salotta overlooked the existence of these technological creations during the excavation of the ruins.

"Where did you find these things?"

"Even in the area you marked, the cave leading to the ruins still exists, but the exit has been buried by me. Because the ruins were close to the oasis on the edge of the territory, there were occasional caravans passing by. The Rattletail Tail sensed that Quest valued the gains from this discovery, so it tried to recall as much useful information as it had been from its previous explorations.

After gathering his first family members, the Blue Dragon gave the first task to let these dragon family members explore some designated desert ruins for him.

Moreover, most of these individually marked focus areas revolve around the area where Salotta found the eggs of the Quest Feta, and the blue dragon logically reasoned that these places where he appeared might hide the reason for his coming into this world.

Receiving a message from Rattletail Dragon Pattu, Quest recalled the location of the exploration point, "It is about thirty-five Palesan distances to the east-southwest of the country, which is about forty-seven kilometers. ”

He counted the distance.

"Before this patrol is over and we go back to debriefing, there should be some time before we go back to explore this ruin. ”

The cube lead-acid battery is the first time that Blue Dragon has discovered a technological creation similar to that on earth in this world. He felt that he really needed to rush over and check the situation as soon as possible.

Even if you can't explore it all at once, you will have to find an opportunity to find out the hidden secrets of this ruin in batches in the future.

Moreover, the Rattletail Dragon's last disposal of the ruin's passage was not very clever, and since the value of this ruin was discovered, Quest felt the need to hide this place himself to avoid any twists and turns in the future.

After thinking about this, the blue dragon gave the rattle-tailed dragon instructions to continue exploring the other marked areas, and then jumped up, took advantage of the wind and spread its wings and flew straight in the direction of the ruins.

......

At the same time, near the ruins discovered by the rattle-tailed dragon, a caravan of dozens of camel beasts walked on the scorching sand dunes.

Santos Ben Dzose, a famous merchant in Nome City and owner of the "Sand Rhino Caravan", was now riding in a pavilion on the back of the largest sand rhino in the center of the procession.

Although the pavilion has a canopy covered with lizard skins, the hot desert wind brings unbearable heat.

Fortunately, the merchant, who was a little well-bodied, had prepared a water bag and washed fruit that had just been replenished from the oasis to quench his thirst and heat and to pass the deep fatigue of a long business trip.

Santos brushed off the white wrap and let the sweat run down his cheeks. One hand loosened the rope around his waist, and with the other he picked up the water bag and poured a mouthful of spring water from the water bag, not caring about the droplets of water wetting the linen shirt on his chest.

The desert is unusually hot at midday, especially for a fat merchant with a huge belly.

"The sun is blazing, damned Salem and Sasham, who are going to war in the month of Opani (the second month of summer), may fire and sand curse the two savage scum tribes that roam the city of Nome. ”

The objects of his curse, Salem and Sasm, are two giant tribes of desert nomadic elves near the city-state of Nome.

Although the land was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Nome, the consuls of the city-state apparently lacked the ability to restrain the nomadic people who came and went like the wind and had no fixed residence.

Nome's army, mostly garrisoned by shield-wielding swordsmen, lacked mobile cavalry. In this way, if the army wants to deal with the ringworm disease of these empires, it will have to use the power of the spellcaster.

However, in order to subdue such a large tribal group, at least a plurality of spellcasters must be involved, and it may even be necessary to have a legendary-level spell master to take action.

In this desert-covered world, there seem to be many sources of spells, but even magic can't violate the first law of thermodynamics.

In addition to the innate spell-casting race's spell-like abilities and some beings that can communicate with the mysterious "source" in the multiverse, mobilize spell energy.

As for the magic net, there has never been any gods in the field of magic in this world at all, and even the belief aspect of this world is the same as its own natural environment - here is a desert of faith.

Naturally, there is no magic web that is commonly woven by the gods in charge of spells that are common in other worlds.

Most of the human spellcasters in this world have the ability to extract the life force or soul energy of living beings in the surrounding environment to convert it into magic, and this method of casting spells is said to come from Atas, another main material plane that is also composed of deserts[2].

This method of casting is obviously very limited in desert areas. There are few areas in the vast desert where vegetation and species can carry high-level spell releases, which requires the caster to carry the obsidian orbs that are poured into the slave's soul in advance to extract energy or directly extract their own life force to cast spells.

Although there is a solution, but a spell is a life, or even more slave lives, such a price is not cheap, and some non-evil camp spellcasters will even choose regular psychological treatment after using this method of casting.

Coupled with the origin of this method of spell casting - those spellcasters who have begun to take an interest in exploring the multiverse and have crossed paths with the world of Atas at least at the level of legend or above, must have understood the tragedy caused by the misuse of this method of casting in the world of Atas - the collapse of the ecosystem and the mass extinction of species.

Therefore, mages who cast spells in this way will first learn to refrain from doing so, and they will try to control their spellcasting behavior other than research. Unless it is a forced battle, the caster tries to avoid all fights, after all, no one in their right mind wants to watch the world they live in go to ruin.

Therefore, the powerful spellcasters of Nome City only have a strong deterrent power on the surface, but for the conflicts between the tribes outside the city, the consuls still lack the ability to mediate and intervene, and in most cases, such conflicts between tribes will be allowed to occur if they do not expand.

"The blazing sun and the hot wind will always stop the fighting tribes from fighting, and it won't hurt Nome's interests too much. ”

This was the final verdict of the Archon Nome on the conflict between the two tribes

But unlike the optimistic predictions of the Archons and the schadenfrequency of the citydwellers who gloated over ignorance, Nome's caravans hated inter-tribal conflicts.

It's not about morality and kindness, it's just about their vital interests.

"Normally, as long as the tribe pays a certain amount of tolls, the trade route can be safely passed, but now when encountering the tribe's patrol, all the goods will be demanded and even looted and slaughtered. These damned tribesmen, who are too poor to put together a suit of armor, become extremely greedy when it comes to the war!"

Santos Ben Dzose, leaning out from his pavilion and looking at his caravan in the blazing sun, thought helplessly.

Originally, in order to save water and avoid the sun, the caravans in the desert traveled at night and rested during the day.

However, now that the trade routes had been altered by the wars of the tribes, the merchants had no choice but to take dangerous locations that they would not normally pass through.

If you rush to these areas where you can't afford to buy a detailed map, it's easy to get lost if you still go out day and night.

Getting lost in the desert and encountering a sandstorm are two of the most dangerous situations that are equated. In order to avoid getting lost and to catch up with the delivery time, the "Sand Rhino Caravan" can only travel during the day, when it is easy to distinguish the direction, while enduring the heat.

"In such a high temperature, the merchant will lose a group of caravan slaves, and he will have to spend money to buy them when he arrives at Noam. Damn tribal wars, may fire and sand curse you!"

... Dividing Line...

[1]: Tip discharge is a discharge phenomenon that occurs in the sharp part of an object under the action of a strong electric field. It is a type of corona discharge. Tip discharge occurs when the charge at the tip of the conductor is particularly dense and the electric field near the tip is particularly strong.

[2]: An arid world of Atas, originally a rich blue ocean planet, but uncontrolled magic stripped it of its life force, turning it into a land scorched by the sun and abandoned by the gods without water and hope (the world of the Remnant Sun). Psychic superpowers are highly developed in Attas, even in animals, and each individual is born with one or two wild gifts. However, compared to psychic abilities, Artas's spellcasting form discovered by a Perrin (villain boss) is more well-known to all planes, and unlike most worlds, the magical energy they use is derived from absorbing the life force around them, which allows them to quickly gain a large amount of mana, but excessive use can turn the entire planet into a barren landscape.