Next.

Ji Chen walked out of the lord's mansion with a refreshed face.

There is also a lot to do today.

Last night, word came from the underground cavern that several kobolds had been found who had entered the mysterious cave entrance due to the tremors and disappeared.

It's just that Ji Chen was busy last night and couldn't get out.

I'll put this matter aside for the time being, and I'll deal with it this morning.

In his life, he also experienced the beast-eared mother for the first time, and he was too excited for a while.

Don't blame the lord for not doing his duty, just blame the beauty for being too coquettish.

Ji Chen was in a very happy mood at this time, and leisurely took Alice and the others to the entrance of the underground cave.

At this time, the entrance to the cave has been expanded many times because it is convenient to transport mineral resources, and the collected resources are concentrated here from the underground and then transported to the territory.

"Your Excellency!" The two kobolds guarding the door of the cave saw him coming, and their eyes were both fanatical and awe-inspiring.

Ji Chen waved his hand casually, flattered them with two encouraging words, and then got to the point.

"You found those kobolds last night, where did you find them?"

"Report to your lord, found it in a branch cave below the entrance of that cave."

Ji Chen nodded, then stopped asking, and led the army into the cave.

He's going to meet the kobolds and ask for more details and more.

One of the largest underground caverns.

Several kobolds with hungry and thin yellow faces, withered faces, and skinny bodies were brought to the front.

They saluted in fear, almost bending their heads to their waists.

Ji Chen looked at them and couldn't help frowning.

Didn't he remember that more than twenty kobolds were missing? Why are there only a few of them?

With this question in mind, Ji Chen summoned a kobold consul over.

"Why are there only these kobolds and the others?"

"My lord, when we found them, there were only a few of them left, and the others were missing."

"We also asked the other kobolds where they went, but as soon as they heard the question, they became emotional and couldn't continue to communicate..."

Ji Chen nodded, looked at the kobolds in front of him, and waved his hand to signal them to get up.

"I've wronged you this time."

As soon as these words came out, these kobolds suddenly burst into tears and wept silently, "We have had such a hard time during this time, we can only eat the mushrooms growing in the cave when we are hungry, and we can only suck the water droplets on the rock wall when we are thirsty.

If we find us any later, we will starve to death! ”

Ji Chen was a little silent.

He had basically given up on the idea of looking for it before, and only symbolically sent a few teams of kobolds to find it.

But I didn't expect these kobolds to be so fateful and still be able to hold on until they were found, it's really strange.

It wasn't until these kobolds finished complaining that Ji Chen continued.

"Don't worry, you don't have to worry about food in the future, the territory will definitely fill you."

"I have a question for you now... Where are the dozen or so kobolds besides you? ”

"Missing, or... He's dead? ”

As soon as the words fell, they all looked frightened, covered their heads with their hands, curled up on the ground and shivered, their bodies twitching.

This appearance startled Ji Chen, he didn't expect the reaction to be so strong.

It was like thinking of something that terrified them so much.

Just when Ji Chen was at a loss, Alice walked up, "My lord, let me try to calm their emotions." ”

Ji Chen was stunned for a moment, but quickly understood the reason.

Alice's singing can bring living beings into beautiful illusions, and may be used to soothe these emotionally frightened kobolds.

With his permission, Alice stepped forward.

The song slowly sounded.

There is no mana mixed in it, but even so, the song is incomparably beautiful, more ethereal than the voice of a lark, and more tactful than the voice of a cuckoo.

Even people who don't have musical cells can feel the beauty of this singing.

Gradually, the kobold lying on the ground and convulsing, his body no longer trembled, but pricked up his dog ears to listen to the song.

Seeing this scene, Ji Chen's face was overjoyed.

And it worked!

Several kobolds stood up from the ground, their faces gradually calming down.

The end of the song.

Alice stepped back.

At this time, the fear on the faces of several kobolds had dissipated for the most part.

Seeing this, Ji Chen cautiously asked again.

This time, although there was still a little fear on their faces, they were no longer emotionally uncontrollable.

Under his guidance, he told the story of what he saw and heard that day before he was saved.

"After the passage back was blocked by the shaking that day, we found a new cave that had appeared due to the collapse, and we thought it was another exit, so we went down together."

"When we went down, we found that it was also a cave... Walking around the inside, we came to a very large underground space, which was ten times larger than here! ”

Hearing this, Ji Chen subconsciously looked around.

The place where they are now is the largest of this underground cavern, the area is almost a football field, ten times larger than here, isn't that tens of thousands of square meters?

"The cave is connected to hundreds of large and small caverns embedded in the rock face, and there are obvious signs of living creatures." Speaking of this, a look of obvious horror appeared on the faces of these kobolds,

"Before we could explore, a large number of lizardmen rushed out of those caves, and when we saw this, we ran away, but when we escaped, a few of us and the other kobolds got lost."

"Because we were unfamiliar with the environment, and we didn't pay attention to the direction of escape when we escaped, we ended up getting lost, hiding in an inconspicuous cave, and finally being found."

"The other lost kobolds must have been eaten by those lizardmen! Woo woo woo~"

After listening, Ji Chen breathed a long sigh of relief.

Good guys, I didn't expect there to be such a story in it.

Beneath this underground cavern, there is an even deeper cavern, in which another race lives, the lizardmen.

The funniest thing is that the kobolds have lived here for hundreds of years, and while they are constantly digging caves, they have not dug a passage to the lizardmen's caves, and the two have lived peacefully for so long.

Until an earthquake shook a narrow passage that connected the two caverns.

And there's the lizardmen down there...

Ji Chen felt a little interested in his heart, and his face was serious.

"Anina, you go back now and bring an army and garrison it in front of the hole."

"If you find any creature that wants to come out of it, it's not a friendly unit, and you won't be spared!"

"Yes!"

"Kobolds obey orders!"

"Now put down what you're doing and start a thorough inspection of the cavern to see if there are any other passages to the Lizardman Cave! Report as soon as you find it! ”

"Yes! My lord! ”

Interested is interested, but at the moment he knows almost nothing about these lizardmen, so naturally he can't take it lightly.

Soon, under mobilization.

Anina led hundreds of troops into the cave.

Hundreds of kobolds went deep into the caves, even the abandoned ones, and examined them carefully.

Three days later.

Check the results.

In addition to the passage that was first discovered, a passage to the bottom of each of the two caves was discovered.

One of them was even four or five meters wide in diameter.

But it seems that the lizardmen didn't notice it.

After getting the news.

Ji Chen decided to start exploring the lizardman cave immediately.

According to the kobold's description, there are at least a thousand lizardmen living in that underground space.

Such a large force that does not know whether it is friend or foe cannot be ignored.

After all this time, the passage formed by the last vibration should have stabilized and will not collapse easily.

On the morning of the fourth day.

Ji Chen gathered all the troops that could fight on land and entered through the largest passage.

Follow the sloping down passage all the way down.

I don't know if it's his delusion, but I always feel that the further down I go, the higher the temperature becomes.

Beads of sweat still broke out on his head.

After thinking about it for a while, Ji Chen thought of the crux of the problem.

Beneath this mountain is a dormant volcano.

Now they're going down, it's like going deep into a volcano, so it's normal for them to get hot.

Two hours later.

The passage came to an end, and suddenly a magma pool appeared in front of me.

Under the dark rock wall, the red magma flowed slowly, and the air was blurry to the naked eye, and the gurgling magma exploded from time to time, splashing on the rock wall.

As soon as I arrived, the temperature skyrocketed to a very high level.

Within a few seconds, his back was completely soaked, his forehead was sweating like rain, and his mouth was dry.

As the master of the tides who controlled the water, Ji Chen instinctively felt disgusted here.

If there is no water, his combat effectiveness will be directly ninety percent.

Not only that, but there seem to be some problems with the army.

Although the Naga Berserker and Dragonblood Fishmen are all amphibious combat arms, it does not mean that they can be active for a long time in high temperatures.

Especially in this magmatic environment, it has been weakened a lot.

Although they can still maintain their combat effectiveness, they have also become a little cowardly with the naked eye.

It's important to see that it's time to do it quickly...

Ji Chen saw these in his eyes and said secretly in his heart.

Look around and look for a way forward

This space is not complicated, and there is a stone bridge above the magma pool, which allows you to continue deeper across the magma pool.

Without a moment's hesitation, he waved his hand and led his army along the stone bridge.

There are some traces of artificial carving on the stone bridge, guardrails carved from the whole rock, some lines carved on the guardrails, and some quite primitive patterns on the bridge deck.

While moving forward and observing, Ji Chen had a preliminary understanding of the civilization level of this lizardman civilization in his heart.

The stone bridge is not very long, and it comes to an end after ten minutes, and there are no lizardmen on the way.

At the end is a long, narrow walkway that winds and is less than five meters wide.

On one side is a rock wall, and on the other side is a cliff with a river of magma flowing below.

"The Naga berserkers are in front, the dracads are ready to support in the back, and the rest are following me."

After a brief arrangement of the formation, the group continued to move forward.

The walkway is upward, and the lava flow on the side is getting smaller and smaller, and the overall temperature is slowly decreasing.

This made Ji Chen more and more sure of what he thought in his heart.

They should now be on their way to that huge underground space.

After all, those kobolds didn't see the existence of magma.

This means that the place where they encounter the lizardfolk should be a relatively high place.

In this way, the lizardfolk don't like too hot environments.

Thinking of this, Ji Chen drove the army to speed up.

Another hour forward.

They finally stopped seeing the presence of magma.

The temperature has also returned to a tolerable range.

After passing through a passage again, a space the size of a football field appeared in front of me.

On the rock walls and the ground, there are some faintly fluorescent grass plants that light up the entire space.

A group of bipedal, ugly-looking, slender, tailed creatures appeared not far away.

Ji Chen narrowed his eyes when he saw this, as expected, this should be the lizard man that the kobold said.

【Lizardman】

[Race]: Lizardmen

[Rank]: 3rd Order: 5 stars

[Skill]: Night Vision (Blue Skill, able to see objects in dim environments)

Dormancy (blue skill, able to enter hibernation state, greatly reducing energy consumption)

Heat-resistant (blue skill, the scale armor on the body can well block heat)

[Class Characteristics]: Forging (Lizardmen are naturally good at forging, and the forging of their respective iron weapons is at your fingertips)

[This year's mushroom harvest is not very good, and the dormancy time will increase again]

Although these lizardmen have a third-order 5-star rank, in terms of skills, they don't seem to be very good at fighting.

Anyway, the characteristics of the class attracted Ji Chen's attention.

Forging?

It reminds Ji Chen of the dragon slaying sword.

The dragon-slaying sword obtained from the dragon's nest on the top of the mountain has not been able to be repaired due to the lack of skilled blacksmiths.

And since these lizardmen have such a class trait, maybe they can help fix it?

Not only that, but with the expansion of the size of the territory and the increase in the working population.

The consumption of various iron tools has also increased, especially iron pickaxes, iron axes, etc.

And the current blacksmiths of the crown of the sea are all given by the system at the beginning, and the Hanseatic Chamber of Commerce is given for free.

But there are only a dozen of them, and the forging speed is limited.

Now it's not the tools waiting for the people, but the people waiting for the tools.

If we can subdue these lizardmen, let them turn into workers, and forge tools day and night, maybe we can solve the current dilemma.

In an instant, Ji Chen had figured out the usefulness and whereabouts of these lizardmen.

There was a hint of a capitalist smile on his lips.

Without the slightest cover, he slowly walked over with the army.

On it together