Chapter 0618: Searching for Mineral Veins

Jialan Continent, somewhere on the west coast.

The floating giant ship flew slowly above the clouds in the sky at an extremely low speed.

Several wizards belonging to the Crimson Family walked on the deck, leaning against the side of the ship, silently looking down at the looming magical continent beneath them.

With their strength and the blessing of the eagle eye technique, they can easily penetrate the thin layer of clouds and directly see the strange natural landscape and various jungle creatures of Jialan Continent.

It's just a pity that the elves their group wants to find are not as easy as finding humans. Humans like to cut down trees near settlements to build tall and sturdy camps and buildings. So at night, as long as you climb up and look up, you can naturally find human villages and towns by following the lit lights.

But the elves are known as the race closest to nature and the most protective of the forest. They almost never cut down trees, but naturally place their villages and towns on those particularly tall and strong ancient trees.

The tree house is where the elves live.

After night falls, the elves rarely light open fires. In addition, they live in deep mountains and dense forests, so it is difficult to find them by candlelight.

And like Greem and the others, flying high in the blue sky, looking from a distance, everything is lush green, and the undulating forest sea, it is more difficult to find a trace of variegated color. Under such circumstances, it would be a fool's errand to find an elf village with the naked eye alone.

So, when you get here, if you want to find the elves, you can only sneak into the forest, learn to jump up and down like the elves, and look for needles in the vast forest!

"Taymo, can you recognize the terrain here? Before the war with the Elf King's Court, I hope to hide this floating giant ship first. Can you recommend a place?" Greem briefly glanced at the greenery. The lush forest sea asked the half-elf guide.

Of course, Greem couldn't completely trust this guy who joined halfway. While waiting for his answer, Grim also silently called up the topographic map of Jialan Continent in his mind and compared it with the long and broken coastline in front of him.

It seemed that it had been a long time since he had smelled the magical atmosphere in the magical forest. The half-elf Taimo suppressed his excitement and lay on the side of the floating giant ship silently examining the forest sea below him.

"If I remember correctly, here...this should be the white cliffs on the south coast of the west coast. The most obvious sign here is the white cliffs standing high on the edge of the coast."

Following Taimo's pointing, Greem saw a sliver of white on the edge of the cliff in the distance.

"This is the area near the west coast with the most complicated sea conditions, the densest reefs, and the least suitable area for large ships. Therefore, in this area, the probability of us encountering the Elf King's patrol will become extremely small." Taymo held his hand again. Pointing to a certain direction in the forest sea: "Going in that direction from here, you can find an elf village in about seven days. Sorry, I was talking about the time it takes to travel through the forest sea. As for riding this... this big guy, maybe It only takes half a day to arrive..."

"Elf Village..." Greem pondered for a moment, shook his head and said: "It is not suitable for us to contact the elves prematurely, but we need to find a suitable place to stay first. Taimo, is there any large-scale settlement in this west coast area? Metal veins or mines or something?”

"Metal mine caves?" Taimo opened his mouth in surprise: "There seem to be many in the middle of the Magic Forest, but on the west coast..."

The half-elf lowered his head and thought for a moment, then gestured uncertainly: "It takes about 16 days to travel north from here. There seems to be a rat mine there. As for whether there are metal veins in it, I don't know!"

"Then go there first!" Greem immediately issued the order.

After a while, the floating giant ship lifted up again, dived into the clouds, and flew quickly north along the coastline in the direction indicated by the half-elf.

After the behemoth-like floating ship completely disappeared, two elves wearing green grass and vine clothes emerged from the lush canopy of a tall ancient tree at the edge of the forest sea.

Two elves, one male and one female, stared at the place where the metal monster disappeared, with unconcealable horror in their eyes.

"What are those? Are they another scary monster created by witches?" The female elf's voice trembled, obviously she had not gotten over the fear just now.

"It doesn't matter what it is, we must pass the news of the metal monster back to the village as soon as possible. Maybe Grandpa Wenge can tell us the answer..." The male elf made a decision immediately.

"Well, let's go..."

In the blink of an eye, the two elves disappeared into the canopy behind them.

Strangely enough, in just a blink of an eye, their figures blended into the forest, making it difficult to follow their tracks.

One day later, news about the appearance of a terrifying metal monster spread throughout every elf village on the west coast.

…………

Skaven Mine.

The 16-day itinerary Taimo mentioned was only a day and a night on a floating giant ship.

If it hadn't taken 4 hours to determine the location of the mine entrance, Greem and his party would have arrived here faster.

The Ratman Mine, as the name suggests, is hidden in a dense forest, with only a dark cave entrance that tilts upwards. A large tribe of ratmen lives in it.

The elves are a tribe that pays great attention to personal appearance and cleanliness. It is difficult for them to work in a dark and damp mine that never sees the sun all year round. Therefore, the forest elves and the ratmen in the mine reached an agreement that the ratmen rely on handing over a certain amount of ore to the forest elves every year in exchange for the right to reside in the mine.

Therefore, there is no elf in the Ratman Mine. All the people living in it are intelligent ratmen who are less than one meter tall, can walk upright like humans, and use various precision tools.

These ratmen's thin bodies can't wear heavy armor at all. They just put a metal hat on their heads, and then light a thick candle on it. With this little light, they move freely in the dark and damp mine.

The weapons of the ratmen miners are basically some shovels and pickaxes. Some stronger ratmen warriors may also be equipped with "powerful" weapons such as iron swords and spears.

According to Taimo's description, Grimm can judge that the strongest ratman leader among this group of ratmen is only at the first level. The rest of the ratmen warriors and miners are either high-level apprentices or quasi-magic strength, and they are also the kind of garbage with no elemental power, only some cunning and tricks.

For such garbage, Grimm simply disdains to send out precious wizards, so he only assigned a goblin technician with five archer-type magic machines to break in.

Grimm and others found a slightly flatter place outside the mine and set up tables and chairs. Just after drinking two cups of hot tea, the battle in the mine ended.

Nearly 200 ratmen, including the Rat King, were caught in one fell swoop and beaten into sieves by the metal bullets of the magic machines. As for the metal crossbow arrows shot by the ratmen hiding in the dim tunnel, no matter how powerful or powerful the attack was, it was not enough to deal with the thick metal shell outside the magic machine.

So after being completely crushed, the archer magic machine easily slaughtered the entire ratman tribe.

And the goblin technician brought back four or five pieces of ore mined from the depths of the mine.

Grimm picked up a piece of ore, weighed it in his hand, and then held it in front of him for careful inspection.

"Ding, after testing, the ore is ordinary ore, containing 11% mineral components, and the rest are waste materials with no use value... After estimation, the mineral composition of the ore is as follows:"

"Rotite 1.42%..."

"Olivine 3.27%..."

"Pyroxene 2.86%..."

"..."

"The proportion of metal components is less than xxx%, and there is no mining and smelting value..."

After a long list of ore components, the chip also gave the final evaluation result.

The grade of the ratman mine in front of us is not high, and the most common supplies to the elves are low-level magic materials such as yellow sapphires, peridots, and agates. These things are still of some value to the elves, but they are useless to Grimm, who is eager to establish a foundation.

After testing the several pieces of ore brought out by the goblin technicians, Grimm waved his hand in disappointment, and all the personnel boarded the floating giant ship again. The bow turned and flew towards another mysterious mine in the distance at high speed.

It can be said bluntly that in order to find a suitable metal vein as soon as possible, Grimm has been a little desperate. Anyway, this is still on the edge of the Magic Forest, and the army and power that the Elf Kingdom can project are limited, which is not enough to deter their actions.

And in another five or six days, the coalition forces composed of dark witches and pale witches will arrive at the Jialan Continent by ship. At that time, they will become more eye-catching and easier to capture targets.

Presumably at that time, the Elf Kingdom would rather send its elite troops to encircle and suppress them, rather than chasing after the floating giant warship with a large army of elves.

To be honest, with strong ships and cannons, Grimm has long disdained the armies of the secular world. The only ones that can make him worry are those elemental users and the terrible elves.

But now Grimm is leading the floating giant warship to circle around the edge of the Jialan Continent, and has not made any moves to slaughter the elves. In addition, they turn around and fly back to the vast ocean from time to time. If Grimm is replaced by the elf commander at this moment, I am afraid he will not know how to deal with this inexplicable metal monster!

：. ：chapter;