Chapter 2605

It's not that there are none, but the number is very small—only twenty people.

The mining team has been quiet for a long time now.

The excavation captain, Xia Jing, is now like Yang Lu—both doing other jobs instead of their own proper work.

Either managing slaves in Chaoge Town, or building houses together with Fang Li's team.

Only in the first few days after the territory was first established did they mine for a short while, to make tools and weapons.

After that, Zhao Chi basically relied on seizing… confiscating the enemy's resources, or smelting enemy equipment, to obtain iron ore.

So now one could say there are basically no miners.

Right now, the main job of these twenty miners is still mining, to keep raising their skill level—this is also the goal Zhao Chi set.

But right now, manpower is short.

Since their work isn't important, Zhao Chi tacitly allowed them to help out everywhere, just like the hunting team.

Later on, they'll need to return to their proper jobs, and more miners will need to be transferred over.

But in the short term, the mining efficiency probably won't be high.

After all, the Nine Springs Mine is a tier-3 ore; mining a mineral of this level requires a stronger excavation skill, and the mining difficulty is also higher.

So in the short term… these 900,000 units of Nine Springs ore definitely can't be fully mined.

Even if they could mine it all, they still couldn't work it.

Right now, the female blacksmiths are all accumulating specialization in steel materials.

If they switch to this tier-3 Nine Springs ingot, then… they'll have to give up halfway again, and start accumulating all over.

It probably won't be too slow either.

After all, their forging ability is very strong—they just need to accumulate specialization.

However…

It is tier-3 material after all, so the difficulty will jump up another big notch.

On top of that, it's an ultra-spec, extra-heavy construction method—the base difficulty is already high.

And after Zhao Chi performed the data conversion, the entire forging method and steps became very counter-intuitive, pushing the difficulty up once more.

Now there are three layers of difficulty stacked together—it'll be even harder than making fashion equipment…

So even if they mine it in the short term, they still can't make it.