Chapter 2784

It was still less than the 36,000 units of ore newly added each day, and around 1,000 units of Jiushui ore would still go to waste.

But it didn't matter—starting this afternoon, a batch of female miners would graduate every day, and new miners would also join every day, so within a few days there should be no more waste.

Of the 35,000 units of ore produced each day, roughly 16,500 units were given to Li Ruanyu and Shangguan Ting, leaving Zhao Chi himself with around 18,500 units.

This harvest rate was already not slow.

And it would only get faster and faster.

The Jiushui ore didn't need to be shared with Su Qin, because Su Qin's side was undergoing a transformation—later she would only need to fight. As for food, equipment, supplies, all such logistics, Zhao Chi handled them all.

Later, if Jiushui ore equipment became available, Zhao Chi would also share some with Su Qin.

And even if he gave Su Qin Jiushui ore, she had no craftsmen who could produce qualified finished products.

Giving her this ore would be pointless.

Zhao Chi walked past the wall.

The sound of mining inside grew louder.

Over a hundred mine shafts slanted down into the ground, but no miners went in to dig,

because Zhao Chi's Jiushui ore was simply too abundant—even the open-pit ore alone couldn't be fully mined.

So nearly all the miners were mining in the open pits, literally digging holes.

But once each pit was dug out, after not too long it would slowly regenerate, filling the pit back in.

The regeneration speed could only be called terrifying.

Li Ruanyu and Shangguan Ting each had roughly the same number of miners, distributed in a southern and a northern zone, with female subordinates of the two of them leading soldiers to stand guard around each zone.

After all, quite a few of these miners were slave laborers, so guards had to be assigned.

A large number of wooden carts were parked beside the mine, with basket after basket of ore being continuously dumped onto the carts.

Every time a cart was filled, it would immediately vanish, transported to Li Ruanyu's or Shangguan Ting's territory.

This situation had already lasted 2 days in the great world, 6 days in the Penglai world.

So Li Ruanyu and Shangguan Ting had each already received close to 50,000 units of Jiushui ore.

By now they should have produced quite a bit of Tier 3 equipment, and their strength was steadily rising.

Zhao Chi's side was also getting started.

The blacksmiths were all practicing with Jiushui ore.

But Tier 3 ore combined with the extreme heavy-grade difficulty was simply too hard—it still needed a period of practice and improvement.

Zhao Chi was in no hurry.

This kind of thing required accumulation.

For now, steel-made ones were already very good.

Jiushui ingot equipment… wasn't to be considered for now.

And it wasn't only the blacksmiths who needed practice and improvement.

The smelting workers' manpower and skills also needed improvement.

The unit of ore was the basket.

Every 1 basket of ore, once handed to the smelting workers, after purification and smelting, would finally yield 1 finished metal ingot.

So in theory, Zhao Chi's territory could now obtain 18,500 Jiushui ingots every day.

Unfortunately, that was only in theory.

In reality, the 300 female smelting workers in the territory simply couldn't smelt them all.

The smelting speed was almost the same as the mining speed—very slow. On average, each female smelting worker could smelt 3 Jiushui ingots every 10 hours, which was 6 in a 20-hour day.

300 female smelting workers could smelt 1,800 Jiushui ingots per day.

It wasn't enough.

It was only just enough for the blacksmiths to practice with.

If Zhao Chi spoke up, Li Ruanyu and Shangguan Ting would certainly send smelting workers to help him smelt, but Zhao Chi couldn't do that.

Under normal circumstances, Zhao Chi would definitely have asked them to help.

But now it was wartime.

It was a critical juncture of the war.

Better to let the two of them smelt and forge some Jiushui ingots and Jiushui equipment for themselves.

Letting them boost their strength more was better—the stronger they were, the stronger Zhao Chi was.

The inspection of the mine was finished.

Zhao Chi was at a loss again about what to do.

He had that feeling of drawing his sword and looking around in bewilderment.

How about… going to fight the werewolves?

That sounded good.

But now Li Ruanyu had already brought him to the very front line—though it looked the most dangerous here, it was actually hard to find an opponent.

After all, the front of the battle line was the place where both sides least dared to act rashly.

He couldn't go to other places either.

At the front line he was even less free—he could only wait for orders at the forward camp and couldn't go out at will.

Here it was actually less free than Iron Bridge Village.

If he were at Iron Bridge Village, Zhao Chi could still take on patrol or infiltration missions; here he could only stand off against the werewolves in place.

If Zhao Chi asked Li Ruanyu for an order to go out, he'd certainly get one—in fact, he could even issue one to himself in Li Ruanyu's name.

But there was no need for that.

So what should I do?

Go produce high-quality Mystic Maiden Armor to speed up equipment turnover?

Also feels it's not very necessary.

If nothing else works… practice martial arts?

Right!

I can start practicing combat skills now!

Thinking of all this, Zhao Chi suddenly felt a surge of excitement.

The idea that had been suppressed inside him for the past few months suddenly resurfaced.

Zhao Chi had originally wanted to be a fierce-general type of lord.

It was just that later, the brilliance of the Taoyuan Clan completely overshadowed him.

Moreover, he could pilot Gu Qing and the others, so he never had to take the field himself.

Coupled with the fact that more and more outfits needed his crafting later on, he could only completely become a support-type lord.

Now that there's a chance.

Then… give it a try?

Practice!

But what weapon to practice?

Practicing the bow is good — it can deal ranged damage, and is relatively safe.

But his female soldiers are all charge-type, so when they all rush forward, him standing alone in the back shooting arrows always feels a bit inappropriate.

On top of that, a bow's normal attack can only hit one enemy at a time, so its damage efficiency isn't that high, and among the weapons in this world, the bow naturally has the lowest attack power, so Zhao Chi doesn't like it much.

Melee weapons are still better.

Then which melee weapon to use?

With all attributes at 11 points, Zhao Chi can already wield all weapons, including the extremely heavy ones.

Among all weapons, the fastest attack speed belongs to the sword and the saber.

The dagger is of course faster, but Zhao Chi definitely won't consider it.

The strongest attack power, and the strongest impact, belongs to the hammer.

The second strongest attack power, with unmatched and highest destructive power, is the axe.

For the longest attack range and the ability to strike first, that's the spear — and the spear's attack speed is also quite fast.

Each weapon has its own characteristics.

It mainly depends on which one suits his attributes.

Zhao Chi's attributes are all 11 points — they suit everything.