Chapter 67

After subduing the skeleton spellcaster Mare, Lai Ang learned from him the purpose of the Wailing Ash Lands.

"Collect corpses and souls?" Lai Ang fell silent, pondering.

"Yes, and the task assigned to me is extremely burdensome; they hardly treat me as a person." Mare complained somewhat.

Sorry, you really aren't human. Lai Ang glanced at the silver skeleton beneath Mare's gray robe, somewhat speechless.

As for the collected corpses and souls?

They have been gathered by Mare's storage magic.

Fifth-Rank Spell·Dimensional.

Creates an unstable dimensional space where dead objects can be stored and retrieved.

The size of the space depends on the amount of magical power used—small ones are a few dozen cubic meters, large ones can be as big as several football fields.

"Your identity is still useful; don't expose it for now." Lai Ang said.

"In that case, I'll have to continue slaughtering living beings." Mare obviously had anticipated this, but if his identity isn't exposed, the mission naturally still needs to be completed.

Otherwise, Mare's fate would certainly not be good; the hierarchy among the undead is very strict.

Lai Ang gave a faint smile, exhaling white breath from his nose and mouth, and said, "This matter is simple. Two hundred li outside the Dark Scale Tribe lies a place called Moon Crescent Lake, where tens of thousands of lobster folk reside, along with many vassal monsters, plus the magical beasts and wild beasts living in their territory—more than enough to fulfill your quota."

Lai Ang had designs on the lobster folk of Moon Crescent Lake three years ago; to be precise, he was eyeing the magic stone vein they controlled.

"However, when you go there, be careful of the lobster folk chief; he was already Fifth Rank years ago, and his strength may have broken through since then." Lai Ang reminded Mare.

It certainly didn't want the vassal it had painstakingly subdued to die through carelessness.

"Don't worry, Master; I will be very careful." Mare replied earnestly.

Lai Ang reflected and realized that Mare's nature was inherently extremely cautious, so he needn't worry further.

One month after Mare became Lai Ang's vassal, his injuries had largely healed; he then led his remaining skeleton force, now numbering just over three thousand, away from the woods near the Dark Scale Tribe.

They migrated to a forest more than two hundred li away, less than fifty li from Moon Crescent Lake.

Since they traveled only at night and the distance was short, no one else discovered the skeleton army along the way.

Occasionally, nocturnal magical beasts that spotted the skeleton army were swiftly hunted down by the Silver Bone Serpent.

And Lai Ang?

He had two idle slots, one boosting Black Water Battle Qi, another boosting Acidic Dragon Breath; besides, he spent considerable time cultivating, and his strength steadily rose.

But constant cultivation is dull and boring, so Lai Ang would also find his own amusement.

For example, smelting steel.

"Build a blast furnace, add iron ore, then fluorite and quicklime; at high temperature, the quicklime becomes slaked lime, producing pig iron."

"The pig iron output goes into the boiler, which contains rusted iron powder, fluorite, some desulfurizing and phosphorus additives; through high-pressure, high-temperature oxygen blowing, the carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, etc., are reduced, yielding wrought iron."

"After the wrought iron is refined, the molten iron undergoes another refining; by adding carbon to control its content and further reducing sulfur and phosphorus, steel is produced."

In the stone-built structure, a tall blast furnace radiates intense heat.

Ai Di was instructing the monster blacksmiths in steelmaking knowledge. Lai Ang stood aside, observing the furnace. The dragon heritage is very complete, so steelmaking knowledge naturally exists.

However, for many monster races, this is extremely valuable knowledge.

This should have been taught to the Dark Scale Tribe years ago, but Lai Ang assumed they could smelt steel themselves, given that some Dark Scale warriors had worn steel armor a few years prior.

The reason they didn't widely adopt it was that they hadn't yet found iron ore.

But that was Lai Ang's earlier assumption; only recently did he learn that the Dark Scale Tribe's steelmaking technique is actually very crude, inefficient, and yields steel of merely average quality—indeed, rather poor.

How could that suffice? Lai Ang was still thinking that once he conquered the lobster folk tribe and obtained their magic stone vein, he could forge a powerful magisteel force.

With a powerful army in hand, at least in the near term, the dragons wouldn't need to worry about their own food—the monster army could hunt vast numbers of magical beasts.

In the long run, when encountering enemies, the weak could be dealt with directly, sparing Lai Ang and his fellow dragons the trouble, while the strong could also share some of their burden.

What Lai Ang and his fellow dragons invested were merely a few vassal slots and some dragon knowledge.

"This blast furnace is one I personally forged with alchemy magic; it can reach extreme temperatures. You just need to follow the steps and add the steelmaking materials, and it will continuously produce high-quality steel." Ai Di chattered on.

Moreover, he introduced the other alchemy equipment he had devised—high-precision molds, cutting machines, and so on.

The monster blacksmiths listened, dumbfounded.

With these smelting and forging alchemy tools, their efficiency in producing steel armor and swords increased by more than a hundredfold—not to mention the quality improved greatly as well.

Lai Ang looked at the somewhat dispirited monster blacksmiths and shook his head slightly.

This knowledge, in the dragon heritage, is quite basic and ordinary; it was recorded only because some dragon ancestors idly collected it.

In the dragon heritage, formidable forging knowledge basically pertains to the four major races: giants, elves, dwarves, and goblins.

Giants' secret-pattern equipment technology, elves' magical equipment technology, dwarves' refined equipment technology, and goblins' alchemy equipment technology.

Human forging technology is actually quite formidable, but most of it is also learned from the forging techniques of the four major races: giants, elves, dwarves, and goblins.

In terms of learning ability, humans are a very capable species, but in innate talent they cannot match giants, elves, and dwarves.

"However, the Emerald Dream should have formidable alchemists." Lai Ang thought to himself.

He recalled the twelve dragon fortresses in the Emerald Academy.

Being able to manufacture such an alchemical structure as a dragon fortress requires at least a Seventh Rank or higher high-rank alchemist. —This was acknowledged by Ai Di, for his current level is only just entered the Third Rank of alchemist, still far from the Fourth Rank.

"Perhaps my next vassal should be an alchemist?" Lai Ang mused.

As for where to find one?

Naturally, the Emerald Metropolis.

Ideally, bring back an alchemist of Fourth Rank or stronger to the territory; then the land's industrial standard would surely advance by leaps and bounds.

Moreover, the Stonegray Dragon Fortress could be remodeled to boost its defense and elemental concentration.

Yesterday I overslept and forgot to update.

(End of chapter)