Vientiane Throne of Civilization

Chapter 2054 Elf Craftsman
"How much timber is there from each year here?"

"..."

Well, looking at the wood elf in charge of managing the warehouse, who was completely speechless, Zhou Xu knew that they hadn't actually done a proper inventory check.

He was probably used to the way the elves behaved.

From the elves' perspective, when they need something, they can just come to the warehouse and take it; who cares how much there is?

In response to this situation, Zhou Xu really thought about it carefully.

From a long-term development and practical perspective, it is impossible for all the ships in the Black Sail Fleet to be made of the highest-grade spirit wood.

On the one hand, there is definitely not enough high-quality spirit wood, and on the other hand, some ships do not need it.

Take the Black Sail Vanguard as an example. In naval battles, the Black Sail Vanguard is used to charge into battle. Ships with this role are generally used as expendable resources, since they have to bear very high risks.

Of course, the Black Sail warships have self-repair capabilities, but what if the entire ship is completely destroyed and falls apart? Can it still repair itself then?
Zhou Xu didn't know much about the Black Sail warship, but he did know about enchanted inscriptions. Once enchanted inscriptions were damaged to a certain extent, they would become ineffective.

Therefore, once the Black Sail warships are damaged to a certain extent, they will inevitably lose their ability to repair themselves.

Once it gets to that point, there probably won't be much difference between overhauling and rebuilding a ship.

If possible, he wants to find the year with the best cost-effectiveness to build the Black Sail Vanguard Ship. If conditions permit, he can build one ship from each year first and then compare them.

Let's start with the earlier years. We can eliminate those from 300 years ago, and the improvement from 400 years ago probably won't be significant.

"Do you have spirit trees that are five hundred years old?"

Upon encountering this question, the warehouse manager's expression immediately furrowed.

"Hmm, there should be some, but the quantity is probably not much."

The warehouse manager said this as he ran off to confirm.

He returned quickly, so he probably didn't count them in detail, but only roughly estimated a number.

"There are probably one or two hundred."

Not nearly enough!
If using 300-year-old spirit wood requires cutting down more than 3,000 life spirit trees, then even if 500-year-old life spirit trees are thicker, at least 2,000 would still be needed.

But at the same time, Zhou Xu also realized what was happening.

[I'm so stupid. The timber in this warehouse consists of dead spirit trees. Maybe some died young, but under normal circumstances, most spirit trees shouldn't have died too early under the nurturing of the wood spirits. Spirit trees that naturally died of old age are at least a thousand years old.]

In other words, all the spirit wood in this warehouse is of very high age!!

Thinking of this, Zhou Xu's eyes began to light up as he looked at the entire warehouse of spirit wood.

"What year's timber is the most abundant in this warehouse?"

"It should be 1,300 years old."

In the short time it took to speak, the wood elf had already checked the group again and returned.

"The number of spirit trees that are 1,400 years old and 1,300 years old is about the same, both with more than 10,000 trees. Overall, there should be slightly more trees that are 1,300 years old."

Just as ordinary humans can theoretically live to be a hundred years old, but most of them die in their eighties or nineties, or even seventies or eighties, the same is true of the Tree of Life.

For the Tree of Life, 1300 and 1400 years old are considered ages at which death is not unusual. The Wood Elves have limited manpower, and they simply cannot meticulously care for every single Tree of Life; they are simply too busy to attend to them all.

Therefore, the wood elves also have their own set of ideas.

The Tree of Life 1,500 years ago was all about letting nature take its course, but only after it had passed its lifespan would they begin to take meticulous care of it.

This also means that under natural growth conditions, the vast majority of Life Trees begin to wither and die at the age of 1,300 or 1,400.

They briefly explained the situation to Zhou Xu.

Zhou Xu also expressed his understanding.

The limited manpower of the Wood Elves is a major problem. Zhou Xu has thought about this himself and concluded that he has no way to solve it.

From the current perspective, the way the Wood Elf is handled is already quite reasonable.

Zhou Xu then asked them to take inventory of the timber from different years in the warehouse; he needed an accurate number.

During the waiting period, Zhou Xu took a short break at Wright's Elf King Castle.

Upon learning this news, the people in the new district simply packed up all the documents that had piled up and needed Zhou Xu's approval and sent them to the Elf King's Castle.

Wright stared blankly at the documents that filled an entire handcart.

This match was somewhat exaggerated for him.

Zhou Xu, on the other hand, remained calm and unfazed. After all, the new district had just completed the incorporation of the elves, and there were a large number of related documents that he needed to review, which was normal.

At the same time, most of these documents are reports, simply to inform him of the situation and let him know about it, without requiring him to spend any effort to process them.

For example, the population census of the elves has been basically completed so far, and the total number of elves they have incorporated this time is 26,972.

As a loosely organized group that has developed in the form of a village or town, its current scale is a testament to the abundance of resources and comfortable lifestyle it enjoys.

In any case, this wave of incorporation has resulted in a significant increase in the total elf population within their Great Zhou.

During this population registration process, they also discovered that there were various special professions within the Elven race, and these professions all had corresponding ranks, such as Elven craftsmen, Elven apothecaries, and so on...

Among them, the one that Zhou Xu should pay the most attention to is the Elf Craftsman.

In the old civilization, equipment crafted by elven artisans was extremely sought-after. The exquisite craftsmanship was secondary; the most important thing was that the equipment crafted by elven artisans often carried the blessing of powerful magic, which was enough to significantly enhance the user's strength.

Under this premise, elven artisans are further subdivided into a series of specialized artisans such as armorers, weapon craftsmen, arrow makers, and staff makers.

Each elven craftsman has their own area of ​​expertise and profound knowledge.

In the field of enchanted equipment crafting, although the Great Zhou Dynasty has accumulated some foundation over the years, to be honest, its actual development mainly depends on Zhou Xu's research results. Zhou Xu can only increase the enchantment styles through the enchanted equipment he obtains through research.

The knowledge gained from the 'wisdom of inheritance' during this period also provided Zhou Xu with tremendous assistance.

But frankly, this is just a haphazard approach, a hodgepodge that doesn't form a coherent system at all.

The elves, on the other hand, have a heritage system! How do you make an enchanted weapon? What enchantments and inscriptions can you use? What materials do you need? There's a well-established system for all of this.

This is something Zhou Xu's amateurish methods can't pull off.

(End of this chapter)