Imperial Crown.

Chapter 104 Star Iron

"Stop making noise!" Raven walked out of the room with a gloomy face. The gray dwarves immediately quieted down, but each of them still looked indignant.

Eric next to him had a helpless look on his face: "My Lord Baron!"

"What happened?" Raven glanced over and saw that the gray dwarves were about to start making trouble again. He immediately said, "Send a representative out to tell us!"

Bowell stood up and said, "My Lord Baron, I want to complain to your retainers for refusing to allow us, the gray dwarves, to appraise the jewelry. This is simply discrimination!"

"Yes!" Wherever there is Bowell, there is always Sohei: "Not only that, they also prevent us from screening minerals. They know nothing about the talents of us gray dwarves!"

Raven certainly wouldn't believe their one-sided words and turned to look at Eric.

The retainer let out a sigh of resentment: "My Lord Baron, they talk nicely about identifying jewelry and screening minerals, but in the end they are just sabotaging and taking advantage of others!"

As he spoke, he spread out his palm and showed the evidence.

It was a gold ring inlaid with an emerald, but now the emerald has been pried off and the ring has been deformed.

Raven looked at Bowell with a questioning look. The self-proclaimed "very polite" gray dwarf was not afraid at all: "My Lord Baron, I didn't expect you to be such a tasteless and vulgar person!"

He walked up to Eric and took the ring in his hand. "Look at this poor workmanship. The gemstone is not even inlaid, but glued on! Look at the rough lines. It is obviously the work of a silversmith in a small workshop. If this kind of thing appears in your collection, it will be a blasphemy to your status as a baron!"

Raven looked carefully and found that what the gray dwarf said did make some sense.

Although he didn't know much about jewelry, Raven had done a lot of petty thefts during his life in Mon'en City. This kind of ring was obviously worn by the lower-class people in the city, and the gold content was very questionable. If the gems were removed, it might not be as valuable as gold coins of the same weight.

"Hmm..." Raven thought for a moment and took the ring back in his hand: "One piece of jewelry doesn't explain the problem. Let's go to the treasury and take a look together."

Led by Raven, a group of people returned to Heleti's treasure house in a mighty manner.

After a day of sorting, Heleti's treasury was much more organized than before. The gold coins had been packed and sealed aside, and various enchanted armors and weapons had also been distributed, leaving only a number of boxes of different sizes piled together.

Several boxes had been opened, revealing various jewels inside.

"Let's get started," Raven ordered.

"Ahem!" Bowell straightened his collar, strode proudly to the jewelry box, and reached out to pick up a pearl necklace: "Look, Baron, this is a pearl necklace. Judging from the size of these pearls, they are obviously produced in the Agate Lake of the Grand Duchy of Kaspersky in the Fitun City-States. They are already quite old and have obviously started to turn yellow!"

"Only a country bumpkin like Heleti would treasure it. A true noble, even when grinding pearl powder, would not use such low-quality pearls from the lake!"

As he said this, he threw the necklace to the ground like trash: "It is only worth taking the pearls and melting the gold chain in the middle to make it valuable!"

"And this, this, and this, they are all rubbish!" Bowell criticized each piece of jewelry as worthless and threw them on the ground one after another, but he still had reasons to support his criticism.

He raised his head arrogantly, his 1.3-meter-tall body giving off the aura of a 1.9-meter-tall man: "Now you finally recognize my expertise, right?!"

Although this sentence was said to Raven, his eyes were directed at Eric. Eric was so angry at his proud look.

"It's indeed very professional." Raven nodded, and suddenly changed the subject: "But should you take out the thing you just hid in your sleeve?"

"Eh?" Bowell's originally pale face suddenly turned red: "My Lord Baron, I..."

"Huh?" Raven glared.

Bowell smiled awkwardly and reached into his sleeve to take out a small piece of gold: "...this, this..."

Putting the gold into his belt, Raven's face turned cold: "For three days, all gray dwarves are not allowed to drink!"

The gray dwarves were full of complaints, and they looked at Bowell with dissatisfaction.

Raven was too lazy to care about them: "Eric, the gray dwarves can participate in the identification of jewelry from now on, but they must be searched when they leave."

You dare to steal money from me? You are the real Tian Gang!
"Yes, Baron!" Eric finally let out a breath of anger.

At this moment, Sohei quietly left the team of gray dwarves, walked to the corner of the warehouse, and grabbed a piece of black ore that looked like a coal ball.

Eric was about to shout to stop him when he was stopped by Raven.

At this moment, Raven opened the Eye of Truth and saw that there was an extremely special energy flowing in the body of this gray dwarf. The way it operated was like fighting spirit, but the properties were something Raven had never seen before.

Suo Hei took a deep breath, and his hands were suddenly covered with a layer of hot flames with orange and black colors, just like magma in a furnace, wrapping up the coal-like ore in his hand.

The fire penetrated in, and cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the ore, like the shell of a boiled egg breaking.

In a burst of rising heat, the black part of the ore's surface fell to the ground with a crackling sound, leaving only a dice-sized core.

"Hey, Baron, look!" Sohei raised his hand high: "Jewelry and the like can only be used for viewing, this ore is the foundation of your future hegemony!"

Raven's eyes lit up: "Is this... Star Iron?"

Star iron, a second-level mineral, is dark black in color, but if you look closely, you can find that its surface is sparkling with bright light like stars. It is an excellent casting material. Just adding a little bit of it during the forging process can greatly improve the quality of the finished product.

The crossbow string of Raven's crossbow was made of this metal, so it could withstand double enchantment. Eric was also stunned: "I have Iron Dou Qi, how come I have never felt the breath of steel in this ore before?"

"Because you don't have a nose as sensitive as the gray dwarves!" Sohei rubbed the tip of his nose: "Baron, can our wine be..."

"No, let's put it this way." Raven refused decisively: "If you kill one person and then save another, can you avoid the death penalty?"

"But after three days, your share of drinks will be doubled for three days!"

The gray dwarves immediately jumped for joy.

"Sohei." Raven asked, "What was that Dou Qi you used earlier?"

"This is a gift from the Lord of the Forge! It's proof of my talent!" Sohei patted his chest.

"Isn't it just 'Melting Fighting Spirit'..." Boweier curled his lips, but couldn't hide the sour taste in his words.

After the dwarves talked about it, Raven and Eric had a preliminary understanding of this fighting spirit.

This is a kind of fighting spirit unique to dwarves.

Unlike humans, dwarves rarely use God-given potions to awaken their fighting spirit. In fact, the God-given potions used on humans do not have much effect on them.

When a dwarf reaches the age of 150, he will have his coming-of-age ceremony. After going through various rituals, he may awaken his fighting spirit. A very lucky few will awaken the "molten fighting spirit" in this process.

This kind of fighting spirit is hotter and more stable than ordinary flame fighting spirit. Although it is difficult to release, it can be used extremely well for mineral refining and metal forging. The way to improve it is also unique. It needs to be accumulated and improved bit by bit through continuous refining of minerals and forging of weapons.

Therefore, it is also called "the gift of the Lord of the Forge", and every owner of this kind of fighting spirit has the potential to become a future master of casting.

This is why Sohei can brazenly say that he is "the founder of a forging family with a thousand-year heritage."

After arranging the division of labor among the gray dwarves in detail, Raven was finally able to have breakfast.

Afterwards, he continued to take care of the seriously injured soldiers as before.

It is worth mentioning that they did not encounter any harassment for two consecutive days and received food rations that were much more generous than before. The kidnapped women gradually discovered that the Eagle Army was indeed very different from the horse thieves.

So these women began to take the initiative to take on some odd jobs, such as cleaning, washing and mending clothes, cooking, and caring for the wounded, which greatly reduced Raven's pressure.

In the next few days, the gray dwarves gave full play to their subjective initiative. Bowell selected four pieces of elven-crafted jewelry for Raven from a large number of mediocre items. Not only are they of great collection value, even a layman like Raven can appreciate their beauty.

Therefore, as soon as these ornaments were delivered to Raven, Nancy "intercepted" one of them.

Those are a pair of earrings.

The main body is made of silver mixed with mithril, which looks very bright, without the dark texture of ordinary silver jewelry. Under the earrings is inlaid with a teardrop-shaped top-quality ruby ​​called "Phoenix Eye".

Raven had no objection to this. Nancy had made such a great contribution, and just a pair of earrings was nothing.

And when it was worn on Nancy's ear, it swayed like a flaming meteor, showing her lively, hot and quirky temperament, more like the lolita in Raven's impression.

If Jenny were here, she would definitely find it strange.

Although elf accessories are rare, Nancy also has a box of them. However, she has never liked such flashy things, so she rarely wears them.

Time passed and it was January 1194, 1 in the Guangming calendar, the New Year.

It was also the 30th day since Raven and others left Eagle Territory.

The casualties in previous battles were too heavy, and no one, from Raven to the soldiers, had the heart to celebrate the arrival of the new year. The dwarves' calendar was different from that of humans, so they had no idea of ​​this.

Thus, the first New Year after Raven's time travel was spent in a depressing atmosphere.

But there are good things.

With the combined effects of careful care and therapeutic drugs, several seriously injured soldiers have regained consciousness and are able to walk on their own, and the conditions of the other injured have also stabilized.

The last batch of spoils counted - the magic cores - were also sent to Raven.

Eighty-two first-level magic cores, twenty-one second-level magic cores, and one third-level magic core.

Along with the magic core, there was also a gray magic scroll.

However, Raven no longer had time to study it carefully. The soldiers were becoming more and more homesick, and Raven himself could not stop missing the Eagle Territory.

"It's time to set off."

Raven said so.

……

(End of this chapter)