Evolving by devouring from a young dragon

The Jin family wasn't idle either.

Durrom sent a memorandum of understanding on trade route cooperation, officially opening the three eastern trade routes to the Sunken Tribes. The first caravan of magic crystal mines has already departed from Silver Vein Outpost for the heart of Eberon, escorted by the Goldfinger family's trade route guards.

The gold badge serves as a pass, granting exemption from all checkpoints and priority passage.

In exchange, the Golden Finger family only needs the Sunken Tribe to provide a fixed amount of refined magic crystals each year.

It's not ore, it's a refined magic crystal.

Alduin was very satisfied with the exchange: "We have refined magic crystals. Giving them trade routes is worth far more than magic crystals."

This provides another option.

Alduin was in high spirits. He had a huge surplus of magic crystals that he couldn't use up, and these trade routes could help him convert magic crystals into combat power. The only cost was some magic crystals.

In the seventh month, Auduin began modifying the equipment; to be precise, it was Krieg who was modifying it.

As a dwarf runemaster, I was quite interested in these high-tech devices, so I got to work on them myself.

The three magic energy surveying instruments left behind by the Deeppulse Merchant Guild were disassembled one by one, and the core rune sequence was re-engraved in Krieg's hands.

It took quite a while, but it's finally finished.

The geodetic ley line scanning frequency of the surveyor was recalibrated, changing from the original one-way detection to two-way feedback, which can simultaneously identify the distribution of mineral deposits and magical energy density deep underground.

The resonant crystal disk of the scanning array was re-carved with a new layer of runes, which was superimposed on the original calibration runes, turning it into a simple underground magic fluctuation monitoring array.

This is how he explained it to Auduin:

"The surveying instrument was originally only for finding minerals, but after the modification, it can detect in advance if someone is digging a hole underground within a radius of fifty miles."

The scanning array is even simpler; as long as someone uses a third-tier or higher spell below the sinking basin, the crystal disk will light up red.

Turning exploration tools into early warning devices is truly ingenious.

Auduin was somewhat speechless about this.

He has sound wave perception; although it cannot cover the entire subsidence basin, it can perceive most of it.

Therefore, it's impossible to hide such things from someone who's getting close to him.

But then I thought about it again. All these exploration tools have already been used, and we know exactly what mineral deposits are here. In addition, there is a set of exploration equipment left over for backup.

In this way, it doesn't matter, and it saves me trouble, allowing me to better serve the development of the territory.

However, Grimm was very worried about this.

He couldn't help but ask, "What if the Shenzhen Chamber of Commerce asks about this?"

Krieg flicked the old rune chip he had removed with his finger, his tone flat:

"The exploration contract has expired, and the equipment is our legal asset. Do we need to submit a report to DeepPulse to dismantle our own equipment?"

Grimm thought about it and agreed that it made sense.

Furthermore, since the great dragon didn't say anything, there's even less of a problem.

A month later, Grimm used the Golden Finger Trade Route for the first time to transport the refined magic crystals of the Sunken Tribes to the heart of Eberon.

The caravan was escorted by guards from the Golden Finger family, and the customs clearance speed was almost twice as fast as expected.

The Jin family indeed wields considerable influence on East Third Road. At all checkpoints, those displaying the Jin family badge are granted passage without inspection or stopping.

From that day on, the Sunken Tribe's ore exports completely bid farewell to the black market middlemen of the past.

In the past, selling minerals required going through unofficial channels, with middlemen taking 60% of the profits, leaving only 40% in hand.

Now that trade routes are open and we can directly connect with buyers, our profits have more than doubled.

Meanwhile, rare materials other than refined magic crystals began to appear in Alduin's dragon nest.

The meteorite ore was transported from the Dwarven Mining Town via the Deep Vein Mine; the high-purity magic alloy plates were brought along by the Goldfinger family in a caravan; and there was also a small batch of rune etching tools, which Grimm specially ordered from the Eberon Magic Equipment Shop.

It's said that the price was so high that it made him so distressed that he couldn't sleep.

The contract records for these materials all state "procurement of industrial equipment for the Orc tribe" or "materials for tribal infrastructure," and there is nothing unusual about the names or quantities.

No one knows that some of them are being slowly absorbed into the scales and bones of a dragon in its lair.

Alduin used the last batch of alloy plates to complete a full feeding and hibernation. When he awoke, the patterns on his dragon horns were a bit deeper than before, and the edges of his scales had a very faint dark gold hue.

He lay prone in the dragon's nest, scanning the entire basin through sound waves.

Three modified surveying instruments are operating normally in the mine, and a caravan is setting off from the Silver Vein outpost toward the heart of Eberon. The magic crystal reserves in the tribe's warehouse have doubled compared to six months ago.

Only then did he have to admit that the golden banquet hosted by the goblins was indeed something special.

He originally only wanted to use the Fire Spirit to take a look, but unexpectedly, it brought him a lot of benefits, both directly and indirectly, and the benefits were continuous.

Most importantly, not only did he benefit, but the goblins also did not suffer any losses.

It's like the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce, which lost its equipment and then paid 20,000 ordinary magic crystals.

Twenty thousand magic crystals plus a set of exploration equipment is indeed "small change" for a conglomerate of Deeppulse's size.

Their investment in the mithril mines in the Northland was twenty times that amount, and the profit from any single arms order in the dwarven mine tunnels was more than two thousand.

Vickers had a very clear understanding of the costs and benefits when he signed that contract.

For 20,000 magic crystals, you can gamble on the priority acquisition right of a dragon crystal mine. The odds are as high as one to one thousand. If you win the gamble once, the Deep Vein Chamber of Commerce can turn the tide in the dragon crystal market.

This was just a reasonable investment failure.

Moreover, from the perspective of the Deep Pulse Chamber of Commerce, they did not completely fail.

Through this collaboration, they confirmed the existence of a well-organized and powerful orc tribe in the sinking basin, the existence of the legendary shaman, and that the stable production capacity of other mineral veins was within a predictable range.

This intelligence alone is worth a sum of money.

So when they confirmed they hadn't found the Dragon Crystal, their reaction was very pragmatic.

In his project summary report, Koren wrote: "The mining area has stable production capacity, and the reserves of conventional magic crystal ore veins can be mined for more than ten years. The tribal power is assessed as upper-middle level in the region, providing a basis for long-term cooperation."

Within three months of submitting the report, the Shenzhen Pulse Chamber of Commerce proactively sent a new letter of intent for cooperation.

This time, it's not an exploration contract, but a normal business cooperation.

The revenue sharing ratio for each of the three major modules—priority for mine transportation, joint identification of ore quality, and supply of spare parts for magical equipment—is clearly stated.

Viktor deliberately added a handwritten note at the end of the letter: "Wishing you a pleasant collaboration."

Auduin smiled.

He had to admit that there was a reason why the goblins were able to become the richest people on the continent.