Cthulhu Gonfalon

The arrival of the masters of identification made the atmosphere of the exploration team a little more tense.

Because some of the management personnel had not been tightlipped enough, news like “that silver mine might contain Mithril” were spread. The contrast in the price difference between naturally-occurring Mithril and acquired Mithril was simply too great. When put into the context of how much the exploration team could gain after splitting up their findings, the difference between the two would be like eating huge chunks of meat versus only drinking a small spoonful of soup.

If a silver mine was really one that had naturally-occurring Mithril, its total value would not just be 20 thousand, it might possibly worth even more than 200 thousand—of course, liquidating the Mithril would be more troublesome, and it would take time to gradually hype them up. The Mithril had to be sold in batches too. The entire procedure might possibly take ten, or even 20 years before the Mithril could generate cash. But no matter what, the money would reach them sooner or later. Even if the money did not reach them when they were alive, they could bequeath it as a legacy to their future generations after they passed away. With the Republic of Northwest backing them up, no one could think of cheating them of their due share of the money.

So everyone very much hoped that the silver mine they found was one of naturally-occurring Mithril. At the thought of possible benefits, even Hopes could feel his heart start to race faster, and he started to experience some shortness of breath. Only the loathsome tycoons like Dudu, who never lacked money, would not be bothered at all. This guy even had the time to make fun of everyone by saying things like “don’t take money too seriously.”

But this was not about taking the matter seriously or not; that was a lot of money! It would truly be very serious if all the Mithril was changed to gold coins!

At that time, this was Hopes’ response, and it got everyone laughing out loud.

Amidst their nervous anticipation, the two masters of identification finally arrived. Because they were worn out by the long journey, they rested for three days after arriving at the camp. On the fourth day, they set out to the cave.

This was not something within their control. The two masters of identification were not young. Being on the road for seven to eight days straight in this extremely cold weather had truly exhausted them. If they did not take a break, it was highly possible that they would fall seriously sick, much less get work done.

Fortunately, after ample rest, the two masters of identification had fully recovered. Together, they followed the joint exploration team to the cave, and of course, they did not travel on foot. Instead, they were brought there by the team.

Undoubtedly, there was no other way to do this. The location of the cave was relatively remote, and the mountains nearby were steep. Although both masters of identification were still healthy, there was no way they could get in. In truth, only a handful of people in the entire joint exploration team were capable of climbing into the cave.

This time, Clito would be the one in action. These two masters of identification were definitely qualified enough for a Legendary Master like him to personally render them help.

With his help, not only did the two masters of identification enter the hole smoothly, even Hopes and company easily entered the rather steep cave almost effortlessly.

It was close to noon, the time where there was the most sunlight. But inside the hole, it was pitch-black. There was only some light near the entrance. As they went further in, they could hardly see their fingers before them.

This situation was almost the same as when Hopes first came here. However, he had mesopic vision, so even if he was in such a dark environment, he could still roughly see what was going on around him. This was the reason why he could explore the place without a hitch.

The two masters of identification certainly did not have his ability of mesopic vision, so Hopes hurriedly took out the sunstones that he had prepared beforehand and mounted them onto several places of the cave walls. These stones could emit soft white light like sunlight, so like torches or wall lamps, they lit up the dim cave.

With the light from the sunstones, everyone could clearly see that on the wall of the cave not too far ahead, there was a vast expanse of bright silver light.

That was the vein of silver ore that was mixed with Mithril. Although this was not considered a big piece, it was worth a fortune.

The two masters of identification took a short break, then walked up to the wall with their tools. They used tiny chisels to cut a few pieces of silver-gray ore from the wall, then used some special tools to examine the silver ore.

The identification process took several hours, during which they did not even stop for lunch. They were done with all the identification work only when the sun started to set.

Both masters had another round of discussions and finally reached an agreement.

“It’s naturally-occurring Mithril,” they announced as such. “Though not in great quantity, the quality is quite good. With the use of magic, we should be able to extract it more smoothly—but the silver mine will be destroyed.”

Silver compared to Mithril was simply like soil compared to gold, especially when this Mithril was of the most precious forms of naturally-occurring Mithril. This was why there was simply no one who put the ordinary silver to heart. If they were destroyed, so be it. No one would feel sorry for the silver at all.

The first step of the job of the masters of identification was completed. But they were not able to return just yet. They had to stay in camp for a while.

Because the exploration team had to convert to miners on a temporary basis to extract all the precious naturally-occurring Mithril from this vein. Bit by bit, they would examine the extracted Mithril. Their job would only end when all the Mithril extracted had been verified.

The naturally-occurring Mithril and acquired Mithril usually came together. So after they were collected, they had to be carefully identified before the refining process could actually commence.

Only the high-purity, naturally-occurring Mithril would have slightly different properties from acquired Mithril. Once impurities were found, the difference would be greatly reduced, and its value would definitely plummet.

So the exploration’s plan was to dig for ore bit by bit along this vein. And they would do their best to make every single piece as small as possible. Once a bifurcation of the mineral vein was spotted, or when places that could possibly affect the purity of Mithril were found, the team would bring the pieces to the two masters of identification for confirmation. This was to ensure the purity of the mineral ore.

As it should be, the high value of the naturally-occurring Mithril was largely because of the high level of difficulty entailed in its mining and refining works.

Without any professional master of identification to make decisions and give commands, it would simply be unrealistic to want to extract the high-purity, naturally-occurring Mithril!

Sui Xiong floated above the camp, watching how busy they were every day. They would use those handy little tools to dig up rocks from which they would dig out the silver ores that contained Mithril. Then they would carry everything back to camp on their shoulders for further careful screening. They were just like ants moving to a new house.

Of course, it would not be possible for the two masters of identification to be the only ones handling the entire screening job. They would not be able to complete everything even if they had three heads and six arms each. Hopes and the other experts in mineral processing would first conduct the preliminary screening to separate the silver ores and Mithril ores. At the same time, they would select the Mithril ores that were specifically selected from the silver mine along that mineral vein. Then, they would hand over all the Mithril ores to these two masters of identification for verification.

This was a tedious job. By the time the mining of that entire mineral vein was completed, the identification work would only be less than 10% complete.

But what other solution was there? There was no easy money in this world. Moreover, for this batch of naturally-occurring Mithril, even the trade caravan who had control over this mining area had said that there was no hurry in the exploration work. Mineral processing was most important.

Hopes and company certainly did not mind spending the whole day working on mineral processing. Anyway, they would not mind doing any form of work, so long as it was valuable work. At least, the job of mineral processing was slightly easier than exploration work.

And it should not be forgotten that they were originally trained in mineral processing and not exploration.

They got so busy that everything around them seemed to be in murky darkness. Some of them even started to feel that they were becoming cross-eyed. Just then, alarming news came along their way.

On the border between the merchant party and aristocratic party, there was an intense conflict.