Chương 170: 170：The Silver Vein

Meanwhile, at the dormant volcanic crater. This was the absolute, beating heart of Greywater Village: the Blast Furnace Forge.

"Hahahaha!! Praise Lord Soren!" The Hobgoblin, Luger, was laughing maniacally. His soot-caked face was completely twisted in pure, unadulterated ecstasy. Four towering, massively built Kodos let out low, rumbling snorts. From the heavily reinforced flatbeds behind them, tens of thousands of pounds of bluish-black, premium raw Black Iron Ore cascaded down into the sorting bins.

This ultra-high-purity iron ore, freshly hijacked from the orcs, sent a thrill of absolute euphoria straight to the core of the veteran master craftsman. Surrounding him, two hundred and eight shirtless, sweating goblins were frantically operating massive bellows and heavy pulley levers. The natural geothermal heat surging from the dormant volcano below had been brilliantly channeled upward, creating a roaring, perpetual core for the blast furnaces. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

But what was even more awe-inspiring was the literal mountain of captured gear resting beside the furnaces. Over seven hundred sets of heavy black iron armor and massive battleaxes were being relentlessly tossed into the boiling, molten iron to be reforged. In this era, iron was equal to gold. Serfs often had to till the earth using sharpened bones, and even regular human knights were lucky to possess a half-plate of steel.

Iron ore was the absolute lifeblood of any faction, hoarded and guarded with terrifying zeal. But with these seven hundred sets of heavy armor melting down, combined with the staggering influx of raw ore... it meant that for a very, very long time, Greywater Village would absolutely not suffer from a metal deficit. Soren navigated the ringing, deafening forge and stepped up right behind Luger. He understood exactly what this massive foundation of resources meant.

As military-grade iron production reached maximum capacity, the scrap metal and low-grade slag were systematically siphoned off. They were endlessly cast into heavy iron cooking pots, razor-sharp cleavers, sickles, saws, and even iron nails to reinforce roofs. These tools flooded into the hands of the commoners. In this brutal age, possessing a sturdy iron pot and a meat cleaver that didn't chip was more than enough to skyrocket a peasant family's happiness and loyalty to the heavens.

"My Lord! Look at the sheen on this!" Luger held up a freshly forged, triangular armor-piercing bodkin arrow like he was presenting a holy relic. This was the specialized ammunition designed specifically for Ein's second-line Longbow Battalion. Soren took the arrowhead, testing its razor-sharp edge with his thumb, and nodded in deep satisfaction. He then reached into his waterproof inner pocket, retrieving a rolled-up parchment. He spread it flat across the heavy anvil.

It was the spoils he had captured from the orc mining camp: the [Misty Swamp Mineral Distribution Map]. Soren placed his finger firmly on the map. He pointed to a region three miles south of Greywater Village, a sector marked by steep, primeval forest cliffs.

"Luger, look here. What is this?" Luger followed Soren's finger. The exact second his eyes processed the topographical markings, the Hobgoblin—who possessed the [Master Craftsman] Talent—began to breathe heavily. His jaw dropped open in sheer horror and disbelief.

"N-no... impossible... How could this geological structure possibly nurture..." Luger snapped his head up, his lips violently trembling.

"And the sheer scale... an untouched, massive, raw vein of... Silver?!" Soren stared directly into Luger's eyes.

"You know the value of silver far better than I do."

"It isn't just something we can melt into currency to trade with the outside world. It is the absolute foundational material for a Mage to construct high-tier arcane arrays." In Soren's mind, the terrifying visage of the Shadow Priest Zagar and his monstrous Son of Titan surfaced. In their last encounter, though Greywater Village had won, it had been a desperately close call.

"More importantly," Soren's voice turned incredibly grave.

"In the brutal wars to come, if we encounter undead or shadow-elemental armies... pure silver-plated arrows and silver daggers are the absolute only physical weapons capable of tearing through their ethereal bodies!" Soren heavily clamped his hand down onto Luger's bony shoulder, officially entrusting him with the monumental task:"From this day forward, this mountain silver mine falls entirely under your jurisdiction, Luger!

Your goblin tribe is granted absolute authority to spearhead the prospecting, extraction, and smelting operations!" Hearing those words, Luger felt his heart violently slam against his ribs. The sheer excitement was suffocating. For centuries, across the entire continent, goblins were the absolute universal synonym for despicable, greedy, and untrustworthy bottom-feeders, slaughtered by other races on a whim.

Yet, the young Lord standing before him had just handed him the keys to a literal mountain of sky-shattering wealth... without a single microsecond of hesitation! Luger's face flushed bright red. He threw his head back and let out a raw, lung-tearing roar:"WE WILL EXTRACT AN UNIMAGINABLE FORTUNE OF SILVER FOR YOU WITHIN THREE MONTHS!"

"I, Luger, swear upon the Earth Mother! Even if every single one of my people dies of exhaustion inside those tunnels, we will absolutely never fail to deliver the military supplies our brothers on the frontlines need!" Meanwhile, on the southern side of Greywater Village, inside the elevated stilted workshops, an equally fiery scene of production was unfolding. THUD! THUD! THUD! The rhythmic, heavy pounding of wooden mallets echoed endlessly.

One hundred and seven elderly and frail Half-Elves were currently bustling around their workstations. Soren had systematically integrated them into the fourth-line logistics reserve. With their addition, Greywater Village's total logistics personnel had swelled to a massive three hundred and thirty-eight people. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Sprinkle the water evenly! Do not let the cotton clump up! Bring those wooden mallets down and compress it hard!" Fina Hawthorne paced briskly between the rows of long wooden tables, a charcoal pencil in one hand and a thick ledger in the other. She exuded the flawless, commanding aura of a top-tier head steward. In the absolute center of the workshop sat a literal mountain of raw, white cotton—the massive logistical aid provided by the merchant Thomas from Lone Cliff.

An elderly Half-Elf crone, her hands heavily lined with wrinkles, tremblingly stroked a freshly compressed piece of cotton armor lining. This specific lining had endured a brutal cycle of soaking, rolling, crushing, and finally, insanely dense stitching. Its sheer tensile toughness was genuinely staggering.

"Can this thing... really stop a blade?" The old crone pinched the dense fabric. Even back in the Silvermoon Kingdom, commoners could only ever dream of wearing cheap linen or rotting animal hides. Fina snapped her ledger shut and walked over with a warm smile, handing the crone a cup of hot water.

"It won't just stop a blade. It's so lightweight that even an elderly grandmother like you can wear it without getting tired."

"Lord Soren issued an absolute military mandate: All one thousand, one hundred and eighty-three souls residing in this village—regardless of age, regardless of gender—must be issued a personalized set of Cotton Armor!"

"It is designed to fend off the freezing winter, and save your life from a cleaver." In the corner of the workshop, several Half-Elf toddlers were wrapped tightly in freshly tailored cotton scraps, sleeping soundly on moisture-proof wooden floorboards. The old crone looked at her peacefully snoring grandson. In the outside world, they were nothing but despicable, lowly 'mongrels.' But here? Lord Soren didn't just give them a roof and hot soup. He was equipping every single one of them with custom armor.

Even an old, useless woman with little value left like her was treated with the exact same dignity. The highest stilted wooden cabin in Greywater Village. Soren sat at the head of the long oak table, his hands steeped together beneath his chin. His piercing gaze swept down both sides of the table, evaluating his absolute core high command. Gary, Meyer, Ein, Kyle, Renn, Buck, Darion, Victor, Luger, Fina, Lyra... and the newly sworn Half-Elf Supreme Commander, Ilya.

Soren's voice rang out with absolute, undeniable authority:"Our population has surged to nearly one thousand, two hundred souls."

"Therefore, our military structure requires a slight... adjustment." The atmosphere inside the grand hall instantly turned razor-sharp and suffocating. Every single commander snapped their spines rigidly straight. Even the normally eccentric, grinning Luger instantly wiped the sleazy merchant smile off his face.

"Gary. Meyer." Soren called out the very first names. Two men, bearing a slight familial resemblance but radiating entirely different auras, took massive strides out of the formation.

"Here, my Lord!"

"The two of you are hereby removed from the frontline elite vanguard." Those words hit the room like a thunderclap. The absolute silence was shattered by a collective, internal gasp of shock. Gary whipped his head up, his eyes instantly swimming with profound devastation. The frontline vanguard was his entire life. Deep in his bones, he craved the blood, the mud, and the brutal adrenaline of a close-quarters melee. But he aggressively bit down on his jaw. He didn't utter a single syllable of protest.

He simply bowed his head in absolute, unwavering obedience to his Lord's command. Soren's razor-sharp intuition flawlessly caught Gary's devastation. He slowly stood up.

"Gary. I know you feel wronged."

"In the past, we suffered from a severe lack of manpower. I had absolutely no choice but to use you as a heavy infantry shock trooper."

"But your Talents are [Terrain Mastery]—an advanced branch of Guerrilla Warfare—and [Trap Intuition]!"

"Shoving you into a heavy shield phalanx to trade blows with orcs... that is a catastrophic, unforgivable waste of your Talents!" Soren pointed a rigid finger directly at the Hobgoblin standing at the end of the table.

"From this day forward, Gary, you are officially appointed as Greywater Village's Captain of Trappers!"

"You will resume your previous expertise. You will coordinate directly with Luger's engineering corps to drastically expand the lethal trap networks surrounding our territory."

"I want any enemy who dares to set foot near Greywater Village to lose half their men before they even catch a glimpse of our shadows!" An epiphany struck Gary like lightning! The suffocating devastation in his chest instantly evaporated, replaced by an immensely heavy, blood-pumping sense of absolute responsibility. He violently slammed his fist against his breastplate:"Rest easy, my Lord! If anyone dares to storm this village, I swear I'll make them leave their intestines in the swamp!"

"As for you, Meyer." Soren turned his gaze toward the slightly lean, unassuming Intelligence Officer. Meyer had always been a man of few words. But his utterly unique combination of Talents—[Chameleon], [Linguistic Mimicry], and [Photographic Memory]—made him a literal apex-tier, born spymaster.

"You have been acting as a glorified messenger. That is vastly under-utilizing your potential."

"I am officially allocating two hundred and eight third-line Goblin Scouts to your direct command." Soren leaned forward, his eyes burning with absolute ambition.

"I want you to take those two hundred goblins and scatter them across the entirety of the Misty Swamp! You are going to construct a flawless, omnipresent intelligence network that answers only to me!" Meyer sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air. He offered a profound, ninety-degree bow.

"It shall be exactly as you command, my Lord. I will become the all-seeing eyes hidden within your shadow."