"Mr. Gold, please have a seat. Could you tell me about the situation at the Tata Mountains? I'm not very familiar with that area yet."
Roy snapped out of his thoughts and inquired.
Gold thanked Roy and sat down without hesitation: "That place was originally supposed to be a first-tier resource site, but ever since the chaos in the southern border and Wizard Igor's departure after graduation, it has been occupied by bandits.
We once commissioned the Kingdom Army to suppress them, but the results were not ideal."
"A Wizard's resource site could actually be occupied?" Roy found it quite unbelievable.
"To say it's occupied isn't quite accurate. It's more like cockroaches and mice have infested a house that's been left unattended for too long, stealing peanuts or cheese."
Gold shrugged helplessly.
"As you know, Wizards often live for hundreds or even thousands of years, and their concerns are far more significant.
Sometimes, we servants really have no way to deal with those cockroaches and mice."
"I see," Roy pondered thoughtfully.
Gold continued: "That place is a rare resource-producing site in this low-magic world. Many stones there have been tainted by the earth's energy, becoming something akin to enchanted items.
At the same time, there might also be accompanying metal or stone-based Wizardry materials. The nearby forests could yield useful items as well."
"It seems we'll need to recruit laborers then."
"Indeed, but you needn't worry about that. The nobles in Scarto City will take on these labor duties. If they dare to slack off, we'll simply kill them and replace them with others to govern the city."
Gold spoke calmly, his words chilling.
He then waved his hand, and a map along with several local samples were brought over by his attendants for Roy to examine.
…
After Gold had left to rest, Roy picked up the dozens of strip-shaped materials he had left behind and began appraising them.
The main specialty of the Tata Mountains was this white salt rock with black patterns, known as Cloud Stone. The pure white ones, resembling jade, were the highest grade.
This was the basic classification of texture.
Beyond that, they were also categorized into different qualities from 1 to 10 based on the degree of demonization influenced by the earth's energy.
Additionally, there were granite and sandstone.
"With the [Eye of Hermes], I don't even need to study much to easily appraise these.
This saves me at least a few years of effort."
Roy chuckled lightly, picking up the best piece of Cloud Stone strip and pondering what he could create with it.
…
In the blink of an eye, several more days passed, and it was now September 30th.
Roy led his troops to his loyal Tata Mountain quarry.
The local bandits, who had claimed the mountain as their territory, were unaware of the impending disaster and sent scouts to observe.
Atedia drew her bow and shot an arrow, killing one of the centaurs with her superior archery skills the moment they appeared.
Then, with a few whooshing sounds, Yanila fired a rapid succession of arrows, taking down the remaining three scouts with even greater skill.
She looked smug, casting a challenging glance at Atedia, who was much smaller in stature.
Atedia's face immediately turned cold.
However, moments later, feeling the reassuring weight of Roy's body on her back, she straightened up and shot a disdainful glare back.
No matter how formidable he is, isn't he still just a barbarian, unable to gain the core trust?
Roy vaguely sensed the tension between the two female centaurs, but he had no interest in dealing with such trivial matters. He simply nudged Atedia's waist with his legs and commanded, "Launch the attack as soon as possible."
"Yes, my lord!"
Not long after, a battle broke out at what was once a quarry camp.
It was less of a battle and more of a one-sided slaughter.
Roy didn't even need to intervene, simply letting his subordinates like Andov and others take the lead, and they easily wiped out the bandits.
Soon, over a dozen corpses were searched out and piled up in the open space of the quarry camp.
"Why does it feel like there are fewer enemies than expected?"
Damo looked around and asked with some confusion.
"Just now, when we killed one of the bandits, he was still shouting something about how their leader would not spare us when he returned. It seems they were out on a raid."
Winter and the others explained.
Hearing this, everyone couldn't help but chuckle.
These bandits, having run rampant for so long, had truly become frogs at the bottom of a well.
"It's a pity that I haven't yet mastered the use of the 'Transmutation Circle.' If I could extract their lives and souls, condense various seeds, there might be some decent gains.
Ah well, this is also necessary for crafting Golems. Let's give it a try.
Starting with 'Soul Transmutation'..."
Roy jumped down from Atedia's back and began to practice.
Failure, failure, failure, failure...
After a series of unsuccessful attempts, he still couldn't manage to extract anything related to the soul.
However, this time, it truly proved the saying that failure is the mother of success.
After repeated failures, Roy finally began to grasp the trick.
As a mist-like white light rose, a wisp of wandering soul was extracted from a corpse, condensing into a pale ghostly flame.
This was the lowest form of wandering soul, the basic component of spiritual entities.
It didn't involve any memories or the essence of the soul.
It could essentially be considered the surface-level spirituality.
Roy carefully sealed this ghostly flame-like entity into a crystal ball, planning to attempt crafting a Golem when the opportunity arose.
This was already close to the creation of a Soul Extraction Magic Crystal, and he was gradually mastering it.
Everyone watched this scene with awe, including the usually unruly Yanila.
Things that are beyond understanding always tend to spark the imagination.
What seemed like a clumsy attempt in the eyes of knowledgeable Wizards was, to them, undoubtedly a terrifying manipulation of souls.
With a wave of his hand, it seemed as though he could control the souls of intelligent beings at will.
"Alright, let's go check the area where the stone materials are stored.
If I remember correctly, demonized marble piled together releases extremely dangerous radiation pollution for mortals.
There are no Warlock Apprentices among the bandits, so they couldn't handle these things."
Gold said, "I've seen the map of the quarry. It should be over here."
Not long after, everyone arrived and indeed saw several large stones cut into blocks of varying sizes, neatly stacked together.
But these must have been quarried many years ago, as piles of them were covered in moss, dead leaves, and surrounded by overgrown weeds.
Roy closed his eyes and focused his senses, suddenly following the radiation of Wizardry Energy to the other side.
"This is the place."
He dr
ew the steel sword that Celine carried at her side and scraped away some of the moss.
Sure enough, a piece of crystal-clear, jade-like stone was revealed.
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