Farbourg is over seven hundred miles away from the Royal City of Rheinburg and is regarded as a large city with a population of two hundred thousand. Due to its rather significant strategic position, it is a second-tier military stronghold on the western border of the Rhein Alliance and also has the function of preventing the demons in the Demon Forest from rushing into the fertile Pass Plain.
The area surrounding Farbourg is flat, and the Pass River flows around the city. The Demon Forest is more than a hundred miles to the south. As a result, Farbourg has become the most crucial supply station for many adventurers and demon hunters. The area of the Demon Forest is nearly equivalent to the entire Rhein Alliance, reaching the Pyrenees Mountains in the west, the sea in the south, and covering the entire Red Rock Peninsula in the east, with a total area of nearly one million square kilometers. Since there are few large demonic beasts active at the edge of the forest and many trade routes pass through here, it has also become a paradise for thieves and bandits.
The"war God's Hammer" weapon workshop has been opened for a month. Initially, such a name full of dwarven characteristics was just to get some of the shine of the naturally born dwarven artisans. But now there is indeed a dwarven artisan, Kim, along with his four apprentices working in the workshop. The weapon workshop occupies a three-story small building and is situated in the busiest block of Far. The first floor beneath the small building is the weapon storefront, the second floor is the Adventurer's Paradise, and the third floor was originally intended by Faith to be used as a laboratory, but it was aborted due to opposition from everyone and was instead used as a VIP room to receive some major clients, and some fine works made by Faith are placed there.
In a small building not far from the"war God's Hammer" is the place where Roge usually resides and also where Faith's workshop and laboratory are located. The largest laboratory has more than two hundred square meters. At this moment, a huge and complex magic array is drawn on the ground, and colorful halos are gleaming in the magic array. A cyan-white magic flame is spraying outward from the middle of the magic array, and several sets of fine steel knight armors crafted by Kim himself are being forged and heated to a red-hot state in the flame.
Faith carefully used a pair of tongs to take out a piece of armor plate and placed a magic symbol made of magic silver in a specific position. With a flash of flame, the magic symbol was firmly welded onto the armor plate. Rorge hastily handed over a small vial of blue liquid, which was the blood of an adult two-legged wyvern. The two-legged wyvern was fierce, swift, and had decent magic resistance, and was regarded as a relatively difficult intermediate-level monster to deal with. Many parts of its body could be used as magic materials, and the blood could slightly enhance the magic resistance. And magic silver, due to its very good ductility and excellent absorption of magic power, was an indispensable material for making magic utensils. However, due to its relative scarcity, the price was not cheap either. Generally speaking, the price of magic silver was about ten times that of gold of the same weight.
The blue wyvern blood dropped onto the forged armor plate and was quickly absorbed by the entire armor plate just like a sponge absorbing water. As a result, the armor plate turned into a pale blue fluorescence. Rorge took the armor plate and threw it into the magic flame again. After all the armor plates had been processed, Faith chanted a spell at the magic flame, and a pair of light blue wind wings gradually formed and flew towards the magic flame. The wind wings circled around the magic flame and rotated faster and faster. With a"boom", the flame soared like a tide, and a white light flashed on the ceiling. A barrier blocked the outburst of the magic flame. The flame storm came and went quickly and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Several blue armor plates were left on the ground. After fusing with this wind magic, due to the continuous support of wind magic energy, the weight of the entire armor plate was reduced by 60%.
At Rorge's request, a little magic silver was added to each armor plate again, and Faith simply cast an illumination spell on it once more. This time, the entire armor plate began to show a translucent pale blue, and the magic symbol formed by magic silver just emitted a deep blue light.
"Hehe, this looks much prettier. Kim! You came just at the right time. I was just about to look for you. Make these armor plates into a half-body knight's armor. Yes, it's in the style of the most popular paladin's armor this year. The chain mail at the connecting parts must be made of gold! And add more gold pattern decorations around the edges of the armor. Go and call that kid Franco, he's got a knack for artworks!!" Rorge shouted excitedly.
Dwarf Kim didn't think that way:"This won't do! The chain mail should be wound with high-quality steel wire! The most important thing for armor is protection! Protection!! I don't want to ruin my reputation!"
"Well, then wind a layer of gold wire outside the steel wire! This should be okay then. In short, all the chain mails should be covered with gold! The most important thing about this armor is money! With this layer of gold, you can have ten years' worth of ale! Tell Rence to pick a cloak that goes well with this armor, the best one! Kim! You have to finish this armor by the day after tomorrow!! If I don't see the armor, you won't get any ale to drink!! By the way, this armor is called the Blue Crystal Armor. Of course, the name still doesn't need to be engraved for now. Whatever name the customer thinks of, you engrave that. Ten gold coins for each word."
Kim mumbled as he carried the armor downstairs and finally chose ale over conscience. But what he muttered in his mouth was:"Vampire!! Man-eating pig!! Miser! Human-shaped old dragon!!"
Roge only insisted on selling high-quality and high-priced products, and the reason was very sufficient:"Those who can afford these equipments don't care about money! As long as the thing is good, they don't care about a little more or a little less. What kind of people are our best customers? Not those rich and discerning adventurers, but those rich noble young masters who have money with nowhere to spend, yes, just like Rence. Hey! Hey! Hey! Don't do it! Whose money do we make if not theirs? So we don't sell what's right, we only sell what's expensive."
Secondly, all of Roge's armors attached great importance to the appearance decoration and some impractical gimmicks. For example, this Blue Crystal Armor is extremely lightweight, only equivalent to the weight of a heavy leather armor, and both the physical and magical defense effects are good, and it is a fine piece of magic armor. But that illumination spell, after the fusion, the only function is to make this magic armor have a translucent crystal effect, and the light is more soft and alluring, but it has no practical effect at all. As for those decorations designed by Franco, except for increasing the weight, they also don't help in combat at all. However, Roge said:"One can tell at a glance that this is what paladins should wear. Is it sold to real paladins? Of course not. Which paladin would wear this? What we want to sell are those noble young masters who want to become paladins. Do you expect them to really go to some dangerous cave to adventure? They will only wear it to hunt! So the style and taste are more important, to make them look like heroes in front of ignorant girls. The War God's Hammer is not going to become a big arms dealer, but is going to become a noble brand like Purple Angel Jewelry and Shangri-La Hot Spring."
Everyone was speechless after hearing this. Since then, the nickname of the vampire Roge spread rapidly.
The business of"War God's Hammer" boomed rapidly. In the past month, although only one knight's longsword, one knight's lance, and one set of knight's heavy armor were sold(this was all the production capacity of Faith), it not only recovered the initial investment cost of ten thousand gold coins, but also made three thousand gold coins.
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The afternoon sun lazily shone on the quietly flowing Pas River, and the wide river surface was plated with a layer of glittering gold. A team of ax-lance knights with bright armor was leisurely patrolling along the river. The leading knight was wearing a dark green breastplate, and the rest were the earth-yellow breastplates of the Fahrburg Knight Regiment's regular cavalry.
The knight in the dark green armor was Kate. That armor was the half-body armor of the dark elf knight that had made him proud for a long time. It was made after being soaked in the blood of the dark elves and then enhanced with a shield magic. It had excellent various defense capabilities, especially with special effects against dark magic spells. After Kate arrived at Fahrburg, the knight commander, Lord Wennington, took good care of him and let him lead the guerrilla cavalry squadron. A Fahrburg guerrilla cavalry team usually had fifty to sixty cavalrymen, and originally, as a small team leader like Kate, he could at most lead twenty cavalrymen. Guerrilla cavalry was between heavy cavalry and light cavalry. Generally, they wore half-body breastplates, and their weapons were mostly ax-lances that were suitable for both stabbing and slashing, so they were often also called ax-lance cavalry. Guerrilla cavalry generally patrolled about three hundred miles around Fahrburg. Each time they went out, they had to survive independently in the wild for about a week. When they encountered small groups of thieves and magical beasts during patrols, they would gather and destroy them. When they encountered a large group of enemies, they would return to the fort to report. However, Fahrburg hadn't encountered a war for decades, and the guerrilla cavalry had more become a kind of training for the cavalry.
Since arriving at Fahrburg two months ago, this was the third time Kate had led the guerrilla cavalry squadron out. The sun was bright, and there were several fishing boats floating on the river, and fishing songs could be heard from time to time. By the river were green fields, and the distant Magic Domain Forest also seemed peaceful and serene. Kate was in a great mood. This was simply like a tour. The only drawback was that not even the shadow of a thief group was seen, and everywhere was a scene of great peace and prosperity. Kate calculated that it had been five days since they came out. He waved his hand and shouted,"Brothers, let's go back!" A team of ax-lance knights all turned around and walked unsteadily towards Fahrburg.
The Fahrburg Knight Regiment consists of a total of 7,000 people, including 2,000 cavalry, 4,000 infantry, and 1,000 miscellaneous soldiers. After all, it is a second-line legion. Due to living peaceful days for a long time, the combat effectiveness of Lord Wennington's knight regiment is just mediocre.
Roge and others have long been accustomed to life in Fahrburg, that is, they have figured out the local entertainment places and taverns. There are also inevitable battles with adventurers, mercenaries and the like. Except for Lord Trist, relying on Wennington's backer, they are not afraid of offending anyone. In business, after several excellent magic equipment were sold, especially after that blue crystal battle armor was purchased by the youngest son of a certain duke for 10,000 gold coins, the reputation of"War God's Hammer" quickly rose. Seeing that the dwarves were really too idle, Roge even forced and lured them to make some equipment without magic enhancements for sale. The craftsmanship of the dwarves is naturally all fine works, and every batch of goods is snapped up as soon as they come out.
At this time, on the third floor of"War God's Hammer", Roge is having a fierce argument with a small team of adventurers. This team of adventurers has nine people, which is a standard adventure team configuration. There are warriors, rangers, shooters, mages, priests, and thieves. That is, there is only one or two of each type. They have just returned from adventuring in the Magic Domain Forest and are here to exchange their adventure gains for some equipment.
What makes Roge's eyes sparkle is a bag of magical silver weighing a full two catties, as well as some more rare metals and gems. For example, an ore, deep black with a few shining golden stars. Roge recognized at a glance that this is a raw ore of high-grade star gold. This kind of gold is different from ordinary gold, but has a mysterious correspondence with the power of the stars in the sky. It is extremely rare and is an essential raw material for manufacturing magic tools related to space magic. As for the crystal nuclei and fur of magical beasts, although they are also very precious, they are far less than these metals. A fiery red bird feather worn by the female mage in the team caught Roge's attention. With the induction of mental power, Roge found that this feather has extremely obscure but flexible fire magic fluctuations.
The adventurers have taken a fancy to an extremely exquisite(a common feature of all products of"War God's Hammer") magic bow, decorated with rose branches entwined with platinum wire and purple gold wire. Matching this bow are three pale green magic-breaking arrows. Two white flying dragons made purely of magic silver are coiled on the arrows, and the four wings spread out to form the tail feathers of the arrows. The young female shooter's eyes are shining, tightly hugging this bow and arrow, and refuses to let go no matter what.
The female mage was charmed by a magic amplification bracelet. With the superb skills of the dwarves and Faith, the artistic taste of Franco, and the in-depth understanding of the dark side of human nature by Rence and Roger, this bracelet ingeniously combined the sky stone and magic silver. The whole bracelet is fully transparent dark blue, and under the action of magic, the starlight flickers from time to time. Wearing this bracelet is like wearing the night sky on the body. The female mage's eyes became as deep as the night sky. Of course, the simple inlaying technique can actually achieve the same magic amplification effect.
Women who are caught in the desire to shop have no more sense to talk about. Fortunately, although these adventurers have good strength, they are not so good at recognizing goods. Roger was sweating profusely and his fat was shaking(I don't know since when, all Roger's fat can shake as he wishes), looking extremely painful, and slowly bargaining the price down. After adding two half-body armors, four long swords, and thirty armor-piercing arrows, this transaction was finally completed, and that red feather also became Roger's spoils.
To be fair, what Roger sells are all fine items and worth that price. The main place to make money is by purchasing the spoils of adventurers at a low price. For example, this time only that star gold mine is a priceless treasure, far from being measurable by hundreds of thousands of gold coins. That bag of magic silver is worth 10,000 gold coins, and as for the magical beasts, it is also more than 10,000 gold coins. Not to mention other unknown metals and that inexplicable red feather. Intuition told Roger that the more things that you can't understand, the more valuable they often are.
Roger finally understood what is meant by"a horse doesn't get fat without eating night grass".
After finally sending off this batch of suckers, several people strolled into the VIP room, and Rence followed in with a bow and scrape.
Roger just piled up a professional smile and was about to say hello. The leading person took off the hooded robe, and a head of blond hair jumped out, illuminating the whole room. The smile was as brilliant as the sun after the rain just cleared, and the light even hurt Roger's eyes.
He stretched out a hand and said:
"Nice to see you again. I'm Ophirok von William."