Crossing To The Primitive With A Game Panel - Chapter 100

Food was not lacking in the city, and they had just obtained two bottles of Growth Potion, which could barely sustain them for a while.

Now, what they needed more than anything else was iron. With iron, they could not only complete the construction of the boat but also manufacture many new weapons.

If Lu Yu’s speculation was true, then new weapons were extremely important for them. They needed more powerful weapons to face formidable and elusive enemies.

After some thought, Lu Yu entered “iron” into the game panel, and the panel quickly provided feedback.

A pale blue transparent directional marker appeared, visible only to Lu Yu, indicating the direction.

Lu Yu said, “Let’s go!”

The crowd responded loudly, “Yes!”

Following the directional marker, the group set off.

It was an inconspicuous small mountain, with only a small opening on the outside, which could not be called a cave, probably only about two steps deep, but the height was about the same as a Matai. After the directional marker pointed here, it disappeared, indicating that this was the place Lu Yu and the others were looking for.

Lu Yu had already told them what they were looking for on the way.

Shan Pu exclaimed, “Witch, I’ve been to this place before!”

Other Matais chimed in, “Yes, we often pass through here!”

The geographical location of the Matai village, or rather, the Matai city now, was also carefully selected by Lu Yu.

Behind it were a circle of high mountains and a large valley, while the front was surrounded by forests. To the right of the forest was a small river for their daily use, which would converge into a larger river.

The location of the small mountain pointed to by the directional marker was to the left of the forest, where Le Shui and the others would sometimes pass by when hunting.

A Matai hesitated, “But, Witch, we haven’t seen any iron ore here as you mentioned.”

After Lu Yu mentioned it last time, they paid special attention to the surrounding rocks, but this place seemed very ordinary.

Did they overlook it? The Matai people felt guilty.

Lu Yu smiled, “It’s not your fault. Sometimes iron ore is hidden inside the mountain and can’t be seen from the outside. We need to dig it out.”

Digging required tools, usually shovels, but Lu Yu and the others didn’t have shovels now. The few that dropped from the treasure chest were also weapons and were not handy for digging. They could only use the bone shovels made by the valley people from the hardest animal bones.

Lu Yu looked at Tai Lie, who was holding the bone shovel, and reminded him worriedly, “Be careful not to use too much force, or the shovel will break. Well, don’t use too little force either, or you won’t be able to dig. Tai Lie, can you transfer your strength through the shovel to the stone…”

Tai Lie glanced at him, “…Okay.”

Other Matais: ???

Is digging so difficult?!

Tai Lie lifted the bone shovel and swung it towards the position indicated by Lu Yu.

The bone shovel lightly fell on the stone, making a clattering sound.

Lu Yu, “Tai Lie, is it too light—”

Before he could finish his words, he heard a loud bang as the stones under the shovel fell down and landed on the ground, raising a cloud of dust.

Lu Yu was dumbfounded. He just said it casually, and Tai Lie really went all out?!

The Matai people collectively turned into little fanboys (as usual), clapping like seals, “King is awesome! King is amazing!”

Tai Lie remained calm, “Practiced it in my dreams.”

The other Matai people didn’t learn as fast as Tai Lie. After watching this move, they were immediately filled with fighting spirit and couldn’t wait to go back and practice.

Lu Yu closed his mouth, pretending to be calm, and nodded slightly, “Great, amazing.”

Tai Lie’s expression relaxed, with a hint of a smile on his face.

The Matai people who saw this scene felt a little sour in their hearts.

‘Too much, King, when we praise you, you pretend not to hear, but when Witch repeats what we said, you’re so happy!’

Lu Yu walked to the stone wall opened by Tai Lie and took a look.

“There’s nothing here,” Lu Yu said softly, but he wasn’t disappointed. Perhaps the iron ore here was buried deeper.

Sure enough, after Tai Lie swung the shovel a few more times, a little gray was revealed.

Following Lu Yu’s instructions, Tai Lie tapped around this gray area, and more and more iron ore appeared. These gray spots on the yellowish stone wall were as conspicuous as stars in the night sky.

Tai Lie tapped with the bone shovel.

Ding!

The bone shovel, originally unstoppable, unexpectedly broke!

The iron ore also fell out of the crevice in the stone.

“Such hard stone!” Shan Pu exclaimed.

Lu Yu picked up the palm-sized iron ore, brushed off the yellow soil on it, and examined it.

There was not even a scratch on the iron ore from Tai Lie’s shovel.

Is the iron ore here especially hard? Lu Yu wondered.

“Witch, with such hard stone, how can we make weapons?” Shan Pu quickly thought of this, feeling very worried. If even King couldn’t break this iron stone, the others definitely couldn’t.

Lu Yu pondered for a moment before explaining what he knew, “The convenient way is to use a high-temperature iron smelting furnace to melt the iron ore into molten iron. However, we currently cannot make such a furnace, so we can only resort to a more primitive… um… simpler method.”

Lu Yu unintentionally blurted out the word “primitive” but quickly realized that they were already as primitive as it gets…

“What method? What method?” Shan Pu asked curiously.

Lu Yu continued, “We need to find a place with natural ventilation. If there’s strong wind, we can build a furnace with mud. If there’s no suitable place, we’ll have to manually fan the flames. Then, we’ll burn the iron ore and charcoal together, which will yield relatively soft iron stones. Finally, we can forge them into the desired shape.”

Shan Pu nodded approvingly, pretending to understand, “It does seem quite simple.”

A Matai nudged his arm teasingly, “Did you understand?”

Shan Pu replied confidently, “Nope! As long as Witch says it, I’ll do it. Why bother understanding?”

The Matai was astonished, “That makes sense!”

Lu Yu chuckled, “Alright, let’s go back and discuss mining and smelting.”

Actually, this matter wasn’t that easy to handle.

During the joint council meeting of the Matai and valley people, Lu Yu explained the importance of iron ore and then hesitated, “Everyone has their own tasks to do, and I don’t want to take away everyone’s free time for this.”

The two leaders selected by the valley, one was an elderly man who had been communicating with Lu Yu all along, and the other was younger, named Wu Ba. He was responsible for making daily utensils and had excellent craftsmanship, and he was the quickest learner.

Upon hearing Lu Yu’s words, Wu Ba immediately said without hesitation, “We can do it! Witch, we’re fine! Everyone’s well-fed!”

If they were well-fed, they should work. That had always been Wu Ba’s philosophy. He himself lived up to it completely. After completing their assigned tasks each day, he would continue working until bedtime.

Deputy Chief protected them, didn’t take away their food, and even allowed them to exchange things they made for meat. They should be grateful and couldn’t slack off or rest! Wu Ba thought firmly.

Lu Yu smiled, “Wu Ba, I know your intentions. Our wish has always been to let everyone live a peaceful, abundant, and comfortable life. If everyone has to work day and night, wouldn’t that contradict the original intention of bringing everyone back from the Blackwater Tribe? Iron smelting is important, but it’s not that urgent yet.”

Wu Ba hadn’t fully recovered from the fact that the deputy leader actually knew his name and made him so happy that he didn’t know what to do, when he heard Lu Yu’s next words.

So, the deputy leader wanted to lead them to a peaceful, abundant, and comfortable life? He had always thought it was good enough to be well-fed… but could it be even better…?

Wu Ba was stunned, dumbfounded, and didn’t say anything more.

The old man sitting next to him shook his head with a smile. This kid, he was just too young to understand the deputy chief’s intentions.

In fact, many people in the valley had the same mindset as Wu Ba. Even though Lu Yu had repeatedly told them that life would get better and asked them to do their work well and rest well, they still had a sense of anxiety, afraid of being abandoned, so they couldn’t relax at all.

Lu Yu was about to say a few words to Wu Ba when suddenly a bright idea struck him.

Lu Yu changed his tone and said seriously, “However, we still need your help.”

Wu Ba suddenly snapped out of it, sat up straight, and said seriously, “Deputy chief, whatever you say, we’ll do it.”

Lu Yu cleared his throat, “I plan to let the people from the Blackwater Tribe take charge of mining and smelting.”

“W-What?” Wu Ba was taken aback.

Lu Yu exchanged a glance with Tai Lie and continued, “I propose that we let the Blackwater Tribe relocate here, but not into the city for now, just nearby, to see how they perform.”

Lu Yu had already considered it. From the look of things in the battle ten years ago, iron tools were no longer rare, so there was no need to keep this method of iron smelting a secret. Moreover, this was a labor-intensive task, so Lu Yu naturally thought it was better to let the Blackwater Tribe do this hard work than to make the valley people work overtime.

The old man and Wu Ba were not fools. They could tell from just listening how hard this iron smelting was, so how could they not see that Lu Yu didn’t want to burden them with labor.

The old man smiled, “We agree.”

Xia Cao and Shan Pu, needless to say, also agreed.

So, the matter was settled.

Time was of the essence, so Lu Yu sent the fast-paced Shan Pu to notify the Blackwater Tribe.

Speaking of which, when Mao Pu returned to Blackwater, he carried out a thorough cleansing. He also brought many slaves he had acquired, who might not be as perverted as the Matais, but they had decent physiques, so he wasn’t afraid of anyone resisting.

He identified those who were inherently bad rather than those who were forced to do bad things under the previous leader and kicked them out of the tribe.

Soon, the Blackwater Tribe became the “Whitewater Tribe.”

However, after the kidnapping incident, even though he had left the Beast Plain, Mao Pu still couldn’t sleep well every day. He deeply realized that only by following the people from Lu Yu’s tribe did he feel safe.

‘When can I move over and live with Lu Yu and the others?’ Mao Pu rested his chin on his hand, feeling troubled.