The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

The caravan that Leo joined was not a caravan of a local tribe, but a mixed caravan formed by people from different small tribes. Caravans like this are rare in the city-states in the eastern part of Savile. But the city-states in the west can be seen everywhere.

In addition to the fact that most of the tribes in the western part of Savile are mainly small tribes, it is also because the Saviles here often come into contact with the Mariss and the Delites, and are more or less influenced by them. Some influences, the traditional tribal concept is also weakened a lot.

The caravans of these small tribes are willing to take the risk of encountering sand robbers and man-eating fog, and also take the dangerous business route of the Little Gus Desert. .

The western city-state area of ​​the Savile Kingdom is jointly ruled by seven large tribes with a very long history. Nearly 80% of the government officials and military officers here are from these seven large tribes. These seven large tribes also control the entire western part of the kingdom. It is regarded as its own property and will not allow other newly rising tribes to step in and take a share of it.

Therefore, these seven large tribes with a long history adopted the method of marriage with each other to integrate the seven large tribes into one, and jointly suppressed the small tribes in this area. The most effective and obvious means of suppression was taxation.

Caravans belonging to large tribes only need to pay a very small amount of commercial tax when they enter the western city-states, and they can pass through smoothly. If there are more city-states, more commercial taxes will be paid. Often, the commercial tax to be paid for a commodity exceeds the value of the commodity itself.

In this way, it is difficult for the goods of the small tribe caravan to compete with the goods of the big tribe caravan in terms of price. If it is not that those people in the big tribe are too greedy and always shoddy, the quality cannot be compared with the goods of the small tribe In comparison, maybe the caravans of the big tribes have completely monopolized the business of the entire western city-state.

In order to survive, the small tribe can only find another way to find a reasonable and legal way to avoid business taxes. Taking the dangerous business route of the Little Gus Desert is one of them.

After Leo joined this caravan composed of several small tribes, the words he heard the most from the Savile population of these caravans were words cursing the seven major tribes, and the people of these small tribes had no scruples Speaking these words in front of a stranger like Leo, it can be seen that the dispute between the big and small tribes in the western city-state has been put on the bright side.

As a condition of the transaction, the caravan hired by Leo was also used by the caravan to transport goods. These goods were some blankets woven from golden velvet. The golden velvet used to make blankets came from a plant called velvet tree.

This kind of plant is one of the few trees that can grow extremely tall in the desert. It is said that the tallest golden velvet tree can grow to about 30 meters.

The bark of the velvet tree is very hard, even with a sharp axe, it may be difficult to break through this layer of bark.

Only when the velvet tree matures, the bark-wrapped trunk will swell extremely quickly, and then the whole tree will be blown to pieces like a bomb from the inside out, and the velvet-wrapped seeds made of those trunk fibers will be here. Under the impact of a huge explosion, the seeds fly far away, but when the velvet falls, the seeds will drill into the sand again and grow into a new velvet tree.

Most of the velvet produced by the velvet tree is white velvet and yellow velvet, while gold velvet is very little, and its warmth retention is much better than the other two types of velvet. In addition, the carpet woven by gold velvet will shine in the sun. It glows, making this item very popular in cold regions like Daliat, and it became one of the most important exports of the Kingdom of Savile.

So when Leo saw that a caravan stuffed a lot of velvet carpets in his cart, he couldn't help but wonder about the goods that the caravan actually transported. After all, no caravan would put its most important goods in one The only thing that can be explained in the stranger's car that joined is that this caravan probably used Leo's pack car as a bait, which can be discarded if necessary to attract sand robbers, so that the big caravan can take the opportunity to escape.

Not only Leo saw the idea of ​​this caravan, but also the owner of the pack car he hired, so before setting off, he found Leo again, told Leo what he had found, and asked Leo if he would return. Be with this caravan.

"Don't worry, nothing will happen." Leo responded calmly.

Seeing that Leo had already made a decision, the owner of the pack car didn't say anything more, and began to prepare for departure.

The caravan did not choose to set off during the day. After that, they set off to the edge of the Little Goose Desert, and then marched along the edge towards the Little Goose River.

Leo found that he was not the only one who followed this caravan to Dry Steel City. After a little counting, there were more than 20 small teams following this tribal caravan, but these small teams did not join this tribal caravan. They did not form a joint caravan, but followed from a distance. It seemed that these small teams just wanted to take advantage of the momentum of this joint caravan to avoid the attack of the Gus Sand Pirates.

I have to say that their approach is somewhat reasonable. Although the two teams are not together, they look like the same caravan with a large number of people from a distance, and the bluff is very real.

Perhaps it was because it was only on the edge of the desert. The caravan went smoothly without encountering any difficulties. Except for a pack cart that overturned while crossing the sand dunes, almost exposing the goods in the cart, the rest of the time there was no trouble. something unusual happened.

However, although nothing unusual happened, the caravan's vigilant attitude has never been relaxed, and the request to Leo is also to let him not get off the car casually.

It can be seen that in addition to the sand robbers who have not yet appeared, the warning targets of this caravan are also those small caravans that follow behind.

Obviously, in the eyes of this caravan, the small caravan trailing behind is not a kind person. At some point, these small tribes that seem to be submissive and weak will transform into vicious sand robbers. It has appeared more than once or twice on Savile's Desert.

However, those small teams may have the same idea. They are also guarding against the joint caravan in front, and beware of the other party's turn.

It took the caravan about two hours to reach the Little Goose River, and then traveled southwest along the Little Goose River, deep into the Little Goose Desert.

Although it is called a desert, compared to the real desert like the Guja Desert, which is not only floating sand but also floating sand, the Little Gus Desert is obviously not worthy of its name.

Because of the Little Goose River and the humid monsoon blowing from the Quinsis Snow Mountain, the desertification of the Little Goose Desert is not very serious. There are still lumps of soil in most areas, and a lot of plants grow there.

Because of this, it is not difficult for the Saviles to walk through the Little Goose Desert.

The caravan marched continuously for one night, and easily completed nearly half of the distance in the Little Gus Desert. After the sun came out in the morning, the caravan did not go any further, but chose a river bend that was easy to defend and difficult to attack. They set up camp in the ground, and it seemed that they were not going to travel in the hot day.

Seeing the caravan in front stop, the team behind also stopped, but they didn't set up barracks or fortifications like the caravan in a very formal way. They just surrounded the pack carts, which was simple. It's just a fence.

After the convoy stopped, the owner of the cart hired by Leo went to the United Caravan to ask for some food, and brought some to Leo by the way. Naturally, these foods were not delicacies, they were nothing more than dry pancakes, cream and some minced meat. dry food.

Leo wasn't picky about food. After eating the hard dry food, he picked up the metal ball he bought at the Hewan Market and continued to study.

When he first saw this metal ball, he subconsciously thought it was another part of the Via spaceship, but after two days of research, he found that it was not a part, not even Via or any universe. The object made by civilization is just a metal ball.

So he put the metal ball aside and ignored it.

But when he was on the road in the bumpy car yesterday, he felt a little bored, and took out some accompanying items to sort out again, but when he saw the metal ball, he found that the pattern on the surface of the metal ball had changed a little. different.

When Leo first obtained this metal ball, it was also because he saw that the pattern on the surface of the metal ball looked like some kind of pattern containing mysterious power, but when he studied it, he found that these patterns were formed when steel was superimposed and forged There is nothing special about that metal pattern.

But now he found that after a few days, the pattern on the surface of the metal ball has changed, and there is no trace of this change at all. If Leo hadn't specifically written down the pattern of the metal ball for the purpose of researching whether there is a mysterious power in the pattern on the surface of the metal ball I'm afraid there is no change in the shape of the pattern on the surface.

Leo carefully recorded the pattern on the surface of the metal ball, and then compared the two patterns carefully, and soon found that the two sudden changes were like natural changes when some kind of fluid moved. On a liquid like paint, this should not happen to a solid metal ball like this.

However, Leo couldn't find out the reason for the change of this metal ball by any means. In his opinion, this metal ball is a metal ball made of ordinary steel. If there is a special place, it is that this metal ball is a A nearly perfect ball.

You must know that in the industrial system of cosmic civilization, it is not too difficult to make a perfect sphere, but in the rudimentary industrial stage of Vinylon World, it is obviously difficult to make a perfect sphere with such high precision. impossible things.

"Can I hide here?" At this time, a burst of hurried footsteps came outside the pack cart, and the curtain of the tent on the pack cart was raised. A Savile child looked at Leo and asked timidly. .

Although the Savile Kingdom has set up various schools in every city, because of the high school fees, not every child can go to school, so the vast majority of Saviles still inherit the tribal traditions, Take the children to do business and nomad together, and teach the children in the tribe their own knowledge.

The same is true for this joint caravan, but because of their traveling route and delivery of goods this time, there are not many children studying with the caravan, only five or six. When the caravan camped, these children bumped on the car The little ones who had been there all night were also released to move their shivering bodies.

Leo nodded and said, "Don't mess things up."

"Hmm." The child quickly climbed onto the carriage, then lowered the door curtain, moved it to the door curtain, moved a small gap, and looked outside.

The child looked outside for a while and found that no one was looking for him, so he smiled triumphantly, then turned around to look at Leo who was studying the metal ball, and came up curiously.

"Hey, isn't this the map of the Little Gus Desert?" The child said in surprise after seeing the pattern on the surface of the metal ball.

"Map?" Leo was stunned, looking at the child.

"Yes, the map!" The child stretched out his hand to the pattern on the surface of the metal ball, pointed to it, and said, "Look, this is the Little Goose River, this is the Bonebreaker Hill, this is the Sand Wolf Forest, and this is the Widow's Road." Weeping Forest..."

The child pointed out the geographical names of the Little Gus Desert on the pattern on the surface of the metal ball.

After seeing the location pointed out by the child, Leo also seemed to be inspired, and quickly compared the pattern he had recorded before with the map of the area he passed, and found that the original pattern of the metal ball he recorded was It is a map of the surrounding area of ​​Ethiopia City.

At this moment, Leo felt more and more that this metal ball was not ordinary.

"You did me a great favor," Leo said to the child, "I don't like to owe people favors very much." As he spoke, he fumbled in his pocket and took out the one he bought at the River Bend Market before. The other several exquisite wood carvings that arrived, handed them to the child, and said, "Choose one!"

These wood carvings are a set of strange objects. On the night of buying them, Leo had already learned the power details and usage methods of this set of strange objects. It is very simple to use this set of strange objects. It is enough to unleash the most primitive desire to fight and kill face to face.

After using the wood carving, the user can gain a powerful power from the wood carving, which will be determined by the beast corresponding to the wood carving.

If it was when he first came to the world of Velen, this set of wood carvings would definitely become Leo's most useful set of extraordinary wonders, but now this set of wood carvings can no longer play any role on him, it is better to use it as Give as a gift to others.

Even if these wood carvings are not strange objects, their appearance is extremely exquisite, and the carved animals are vivid, which attracts children's attention very much. After hearing Leo's words, the child was not polite, and looked back and forth at the several wood carvings, and finally jumped away from a knife-toothed beast known for its ferocity.