Lord blessed by the elves

Chapter 37 The Existence of Dragons
“This…this…” Rezael felt his tongue was tied in knots. He turned his head sharply to look at Kruze in disbelief, his voice trembling with shock: “Brother! How long has it been?! You…you must have received the blessing of the God of Forging, right? How could this be done so quickly?!”

He clearly remembered that less than ten days ago, this place was so clean that mice could run around in it.

This speed and output have completely exceeded his understanding of the work of a blacksmith!

Seeing his brother's shock, Kruse showed a tired but satisfied smile.

He did not receive any divine blessing; it was all due to his incredibly efficient, almost cheating, forging methods.

First, he drew on the concept of "assembly line" from his previous life.

He was only responsible for the most crucial, labor-intensive, and technically demanding part—forging and quenching. All the auxiliary processes, such as working the bellows, preparing charcoal, processing the initial iron blanks, making the spear shaft, wrapping the handle, and even the final sharpening, were all left to the old blacksmith Miller and a few clever apprentices.

This greatly saved him time and energy.

Secondly, and most importantly, he successfully condensed his fighting spirit, and his strength, endurance, and perception of fire and metal far surpassed those of ordinary blacksmiths, making it easy for him to continuously swing his hammer at a high intensity.

Secondly, there's that magical system reward hammer! This hammer not only subtly increases the success rate, but it also seems to have some kind of enchantment effect of "precise shaping" and "internal polishing".

The weapon blanks forged by it are already very close to the final form, requiring very little further polishing and finishing, saving a lot of tedious processes.

In this way, he could forge a single weapon almost twice as fast as a skilled blacksmith, and with much higher quality! His efficiency naturally saw an explosive increase.

“Never mind how I did it.” Kruze didn’t explain in detail, but simply patted his brother on the shoulder, his gaze sweeping over the brand-new weapons, his tone becoming serious. “Now, these belong to you. Immediately select twenty of the bravest and most steadfast reserve militiamen and distribute these spears. As for the longswords, give them to the eight best men, including yourself.”

His eyes sharpened: "Our guests may be arriving soon. These 'new toys' are a 'welcome gift' prepared for them!"

Rezal took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the shock in his heart. He nodded heavily, his eyes burning with fighting spirit: "Yes! Big brother! I promise, I'll make those scum taste these 'gifts'!"

He immediately called for help and began carefully moving the weapons.

These weapons nearly exhausted all the iron and a small amount of steel billets stored in the Lion Fang Territory's warehouse.

Looking at the empty warehouse, Kruse couldn't help but marvel at the wonder of this world and its... "uneven development".

Here, the lifeline of agriculture rests almost entirely in the hands of the elves.

Whether it's improving crop quality, increasing yield, maintaining the vitality of a pea field like a verdant oasis, or even providing the fertility needed to cultivate new fields, these amazing little creatures are indispensable.

Lands without the nourishment of elven insects are often so barren as to be hopeless, with extremely low crop yields. This is one of the root causes of Lionfang Territory's past predicament.

However, in stark contrast to the “elf-centric” nature of agriculture, the entire world’s metal smelting foundation is almost entirely derived from dragons, especially those ancient and powerful true dragons!

This doesn't mean that dragons would mine like miners, but rather that their very existence is a terrifying "resource converter."

The powerful dragons constantly radiate immense magical energy into their surroundings. Over the years, the rock strata in their long-term dwelling and sleeping nests, as well as the surrounding areas, undergo incredible transformations under the influence and distortion of this extremely high concentration of magical energy—ordinary rocks and minerals are gradually assimilated and crystallized by the "dragon vein magic."

This eventually forms dragon vein deposits with astonishing reserves and varying qualities, including but not limited to iron ore, copper ore, and even more precious magical metals.

This is also the origin of metal weapons for humans and other intelligent races—what they excavate are essentially the "legacy" left by the activities of ancient dragons or the mineral veins evolved from the scales, claws, and teeth fragments they occasionally shed.

Deep within every piece of ore, there may be a faint trace of dragon magic.

This terrifying magical radiation affects far more than just inorganic rocks.

True dragons are also "engines of transformation" in the biosphere. Monsters that live within the influence of true dragons for a long time have a high probability of undergoing horrific mutations.

They will evolve towards becoming more powerful and ferocious, and in form closer to dragons, thus giving birth to terrifying beings such as sub-dragons (highly intelligent, capable of using some dragon language magic, and even able to inherit dragon knowledge) or secondary dragons (lower intelligence, but with extremely strong physical strength, and in appearance more like twisted dragon beasts).

In this world, elves represent the laws of "life" and "nourishment," while true dragons symbolize the power of "change" and "conquest."

One shapes life at the microscopic level, and the other reshapes the environment at the macroscopic level; together they constitute one of the underlying logics of how this fantastical world operates.

Once you understand this, it's not hard to see why metal weapons are so precious here, and why a single elf insect can be the cornerstone of a small territory's survival.

………………

Deep in the dense forest, in a secluded hollow, a dozen ragged men with hungry faces were silently sharpening their rusty swords or forging stolen farm tools into crude weapons around a nearly extinguished campfire.

A sense of oppression and anxiety permeated the camp.

Suddenly, the bandits on lookout duty outside let out a short warning whistle.

Everyone sprang to their feet like startled wild animals, grabbing their weapons and looking nervously in the direction from which the sound came.

A figure stumbled out of the bushes and practically rolled into the center of the camp.

It was Kim! But he looked utterly miserable—a rough arrow had pierced his right elbow, blood soaked half his body, his face was ashen from blood loss and fear, and he was breathing rapidly like a broken bellows.

The camp leader, Durut, was a burly man with a hideous scar on his face and a fierce look in his eyes.

He shoved aside the henchmen in front of him and strode up to Kim.

Seeing Kim's disheveled escape and the loss of his companion, his already gloomy face instantly turned incredibly ugly, as if water could drip from it, and the surrounding air almost froze because of his anger.

(End of this chapter)