Chapter 561: The Battle of Concepts

Lu Yuan squeezed into the crowd and saw a muscular Bronzebeard dwarf who was concentrating on forging a silver-white sword.

A strong red light appeared on the dwarf's body, and it was obvious that he had pushed his fire energy to the limit - judging from the quality of this light, he was a level six master.

He put all his attention into it and didn't even notice the discussions among the onlookers around him.

“Dang! Dang!”

Each strike was extremely precise, and some of the strikes were near the extraordinary veins, regulating the energy circuits.

There were also some knocks, shaping the sword.

A mysterious halo appeared with each blow of the hammer.

The carvings that were ironed out with the extraordinary fire seemed to be "beaten" into the interior of the sword. This is an advanced technique called "carving integration", which is recorded in the "Gear Treasure Book". The complex carvings are like nested gears.

The shape of this sword is obviously intended to be used in conjunction with the "Giant God Soldier". It weighs up to 600 kilograms and is very powerful.

Obviously, the dwarfs did not intend to sell it, but simply wanted to show off their skills.

"Hey, Commander Lu, what do you think of the other party's forging skills?" The ratman craftsman Shu Gongye came over and greeted him with a sly look on his face.

"The forging skills are indeed at the master level, but the creative concept is a bit outdated and has not deviated from the content of the Gear Codex... If I were to forge it, I would use some composite materials, as long as the performance is good enough." Lu Yuan touched his chin, "Now this is a bit extravagant."

“Aren’t the concepts taught by the old men from ancient times outdated?” The rat craftsman shook his head and sighed, “With the help of noble people, we can avoid many detours, but we will also become mediocre, and even become exactly the same as the civilization of the past.”

Lu Yuan sighed: "That makes sense."

People need experience to grow.

The growth of a civilization also requires experience.

Craftsmen will also be subtly influenced by these civilization experiences.

All human craftsmen are wild, with solid basic skills and imaginative thinking. There are many schools within the group, including the Green School, the Daedalus School, and the Gear Book School.

Only by learning from each other's strengths and weaknesses can the three schools generate more sparks of wisdom.

As for the dwarf craftsman, he seems to be a very strict academic, and he is indeed greatly influenced by the "Little Compendium of Gears".

"What do you mean?" Ta Gang, who was following behind him, was puzzled. "Is Commander Lu also a master craftsman?"

"Master Lu is naturally a brilliant being!"

Shu Gongye screamed loudly, looking as if his hands were itching.

This guy has been completely convinced.

Ever since the dawn of field industrialization, the rat people have been immersed in the ambition of "founding a school of thought", and their heads are filled with the four words "going down in history"!

They were eager to announce the matter immediately.

Seeing many people turning their heads, the rat man lowered his voice and explained: "This cold weapon is even legendary, but its value...

"Ahem, even a legendary blade can hardly break a shield of a lower level. Do you understand? Even an excellent or even rare shield is difficult to break directly."

Because "Solid Carving" and "Iron Wall" are both relatively basic carvings, and the shield can be stacked with materials continuously, and the mechanical structure of the shield means that its structural strength is inherently greater than that of weapons.

Therefore, the value of the legendary blade is indeed quite limited.

As the lord of Ulan City, Tagang naturally knew the reason: it was very difficult for a sword to break through a shield.

"Master Rat, then what kind of legend do you think is of great value?"

Shu Gongye said: "We are now inclined to produce functional legendary creations... For example, lithography machines. The production capacity of chips is closely related to lithography machines."

"If there is a legendary laser launcher, wouldn't it be much more meaningful than this thing?"

Lu Yuan nodded, agreeing: "Yes, in the future, we will have to build so many floating cities, so we have to increase the number of robots. So the next legendary, high-energy lithography machine is indeed excellent."

Seeing many passers-by gathering around him, Shu Gongye spoke more tactfully: "Of course I'm not saying that these magic weapons are useless. They may be quite meaningful in the North, but we are already a third-level civilization. Cold weapons are just icing on the cake."

"It doesn't seem necessary to spend a lot of money on forging... The item level of the equipment is not important! Practicality is what matters!"

Tagang was not a craftsman, so he didn't understand what was said very well and blinked his eyes hard.

Shu Gongye's words were spoken in public, so naturally they were heard by more civilized people.

Some ethnic leaders thought that this big rat was just being jealous of others, and said coldly: "You can't create a legend yourself, so you are jealous and crazy here..."

"The extraordinary level is a natural idealistic rule. Which one of them is awesome? Do you need me to tell you?"

"What do you know! I am also a master craftsman, but as an extraordinary person, I have no right to participate in gambling fights." Shu Gongye retorted bluntly.

He also contributed to the "Book of Greed" and now he wants to shock the world.

"Are you the Master?"

"That's right, this mirror was forged by me in this era. You know nothing!" The ratman craftsman took out an ancient bronze mirror from his arms and showed off to everyone.

Sure enough, the title did have meaning, and soon, those who thought he was being jealous shut up.

Some civilizations also vaguely feel that there is some truth to this, and every civilization has a similar story of "turning swords into plowshares".

Productivity is eternal. Every civilization has to make a living. Is the value of a legendary killing weapon really comparable to something that can improve productivity? They don't know.

The Hongxiang tribe and the Changmao tribe, for example, were secretly calculating - thinking about it this way, the aura of the legendary equipment seemed to have dissipated a lot.

…

…

"What are they arguing about? Have humans created legendary equipment?" Rock Fist Deep Furnace stroked his beard, sitting carelessly in a chair, playing with his mobile phone.

It feels really good to watch the younger generations struggle.

He seemed to have returned to the previous era, giving orders about the country and listening to the good news from his disciples. Those were such a free and comfortable day.

"Not yet. They seem to be making some items of unknown function."

"There are a group of ratmen who keep spreading their weird ideas." A dwarf inspector described what happened in the crowd. "Those ratmen are also aliens."

The dwarves and humans each sent 100 inspectors to supervise the items forged by the other side to eliminate the possibility of fraud.

“What he said…” Rock Fist Deep Furnace snorted coldly and picked his nose. “Although it does make sense, the extraordinary level is an iron rule passed down from the ancient era.”

"Mythical level is higher than immortality!"

"Immortality is higher than epic! Epic is higher than legend!"

"His statement is just a sophistry."

The old aliens all responded, "That's right, there's no point in comparing a sword and a shield! If you want to compare, compare things of the same type."

"Legendary weapons are better than excellent weapons anyway, but they are not easy to sell... We were just showing off our skills, but the other party was jealous."

"Where the hell are those ratmen?"

They thought of [Giant God Soldier·Immortal King], why was he only at the immortal level and could not reach the mythical level.

If...if the myth had been forged in the first place, perhaps their civilization would not have been destroyed.

This fact is like a sharp thorn, piercing deep into the hearts of these strange people, and they might suddenly wake up even in their sleep!

Now there is another group of strange people who are expressing their heretical ideas, believing that the extraordinary level is not that important. They immediately became like a cat encountering a hedgehog, and they jumped up and went to argue with the rats.

"You are spreading rumors to confuse the public. Which civilization's master craftsman are you from? Who do you think you are? Why are you talking nonsense here?" The dwarves' hair stood on end and they looked very aggressive.

"Hmph, I am a rat worker from the Shumiba Civilization, an ally of mankind! What? You don't agree? How about a fight? The loser will commit suicide by seppuku!!"

Shu Gongye rolled up his sleeves. He finally got the chance. Today, I will personally promote the "theory of greed"! The dwarf alien was a little confused by what he said. How could this guy be so powerful? The surrounding spectators were also a little shocked. The loser would commit suicide directly. The stakes were too high.

"Who is more noble than who? You are aliens, and I am also an alien, but you seem to be superior to us..."

"By the way, how many of you survived?" Shu Gongye, feeling his noble status, pricked up his neck.

Compared with the six ancient aliens on the snake man [ghost] side, he felt ashamed of himself. After all, those were all meritorious officials who had contributed to the continuation of Pangu Continent.

But facing this group of dwarves, he is not afraid at all!

"More than forty...what's wrong?"

"Then you are nothing. My Shumiba civilization has thousands of people alive." Shu Gongye raised his head, "A weak civilization that can't even count as many people alive as us rat people, yet you still want to be the senior? You are really asking for trouble."

The dwarves were so depressed that their faces turned red, and even the color of their beards changed.

They wished they could bring out the Immortal King and slap the ratman's ugly face! ...

Lu Yuan watched the aliens quarreling passionately. It was a bit funny at first, but when the situation escalated, he immediately pulled the group of ratmen away.

"Behave yourself and don't commit suicide at every turn!"

“This is not good.”

The gambling match between the craftsmen lasted a total of 7 days.

As hosts, humans prepared delicious food and living places.

The energy of both the contestants and the audience was very high. Even at night, the crowds were crowded. There were more than 300 civilizations and 200,000 to 300,000 people! And the number of floating population was still increasing. Many civilizations were rushing from afar! One day later, the first batch of dwarven products came out of the oven.

"Fire Scale Dress" - this dress is popular among the upper nobles. There are more than 40 pieces in total, and the selling price is 0.5 Lingyun, which is 50% off.

It was sold out in less than a minute!

The dwarf civilization was the first to achieve a good score of 22 spiritual charms.

"This thing is really popular!" Lu Yuan was also a little surprised when he saw this fanatical scene.

This Huolin dress is indeed a pure luxury item, apart from its good warmth-retaining properties. However, from a factual perspective, he seemed to have overestimated the spirit of these civilization leaders who were "dedicated to the people."

Most leaders of civilizations do not reject the idea of ​​their own cities developing.

However, they also have their own selfish desires. Deep down in their hearts, they do not think that spending a small amount of money to buy a luxury item is excessive.

"What's more, the market price of this thing is 1 Lingyun. If I sell it, I can earn 0.5 Lingyun. It's a win-win situation."

"Fortunately, things are valuable because they are rare. If the dwarves continue to mass-produce this kind of aristocratic clothing, they may not be able to sell it." The think tank on the human side patiently analyzed the current situation.

Everyone was getting a little nervous. The craftsmen on the human side were collectively forging a "spiritual plant field".

The process is quite complicated and theoretically takes 5-7 days, which means it can only be completed in the last few days.

This "spiritual plant field" has never been shown on the market. Even though everyone knows it is a good thing, everyone still feels insecure before the answer is officially revealed!

Soon, the inspectors sent another message: "The dwarves have changed their strategy!"

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

"Those craftsmen began to forge... something they say is called a leyline compass."

The geomagnetic compass is a unique technology of the dwarves.

It can guide the rising energy of the earth veins to create a warm area in the wild.

The coverage area can also be selected and controlled at will, ranging from 100 square meters to 1 square kilometer!

With the geomagnetic compass, the army can go on expeditions or explore without having to worry about being frozen to death by extreme cold waves.

Therefore, the "Earth Vein Compass" can be regarded as a well-known hard currency in the North, and it is also a product with a very good reputation that has been operated by the dwarves for many years!

"There's something special about this thing..." Lu Yuan took a closer look. The dwarves used some encrypted glyphs to cover up the complex energy circuits on the compass.

Humankind's research on the power of the earth veins can only be described as mediocre, so there is really no way to crack it in the short term.

"However, the issue of keeping warm has been conquered by our materialistic technology," the think tanks continued to analyze.

"I don't know if these civilizations will buy it..."

Human supermarkets offer nano-warm clothing and cheap solar backpacks.

No matter how powerful the geomantic compass is, it is still an extraordinary item. It can only be traded through spiritual energy or extraordinary minerals, and the cost is still relatively high.

Things in the human supermarket...can be bought with Green Coins.

Greenery coins can be obtained through service industries, selling labor, and trading common ores.

Its cost-effectiveness is self-evident.

Sure enough, a few hours later, the inspectors sent another message: "Their geomagnetic compass doesn't seem to be as popular as expected."

"The orders seem to be only one-third of what was expected. The dwarves are all puzzled."

This may be a dimensionality reduction attack at the cost level.

"Their rune armor has also been manufactured, 0.92 spiritual charm per piece... After our evaluation, we are selling it at cost price."

“But…it’s still not selling well.”

The human inspectors were somewhat gloating.

In fact, even forging an "inferior grade" extraordinary item is not that easy.

A craftsman’s creation requires his or her heart and soul, as well as more or less inspiration.

Inspiration is a mysterious thing, just like writing a novel. If you don’t have enough reserves, it’s easy to empty the ink in your stomach, and you may not be able to write a single word even after a whole day.

Therefore, it is impossible to make craftsmen work like cattle and horses to create an extraordinary item a day! In addition, most races are short of money, and they have to feel bad for a long time to take out a spiritual charm from their pockets. As long as they have the production capacity to replace it, the races are unwilling to buy it. This is also a fact.

…

“Why is this business so difficult?”

"Do we have to slash the price?!" The Dwarf Council Chairman was a little anxious and kept stroking his beard.

In this materialistic civilization's trading market, the purchasing preferences of major civilizations have been changed.

The original best-selling products could not be sold, and only luxury goods could barely make do.

"Sir, we have found that the cheaper the extraordinary items are, the higher the chances of them being sold."

"Once it exceeds the rare level and the unit price exceeds 5 Lingyun, the only civilizations that can afford it are the powerful races. And the big races often have production capabilities and only prefer to buy necessities that they cannot produce themselves." A logistics officer reported.

"So you mean to specialize in small items?"

"If you want to increase transaction volume, small items are indeed easier to sell."

“But our craftsmen are limited in the number of small objects they can make…their creative desire will dry up faster.”

Storm Wine was a little anxious, faced with a dilemma.

Big items can fetch a high price—if they can be sold.

For a skilled craftsman, seven days is the limit for him to create a large piece.

In the same amount of time, after making three or five small items, I would run out of inspiration and be unable to continue creating.

Small items obviously cannot be sold at a high price. Some "inferior-quality" items are priced at around 0.05-0.1 Lingyun and are relatively easy to sell.

Things like daggers and armor are easy to sell as long as they are cheap enough.

"Sir, my dwarven tribe has more than 500 craftsmen. Even if the craftsmen on the field run out of inspiration, there are endless replacements. The large number of small pieces forged can also increase the transaction volume!"

"Will this damage the dignity of our dwarven race?" The Speaker of the Council frowned slightly.

In order to increase trading volume, he produced garbage like crazy, and he always felt that something was wrong.

Another dwarf said, "Mr. Speaker of the Council, we only need to arrange 20-30 senior craftsmen to produce high-end large items, and they will serve as a facade."

"Even if these high-end goods can't be sold, at least the storefront is still up."

"The existence of high-end materials can protect the sales of low-end items."

"The number of craftsmen is also a kind of heritage. Who can blame them for not having as many craftsmen as we do?"

According to the rules, there are only 100 craftsmen on the field at most, but if their inspiration runs out, they can be substituted. If this is the case, all 500 craftsmen can play once.

After listening to this, Storm Wine felt that there was some truth in it and glanced at the old alien who was playing with his mobile phone.

The old man was speechless: "You decide for yourselves! Don't involve me in the affairs of your civilization! And don't even think of asking me to produce that garbage!"

"Then let's do this." Storm Wine gritted his teeth and finally implemented this strategy.

…

Time passed quickly, and the dwarf craftsmen were finally able to sell their goods after adopting the strategy of winning by quantity.

Even though most of the objects have a spiritual charm below 0.1, a little bit of it still adds up to a lot.

Compared to other major races, the basic skills of dwarven craftsmen are indeed quite good, and the opportunity to purchase them at a low price is still very rare.

The transaction volume slowly exceeded 220 Lingyun, a number that was simply the product of wisdom and sweat. Five hundred dwarf craftsmen were all working hard to create more than 1,500 pieces of garbage, working themselves to death to create this little income!

"Thank you for your hard work. This number is already very good! There are still two days left. Let's watch the performance of humans."

After all, the annual productivity of most weak races is only a single-digit spiritual energy, and 220 spiritual energy is indeed very good.

But the strange thing is that all the human craftsmen are forging complex and expensive large pieces! This phenomenon really puzzled the dwarves. The purchasing power of these races is really rubbish. Aren't you afraid that you can't sell them? The few civilizations that are inclined to Green City are a little worried.

"It's already the sixth day..." Tagang and the leaders of the other three human cities gathered together, looking worried. "What on earth are they working on? All the craftsmen are building big items... Aren't they asking us to increase our sales?"

"Don't worry. Even if we lose this round, the Green Market will not collapse." The leader of another city, Mailo City, shook his head. "In the second Vision War, Green City has already demonstrated their strength. As long as the dragon is alive, the popularity of the market will not fade away."

"Yes, it is said that the dragon is only in its adolescence and will continue to grow."

"That is definitely the first vision in the North. This name alone will attract a steady stream of customers. What's more, Green City's material industry is indeed quite good."

"From this perspective, the strategic goal of the dwarves has failed. Their current goal is to attract traffic to their own market. It is impossible for them to destroy the reputation of the green market."

These people explained the general idea in just a few words.

But if the third game ended in a disastrous defeat... Tagang would still be a little panicked.

"Report to the master, human craftsmen have forged good products!" A subordinate came to report.

His eyes suddenly lit up: "Let's go and take a look."

Everyone already knows what the dwarf craftsmen have forged, and they have gradually lost their novelty. The transaction volume of those small pieces pieced together is only 250 spiritual charms at most.

Now that they heard that humans had finally delivered the goods, everyone swarmed to the forging site in Green City.

The human craftsman was sweating profusely, his face was pale and he was slumped in a chair, obviously exhausted.

The objects he created were also quite magical - they looked like an exquisite and quaint green flowerpot, and above the flowerpot was a lifelike small tree carved, with water seeming to drip from the lush green leaves.

(End of this chapter)