"They've been selected. There are roughly a thousand nobles."
Li De nodded. A thousand, considering Risel City had a population of five hundred thousand, that wasn't many.
"Are there any members of the Risel family among them?"
"Yes. All members of the Risel family are included."
"Good. Leave the Risel family here. The rest of the nobles are yours to deal with."
"Yes, sir."
"If there's nothing else, tie those people to the Whispering Bats. I'll be taking them back shortly."
After settling that matter, Li De's expression eased.
"Sam, I'm afraid we won't be able to continue trading armor for the next two months."
Hearing this, Sam's face became slightly panicked. "Lord Kachar, I…"
It was clear Sam believed his earlier attempt to bind Li De and the Ironhoof Tribe through the alliance had led to Li De's displeasure.
If that were true, his little scheme had backfired badly.
Li De shook his head. He had no intention of punishing this centaur Patriarch now, there would be plenty of time to make him suffer later.
"No need to panic. It's because my city is currently constructing a new district and requires large quantities of steel.
There's simply no surplus steel to use for forging weapons at the moment."
He finished speaking with a faint, half-smiling look in Sam's direction.
"If you can locate iron ore deposits in the Dwarven Hills, I'd be more than happy to trade armor for it.
The price is one suit of armor for five tons of steel. If your people don't know how to smelt steel, I can send people to help build a steel plant."
The trade wasn't just about monster pelts, he wanted much more.
Having the centaurs help him mine ore was basically the same as using beastmen for labor. The difference was, the beastmen were under his protection, while the centaurs were trading partners.
What they had in common was that he was the source of both. And it was through him that maximum profit could be realized.
Rather than surprised, Sam was actually a bit delighted to hear this.
"Iron ore can be traded too?? As you wish! I'll immediately send tribesmen to search for iron!"
There was no shortage of iron ore in the Dwarven Hills, but centaurs had no understanding of steelmaking, and they had absolutely no talent for forging armor.
Many centaurs had tried to craft armor themselves in the past, but the results were extremely heavy and not even as sturdy as monster bone armor.
Over time, no centaur bothered with such thankless work anymore.
Only one city in the Dwarven Hills, Stormwind City, seemed capable of producing usable ironware.
"Here, take these two small bats. If you find a suitable ore deposit, you can contact me at any time.
I'll send someone for the exchange."
Li De handed two small bats to Valen. Once released, they would fly directly to Dwarf Valley, where the Intelligence Division would collect the information and relay it to Dawn City.
Even if Sam harbored ulterior motives, at most he'd only be able to trace things to Dwarf Valley.
"Lord Kachar, the Ironhoof Tribe will do our best to find iron ore. I hope our trade can resume soon."
After tasting the benefits of quality armor, Sam was eagerly anticipating the next transaction. He could already picture the sight of armored centaur heavy cavalry charging across the Dwarven Hills.
"Good."
Li De didn't drag it out either. When it came to trading with the centaur tribe, he was the one reaping the most benefit. If the centaurs gained a value of 10, he was getting 100, or even 200. Their profit margins weren't even in the same league.
The reason the centaurs were so eager was because if they traded with ordinary humans, they might only gain a value of 1.
Seven thousand population, and trading 650 suits of armor for over ten thousand magic beast pelts, plus another 150 suits to exchange for humans from Risel City.
Even so, it still took more than a thousand Whispering Bats making three full trips to transport all the humans and goods back to Dawn City, finishing only deep into the night.
Thus, Li De's trade with the Ironhoof Tribe concluded successfully.
More importantly, they reached an agreement, centaurs would begin searching for ore veins on his behalf.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
The morning after Li De returned to Dawn City, December 2nd, Mohr, the elderly goblin patriarch of the Graymount Tribe who had been overseeing the alchemy factory's construction and had been disfigured by dragon breath, suddenly came to see him.
Upon meeting Li De, Mohr immediately handed him a parchment-like fragment about one-third the size of a palm.
The old goblin's first sentence made the corner of Li De's mouth twitch hard.
"Majestic, this is a fragment of the Twelve Magic Scrolls."
Li De reached out and took it, his expression stiffening slightly, quietly cursing himself.
Damn. He'd been so busy these past few days that he completely forgot about this treasure.
Back in Green City, the young goblin Yor Graymount had used a divine artifact fragment to entice him into rescuing the goblins of the Graymount Tribe.
But after infiltrating Risel City, the sudden siege by the beastmen diverted all his attention, and he stopped thinking about it.
And after returning to Dawn City, he forgot about it entirely.
Now that Mohr had reminded him, it finally came back to him.
"So many good things lately, I've been getting cocky and even forgot a divine artifact fragment."
Li De shook his head. The truth was, in Risel City, his attention had simply been stolen by Andabella's legendary cloak, and the divine artifact fragment had slipped his mind.
The moment he took the parchment-like fragment from Mohr's hands and saw its attributes, his eyes lit up.
What a treasure. What a true treasure.