Virtual World - Earth Online
Ch 20 - Breakthrough
Not long after General Shi left, Cui Yingyu entered Ouyang Shuo's office. Ouyang Shuo smiled and asked him to sit down, laughed and said, “You seem to have come with a purpose?”
He said it for a reason. It turned out that Yingyu was a workaholic. Since this is not a modern society where women in such positions are commonplace, she must be a very strong woman to take on roles like this.
“Sister, even you made fun of me. I work very hard, all for the sake of brother territory, ”
Yingyu's face reddened as she pouted at her tease. Ouyang Shuo quickly apologized, and hurriedly said in a persuasive manner to avoid his embarrassment,
“Oke, okay. Don't upset. What are the advances in the basic mining field there? ”
He had to be careful with the atmosphere. Yingyu was effectively her younger sister, and trusted her implicitly, the best of all her staff. Being the target of his temptation was extremely embarrassing. He came here to report his work, and now it had become so awkward that he didn't know where to start.
Seeing Ouyang Shuo start talking about business, he heaved a sigh of relief. He calmed down, calmly reporting,
“3 days ago, I found the blacksmith, Master Li, and asked him to bring people to start searching the mining area. Yesterday, they finally reported back that in the southwest of the region, at the foot of the mountain, they found an open iron ore field. It was not only large in the area, but it also had a rich amount of ore, and should be very easy to collect. Some ores are exposed directly to the air, and can be simply lifted off the ground to pick them up. ”
Ouyang Shuo nodded happily with this information.
“This is good news. Although the demand for iron in the region has not been too great, as soon as we start making weapons, the demand will surge. With a good open pit mine, we do not have to worry about iron ore for a long time. Did you manage to find a talent familiar with mining? ”
“The main reason I came here today is to tell Brother that among the new immigrants there is an experienced intermediate miner named Yuan Shaoping. I suggested that he be in charge of the operation for the new base mining field. ”
Ouyang Shuo replied without the slightest hesitation, “Ya! Bring him along, no problem, then appoint him as the field manager, assigned under your Materials Reserve Division. ”
Touched by her trust, Yingyu smiled, “Thank you for your trust, big brother, hee hee!”
Ouyang Shuo waved his hand, smiled and said, “You are my little sister, I believe in your abilities and vision, just don't be too hard on yourself.”
Yingyu replied gently, between the two of them, they became much closer. Waiting until Yingyu left, Ouyang Shuo did not want to stay in the office. It was time, he thought, to look around the carpenter's workshop.
Ever since it had been given to carpenter Lu Guangzhi, Ouyang Shuo did not know whether he had learned it, or if there was any progress. The pointer carriage could be very useful in the first war, which was imminent, so he wanted to make it into production quickly! The carpenter's workshop was built on the street of the central commercial area, next to the blacksmith's shop. Ouyang Shuo walked to the wooden shop.
Master Lu was working with two disciples, working around the wooden carriage. Ouyang Shuo was surprised for a moment. Understanding the manual was not easy and he actually made the carriage pointer so fast? It's too much! One should know that this is a difficult technology to be able to work with. Ancient southbound trains made use of differential gears compared to modern compasses, which harnessed geomagnetic forces. The train uses a gear transmission system according to the rotation of the wheels to indicate the direction of the car. No matter where the car was turning, the wooden hand was always pointing south, so it was easy to use to determine the direction the carriage had to go in.
One of the apprentices looked up and saw Ouyang Shuo. He quickly warned his master who was staring fixedly at the carriage. Lu Guangzhi recovered, hurriedly bowed respectfully, and fearfully said,
“I am too focused and have ignored my master, and will accept his punishment!”
Master Woodworker Lu smiled shyly, and said, “My master has seen such an embarrassing situation!”
Ouyang Shuo did not want to get involved with manners, and pointed directly at the wooden carriage. “If I don't guess wrong, this should be the pointing train described in the technical manual? I did not expect that in just a few days Master Lu would make such incredible progress! ”
Listening to Ouyang Shuo's praise, the man's dark face instantly flushed red. It sounded so embarrassing, he said, “I'm ashamed, and not worthy of God's praise. We've been working these last days according to the book records, trying to make a pointer train. It's a pity this train doesn't really point south like the instructions in this book say it does. ”
Ouyang Shuo suddenly realized that this was just a test product, which made it much more realistic. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Lu. As far as I know, this pointing train is a very sophisticated instrument, and even with technical manuals for reference, it will not only take a short time to understand how it was made. After all, there's still time, and you don't need to be depressed, embarrassed, or anxious at all. Master Lu, learn this slowly, and maybe you can use this opportunity to raise your carpenter level. ”
Master Lu's face was slightly pale, and he said gratefully, “I thank God for his trust. I will definitely take the time to study, and try to make the right pointer carriage as soon as possible and repay the favor of master! ”
“Then I'm relieved. You are busy, so I will stop bothering you and leave! ” Walking out of the wooden shop, Ouyang Shuo simply turned around and walked to the blacksmith shop next to him. To be honest, he did not pay much attention to Li Tiezhu, the basic blacksmith. The reason was simple: blacksmiths could not make weapons or armor. At most he could make arrows, and not even the more complicated broadheads. Since military items were not allowed to be sold in the Market, God players could only obtain weapons and equipment in 3 ways.
the first way was the simplest, and that was when the military camp took out a basic set of weapons and armor. This was done when raising soldiers, such as when peasants were upgraded into militias, and given leather armor and spears. This system provided this device mostly to avoid the embarrassment of a t3l4nj4ng warrior, and could only be considered as the most basic equipment. Of course, the shortcomings of this ‘gift’ are very clear. The weapons and equipment of ‘free’ are of very low quality and are easily broken or destroyed.
The second way to get military goods is to smuggle them out of big cities, working with big businessmen. As long as the payout was worth the risk, the deep background of those cartels would take the risk. They will arrange a private shipment by land, escort it along the way, and deliver it directly to your territory. This is certainly not easy to do. First, you should contact the cartel, which requires upgrading the Base Market to the Advanced Market, which will open the 4th market platform – negotiated cooperative trading platform. Smuggling weapons and equipment is very expensive, and if you are not rich, you will not be able to afford it. Even easily smuggling something can bring the territory close to bankruptcy. The cartels were not at all generous, and were actually greedy vampires. They risk losing everything, taking the risk of sending everything to the region, so if they don't get five, seven, or ten times the profit, they won't be satisfied. Worse, cartels only sell products, they are not responsible for maintenance. After-sales service is not something they talk about.
The last way is to build your own military industry. Once he had his own military industry, of course he did not need to submit to the wishes of others. It was all on him how much he wanted and how much he would be able to produce. Although this approach looks good, it is the most difficult of the 3 paths. Wh why? Since weapons and equipment were forbidden items, any kind of advanced weapon required suitable technical manuals to be made. For things like the famous Northern and Southern Mingguang armor, you need it to make it.
In general, such technical manuals are not available in the Basic Market. There is only one place to buy it. That means an upgrade to Medium Market, and the opening of the third platform – limited-time auction platform. The game will hold a time-limited auction periodically on that platform. During the event, there would usually be some rare items.
In the past, most of the technical manuals for weapons and equipment had come out of auctions. Ouyang Shuo clearly remembered when the first auction was held in his past – at the beginning of the third month. It was also the official opening day of credit points and the game's currency trading platform. Returning to reality, Ouyang Shuo's plan to start a weapons workshop really required a sophisticated blacksmith to manage it. Hence, he did not have any expectations from Basic Master Li. So, he did not expect that with a simple visit to the workshop, Mr. Li would give him a surprise.
The burly blacksmith, after seeing Ouyang Shuo, said happily, “Haha, what a coincidence! I was preparing to look for father, and did not expect master to come! ”
“Oh? I didn't know that Master Li needed to find Me, what news do you have for Me? ” Looking at the usually calm and capable blacksmith looked extremely excited, Ouyang Shuo was slightly surprised.
“Yesterday afternoon, when I was building a plow for farmers, I made a natural breakthrough in congestion, and was officially promoted to Iron Clever Intermediary.” Listening to him say that, Ouyang Shuo immediately thought of the gold-level characteristics of his territory, which was that which increased the proficiency level of the skilled population by 20%, and increased the chance of breaking through the promotional bottleneck by 10%. He had not expected it to so quickly play a role in the village, and was pretty sure it was strong enough.
“Oh, then I really should congratulate Mr Li! I'd like to ask, when you broke through, did you have any special feelings? ”
“I feel that my blacksmith skills have improved greatly. Previously, the problem that might have baffled Me now seemed as simple as up and down, just as if I had been enlightened by heaven.” About his own breakthrough, Mr. Li himself seemed to be more than a little surprised.
“Well, after all, this is a good thing. Master Li can now try to build some arrows and spears, and the territory will make use of them! ” Glad to be able to make weapons, Mr. Li is honored to be given this task. After taking his needs into account, Ouyang Shuo left the blacksmith shop.
