Struggle in the Steam Age

After five days of marching, Lawrence and the others had arrived near the largest volcano on the small island. This made Lawrence and the others involuntarily move a lot more briskly.

After turning over another hill, Lawrence and the others raised their heads and looked ahead. Ahead was a huge, black cone-shaped volcano. Wisps of white smoke emerged from the crater, proving that this volcano has always been active, not the kind of dormant or extinct volcano that has fallen into a deep sleep.

On a high ground at the foot of the volcano, a kobold tribe camp was firmly established there. This camp has a circle of walls made of stone and wood, and there are red scale kobolds holding pocket bows and arrows on several commanding heights looking around.

Instead of having the head of a dog, the kobold looks like a lizard with the head of a crocodile standing upright. Roughly as tall as a Ratman if not hunched over. Lawrence thinks their name might have something to do with the fact that they bark like a dog.

The average kobold likes to live in shady areas, underground, or leafy forest areas. The reason why this group of kobolds live on the edge of the forest is obviously because the dragon veins in their bodies come from red dragons, so they naturally like places with a relatively high concentration of fire elements near volcanoes.

Apart from this reason, kobolds like to mine all kinds of minerals by nature, and the active volcano behind them contains a lot of minerals for them to mine.

After discovering the camp, Lawrence and the others did not leave the jungle out of caution. Instead, at the edge of the jungle, under the cover of various plants, he took out a telescope and carefully observed the camp.

"The opponent has at least one bronze-level caster." John was the first to discover the problem. "Otherwise, with the IQ of ordinary kobolds, even if there is an organization of awakened bloodlines, it can only form several small tribes with no more than 100 per group, and at most set up some tents, instead of building such a reasonable fortification. Large stronghold."

As we all know, ordinary kobolds have very poor IQs and do not actively learn at all. However, as dragon-veined creatures, when they gather in large groups, some of them will awaken their own dragon blood and at the same time obtain the knowledge passed on in the blood.

According to experience, most of the kobolds with awakened bloodlines are only physically and mentally strengthened. The body is strengthened from the level of an ordinary farmer to the level of a trained soldier, and the intelligence is strengthened from the level of a child to the level of an ordinary person who is a bit stupid. Once such kobolds appear, some organized kobold tribes will be established.

However, if you want to build a stronghold similar to this simple fortress, it is far from enough to rely on the low-level awakened kobolds to organize it. Only with the further awakening of the bloodline, the kobolds who become dragon vein warlocks have enough IQ and appeal to gather enough kobolds to build the current fortress.

"The proportion of kobolds with awakened blood in this group of kobolds has exceeded that of common kobold tribes. I think it may be related to the special environment formed by the volcano." Lawrence directed the phantom of the fire poisonous bee to infiltrate the front stronghold Speaking later. "An average of every 10 kobolds has a guy who is much bigger than other kobolds. It should be a manifestation of activating the blood."

"10:1?" Cog put down his binoculars and looked at Lawrence. "I think it should be around 20:1, look at those patrols standing on the wall and guarding the guy on the tower, it's obviously 20:1—"

"This is just the proportion of the patrol group." Lawrence, who closed his left eye and manipulated the phantom of the fire poisonous bee to scout in the kobold tribe, explained. "Because of the magic defense, I couldn't detect what was in the largest room in the center of the tribe. However, I found a group of kobold warriors who also awakened the power of blood in the surrounding big houses."

"A group of kobold warriors." Cog turned to look at Lawrence. "Is it like the guys on the wall who have awakened blood are wearing leather armor, and there is a bronze short sword tied around their waist?"

"No, there are still some differences. I feel that the group of kobolds in the room are better than what they wear." Because there are some strange runes on the outer walls of the houses where the kobold warriors lived, Lawrence did not dare to manipulate Phantoms of burning bees enter those rooms. But fortunately, the kobold warriors living in it didn't stay there obediently, so when they came in and out, Lord Lawrence watched most of the situation in the room.

"For example, the kobold warriors in that big house wore leather armor, but there were large areas of bronze plates on the armor for protection. In addition, the weapons they used were each with an ax and a small knife. A round shield, and a dagger at the same time. Most importantly, the leather armor, weapons, and bodies of these kobolds all have gold ornaments inlaid with shining gems or semi-precious stones."

"However, the strange thing is that I didn't find a bronze smelting field or a weapon workshop in this tribe, and I didn't even see a little kobold." Finally, Lawrence expressed his doubts.

"That's because - this place is simply a kobold fortress." John said, looking at the target of his group on the volcano wall, the red cave entrance and the kobolds coming in and out of the cave entrance. . "There is a problem with the information we got before entering this space. It's not that several kobold tribes are distributed around the volcano. It's that the two thousand kobolds all belong to the same tribe, and the so-called mine is not It’s just a mine, it should be the most important smelter for this group of kobolds.”

Just as John was talking, a dozen kobolds came out of the cave carrying several baskets. Through the lens of the telescope, Lawrence clearly saw that the baskets were filled with things made of bronze.

"Then why did the organizer of the competition lie to us?" Laka frowned. Everyone knew that there was more than an order of magnitude difference in the difficulty of dealing with 2,000 kobolds belonging to the same tribe and those belonging to multiple tribes.

"They shouldn't have lied to us." Lawrence said after thinking for a while, "The organizers hold this competition to unite the next generation of the civilized countries in the New World. To deceive in this respect will only make everyone suffer losses. No one can benefit from it."

"As for the intelligence error, it is probably because the people who came here to investigate were not skilled enough." Finally, Lawrence concluded. "The most people who can enter this astral plane are apprentice-level staff. If they don't want to alarm the monsters here, it is normal for them to have a lot of inaccurate information."

"So this time it is very likely that we will encounter an unprecedented trouble in this place because of these wrong information." Laka quickly finished this sentence like a tongue twister. "If we rush up now, we will definitely not be able to get close to the mine above."

As she spoke, she pointed to the ground of the volcanic hillside and the kobolds standing on the high platform holding bows and arrows and said, "Look, there are some black volcanic ash around here. Marks are left on the ground. And the arrowheads used by the kobolds are so small that they can hurt us by shooting at the fragile seams of our armor suits."

"But the needle-like arrow is fine as long as it doesn't hit a vital point." Cog asked curiously. "The vital points on our bodies will definitely be defended. These arrows will leave some small wounds on our bodies at most."

"You are right, but I found that the color of the arrow is not just the golden yellow of pure bronze, it is likely to be smeared with poison." Laka said. "If we pass through that flat ground, it is difficult for us to guarantee that no one will be injured under the concentrated shooting of poisonous arrows."

"So, let's go around and look for other people first." Lawrence finally decided. "See if we can gather as many people as possible to solve this problem."