The second castle area is built on another hill, 400 meters from the first. Walking in, the castle area was far cleaner than the first.
They found bags of planting seeds and wheat in the kitchens, a ton of armor, swords, and also a courtyard scattered with ash and blood stains. Moving towards the back of the castle area, they found another cave entrance.
Once they stepped into the cave, they saw a lot of Iron, Nickel, and Manganese ore.
Nickel is a material used as an anti-rust coating on iron.
Manganese is a steel material.
The knights were very happy. Anyone who became a knight would be happy when they saw the raw materials for their equipment, and after hearing Arthur's explanation of these ores, they became even happier. This means that their Armor and Sword will later be stronger than their current sword and armor.
After they saw the second mine, they immediately headed for the third castle area.
The third castle area was further away than the previous two castle areas, probably around 800 meters away. Arthur's subordinates immediately searched around the mansion they didn't find many seeds, swords, and armor. As with the other two castle areas, they found a courtyard with a large number of ashes, bloodstains on the floor, and a cave behind the castle area.
It looks like the third cave has just been discovered and has begun to be excavated. Since this cave was just excavated, they didn't find any ore. But now they knew that this cave was the third mine.
Everyone was very excited and kept wondering why no one in the kingdom knew about these mines. They never thought Arazka City would have these ore mines.
'Is Arazka City not a barren city, but a mining city?' they think.
They looked around for a while before deciding to head to the other castle area on the other side of the farmland.
Arthur and the others arrived at the west area.
The two castle areas were smaller compared to the other three castle areas on the east. Searching the mansions, they still found; a lot of seeds, armor, and swords. Like the other three castle area, they found a courtyard with a large quantity of ash on the floor and a cave at the back of the castle.
This cave had a lot of mineral pigments on the walls and ceilings. Looking at the walls, Arthur could see red ochre, yellow ochre, saltpeter, and limestones.
In this world, people used these ore limestone pigments for paint. Only royalty, potential women selected for harems, and wealthy people could have their portraits painted. Some peasants could live out their entire lives and never have their portraits taken.
Everything about painting was expensive. If people in the kingdom knew that Arthur had this. They will wage a full-scale war against him.
As the men all thought of the benefits of having paint, Arthur had his thoughts.
Salpeter is the main ingredient for making gunpowder. It can also be used in making; fireworks, missiles, and food preservatives and can also be used as plant fertilizer. The other ore can be used as pigments for cosmetics and future inventions. Limestone can be used as a soil conditioner, and so on. The possibilities are endless.
'Oh My God, there are large quantities of Saltpeter on the walls and ceilings'
Arthur looked at the white crystal cones on the ceiling and walls, he felt like Uncle Scrooge. He even had a stupid smile on his face.
Saltpeter ores looked like frozen snow cones on the ceilings in winter. He was reminded of the Disney movie 'Frozen' when he saw this. There was no way he would "let it go"
These people on the continent didn't know what the uses of these ores were. But thanks to his previous life, he now knew the importance of these ores.
Although he was happy now, he knew he still had a long way to go… especially when he saw the ore.
He needed to find a way to extract the elements from this ore. On earth, these ores would be processed using highly acidic compounds. Currently, there are no columns, pipes, or distillation tanks here. This very makes him stressed.
As Arthur thought about it, he couldn't help but wrinkle his brows.
There are some incomplete raw materials. Take cosmetics for example. Although it has pigment for it, it needs to produce castor oil, glycerin, water, sodium chloride, alcohol, and so on. He needed at least 12 different raw materials here.
For every mine discovery, he only had one or two raw materials here… But at least he should be grateful for what he had. He started to think about how he could use the ore...
'Ah... That's right, I saw a lot of slate stones around the city. Now that I have enough materials, I can make chalk. Limestone can also be used to make cement too... Iron, Nickel, Bauxite, and Manganese, I can make armor, swords, iron pipes for water, electricity, etc.' he thought.
The last area of the castle turned out to be a large warehouse, used to store many valuable minerals. Luca finds a file containing valuable mineral data stored in the warehouse and immediately hands the file over to Arthur.
After reading the file, he laughed loudly, the contents of this file were about items that had been stored for the past six years and are still stored here. Turns out they don't sell large quantities directly, because it would be too suspicious.
When they exited the castle area, Arthur looked at his subordinates and asked.
"What do you all think about this situation?"
"They haven't reported anything about these five mines we've found. And maybe the Barons and City Lords might be the only ones who know about it." Gerrard answered.
"That may not be entirely true, because they need workers to mine. Do they use citizens?" Jonathan asked.
"No... no... If they do that they are fools for digging their own grave. Remember! They tried to hide with great difficulty that a valuable resource was in Arazka City from the kingdom. So they can fill their pockets." Luca said.
"Right. If they told anyone else, they would be dead men walking. As it stands right now, they won't be able to tell the King about the resources in Arazka City any longer." said Marco
"Why?" Asked a young knight
"They've been here for many years, and in that time frame, they never reported any resources they found in Arazka. Lying to the King is the same as taking the king for a fool. The penalty is death." Marco answered.
All the other knights gasped.