Home was a serf. But he was not born as a serf. Earlier, he was a miner in the mines.
He was a miner, not a slave laborer.
There were two kinds of people working in the mines: free miners and slave labourers. The former were free people who voluntarily went to the dangerous mines to "dig stones" to support their families. The latter were the private property of the mine's slave owner, equivalent to the tools and livestock in the mines. But in some ways, there was no difference between the two. They were both expendable goods that could die in the mines at any time, and no one cared about them after they died.
The process of Home losing his freedom was very dramatic. He was not a "content" miner. Instead of digging stones in the mines, he preferred to look for new things, whether it was new ores or plants, as long as it was something new. In this regard, people would often tease him that he might have some dwarf blood in his ancestry, but Holme had always accepted the teasing. He worked in the mines, thinking all day long about whether he could dig up some amazing treasure. And finally, one day, he really "dug up" a "treasure."
He ran into the mine owner's wife having an affair with a supervisor in the mine.
It was easy for the overseers to kill one or two miners or slave laborers. All they had to do was to use the excuse of a mine collapse to fool the authorities. Holme had even seen such a scene with his own eyes. That was why he chose to run away at the first instance. He never returned home after that.
After a year of being a refugee, he settled down in the old Cecil Manor. The previous Viscount Cecil did not banish him, but he had to rely on selling himself as a serf to survive.
Under normal circumstances, this would be the entire content of his short and bitter life. After being chained to the land, Homme's life would never change. There would be no new opportunities and hopes. He would bear the heavy pressure imposed by the landlord, crawl in the soil for the rest of his life, and live out the remaining ten or fifteen years of his life as a serf. And if he was lucky (or unlucky) to have a son in the process, his son would inherit the identity of a serf and live under the whip of the landlord for generations to come. His early experience as a miner and the little, restless curiosity in his youth would one day completely disappear in his memory.
But after that disaster, everything changed.
The old Cecil Manor was gone, the landlord was gone, and the land was gone. A new lord came out of the legend and led the survivors to build a new home at the foot of the Gloom Mountain Range. Faced with the new land and the Gloom Mountain Range full of secrets, the lord issued one after another incredible new laws. And Home, the serf, was rewarded for participating in the "defensive battle" in the autumn for participating in the creation of the traps. He regained his freedom, even more so than the freedmen.
The lord allowed his subjects to do a variety of jobs according to their individual strengths and rewarded anyone who worked hard. A new recruitment notice was posted on the bulletin board in the town center almost every day. Anyone in the domain who wanted to subsidize their family could respond to the lord's call through this channel. For the people of this era, it was an incredible reward for the lord to open up so many jobs and pay them. Not to mention, it was winter when people could only starve at home. So every time a new recruitment notice was posted, countless people who were waiting for a job (or a way to feed their families) would flock to the bulletin board in search of a suitable job.
Most of the people in the domain were illiterate. They could only listen to the soldiers standing in front of the bulletin board reading the notice for them. But the soldiers would only start reading the notice six hours after the notice was posted. In order to understand the recruitment notice a few hours earlier, Home had learned thousands of words in just a few months. He was now able to read the notice on the bulletin board while stumbling.
And in the night school, there were many people like him who worked hard to learn to read for similar reasons. Those who could read could know the details of the recruitment a few hours in advance and go to the personnel office of the Ministry of the Interior to register with the clerk. By the time those who could not read signed up, all the posts were already full. Those who did not work hard to learn to read in the beginning were now regretting it.
Holme, on the other hand, was glad that he had learned how to read in time. When the liege announced the formation of a new expedition party, he immediately signed up. The party did not require a lot of people, and while it was a little risky, the pay was much higher than that of a factory worker. Besides, the party had a squad of magic-powered infantry to protect them. How risky could it be?
The newly organized expedition team entered the Gloom Mountains from a newly discovered mountain path. Along the way, they saw many incredible mutated animals, plants, and stones. Holme, with his experience in the mines, his rather flexible mind, and the best literacy skills, became the leader of the team. (Of course, another important reason why he became the leader was that he was once personally rewarded by the count. It was a rare honor.) Under his leadership, the team found the strange, lavender 'raw stone' in a loose weathered mountain rock.
In the process, Home's curiosity, which had been gradually worn down by life, gradually came back.
Under the guidance of the soldiers, Gwen and Amber found the 'expedition base' in the Gloom Mountains. A few simple tents were set up in a small clearing in the mountains. The heavily armed Cecil combat soldiers were on guard around the small camp. Gwen saw the person in charge of the expedition team, a middle-aged man who was not tall but very sturdy.
Looking at the man's tanned face and slightly stooped body, Gwen felt a sense of familiarity. His memory came in handy at this moment. He remembered that he did know this man. In the autumn, during the defense of Cecil against the mutants, a serf named Home was commended for his outstanding performance. In order to set an example, Gwen even publicly commended him. It turned out that he was right.
"I remember you are Home." Gwen nodded to the serf. "You are in the expedition team?"
"Y-yes, my Lord!" Home did not expect Gwen to remember his name. He was a little frightened. "You personally awarded me a … a medal!"
"You are a little fatter than before. Very good." Gwen smiled and nodded. "You found the ore?"
"Yes, my Lord." Home tried to control his nervousness. He had been on the commendation platform once, so he was a little calmer than ordinary people. "The initial discovery site is not far from here. Let me show you …"
On an open rock stratum not far from the camp, Gwen saw a few collection sites that the expedition team had dug out.
This kind of ore with great potential was' buried 'in such a shallow place.
Gwen came to the collection site and saw that the surface of the ore was covered with a thick layer of weathered grayish-white porous rock stratum. Some ores with a lavender or light blue luster were 'embedded' in it as if they were some kind of condensation core.
"The surface is made up of very small pieces of ore. The deeper you dig, the bigger the quality and volume of the ore will be. The really valuable ore veins still need to be dug deeper," Holme explained. "This kind of soft weathered rock is not suitable for mining. It's prone to collapse. So, it should be better to dig a pit directly. With the Rebecca crystal, it won't be difficult to blow up the rock layer."
Gwen nodded. "I saw the report you sent back. You found a lot of things that have never been seen in the outside world, and there are signs of mutation in animals and plants."
"Yes, my Lord," Home replied. "But this is the first time we have found such a large range of minerals."
Gwen nodded and looked up slightly to observe the surrounding terrain. Seven hundred years ago, Gwen Cecil had led an army to search for a path in the Gloom Mountains. At that time, this place was not affected by the Demonic Wave. In Gwen Cecil's memory, there was no such strange things here.
They only appeared after the Demonic Wave.
Amber took out her dagger and curiously picked out a piece of blue-purple luster from the excavated rock at one of the collection sites. She put it under the sun and observed it. "What a strange thing. Old … Gwen, is this what you said, the changes of natural substances under the influence of the Demonic Wave?"
"The essence of the Demonic Wave is a powerful surge of magic power. Although this magic power cannot be used by mortals, it can still have a profound effect on the natural environment," Gwen said casually. "Believe it or not, you can find more magic materials in the ruins of the ancient Deep Blue Well than here."
Amber's eyes widened. "What kind of reckless person would dare to mine there?"
Gwen shook his head but did not answer her question.
He looked at the ore in front of him, but his mind was not only thinking about the ore in front of him.
He had speculated that the Demonic Wave may have happened more than once.
The surveillance satellite in the sky was obviously a warning device for the Demonic Wave (or similar phenomena). The disaster that happened in Cecil's territory also showed the signs that the Demonic Wave was coming back. In the surveillance records in the sky, he had also observed that the civilization on the ground suddenly disappeared, and the entire ecosystem shuffled and restarted from scratch.
In the "satellite era", his observation of the earth was not coherent due to serious "frame skipping", so many times he could not figure out how the earth-shaking changes in the earth came about. In the blink of an eye, the primitive people built the magic cannons, and in the blink of an eye, they lived in tree holes again, and they even wore beast-skin hoods and square danced around the bonfire. The geological landforms and the distribution of plants in their field of vision were also turned upside down. There may have been decades of destructive war in the middle, or there may have been forty-nine days of floods and tsunamis. But for the satellites that waited for a frame for a thousand years, this "quick and short" moment of disaster was really difficult to capture.
But there must be something that caused this "shuffling". If there was no other answer, then the only answer was the Demonic Wave.
The Demonic Wave would cause the nature of matter in nature to change. The things in the Gloom Mountain Range that had never been seen elsewhere were enough to prove this point.
And even if the Demonic Wave subsided, these things that had changed would not return to their original state. Instead, they would solidify into a new material. The ores found in the Gloom Mountain Range also proved this point.
So, if there was more than one Demonic Wave in the world, Gwen had reason to believe that most things in the world were probably affected by the Demonic Wave.
He had the boldest conjecture ever.
The mana materials, magical creatures, and even the soil and rocks that seemed to have nothing to do with mana had all been gradually molded into their present forms through the baptism of the mana tide.
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