Chapter 7 Inspection - Part 2

The first estate they stepped into was located on a hill.
As they stepped in, Landon was stunned by what he saw. It looked a pack of ferocious lions clawed their way out of the estate.
The courtyard had several pieces of broken equipment on the floor.
The left boot of a shoe was found floating in a pond at the center of the countyard. A trail of grain could be seen from the courtyard trailing into the estate.
looking at the floor more closely, he spotted a woman's undergarment by the trail of grain, a ripped painting in the flower beds and what looked like roasted fish.
'Where they so scared of my father's wrath that much that they had to throw away their meal?'. He thought
Landon and is men were all stupidly confused.
'Just what is going on? Nothing here adds up.' They thought.
In one of the courtyards, they saw large quantities of ash scattered all over the floor and traces of twigs and swords with blood stains on them could also be seen.
They searched through every mansion on the estate and couldn't find any thing valuable. Just as they were about to leave, Landon saw a cave at the back of the estate.
Once they reached the entrance of the cave, the men put their hands on their sheath in preparation for any sudden danger.
The entrance of the cave looked like it came straight out of a 'Lord of the rings' movie. Landon was just waiting for 'Samuran the white' to pop-up from thin air.
The cave had Molybdenum, Trona and Feldspar stones on the walls and ceilings. The people in this continent only knew the uses of Molybdenite.
Molybdenite was used to increase the corrosion resistance on swords, armor and any silvery objects.
This was the era of swords. Thousands of swords were forged daily in this world. Is was for sure a rare treasure.
On the other hand, people used Trona and Feldspar as decorative stones in the continent. In their eyes, the these two were just regular stones. Completely worthless.
But to Landon who came from earth, they were priceless. Trona could be used in glass making, paper, detergents, textiles...the list is so long. This was truly a huge win for them.
The cave was so big that Landon thought they would easily get lost if they kept going forward. So they decided to leave.
The second estate stood on another hill, 700 meters away from the first.
Walking in, the estate was far cleaner than the first. It was truly stunning. Landon was in awe.
They found bags of planting seeds and wheat in the kitchens, a ton of armour, swords and also a courtyard scattered with ash and blood stains. Moving towards the back of the estate, they found another cave entrance.
Once they stepped into the cave, they saw a lot if Iron ore's. This was an iron ore mine. To think they had such things here.
Everyone become excited again and kept wondering why no one in the empire knew of this mine.
They looked around for a while before deciding to head to the other estate on the other side of the farms.
The estate was a lot smaller compared to the other two out West.
Searching the mansions, they still found; a lot of seeds, armor and swords. Like the other two estates, they found a courtyard with a large quantity of ash on the floor and a cave at the back of the estate.
This cave had a lot of mineral pigments and ion oxides on the walls and ceilings.
Looking at the walls, Landon could see Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre, Unber. Saltpeter and Limestone's.
In this world, people used these ore's to make various pigments for paint. Only royalty, potential women for 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 empire knew that Landon had this, they would cough out blood heavily and wage a full-scale war against him.
As the men all thought of the benefits of having paint, Landon had his own thoughts.
'System, are the other mineral ores important?'
'Answering host. Saltpeter is the main ingredient for making gunpowder. It can also be used in making; fireworks, rockets, food preservatives and can also be used as plant fertilizer. For the other ore's, they can be used as pigments for cosmetics and future inventions. Limestone can be used as soil conditioner, aggregates in concrete animal fillers, and so on. Host the possibilities are endless.'
Landon became excited after listening to the system. He looked at the cave and thought,
'Oh My God, there's actually large quantities of Saltpeter on the walls and ceilings'
Looking at the white crystalline cones on the ceiling and the walls, he felt like scrooge Mcduck. He even started smiling stupidly.
In truth, 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'.
This people on the continent didnt know what the uses of these ore's were. But thanks to the system and his previous life, he now knew the importance of these ore's.
Although he was happy now, he knew he had a long way to go... especially when looking at the ores.
He needed to find ways to extract the elements from the rocks. On earth, these ores would have been processed using very acidic compounds. There were no distillation columns, pipes or tanks here. This was very stressful to him.
Even thinking about it, he couldn't help but knit his brows.
Take cosmetics for example. Although he had the pigments for it, he needed to produce caster oil, glycerin, hydrolyzed corn starch, water, sodium chloride, Oleyl alcohol and so on. He needed at least 12 different ingredients here. He truly felt cheated.
For every major invention, he just had one ingredient here. ..But he needed to be grateful for what he had at least. He started thinking of how he could use the ore's.
'Ahhhhhhh that's right, I saw a lot of slate stones around the territory. Now that I have enough raw materials, I can make a chalkboard...hahahhha'. He thought as they walked in deeper.
When they exited the cave, Landon faced his men and asked.
"What do you all think about this situation?"
"The reports dont say anything about these three mines that we found. From the looks at it, the Barons and the city lord might have been the only one's who knew about it", Gary answered.
"That may not be entirely true, since they needed workers for the mines. Do suppose they used the villagers?" Josh asked.
"No..no...they would be digging their graves if they did that. Remember! they went through a lot means to painstakingly hide the resources from the empire so that they could fill their pockets." Lucius said.
"Right. If they told anyone else, they would be dead men walking. As it stands right now, they wont be able to tell the king about the resources in Baymard any longer", said Mark
"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 Baymard. Lying to the king is the same as taking the king for a fool. The penalty is death." Mark answered.
All the other knights gasped.
"Also, if King Barn knew that he had bestowed a land of fortune to our King Landon, he would kill them for sure." Josh added
"I'm guessing if he really knew, he wouldn't have given the land to King Landon." Said another knight.
Everyone nodded