Through the magnifying glass, Hopps carefully looked at the piece of silver ore in his hand, constantly rotating it in the sunlight and studying it from all angles.
After a while, he determined the texture of the ore through a strange reflection.
"Mithril, the purity is more than half." He murmured to himself, put the ore into a wooden box on the left, picked up another piece from the pile of ore in front of him, and observed it carefully.
After a few minutes, he shook his head, muttered "silver ore," and threw the ore into a rattan basket in the distance.
This obvious difference in treatment cannot be more obvious, and it comes from the vastly different values of the two ores. Silver ore is worthless. Even if it is refined into pure silver, it can only be used to mint silver coins. The piece of silver ore that he threw away can be refined into pure silver equivalent to less than ten silver coins. Taking into account the cost of refining and casting, the value of this thing will not exceed two silver coins.
Two silver coins are really not a big amount for Hopps. Usually when he invites friends to have a casual meal, the amount usually exceeds this amount.
But mithril ore is different. Even if the ore is low-value acquired mithril ore, after it is extracted, the price must be calculated in gold coins. Generally speaking, it is roughly one gold coin per gram. The piece he just put into the wooden box can be extracted into about forty or fifty grams of mithril, which is equivalent to forty or fifty gold coins!
If this was an innate mithril mine, it would be even more incredible. It would be worth at least two hundred gold coins. The finished product might be worth five hundred gold coins or more, which was higher than his monthly salary.
Different social status means different status.
Just like the mineral processing work, these people in their exploration team can only help the two appraisal masters to pre-select materials and select mithril ore from silver ore. The masters are responsible for selecting the innate mithril ore from the mithril ore.
Different jobs lead to different values and different statuses.
The combined salary of Hopps and his seven or eight ore dressing workers is about the same as that of a master. This is because they receive special field allowances from the Northwest Republic. Otherwise, according to the standards of the Gold Coin Federation, it might be equivalent to a fraction of others.
But Hopps has no dissatisfaction. You get what you pay for. They only have such great abilities, so naturally they can only have such a high income and such a high status.
For example, if a piece of innate mithril ore and a piece of acquired mithril were placed in front of him now, he would never be able to tell them apart even if he tried his best.
The most reliable way to distinguish between these two ores is to use magic. As long as the basic spell "Identification Technique" is advanced, you can accurately distinguish between innate mithril and acquired mithril.
However, the advancement of identification skills is an unconventional magic technology, which generally requires a high-level mage to achieve it. Let a high-level mage consume a lot of magic power to identify several ores every day? The advanced identification technique consumes a lot of magic power. An ordinary high-level mage only performs it about five or six times a day, and can identify two or three mithril ores each time... Do you know how much it costs to hire such a mage to cast a spell?
If there is no special friendship, the market price for an advanced identification technique is probably thousands of gold coins...
Compared with this, the salary of the appraisal master is nothing.
Therefore, Hopps' good friend Cambrona has advised him more than once to practice hard while he is young and strive to become a high-level druid. When the time comes, he will have money and status. How good!
Among the void gods believed in by the Northwest Republic, the God of Agriculture particularly favors druids. There are currently more than twenty high-level druids under his command, and there are not many priests in his church, and the majority of spellcasters are druids.
The God of Agriculture promotes the advancement of agricultural technology, allowing people to obtain more resources from limited arable land, which greatly reduces people's damage to nature, and has won the praise and support of most druids. In particular, the group of druids who advocated "the harmonious coexistence of man and nature" regarded him as an idol. Almost the entire sect came to defect to him, causing his church to grow suddenly.
Currently in the world, when it comes to learning Druid knowledge and skills, the most reliable way is to come to the Northwest Republic and join the Church of the God of Agriculture.
Hopps has good natural magic talents, which means that he can indeed develop in the direction of a druid. But he himself has no intention in this regard. If possible, he would rather be a ranger.
Druids have many things to pay attention to, such as not killing living beings for the pursuit of delicious food; for example, eating should use as few condiments as possible and keep it simple; for example, they cannot wear woven clothes, and cannot use metal weapons or armor; for example, He said he couldn't live in a bustling city for a long time, couldn't participate in luxurious banquets or celebrations... and so on.
It's not that Hopps can't do this, but he doesn't want to do it.
Those who can become druids are only those who truly yearn for nature, hate red tape, are not interested in prosperity and pleasure, and focus on inner peace. He's not that kind of person.
"...Another silver ore!" After throwing another piece of ore into the rattan basket in the distance, Hopps felt a little tired, stood up and moved around, went to the pool to wash his hands, and took a casual walk in the camp.
Mineral processing is a delicate job that requires concentration. If the condition is not good, it will affect work efficiency and work quality. So after working for a period of time, you should take a break, move around, and take a walk.
Seeing his carefree look, the workers from the Gold Coin Federation showed envious eyes.
The practices of the Northwest Republic and the Gold Coin Federation are different in many ways. For example, in terms of worker treatment, workers in the Gold Coin Federation are far less well treated than those in the Northwest Republic. The difference is not only in money, but also in each other's status.
For example, this time the joint exploration team also includes ore beneficiation workers from the Gold Coin Federation merchant faction, but when they are tired, they cannot take a walk and rest like this. They can only lie in the tent and sleep for a while, and then continue working.
Although each other's income is linked to the workload, Hopps and the others are not required to pick out how much ore they want every day. If they don't care about the loss of income, they can take a few days off. Anyway, they can always get the basic allowance. of. But the workers of the Gold Coin Federation are different. If they cannot complete the basic workload that must be completed every day, they will not receive the full salary of the day, but a large part will be deducted.
Their wages are far inferior to those of their counterparts in the Northwest Republic. If they are deducted again, it will be difficult to support their families.
What's even worse is that their daily basic workload is calculated based on the most skilled workers. If ordinary workers want to complete this level of workload, they can only work overtime.
So no matter how much they admire Hopps, they can't imitate him.
rest? They have no rest.
"I always feel that the Gold Coin Federation's approach looks familiar to me..." Sui Xiong floated invisibly in the air, staring at the camp below, scratching his chin with his hand, thinking silently, "Where on earth have I seen this kind of thing? Is it life? In the Internet? Or on the Internet?"
"Anyway... I have a very bad feeling!"